"I could as easily bail out the Potomac River with a teaspoon as attend to all the details of the army."
— Military

January 1, 1970

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Added on April 10, 2026
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War
Original Language: English

Sources

Attributed to President Abraham Lincoln by General James B. Fry. Allen Thorndike Rice, Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln (1886), chapter 22, p. 393. This supposedly had been part of Lincoln's response to a young volunteer soldier who had come to Lincoln's office asking his help with a grievance. The story has been repeated in numerous books on Lincoln: Alexander K. McClure, "Abe" Lincoln's Yarns and Stories (1904), p. 162; Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (1917), vol. 2, p. 153; and Ca