“Old Pap,” as the soldiers called General George H. Thomas, was aggravatingly slow at a time when the President wanted him to “get a move on”; in fact, the gallant “Rock of Chickamauga” was evidently entered in a snail-race. “Some of my generals are so slow,” regretfully remarked Lincoln one day, “that molasses in the coldest days of winter is a race horse compared to them. “They’re brave enough, but somehow or other they get fastened in a fence corner, and can’t figure their way out.” |