LINCOLNIANA

BY

FRANK J. WILLIAMS

The Spoken Word and Group Activities

January 9, Dr. Wayne C. Temple discussed “Lincoln and Religion” at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, IL.

Nora Titone discussed her “My Thoughts Be Bloody:” The Booth Brothers at the Civil War Round Table of Chicago on January 17.

The 20^th Annual Sarasota Civil War Symposium of the Civil War Education Association was held in Sarasota, FL, January 18-21, with “Lincoln, Man of the Year, 1861” by William C. “Jack” Davis, “Lincoln on War” by Harold Holzer, and “Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties in Wartime: Then and Now” by Frank J. Williams.

“Lincoln in Florida”–an Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation and HistoryMiami symposium–was held January 22 in Miami, FL, with Edna Greene Medford delivering the keynote address, “The Emancipation Proclamation at 150,” “Lincoln, Florida, and the Atlantic: The Civil War at Sea” with Craig L. Symonds, and a panel discussion, “Abraham Lincoln in 1862: A Look Back 150 Years” with Harold Holzer, moderator, and Darrel Bigham, Stephen D. Engle, Vernon Burton and Frank J. Williams as panelists.

Harold Holzer, Mark E. Neely, Jr. and Frank J. Williams were speakers at The National Archives Experience, Washington, D.C., for Lincoln and the Constitution on January 26.

Dale Vaughn presented “Fort Sumter” at the February 7 meeting of the Lincoln Club of Topeka.

Tim Good, Superintendent of the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in St. Louis, presented “Lincoln and Grant as Partners in War Strategy” as the fourth annual Lincoln lecture at Lincoln Land Community College on February 10 in Springfield, IL.

James Oakes presented “The Emancipation Proclamation: Myths and Realities” on February 11 at the University of Illinois—Springfield.

Howard Jones presented “Lincoln’s Forgotten Craft: The Art of Diplomacy” at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library on February 12.

Craig Symonds discussed “Lincoln and His Admirals” at the 80^th annual Lincoln dinner of the Lincoln Memorial Association and the Lincoln Memorial Shrine, Redlands, CA, on February 12.

The Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia heard James L. Green discuss “Mr. Lincoln’s Air Force” on February 12.

The George L. Painter Looking for Lincoln Lectures of the Lincoln Home National Historic Site on February 12, Lincoln’s Illinois Goes to War, included Dick Torgerson portraying Lincoln’s friend Governor Richard J. Oglesby and David Kuhn portraying Benjamin H. Grierson.

Judge Dennis Curran delivered “Was Abraham Lincoln a Christian?” at the Elmwood Chapel, Wellesley, MA, on January 21 and February 12.

The 65^th annual pilgrimage of the Veterans of Foreign Wars to the Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, was held on February 11.  The 78^th annual national pilgrimage to the Tomb by members of the American Legion was held on February 12.

Richard Etulain presented “Abraham Lincoln and the American West in the Civil War Era” at the Mission Theater, Portland, OR, on February 13.

The Sangamon County Historical Society Executive Coordinator, Samuel Wheeler, presented “Christianizing Lincoln: Historical Memory and the Religious Views of Abraham Lincoln” at the First Presbyterian Church, Springfield, on February 16.

Richard Etulain presented “‘With Malice Toward None’: Abraham Lincoln and Political Reconciliation” at Linfield College in McMinnville, OR, on February 20.

The Ulysses S. Grant Association is hosting a series of five events on Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant in Mississippi (its home base is at Mississippi State University).  On February 27, Gerald J. Prokopowicz kicked off the series.  On September 11, author Edna Greene Medford of Howard University will speak on the Emancipation Proclamation.  Mike Ballard will discuss Lincoln, Grant, and the Vicksburg Campaign on October 18, and on November 2, Tim Smith will discuss Lincoln, Grant, and Northern Mississippi.

Frank J. Williams presented “Abraham Lincoln in Rhode Island” at the Babcock-Smith House Museum, Westerly, RI, on March 3.

Bill Stumpff presented “Two Gettysburg Speeches” at the March 6 meeting of the Lincoln Club of Topeka.

Glenn LeBoeuf presented “The Rise of Lincoln” at the Middletown (NJ) Historical Society on March 19.

Curator Steven Wilson of the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum of Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, TN, was interviewed on March 21 by WIVK FM, and WWST FM radio stations, Knoxville, TN, for the opening of the exhibit “Abraham Lincoln at the Movies.”

George Proulx, conductor of the Providence (RI) Brigade Band, discussed “Civil War Music” at the March 21 meeting of the Rhode Island Civil War Round Table.

Thomas Horrocks delivered the John and Jeanne Marszalek Lecture at Mississippi State University on March 21—“Promoting Honest Abe, the Rail Splitter: Lincoln’s Campaign Biographies and the Shaping of an Image.”

Frank Williams presented “An Evolving Commander-in-Chief” at the 20^th Anniversary Dinner Meeting of the Delaware Civil War Round Table in Philadelphia on March 24; on March 25 he was the narrator for Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, performed by the Rhode Island Senior All-State Orchestra for the All-State Music Festival at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Providence, RI.

The 18^th Annual Conference of the Association of Lincoln Presenters was held in Decatur, IL, on April 12, with sculptor John McClarey discussing how he renders images of Abraham Lincoln.  Gerald J. Prokopowicz presented the keynote address, “The Hardest Question: Lincoln and Equality,” on April 14.

Doris Kearns Goodwin spoke at the Spartan Center of the Northampton (MA) Community College on April 12.

The 2012 annual meeting of the Lincoln Fellowship of Wisconsin was held in Kenosha, WI, in commemoration of the 180^th anniversary of the Black Hawk War of 1832.  Speakers at a symposium, on April 14, included Kerry Trask, author of The Black Hawk War—Battle for the Heart of America, and John Hall, author of Uncommon Defense: Indian Allies in the Black Hawk War.

The 150^th anniversary of the Washington, D.C. Emancipation Act signed by President Abraham Lincoln on April 16, 1862, was commemorated at President Lincoln’s Cottage in Washington on April 15 with Frank J. Williams presenting “Lincoln’s Views on Emancipation in the District,” Harold Holzer on “Media Reaction to the D.C. Emancipation Act,” and Edna Greene Medford on “Washington’s Response to the D.C. Emancipation Act.”  Burrus Carnahan moderated.

The Washington State Bar Association presented, with a live webcast option on WSBA, a continuing legal education program, “Lincoln on Professionalism,” on April 24.

Mark E. Neely, Jr. discussed his book, Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War at the meeting of the Lincoln Group of New York on April 25.  The day before, Neely joined Harold Holzer at The New-York Historical Society for a discussion about his new book.

The New-York Historical Society Museum and Library sponsored “The Civil War Draft Riots Walking Tour” with Barnet Schecter on April 29.  On May 31, Harold Holzer moderated a panel on “Lincoln and Douglas: Commanders-in-Chief” with James M. McPherson and William C. Davis.

Phillip C. Stone, Esq., former president at Bridgewater College, Springfield, VA, led his 37^th annual ceremony at the local Rockingham, VA, Lincoln Cemetery.

The Civil War on Trial: Legal Issues That Divided a Nation was held at the Albany Law School, Albany, NY, from June 7-9.  Sponsored by the New York State Archives Partnership Trust, Government Law Center of Albany Law School, Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York, Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation and the New York State Bar Association, presenters included Paul Finkelman and Harold Holzer, co-chairs; Diane Barnes, Joseph Bellacosa, Spencer Crew, Eric Freedman, Nelson Lankford, James Oakes, Rex Smith, David O. Stewart, James Swanson, Craig Symonds, Nikki Taylor, Richard Wesley, and Frank J. Williams.

The Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum of Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, TN, hosted the conference, War in the Mountains II, with John Inscoe, Earl J. Hess, Steven E. Nash and Charles M. Hubbard, with Carol Campbell administering the program.

International Legacy

Dr. Mary Stockwell, Professor of History at Lourdes College and the 2012 Earhart Fellow at the William L. Clements at the University of Michigan, has been named to deliver the 18^th annual Frank and Virginia Williams Distinguished Lecture at the International Lincoln Center at Louisiana State University Shreveport on October 18.  Her topic is on Lincoln’s influence on Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

John J. Miller, “With Death on His Mind,” appeared in the February 11 issue of the Wall Street Journal.  It deals with Lincoln’s favorite poem, “Mortality,” composed by William Knox from Scotland.

Oscar Cartas, “Juarez y su Relacion con Abrah Lincoln,” appeared in the March 15 issue Vita Latino.

The International Lincoln Center has released volume 22 of Abraham Lincoln Abroad.  It features Ron Byrd, “Pablo Neruda’s Faith in the Ideals of Lincoln”; Aaron Wilson, “Lincoln’s Legacy in Honduras”; Melinda Shepard, “Lincoln’s Influence in Tanzania”; and David Perry, “Dispatch Number Ten Regarding Seward and Lincoln.”

Sarah Richardson’s interview with Robin Blackburn, “Karl Marx, Communists and the Civil War,” appeared in the June issue of Civil War Times.

Martin Alonso’s Ahora y para siempre libres: Abraham Lincoln y la causa de la Union [Henceforth and Forever Free—Abraham Lincoln and the Cause of the Union] has been released by Gota a Gota in Madrid, Spain.

Stefano Luconi has written Gli afro-Americani dalla Guerra civile alla di Barack Obama [African Americans from the Civil War to the Presidency of Barack Obama].  It was published by Cleup in Padua, Italy, late last year.

William D. Pederson and Frank J. Williams will direct an international conference on the Life, Times and Legacy of Theodore Roosevelt on October 17-20 at Louisiana State University Shreveport.

The following countries have issued new stamps and souvenir sheets with Lincoln’s image: Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guyana, Micronesia, and Grenada.

Arts

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has acquired one of the only 16 known casts of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Abraham Lincoln: The Man (Standing Lincoln), a rare reduction of the large bronze monument that was originally created for Lincoln Park, Chicago, between 1884 and 1887.  This 1911 statuette was originally in the collection of Clara Stone Hay, widow of John Hay, assistant private secretary to President Abraham Lincoln.  It now graces the new American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

National Geographic will produce a two-hour TV documentary based on Bill O’Reilly’s controversial but best-selling book, Killing Lincoln.

The National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution is in the process of preparing its second major Civil War exhibit for the sesquicentennial.  It is now readying a major show of Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner’s iconic Civil War images.  Michael E. Ruane wrote about it for the December 25 Washington Post.  A current show explores the pro-Confederate etchings of Adalbert Volck.

Michael Cieply discussed box office sequels predominating Hollywood studios in 2011 with more to come in 2012, but indicated that there are also startlingly fresh propositions coming, including Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter from Fox, with Benjamin Walker playing the title character (New York Times, December 29).

Enslow Publishers, Inc. (40 Industrial Road, Berkeley Heights, NJ 07922) has produced CDs of Music for Abraham Lincoln and When Johnny Comes Marching Home: Music of the Civil War.

Ford’s Theatre Museum presented Jennifer L. Nelson’s Necessary Sacrifices—a drama about Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass from January 20 to February 12.  The play was reviewed by Jessica Goldstein in the January 15 Washington Post, Celia Wren in the February 2 Washington Post and Tim O’Connell in the June Civil War Times.  David Selby starred as Abraham Lincoln and David Emerson Toney starred as Fredrick Douglass.

A portrait purportedly of Mary Todd Lincoln given as a gift to the State of Illinois was found to be a fake.  Displayed in the Illinois Governor’s Mansion, Springfield, and signed by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, it was discovered to be a fraud while undergoing conservation.  Patricia Cohen wrote about it in “Mrs. Lincoln, I Presume? Well, as It Turns Out…” appeared on page one of the New York Times on February 12–the 203^rd birthday of Mr. Lincoln.

NPR Radio presented “‘Emancipating Lincoln’: A Pragmatic Proclamation,” with Harold Holzer, on March 14.  Holzer is the author of Emancipating Lincoln: the Proclamation in Text, Context and Memory–an adaptation of his lectures presented at Harvard University in 2011.

Forbes House Museum in Milton, MA, celebrated Abraham Lincoln’s birthday with a concert on February 12.  Its Lincoln Essay Contest awards were presented on April 15 at the Forbes House Museum.

The Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts, the David Davis Mansion Foundation and the Abraham Lincoln Association hosted Norman Corwin’s The Rivalry on February 16 in Bloomington, IL.

Heritage, a play written by P.J. Barry, was presented at New Salem’s Theatre in 2009.  It is a story of the women who were in Abraham Lincoln’s life–even Abraham Lincoln does not appear in the play.  The play also was produced in Springfield, IL, at the Hoogland Center for the Arts in February 2012.

Hershey Felder created Lincoln–An American Story for the Pasadena Playhouse (CA).  The play stars a young army surgeon who is in Ford’s Theatre the night of the assassination.  Lynne Heffley reviewed the play in the Pasadena Sun on March 25.

Shadows of History: Photographs of the Civil War From the Collection of Julia J. Norrell was on view through May 6, 2012, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the 3-D movie based on Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel of the same name, opened on June 22.  Twenty-nine-year-old Benjamin Walker plays the title role in this tongue-in-cheek horror film portraying Lincoln as an ax-wielding hero bent on saving the country from a plague of supernatural fiends who prey upon slaves and use the Civil War to cover up their bloodthirsty attacks.

Exhibits

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum’s “Illinois Answers the Call: Boys in Blue” to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Civil War was reopened on January 10 at the Museum.

The Lincoln Memorial Shrine, Redlands, CA, opened a special exhibit, 1862: The Fiery Trial, on February 5.

The American Library Association’s Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War, A Free Traveling Exhibition, examines the legal crises that the president confronted during the Civil War.  Consisting of a series of five panels, the exhibit features photographic reproductions of original documents, including a draft of Lincoln’s first inaugural address, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 13^th Amendment.  It examines how Lincoln used the Constitution to confront three intertwined crises of the Civil War: secession, slavery and civil liberties.

President Lincoln’s Cottage on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Site in northern Washington, D.C., is hosting an exhibit, Can you Walk Away?, which opened on February 19.  It tells the stories of women working as domestic servants without pay, forced into prostitution, and men held in service through debt contracts today–among the 12 million people worldwide held in modern slavery.  Lincoln’s Cottage developed the project to mark the 150^th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and to further examine the present-day issue.

The Lincoln Society of Virginia and the Rockingham Historical Society have mounted an exhibit, President Lincoln’s Rockingham Roots, about the Lincolns of Virginia.

Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage includes 64 of her photographs taken between April 2009 and May 2011.  This includes her negative of Lincoln that was re-shot by her.  The exhibit is on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington.

Abraham Lincoln: A Man of His Time, A Man for All Times was on display at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield through April 27.

Civil War Sesquicentennial

The City of Norwich, CT, which rang all of its church bells on January 1, 1863 to commemorate the signing of the final Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln, will cast a “Freedom Bell” in the city on June 15 as a commemoration for this act by Lincoln.

Awards and Prizes

Mark E. Neely, Jr. has won the Lincoln Group of New York Award of Achievement for 2011 for his Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War.

Amanda Foreman won the 2011 Fletcher Pratt best book award from the Civil War Round Table of New York for her A World on Fire.

Eric Foner received the 2011 Benjamin Barondess Lincoln Award of the Civil War Round Table of New York for his The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.

William C. Harris, for his Lincoln and the Border States: Preserving the Union (University Press of Kansas), and Elizabeth Leonard, for her Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky (University of North Carolina Press), have won The Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize of the Civil War Institute, Gettysburg.

Abraham Lincoln Association past president, Richard E. Hart, received the Logan Hay Medal at the association’s annual banquet on February 12.

The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation announced a new round of grants in March, totaling $134,000.  The Foundation’s funding comes from gifts raised by its predecessor organization, the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, and this round will go to the following recipients:

• The Abraham Lincoln Association, Springfield, IL ($5,000), to support a day-long 2013 conference, “The Results of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.”
• The Old State Capitol Foundation, Springfield, IL ($7,500), to help fund installation of a new audio and microphone system in historic Representative Hall, the chamber where Lincoln delivered his “House Divided” address in 1858, and now the site of many public history events.
• Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition, Springfield, IL ($33,000), to help develop and support development of a 42-county historic tourism area linked by road signage, website data, marketing, and programs at sites where Lincoln visited, lived, or worked during his Illinois years.  U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, former co-chair of the ALBC, helped authorize and fund “Looking for Lincoln.”
• Lincoln Heritage Museum at Lincoln College, Lincoln, IL ($1,000), to support a summer seminar for teachers around the theme: “Abraham Lincoln: His Life, Leadership, and Legacy.”
• The Kentucky Lincoln Sites Alliance, Hodgenville, KY ($12,000), to help implement Lincoln-related educational and marketing initiatives along the new Lincoln Heritage Trail in the state of his birth.
• The Department of History, Clemson University, Clemson, SC ($27,000), to support a 2013 Emancipation Proclamation conference as part of the university’s “On Home Ground” sesquicentennial initiative.
• The Ulysses S. Grant Association, Starkville, MS ($15,000), to sponsor a series of Lincoln lectures at the recently relocated USGA, focusing on the crucial partnership between the President and his most important general.
• Bureau of Historic Sites, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Waterford, NY ($15,000), to help fund conservation of the U.S. Flag that adorned Lincoln’s bier during his funeral in Albany, New York, in 1865—part of a larger effort to preserve the state’s entire collection of Civil War-era battle flags.
• Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum, Allentown, PA ($5,000), to help fund a Lincoln exhibition and symposium on “Abraham Lincoln: A Modern American.”
• Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. ($13,500), to fund a 2012 symposium on Lincoln and the Constitution on national Constitution Day, the 225^th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of the United States.

Members of the Foundation Board are: Harold Holzer, Chair, Orville Vernon Burton, Vice Chairman; Thomas Campbell, Treasurer; Charles Scholz, Secretary; Darrel Bigham, David Lawrence, Edna Greene Medford, Antonio Mora, Jean Powers Soman, and Frank J. Williams.

Harold Holzer received the Weldon E. Petz Award “in recognition of the study and preservation of the life and times of Abraham Lincoln” from the Civil War Round Table of Detroit on May 12.  Holzer’s young reader’s book, Father Abraham, was named to the Bank Street College Best Children’s Book List and honorable mention from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Auctions

Lincoln’s spectacles went on auction at www.rrauction.com/bidtracker on March 18 and sold for $61,174.

The Swann Auction of Autographs on April 17 fetched $7,800 for a pardon by President Lincoln dated March 7, 1864 for a Tennessee Circuit Judge and others.  A letter by “A. Lincoln” to George T. Jones: “Below is my autograph, according to your request.” dated November 1, 1860–just before the election, sold for $10,200.  A letter from William Tecumseh Sherman setting forth his objections to recruiting black soldiers despite the act so authorizing and the request of the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, sold for $7,200.

 Collections

James Krohe, Jr. discussed the National Park Service’s plans for the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in “A New Old Street” for the January 19-25 Illinois Times.

The 147-year-old copy of the 13^th Amendment, including Abraham Lincoln’s signature, was restored by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.  One of only 14 known copies of the original was returned in December 2011 from Graphic Conservation Co. in Chicago after several months of restoration.  It is now on display in the museum’s Treasures Gallery.

Confronting declining visitorship, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Springfield, is reaching out for new audiences as reported by Chris Wetterich in the January 29 Illinois State Journal.  Attendance at the Library and Museum continues to drop, from 311,837 in 2010 to 283,482 in 2011.

The American Association of Museums prepared a museum assessment program for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum as a result of a site visit June 7-8, 2010, concluding that it was premature to consider accreditation measured against professional standards and best practices.

 David Kloke of the Kloke Locomotive Works is building a full-scale replica of the Lincoln Funeral car which he hopes will be ready to re-enact the funeral route in April 2015 in commemoration of the 150^th anniversary of the Lincoln assassination and funeral (www.leviathan63.com).  The 2015 Lincoln Funeral Coalition can be found at www.funeraltrain.org/2015.

The Ford’s Theatre Society has opened a $25 million Center for Education and Leadership across the street from the theater.  Nelson Pressley reviewed the center in “Ford’s Redefines Itself” for the February 5 Washington Post Arts section.

Dealer Seth Kaller, the owner of the bentwood hickory chair Abraham Lincoln reportedly sat in on May 18, 1860, the night of his nomination as the Republican candidate for president, has put it on sale for $145,000.

The Lincoln Monument Association is up and running again after a 116-year hiatus.  It was originally formed on April 15, 1865, the day after Lincoln’s assassination, to raise funds to build a tomb for Abraham Lincoln.  The current association was organized to continue the work of its predecessor (which faded away in 1895) as the state could not or would not provide funds to conserve and preserve the Lincoln Tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, IL.  It was built at a cost of $250,000 in 1874.  Yet, the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site is expected to begin a $700,000 renovation of the tomb during 2012.  Peeling palladium leaf and trim near the ceiling of the burial chamber with noticeable damage need repair.

The 42-county Abraham Lincoln National Heritage area has issued a draft report on March 2 indicating that State of Illinois budget cuts have made it difficult to maintain operations and conservation of major Lincoln historic sites which number close to a hundred.  There are 26 sites in the Looking for Lincoln interpreter programs and more than seventy sites that are not included in the interpreter programs.  Tom Landis wrote about this in the March 3 State Journal-Register, Springfield.

The stolen sword of a Civil War artillery officer atop the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site will be restored free of charge by the owner of a Chicago-based foundry which agreed to replace the three-foot copper sword with a bronze version after a 16-year-old boy climbed the statue in Oak Ridge Cemetery last October and grabbed the blade of the copper sword, which became loose and fell.  The boy was arrested in December.

Tracy Grant wrote about the new Center for Education and Leadership at Ford’s Theatre where kids touch history in the Kid’s Post (the mini-page) on March 25.

The Raab Collection has for sale for the sum of $31,000, an autograph sheet containing the signatures of President Abraham Lincoln and his Cabinet donated in 1864 to raise funds for sick and wounded Union soldiers.

Dave McKinney wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times on April 15 that the 1850s hat alleged to be Abraham Lincoln’s and now in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, has incomplete provenance.  Apparently a farmer, more than 150 years ago, acquired the stovepipe hat from Lincoln–but left no clear record of when or how.  The authenticity of one of the museum’s prizes, valued at $6.5 million, has raised doubts.

The Chicago Tribune on April 17 included William Hagman’s “Anatomy of a Fake Lincoln,” which discussed the fraudulent portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln that had hung in the Executive Mansion, Springfield, since its donation to the Illinois Historical Society.

Elements at Home is selling a copy of the Clark Mills life mask of Abraham Lincoln for $57.

Books and Pamphlets

Southern Illinois University Press has initiated the Concise Lincoln Library, a series of books meant to fill the need for short studies relating to the life, times, and legacy of Abraham Lincoln.  Richard W. Etulain, Sara Vaughn Gabbard, and Sylvia Frank Rodrigue are the editors.  Volumes already published or scheduled for release include Lincoln and the Election of 1860 by Michael S. Green, Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley by Gregory A. Borchard, Abraham and Mary Lincoln by Kenneth Winkle, Lincoln and the Civil War by Michael Burlingame, Lincoln and the Constitution by Brian Dirck, Lincoln and Medicine by Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein, Lincoln and Race by Richard Striner, and Lincoln as Hero by Frank J. Williams.  Scheduled for 2013 are Lincoln and Reconstruction by John C. Rodrigue, Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops by John David Smith and Lincoln and Religion by Ferenc Morton Szasz.  In 2014, SIUP will publish Lincoln’s Statesmanship by Joseph R. Fornieri, Lincoln’s Greatest Mistakes by Harold Holzer, Lincoln’s Campaign Biographies by Thomas A. Horrocks, Lincoln and the Military by John F. Marszalek and Lincoln and Emancipation by Edna Greene Medford.  Lincoln’s Sense of Humor by Richard Carwardine, Lincoln’s Assassination by Edward Steers, Jr., and Lincoln and the War’s End by John C. Waugh will be published in 2015, with Lincoln and the Union Governors by William C. Harris and Lincoln and the Immigrant by Jason H. Silverman coming in 2016.

Brian R. Dirck’s Abraham Lincoln in White America has been published by the University Press of Kansas.

The Lincoln Fellowship of Wisconsin (P.O. Box 1863, Janesville, WI 53590) has published the bulletin of its 69^th annual meeting held on April 17, 2010 as Historical Bulletin No. 64: Lincoln the Liberal Strategist (Or, A Good Man is Hard to Find) by David J. Eicher.

Gretchen Elhassani is the author of The Lincoln Letter (Creative Print Publishing).

Jason Emerson’s The Madness of Mary Lincoln has been published in paper by Southern Illinois University Press, which also published his new hardcover book, Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln.

Savas Beatie has published, as an ebook, Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln, and the Structure of Reason by David Hirsch and Dan Van Haften.  This new digital book demonstrates how President Obama’s 2011 speeches have the same structure used by Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address and in virtually all of Lincoln’s great speeches.

Rowman & Littlefield has published Jackie Hogan’s Lincoln, Inc.: Selling the Sixteenth President in Contemporary America.

The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures at Harvard University, delivered by Harold Holzer in 2011, have been published by Harvard University Press as Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory.

Bedford/St. Martin’s has published the second edition of Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War: Selected Writings and Speeches that has been edited by Michael P. Johnson.

The last of Richard Lawrence Miller’s epic four-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln and His World: Volume 4, The Path to the Presidency, 1854-1860, has been published by McFarland.

Andrew Preston included the chapter “Abraham Lincoln and the First War of Humanitarian Intervention” in his Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy (Knopf).

The Mary Lincoln Enigma: Historians on America’s Most Controversial First Lady has been edited by Frank J. Williams and Michael Burkhimer with an epilogue by Catherine Clinton (Southern Illinois University Press).

 Children’s Books

Enslow Publishers published in its Civil War Library, Slavery and the Underground Railroad: Bound for Freedom; Lincoln, Slavery and the Emancipation Proclamation; and The Battle of Gettysburg and Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, all by Carin T. Ford.  Also published were The Battle of Gettysburg: Would You Lead the Fight? and The Emancipation Proclamation: Would You Do What Lincoln Did? by Elaine Landau.

 Civil War Sesquicentennial and Collateral Books

Fergus M. Bordewich’s America’s Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and the Compromise That Preserved the Union has been published by Simon & Schuster.

Virginia at War, 1865, edited by William C. Davis and James I Robertson, Jr., has been published by the University Press of Kentucky.

A new series featuring the best of Civil War History is being published by Kent State University Press.  Conflict and Command, edited by John T. Hubbell, is the first volume in the series.

The University of Georgia Press has published The Civil War in Georgia: A New Georgia Encyclopedia Companion, edited by John C. Inscoe.

Southern Illinois University Press has reprinted, in paper, Helen Walker Linsenmeyer’s Cooking Plain: Illinois Country Style, with a new foreword by Bruce Kraig.

Matthew Manweller has edited Chronology of the U.S. Presidency, published by ABC-CLIO with chapters on Abraham Lincoln and James Buchanan by Thomas A. Horrocks.

Southern Illinois University Press has published Volume 32 of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, edited by John F. Marszalek, containing supplementary materials for the Grant Papers Project.

Battle Hymns: The Power and Popularity of Music in the Civil War by Christian McWhirter has been published by UNC Press.

Jason Phillips has written Die Hard Rebels: The Confederate Culture of Invincibility for the University of Georgia Press.

Mightier Than the Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America by David S. Reynolds has been published by W.W. Norton & Company.

Jonathan D. Sarna is the author of When General Grant Expelled the Jews (Nextbook/Schocken Books).

Stuart Streichler is the author of Justice Curtis in the Civil War Era: At the Crossroads of American Constitutionalism (University of Virginia Press).

Daniel E. Sutherland is the author of A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerillas in the American Civil War (UNC Press).

Wayne Temple has written a chapter, “Ulysses S. Grant-Civil War Hero” for the 2011-2012 Illinois Blue Book.

 Periodicals

The first issue of The Civil War Monitor, “It Begins. Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis and the Coming of the Civil War,” included “The Men & The Hour: Lincoln, Davis, and the Struggle to Avert War” by Russell McClintock.

The Fall/Winter 2011-2012 Lincoln Memorial Association Newsletter included “A Civil War Soldier Visits the Washington Monument,” “In the Footsteps of Heroes: A Memorable Civil War Odyssey,” and “What’s Afoot With Foote’s Foot?”

Frank Reeves wrote about Thomas Nast’s first illustration of Santa Claus in the Harper’s Weekly holiday issue on January 3, 1863, in “Cartoonist Nast Drew One of First Santa Claus Images” for the December 26 Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

Joseph C. Morton discussed Edwin McMasters Stanton for the Northwest Herald on January 15 to commemorate the sesquicentennial of Stanton’s appointment as Secretary of War, in “Stanton’s Efficiency Helps North’s War Effort.”

The winter Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association included Allen C. Guelzo’s “Does Lincoln Still Belong to the Ages?,” James L. Huston’s “The Lost Cause of the North: A Reflection on Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural,” and Samuel W. Calhoun and Lucas E. Morel’s “Abraham Lincoln’s Religion: The Case for His Ultimate Belief in a Personal, Sovereign God.”

Clint Johnson wrote about a Confederate sneak attack on New York City in November 1864 in “A Vast and Fiendish Plot” for the winter New York Archives.

The Atlantic published a special commemorative issue, “The Civil War,” with classic Atlantic stories by Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, along with many others.  Images were provided by The National Portrait Gallery with curators’ notes by David C. Ward and Frank H. Goodyear.

Joseph E. Garrera wrote a “History of the Lincoln Group of New York” for the group’s February Wide Awake Bulletin.

Frank J. Williams has written “The Suspension of Habeas Corpus in the North and South” for Essential Civil War Curriculum of the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech (www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com).

Martin A. Sweeney wrote “Homer, New York: A New Lincoln Mecca” for the January-February Lincolnian (6200 Wilson Blvd., Falls Church, VA 22044).

James Kubal-Komoto wrote “The Humble Morality of Abraham Lincoln” for the February 20 Seattle Times.

Erich Schwartzel discussed presidential leadership in “Managers Can Learn From Presidents” for the February 26 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, emphasizing Abraham Lincoln and Donald T. Phillips’ Lincoln on Leadership.

The Winter 2012 Lincoln Herald included “Who Gave The Signal to Spring the Traps?” by Barry M. Cauchon and John E. Elliott, “The Lincoln Conspirators: Was Beverley Tucker One of Them?” by James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes, and “Lincolniana” by Frank J. Williams.  Michael Burkhimer edited the review section.

“Innovations of War” – The Washington Post’s latest supplement in its series, Civil War 150, appeared on March 4.  It included “Washington’s Press Corps: Blame it on the Civil War” by Paul Farhi, “The Monitor’s Secrets” by Michael E. Ruane, “‘My God, What a Slaughter,’ Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia Never Again Came As Close to Destroying a Federal Army as it did at Second Manassas” by Steve Vogel, “In Defense of McClellan: A Contrarian View” by Gene Thorp, and “Lincoln and Abolition: Two Views” by Harold Holzer and Brag Bowling.  Actually the answer to the question, “Which event in the period between Shiloh and Antietam did not receive the attention it deserves?, was offered by Jim Campi (“The Fall of New Orleans”), Frank Williams (“The Second Confiscation Act”), Robert Lee Hodge (“Three Battles-Corinth, The Seven Days and Second Manassas”), William Blair (“A Blow to Free Speech”), and Waite Rawls (“Jackson’s Maneuvers”).

“A Coming Fury: Novelist Bruce Catton’s Civil War in the Civil Rights Era” by David W. Blight appeared in the Fall/Winter 2011-12 Huntington Frontiers.

Stephen Berry, Michael T. Bernath, Seth Rockman, Barton A. Myers, Anne Marshall, Lisa M. Brady, Judith Giesberg and Jim Downs participated in a forum on “The Future of Civil War Era Studies,” a transcript of which appeared in the March Journal of the Civil War Era.

Thom Bassett wrote “Birth of a Demon” about how Sherman won-then lost-the South in the Spring 2012 Civil War Monitor.

John Churchill wrote “Lincoln, David Copperfield, and the Chords of Memory” in the Spring edition of For the People: A Newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association.

The Spring issue of Lincoln Lore (No. 1899), edited by Sara Gabbard, included her interview with Frank Williams and Richard Etulain’s “Lincoln and the Oregon Country.”

Articles adapted from Gary Philip Zola’s “He Was Like One of Us–Abraham Lincoln and American Jewry,” and Jonathan Sara’s “When General Grant Expelled the Jews” both appeared in the Spring 2012 issue of the magazine Reform Judaism.

John Elliff’s “Lincoln and D.C. Emancipation,” Part One, appeared in the March-April Lincolnian of the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia.

On D.C. Emancipation Day’s 150^th anniversary, the Washington Post featured “Statues of Liberty,” depicting how freedom was portrayed by different sculptors.  Joe Heim discussed the Lincoln Park Emancipation Memorial on Capitol Hill and Guy Gugliotta discussed the African American Civil War Memorial, erected in 1998.  It provides a contrast to the freed slave kneeling at the feet of the President Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Memorial erected in 1876.

The Illinois Times on April 5 offered Bruce Rushton’s “A Museum Divided,” about the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum’s ongoing problems, including declining attendance, insufficient funding and “a governance structure with potentials for conflicts of interest.”  These were the findings of the American Association of Museums in 2010, which conducted the survey before the current executive director (its third) was appointed by the Illinois governor.

Harold Holzer wrote about Lincoln and the Soldiers Home in “Lincoln’s Refuge” in the June American History.

Jay Goldberg wrote “Lincoln: Which Branch of Government Seriously Diminished His Legacy?” for Volume 18-2012 of the Lincolnator—a publication of the Louisiana Lincoln Group.

 Reviews

Roger Billings and Frank J. Williams, editors, Abraham Lincoln, Esq.: The Legal Career of America’s Greatest President, rev. by Steven Lubet, The Journal of Southern History (February 2012).

Robert Bray, Reading With Lincoln, rev. by Martin J. Hardeman, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (Winter 2011); rev. by James Tackach, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society (Spring 2011); rev. by Allen C. Guelzo, Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association (Winter 2012).

Michael Burlingame, Lincoln and the Civil War, rev. by Joseph A. Truglio, Civil War News (January 2012).

Richard Campanella, Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History, rev. by Richard Slotkin, Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association (Winter 2012).

Douglas Egerton, Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln and the Election That Brought On the Civil War, rev. by Tom Ryley, The Dispatch (The Civil War Round Table of New York), (March 2012).

Gretchen Elhassani, The Lincoln Letter, rev. by Valerie M. Josephson, Civil War News (February-March 2012).

Amanda Foreman, A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War, rev. by Tom Ryley, The Dispatch (The Civil War Round Table of New York) (February 2012).

Adam Goodheart, 1861: The Civil War Awakening, rev. by Jerry Carrier, Lincoln Herald (Winter 2012).

Michael S. Green, Lincoln and the Election of 1860, rev. by Michael Deeb, Civil War News (January 2012).

Frederick Hatch, Protecting President Lincoln: The Security Effort, The Thwarted Plots and the Disaster at Ford’s Theatre, rev. by Rick Stelnick, Civil War News (January 2012).

Jackie Hogan, Lincoln, Inc.: Selling the Sixteenth President in Contemporary America, rev. by Todd Volker, Illinois Times (February 9-15, 2012).

Harold Holzer, Emancipating Lincoln, rev. by Chuck Leddy, The Boston Globe (March 5, 2012).

Howard Jones, Blue & Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations, rev. by Michael Burkhimer, Lincoln Herald (Winter 2012).

Brian Lamb and Susan Swain, editors, Abraham Lincoln: Great American Historians on Our Sixteenth President, rev. by Richard Lawrence Miller, Lincoln Herald (Winter 2012).

Elizabeth D. Leonard, Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky, rev. by J. Larry Hood, Journal of Illinois History (Summer 2011).

William Marvel, Tarnished Victory: Finishing Lincoln’s War, rev. by Allen Guelzo, Civil War News (February-March 2012).

Brian McGinty, Lincoln and the Court, rev. by Henry Cohen, American Journal of Legal History (January 2012).

Brian McGinty, The Body of John Merryman: Abraham Lincoln and the Suspension of Habeas Corpus, rev. by Henry Cohen, The Federal Lawyer (April 2012).

 Charles R. McKirdy, Lincoln Apostate: The Matson Slave Case, rev. by Roger D. Billings, Journal of Illinois History (Summer 2011).

Mark E. Neely, Jr., Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War, rev. by Fred Schwarz, National Review (January 23, 2012).

Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever, rev. by Joseph A. Truglio, The Lincoln Group of New York Wide Awake Bulletin (February 2012); rev. by Thomas D. Mackie, Jr., Lincoln Herald (Winter 2012); rev. by Harold Holzer, America’s Civil War (May 2012); rev. by Frank J. Williams, Civil War Times (June 2012).

 Myra Helmer Pritchard, Jason Emerson, editors, The Dark Days of Abraham Lincoln’s Widow: As Revealed By Her Own Letters, rev. by Stacy A. Cordery, Journal of Illinois History (Summer 2011).

Daniel J. Ryan, Lincoln and Ohio, rev. by Wayne C. Temple, Lincoln Herald (Winter 2012).

Eric C. Sands, American Public Philosophy and the Mystery of Lincolnism, rev. by John M. Barr, The Journal of Southern History (February 2012).

Jonathan D. Sarna, When General Grant Expelled the Jews, rev. by Harold Holzer, The Washington Post (March 4, 2012); rev. by Harold Holzer, The Jewish Press, March 30, 2012; rev. by Janet Mazlin, The New York Times (April 5, 2012).

Jonathan W. White, Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman, rev. by Henry Cohen, The Federal Lawyer (April 2012).

Kenneth J. Winkle, Abraham and Mary Lincoln, rev. by Joseph A. Truglio, Civil War News (January 2012).

 People

Samuel Wheeler became the Sangamon County Historical Society’s first Executive Coordinator in January to help lead the agency’s efforts to preserve local history that dates back to 1859 when the County’s first historical society, the Old Settlors Society of Sangamon County was formed.

Actor David Selby, a frequent portrayer of Abraham Lincoln, discussed Lincoln with Jessica Goldstein for the January 15 Washington Post in “Public Speaking: Taking a Cue From Abe.”  Selby most recently portrayed Abraham Lincoln in Necessary Sacrifices at Ford’s Theatre, January 20-February 12.

Harold Holzer profiled historian Richard Nelson Current in the March America’s Civil War.  Current’s The Lincoln Nobody Knows remains a classic because it shattered myths and inspired readers like Holzer.  A lifelong student of Lincoln and the war, Current is now 99 years old.

Sara Vaughn Gabbard has been named Executive Director of the Friends of the Lincoln Collection of Indiana.  She also serves as editor of Lincoln Lore and was co-editor of Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation and the Thirteenth Amendment and Lincoln’s America: 1809-1865.

Thomas A. Horrocks has been appointed Director of Special Collections and the John Hay Library at Brown University which includes the McLellan Lincoln Collection.  For the past 14 years he served as Associate Director of Harvard’s Houghton Library.  He is also a member of the Advisory Board of The Lincoln Forum.

Henry Ballone has been elected President of the Lincoln Group of New York.

Amanda Robert profiled Illinois attorneys who were influenced on leadership by Lincoln in the March 1 Chicago Lawyer.  John Simon, former chancellor of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois, gravitated to the Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln after high school in 1960.  Robert Lenz, now President of the Abraham Lincoln Association and a member of the Advisory Board of the Lincoln Forum, grew up with Lincoln in Freeport, IL, the site of one of the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates for the U.S. Senate in 1858.  And former Governor James R. Thompson first became fascinated by Abraham Lincoln’s life when he moved to Springfield as Governor in 1977.

Howard Dodson, recently retired chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, has now been retained by Howard University to fix major collection problems at Howard’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.  It is one of the world’s largest collections devoted to the history and culture of people of African descent.

Lincoln in Popular Culture

Harold Holzer wrote “The Great Debates (That Weren’t So Great)” for the January 29 Washington Post.  Holzer argues that  just because Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has continued to challenge President Obama to debates similar to those between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in 1858, does not necessarily mean that President Obama should accept such challenge–if Gingrich becomes the Republican nominee.  “Like Douglas, he (Obama) has much to lose and little to gain…. No one can really say who won the Lincoln-Douglas debates—though Douglas prevailed in the election, he made his opponent a star.  Widely reprinted in the national press, the debates proved such a phenomenon that Lincoln’s name became a household word. But during the Cold War, in a debate, President Gerald Ford “inexplicably claimed that Eastern Europe was not under Soviet domination during a debate with Jimmy Carter in 1976.”

The Chicago Tribune “Perspective” for February 8 discussed Abraham Lincoln as a powerball pitchman in Owen Youngman’s “What Would Honest Abe Say?”  One would think Lincoln would be better treated by his adopted state of Illinois.  Lincoln is shown as destitute in an ad appearing in the November 8, 2011 Chicago Tribune, “Illinois is Still Broke,” and, indirectly, as an advocate of pension reform in Illinois.

Peggy Noonan’s Declarations: “How Honest Is ‘Honest Abe’?” offered a clever, but fictional, attack ad on Abraham Lincoln in the February 18-19 Wall Street Journal.  A response by Rita Culross indicated that this ad was mild compared to the vitriol against Abraham Lincoln during the campaign of 1860, whereas today’s attack ads, while “disgusting,” paled by comparison to the cartoons targeting candidate Lincoln.  Noonan points out that today, however, mass media allows instantaneous widespread circulation of repulsive attacks.  Instead of censorship, she argues, good people should express their displeasure for those candidates who practice negative campaigning.

James Krohe, Jr., wrote in the March 1-7 Illinois Times that the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency in charge of “Abe World” (the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum) is attempting to draw visitors with dubious commercial tie-ins such as a preview of clips from the forthcoming film, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.  Krohe bemoaned the fact that the issue is not the museum “pandering to the public, but that history doesn’t really have much of a public in a nation that purports to love its country but is indifferent to understanding it.”  Krohe went on to say that, “Jim Edgar was right when he observed that visitors to a traditional ordinary museum about Lincoln’s life would be ‘bored to death.’”  If that is true, we have scarier things to worry about than vampires.

Former President Ronald Reagan has taken the lead over Abraham Lincoln on presidential library visitors with 367,506 for Reagan and 293,135 for Lincoln during 2011.  Nicholas J. C. Pistor reported the phenomenon in the March 9 St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

A John Wilkes Booth bobble-head doll has been pulled from the shelves of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum Gift Shop in Springfield, IL, Lincoln’s home town, after bookstores at the Gettysburg Museum and Visitors’ Center, Gettysburg National Military Park, did the same in March, after igniting a controversy by so featuring the man who assassinated President Lincoln.  The dolls drew criticism from visitors and Harold Holzer, who contended that it was inappropriate to sell Booth bobble-head dolls at either shrine.  Bobble-head sculptor Rick Lynn said that he created dolls of historical figures for all and not just as gag gifts.  The Booth bobble-head was not created to mock Lincoln’s assassination, he said.

Witold Rybczynski, in his March 23 New York Times op-ed supporting the planned memorial to General/President Dwight David Eisenhower, disputes the contention that the well-known designer, Frank Gehry, was forced on the Eisenhower family.  Gehry was actually one of four finalists chosen by a committee that included Eisenhower’s grandson David.  The author does not believe that the best designs come from an open competition as it did with Maya Lin for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and he notes that the Lincoln Memorial came about with the competition between two architects—John Russell Pope and Henry Bacon.  Pope, the loser, then went ahead and designed the Jefferson Memorial.  In fact, the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial were also subject to criticism at the time they were proposed.  Lincoln was portrayed as a tired–not triumphant–leader.  Critics objected to Jefferson being housed in a Roman temple.  In addition, Rybczynski pointed out that design and construction of presidential memorials take a long time–with the Lincoln Memorial consuming 12 years.  As such, the design team for the Eisenhower Memorial will continue refining its design.  The main gripe from the Eisenhower family is that the Eisenhower statue features Dwight Eisenhower as a “Kansas farm boy” rather than a victorious five-star general or “successful two-term president.”

For the second year in a row, Americans enjoyed a tax holiday as the normal due date for filings, April 15, fell on a Sunday in 2012 and April 16 was a holiday in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the 150^th anniversary of President Lincoln’s signing the act emancipating over 3,100 of the city’s slaves.  As such, government offices were shut down, including the IRS.  The measure freeing the slaves in the District occurred prior to Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and well before the final proclamation on January 1, 1863.

 Assassination

A panel consisting of former Chicago Tribune reporter Patrick Reardon, curator James Cornelius, and editor of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln–Daniel Stowell, as well as Ron Keller, director of the Lincoln Heritage Museum with Matthew Holden, discussed Killing Lincoln by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard on December 7 at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

 

Roger Norton wrote “The Tragic White House Stable Fire” for the April Surratt Courier, whose same issue contained John J. Miller’s “His Favorite Poem” about William Knox’s “Mortality,” considered to be the verse Lincoln most admired.

 Works in Progress

Barry M. Cauchon and John Elliott are at work on a series of booklets, Inside the Walls, about the Lincoln assassins, their captivity, trial, and execution.  They are to be published in 2013.

 Author’s Note

I want to thank Harold Holzer, Richard Sloan, Tom Lapsley, William D. Pederson, Dennis E. Stark, Joseph Fornieri, Wayne C. Temple, Edward Steers, Jr., Gene Griessman, Norman F. Boas, Pam Carnahan, Mike Gross, Judge Dennis Curran, Larry Morris, Jo Dzombak, Guy Fraker, Malcolm Garber, David Warren, Justice William P. Robinson III and Virginia Williams for providing information for this column.  I welcome news concerning Abraham Lincoln.  Please contact me at 300 Switch Road, Hope Valley, RI 02832; fax (401) 364-3642; e-mail alincoln@courts.ri.gov.