LINCOLNIANA by Thomas A. Horrocks
Introduction
It must be a strange experience for Lincoln Herald readers to encounter this column under a different name than Frank J. Williams. I am honored to take over the editing of this column but, at the same time, I assume the duties with some trepidation. Frank made this column the excellent resource that it is, and following him (replacing him is impossible!) will be a difficult task. Thus, I seek assistance from all of Frank’s colleagues and friends who provided him with news articles and editorials, book reviews, notices of presentations and conferences, and all other items relating to Abraham Lincoln. Frank has been generous with his assistance, for which I am deeply grateful. I also want to thank Harold Holzer and Robert B. Henderson, Jr. for sending me items for my inaugural column. I am currently assembling items for the next Lincolniana column and will welcome receiving information at thomasahorrocks@gmail.com or at my home address at 11A Brewer Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
The Spoken Word and Group Activities
William E. Bartelt spoke on the “Lincoln Inquiry” conducted by the Southwestern Historical Society in the 1920s at the Lincoln Boyhood Memorial’s 95th annual Lincoln Day on February 10, 2019.
On March 24, Todd Brewster spoke on “Lincoln’s Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months that Gave America the Emancipation Proclamation and Changed the Course of the Civil War” at the Annual Grand Army Museum Luncheon in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
On March 31, Lincoln presenter George Buss and Stephen Douglas presenter Tim Connors participated in a Lincoln-Douglas debate at Elmhurst City Hall, Elmhurst, Illinois.
Jeff Massey, Assistant District Attorney in Oklahoma County, delivered a paper on “The One that Got Away” about John Surratt at Randall University (Moore, Oklahoma) on April 2.
On April 4, Gerald Prokopowicz, professor of history at East Carolina University and host of Civil War Talk Radio, spoke on “Frequently Asked Questions (and why they matter?) About Abraham Lincoln” at the Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier.
On April 9, Nancy Koehn, faculty member in Harvard’s School of Business, delivered a lecture as part of the Wakefield (Massachusetts) Sweetser Lecture Series on her book, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times, which discusses how great leaders emerge by focusing on the lives of Ernest Shackleton, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Nazi-resisting clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and environmental pioneer Rachel Carson.
The Temecula Valley Historical Society (California) hosted a lecture on April 22 Bonnie Martland entitled “Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery.”
On April 16, the Government of the District of Columbia and the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia hosted a panel discussion at the National Archives on the Emancipation Proclamation and the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. Panelists included Edna Greene Medford, Roger Davidson, C.R. Gibbs, and Elizabeth Clark-Lewis.
Jon Willen spoke on “Dr. Charles Leale and the Medical Treatment of Abraham Lincoln” at the April 24 meeting of the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia.
Shawn J. Perry-Giles, professor of communications at the University of Maryland, presented a lecture “Remembering Lincoln by Those Who Knew Him” at Southeast Missouri State University on April 24.
On May 16, Harold Holzer and Craig L. Symonds participated in “Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Conversation on Presidential Leadership” as part of the eighth annual Rolland Lecture of the Friends of the Lincoln Collection of Indiana at the Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
The Springfield (Illinois) Civil War Roundtable and Illinois College, Jacksonville, Illinois, sponsored the Benjamin C. Thomas Civil War Conference on May 18. The conference included a paper by Illinois State Historian Samuel Wheeler on “Willie Lincoln’s Civil War: The President’s Son Surrounded by War.”
The New Salem State Historic Site will celebrating its 100th anniversary of the property being deeded to the state with a special program on May 22. New Salem is a reconstruction of the former village where Abraham Lincoln lived from 1831 to 1837. The program included remarks by Michael Burlingame on New Salem in Lincoln’s time, and Mark Pohlad on New Salem’s restoration. Colleen Callahan, the new director of the Illinois Department that oversees the historic site; Kathryn Harris, retired library services director, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum; and Richard Adkins, president, New Salem Lincoln League, also appeared on the program.
Arts
On March 6, The Knox Student ran an article on Knox College senior Eric Newnham, who is working on a documentary on the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate that took place of the school’s campus.
The Wilkinsburg Historical Society (Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania) has announced plans to raise $70,000 to build a bronze, life-size statue of the 16th president of the United States. It would replace the old copper Lincoln statue that stood at the intersection of Penn Avenue and Ardmore Boulevard for over a century.
On April 10, the City of Owensboro, Kentucky, and the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art unveiled a life-sized bronze stature of Abraham Lincoln on the south side of Owensboro City Hall. Mark Lundeen of Loveland, Colorado created the stature, entitled “Lincoln.”
On April 17, Realscreen announced that CNN and Glass Entertainment plan to produce a six-part series on Abraham Lincoln, tentatively titled “Lincoln: An American President.”
The Andover Choral Society, Andover, Massachusetts, on May 4 presented the premiere of “Abraham Walks at Midnight” by the African American composer Florence Price at North Andover High School. Price’s work on Lincoln was one of numerous works of hers discovered in an abandoned building in Chicago in 2009.
On May 16 Lincoln presenter George Buss and Illinois folk musician Chris Vallillo presented “Lincoln: The Great Communicator,” a live theatrical performance at the Post Commons in Alton, Illinois. The performance was supported by the Looking for Lincoln and the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area. Buss and Vallillo also presented this program at the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site in Coles County, Illinois, on July 20.
On May 22, a 31-foot tall, 19-ton painted bronze sculpture of Abraham Lincoln, entitled “Return Visit,” was placed in front of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. The sculpture, created by artist Seward Johnson, previously located temporarily at the Peoria Riverfront Museum and in front of Tribune Tower in Chicago, features Lincoln standing with a modern-day man who is holding the Gettysburg Address.
The May 29 issue of the Washington Post published an article by Ronald G. Shafer on the early designs for the Lincoln Memorial, entitled “The Lincoln Memorial as a Pyramid? That Wasn’t the Craziest Idea Pitched a Century Ago.”
Here I Grew Up, a musical about Abraham Lincoln’s years living in Southern Indiana, premiered on July 28 at the Lincoln Amphitheatre in Lincoln City, Indiana. The musical celebrates Lincoln and the community that helped shape his character through an honest and emotionally charged story of his time in southern Indiana. It also honors the pioneers who played an integral part in his most formative years, helping to nurture his work ethic and desire to learn. Here I Grew Up features all new songs, lively dances, and a unique perspective on his life.
The June 20 issue of the Lexington Herald Leader reported that the huge statue of Abraham Lincoln, modeled on the Lincoln statue in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, that belonged to Eric C. Conn, the Kentucky disability attorney who was sentenced to 27 years in prison for Social Security fraud, will be donated to the Middle Creek Battlefield near Prestonsburg.
A new stature of Abraham Lincoln was unveiled in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The 7 ½ foot sculpture was created from a rectangular piece of steel and unveiled outside the city’s old train depot, where Lincoln arrived during the spring of 1860. The shaped steel forms a tall profile representing Lincoln’s hat and brim, his cheeks, neck and coat. To the eye, the space, or negative space, within the steel offers, perhaps, the sharpest profile of our 16th president. By intention, say designers, the cavity within the powder-coated black steel can accommodate a person.
Exhibits
On April 26, The Lincoln Depot Museum opened in Peekskill, New York. Located by Peekskill Bay on the east bank of the Hudson River, The Lincoln Depot Museum is a 3,000-square-foot, 19th century freight and passenger rail depot where Lincoln stopped in 1861 while traveling to his inauguration. The Lincoln Depot Visitor’s Center is a new structure that will house the museum offices, additional displays, a small gift shop, and an open meeting room to hold events. Funding for the entire project (the depot building, visitor’s center and grounds) came from New York State grants in 2006 under then-Gov. George Pataki. The Lincoln Depot Foundation will operate the visitor’s center as part of its site lease with the City of Peekskill, and looks to collaborate with local organizations to bring new events and experiences to the community.
On May 9, The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia opened a permanent exhibition entitled “Civil War and Reconstruction: The Battle for Freedom and Equality.” Among the many historic items in the exhibit is a fragment of the American flag that Abraham Lincoln raised at Independence Hall li
Awards and Prizes
David Blight was awarded the 2019 Lincoln Prize by Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. The award, which includes $50,000 and a bronze replica of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ life-size bust of Abraham Lincoln, was presented on April 16 in at the Yale Club in New York City. Blight also received the 2018 Richard Current Award for Achievement from the The Lincoln Forum at its November meeting in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Auctions
Heritage Auctions will present another auction devoted to Abraham Lincoln this coming fall. “Lincoln and His Times” auction will be held on November 2, 2019 in Dallas, Texas. One can view the catalog and bid beginning on October 14 on line at https://historical.ha.com/c/auction-home.zx?saleNo=6214&ic=Items-OpenAuctions-ComingSoon-BrowseAuctionInfo-071713
Collections
The Delaware County Historical Society (Delaware County, Pennsylvania) launched in early April its Pennies 4 Lincoln campaign to restore its 1860 Lincoln campaign banner. The cotton banner measures 75 x 64 feet.
“The War on the Net” column in the April issue of Civil War Times reported on two digital projects relating to Abraham Lincoln, the “Papers of Abraham Lincoln at the Library of Congress” and “The Papers of Abraham Lincoln,” which includes papers at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as well as Illinois-based repositories, such as the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
The April 10 issue of the National Catholic Register blog included a post about Abraham Lincoln’s November 16, 1863 letter to Pope Pius IX, which resides in the Vatican’s secret archives.
The April 12 issue of Gusto, the online newsletter of the Buffalo News published an article by Mark Sommer on the Lincoln collection in the Buffalo History Museum.
The May 8 issue of The Atlantic published an article by Andrew Ferguson on “Abraham Lincoln’s $6 Million Hat,” in which he discusses the provenance issues that have arisen around the iconic stovepipe hat owned by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois.
The June 20 issue of the New York Times reported on the discovery of another Lincoln Bible, this one presented to Lincoln at a fund-raising event in Philadelphia for the care of wounded soldiers in 1864. Mary Lincoln gave the bible to a Springfield, Illinois, neighbor Reverend Noyes W. Miner after Lincoln’s assassination. The existence of the bible has been rediscovered more than 150 years after it came into the family. Miner’s descendants will give the bible to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum as a bequest.
Seth Keller, a dealer in rare books, manuscripts, and historical documents has a letter for sale from Abraham Lincoln, dated May 31, 1863, to Major General Robert C. Schenck, in which Lincoln vouches for Maryland Unionist Governor Francis Thomas. The price for the letter is listed at $45,000. Kaller also has a Lincoln signed commission promoting 2nd Lieutenant Henry B. Bristol of the 5th United States Infantry to the rank of captain, effective June 1, 1862, for sale at $9,500.
The Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum in Harrogate, Tennessee, closed on July 21 until 2020 for a $3.5 million dollar renovation.
The July 29 issue of the Western Illinois University online newsletter posted an article on the donation to the University’s Malpass Library of the register of the Randolph House in Macomb, Illinois, signed by Lincoln twice when he visited the town twice during his campaign against Stephen Douglas in 1858, as well as the service bell that hung in his room.
The July 30 issue of the Pantagraph posted an article by Derek Beigh on a donation to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum of a rare 1860 Lincoln campaign button. According to the person who appraised the item, the button is different from many of the “campaign buttons…you call tokens; they’re like a dog tag with a hole punched in them, and you would use a safety pin or a hat pin to put it on clothing…. This is most likely a political button they put in a locket once…assassinated…. Any button would be interesting, but that made it rarer and more interesting.”
Books and Pamphlets
Louis Bayard is the author of Courting Mr. Lincoln (Algonquin Books), a work of fiction told in the alternating voices of Mary Todd and Joshua Speed during Lincoln’s courtship of Mary Todd and explores the issue of whether Lincoln was gay.
Hamilton College’s Couper Press has published The President’s Medium: John Conklin, Abraham Lincoln, and the Emancipation Proclamation by John Benedict Buescher. The book explores the prominence of spiritualism during the 19th century and Abraham Lincoln’s involvement with the medium John Conklin.
Beacon Publishing Group has published Thomas Lincoln: Abraham’s Father by Daniel Cravens Taylor.
Southern University Press has published Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship and the Limits of Liberal Democracy by Jon D. Schaff.
Periodicals
The Winter issue of The Lincoln Herald included articles by Adam L. Taliaferro on “Lincoln & Clausewitz: An Examination of Lincoln’s Military Strategy as Compared to the Great Military Theorist”; Catherine McCarthy on “From the Archives: Carl Sandburg: The Lincoln Years”; and Jason H. Silverman on “The Uses and Abuses of Abraham Lincoln: Finding Lincoln in the Most Unusual and Controversial Places.”
The Winter issue of the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association included articles by Christopher J. Young on “The Dedication of the Living: Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s Abraham Lincoln in Chicago and London”; Kaylyn Sawyer on “Belonging to the Ages: The Enduring Relevance of Aaron Copeland’s Lincoln Portrait”; and a roundtable discussion on “Lincoln and Public History,” with Devin Hunter, Jeremy Bois, Mary Fincher, Sarah Jencks, and Tim Townsend.
The Spring issue of The Civil War Monitor included an article by Mark Grimsley on “The Great Emancipator: Understanding the Lore Surrounding Abraham Lincoln’s Role in the Ending of Slavery.”
The June issue of The Journal of the Civil War Era published an article by Patrick J. Kelly entitled “The Lost Continent of Abraham Lincoln” about Lincoln’s continentalism; his expressed solidarity with the hemisphere’s Spanish-speaking republics.
The June 30 issue of The Guardian featured an opinion piece by Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal on “How Lincoln’s Distain for Demagogues Pricks Trump’s Fourth of July Pomposity.” Blumenthal writes of how Donald Trump’s estimation of Abraham Lincoln has declined as his estimation of his own presidency has become inflated.
The July issue of Civil War News included an article by Harold Holzer about the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Edward Everett, entitled “Grace Between Rivals: A Trait that may have Perished from the Earth since Gettysburg.”
The Summer issue of Lincoln Lore included articles by Mark B. Pohlad on “Josephine Cobb of the National Archives: The Woman Who Found Lincoln at Gettysburg”; Frank J. Williams on “Edwin McMasters Stanton,” Lincoln’s second Secretary of War; Susannah Koerber on “Lincoln, Emancipation, and Civil Rights”; and Ed Breen on “210 Years Later,” who looks back at Lincoln 210 years after his birth. The issue also includes interviews with Harold Holzer regarding his recent book, Monument Man: The Life & Art of Daniel Chester French (Princeton Architectural Press, 2019); Jay Winik concerning his book April 1865: The Month that Saved America (Harper Collins, 2001); and Kate Masur on her recent edition of the 1932 book They Knew Lincoln by John E. Washington (Oxford University Press, 2018).
Reviews
Robert McColley Reviewed Lincoln’s Boys: John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln’s Image by Joshua Zeitz in the December 2018 issue of The Journal of the Civil War Era.
Douglas R. Egerton reviewed The Election of 1860: “A Campaign Fraught with Consequences” by Michael F. Holt and Making an Antislavery Nation: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Battle over Freedom by Graham A. Peck in the March 2019 issue of The Journal of American History.
David J. Kent reviewed Leadership in Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin in the April issue of Civil War Times. Goodwin’s book includes chapters on Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders was reviewed by Mia Nelson in the April 9 issue of The Dartmouth, the university’s newspaper.
Courting Mr. Lincoln by Louis Bayard was reviewed by Connie Ogle in the April 23 issue of Newsday. The book was also reviewed in the Washington Post by Carol Memmott on April 23.
The April 24 issue of Dissent Magazine included a book review by Nicolaus Mills of Monument Man: The Life and Art of Daniel Chester French (Princeton Architectural Press, 2018) by Harold Holzer.
Joseph Tuglio reviewed The Last Weeks of Abraham Lincoln: A Day-by-Day Account of His Personal, Political, and Military Challenges (Prometheus Books, 2018) by David Alan Johnson in the May issue of Civil War News.
Larry Madaras reviewed Leadership in Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin in the May 13 issue of America: The Jesuit Review. Goodwin’s book has sections devoted to Abraham Lincoln.
James Oakes reviewed Becoming Lincoln (University of Virginia, 2018) by William W. Freehling in the May 23 issue of The New York Review of Books.
Richard J. Blumberg reviewed New York and the Lincoln Specials: The President’s Pre-Inaugural and Funeral Trains Cross the Empire State (McFarland, 2018) by Joseph D. Collea in the June issue of Civil War News.
Gould Hagler reviewed Monument Man: The Life & Art of Daniel Chester French (Princeton Architectural Press, 2019) by Harold Holzer in the July issue of Civil War News.
A review by Frank J. Williams of Becoming Lincoln (University of Virginia Press, 2018) by William W. Freehling appeared in the Summer issue of Civil War Book Review.
Louis P. Masur reviewed Lincoln’s Mercenaries (Louisiana University Press, 2918) by William Marvel in the August issue of Civil War Times.
Thomas A. Horrocks reviewed The Rhetoric of Lincoln’s Letters (McFarland, 2018) by Marshall Myers in the August issue of Civil War Times.
Tim Talbott reviewed Lincoln and the Abolitionists (Southern Illinois University Press, 2018) by Stanley Harrold in the August issue of Civil War News.
Harold Holzer reviewed Lincoln’s Spies (Simon & Schuster, 2019) by Douglas Waller in the August 2 issue of the Wall Street Journal. The book details Union espionage operations during the Civil War.
Lincoln in the Press and Political Culture
On March 4, Lila Thulin’s article on ‘‘‘Hot Lincoln’ Stands in Long Line of Attractive Presidential Sculpture” appeared in Smithsonian.Com. Thulin writes about the 1941 eight-foot-tall statue, entitled “Young Lincoln,” by James Lee Hansen that resides in a federal courthouse in Los Angeles and shows Lincoln shirtless and muscular. The image of the statue recently went viral on social media.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel presented an editorial entitled “Matt Gaetz Meet Abraham Lincoln,” on March 5 in which the paper’s editorial board contrasted the recent remarks in a tweet by Florida congressman Gaetz that appeared to threaten Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, with those used by Abraham Lincoln’s in his angry letter to General George for failing to pursue General Robert E. Lee’s defeated army after the Battle of Gettysburg. Whereas Lincoln put off sending the letter while he cooled off, Gaetz tweeted without thinking of the consequences of his remarks.
David Brooks, in an article, “The Case for Reparations,” in the March 7 issue of the New York Times, quoted the passage from Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, in which the president stated, “Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said 3,000 years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’” Brooks uses this passage to build his case for serious consideration of reparations.
The March 8 issue of The Spectrum, part of the USA Today network, included an article by Al Cooper on “Abraham Lincoln: Growing into Greatness,” about Lincoln’s intensive regiment of self-improvement.
Bruce G. Kaufmann wrote an article entitled “Alexander Hamilton, Abe Lincoln and the Slave Soldier,” for the March 9 issue of the Observer-Reporter (Washington, Pennsylvania), in which he compares Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the use of black soldiers in the Civil War with Hamilton’s proposal to enlist slaves to fight the British during the American Revolution in return for freedom.
The March 8 issue of the Seattle Times included an editorial by historian Eli Merritt on “The Constitution Must be Our ‘Political Religion’: Remembering Lincoln’s Word’s,” in which Merritt argues that we as Americans should adhere to the Constitution during the current crises caused by the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The March 12 issue of the New York Post included an article by Zachary Kussin entitled “How Abe Lincoln and Avocados Made Delmonico’s Legend.” The article notes that Lincoln often ate at a 14th Street Delmonico’s when in New York City.
The March 14 issue of the Federalist.Com includes an article by Stephen Shipp, a school administrator in Indiana, entitled “Today’s Schools Should Emulate the Education that Produced Abraham Lincoln,” in which the author urges today’s educators to would be wise to teach children in the arts of reading, communication, and character building that shaped Lincoln.
Ed Feulner, founder of the Heritage Foundation, wrote an article, entitled “Learning from Lincoln” for the March 14 issue of the Montgomery Herald (West Virginia), in which he claims the nation needs to heed the example of Lincoln in these times of partisan division.
The March 17 issue of the Herald-Whig (Quincy, Illinois) published an article by Iris Nelson entitled “Colorful Attorney formed Bond of Respect with Lincoln.” The article details the relationship with Quincy lawyer Archibald (Archie) Williams and Abraham Lincoln.
The March 19 issue of the Seacoastonline.Com (Portsmouth, New Hampshire) included an article by local historian James Kences on “York in American History: The Vote for Lincoln in 1860,” in which he relates how York voted in the 1860 election.
David Brown, president of Edge Retail Academy, wrote an article for the March 21 issue of Instore “What Business Owners Can Learn from Abraham Lincoln’s Failures.” Brown argues that Lincoln would not have achieved the success that he did without the experience of his early failures in life.
The March 24 issue of Wicked Local Cohasset (Cohasset, Massachusetts) published as article by Jacqueline Dormitzer entitled “Abe Lincoln had Cohasset Roots.” The article is about Mordecai Lincoln, Lincoln’s great-great-great grandfather, and his house and ironworks in Cohasset in the late seventeenth century.
The March 28 issue of the Baltimore Post-Examiner published an article by Jake Gladwell on “Abraham Lincoln Can Teach Us about Life.”
The April 6 issue of the Greeneville Sun (Tennessee) published a commentary by columnist Cameron Judd entitled “Judd: The Mystery of Abraham Lincoln’s Blurred Foot,” in which he claims the blurred foot in the “Big Foot” photograph taken by Alexander Gardner on November 8, 1863 may indicate that Lincoln suffered from a medical condition.
The April 14 issue of the VT Digger (Montpelier, Vermont) published an article by local historian Mark Bushnell entitled “Then Again: Abraham Lincoln was Challenged by Vermont Adversaries,” in which the author discusses native Vermonters Stephen A. Douglas and Thaddeus Stevens.
The April 17 issue of The Conversation published an article by Mark M. Smith entitled “Abraham Lincoln, Joe Biden and the Politics of Touch.,” in which Smith discusses Lincoln’s effective use of tactile politics compared to that employed by Joe Biden.
The April 17 and April 20 issues of the Ironton Tribune (Ironton, Ohio) published “History Lesson: The Upbringing of Abraham Lincoln” and “History Lesson: ‘Now He Belongs to the Ages’”, by historian Bob Leith.
The April 21 issue of the New Hampshire Union Leader published an article by Aurore Eaton entitled “Looking Back with Aurore Eaton: Benjamin French Joins Abraham Lincoln’s Inner Circle.”
The April 29 issue of the New Hampshire Union Leader published an article by Aurore Eaton entitled “Looking Back with Aurore Eaton: Family Drama in the Lincoln White House.”
The May 23 blog of The National Interest featured a post by Robert W. Merry entitled “The Best U.S. President Ever? Hint: He Saved America During the Civil War.” Merry states his reasons why he believes Lincoln is the nation’s greatest president.
The May 28 edition of the Washington Post published an article by Louis Bayard on Mary Todd Lincoln entitled “What Did Lincoln See in Mary Todd? Maybe that’s the Wrong Question.”
The News-Enterprise of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, reported on May 30 that more than 260,000 people visited Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace in Hodgenville in 2018, spending $15.4 million in surrounding communities.
The June 5 issue of Newsbug.Info and online publication representing various newspapers, published an article by Charles J. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune on “’Poisonous thorns’: The times Abraham Lincoln got mad — like, really mad — at the Chicago Tribune,” in which the author discusses how Lincoln lashed out at the Republican Chicago Tribune when it published news contrary to the best interest of the party.
The June 24 issue of the History channel blog included an article by Becky Little on “Was Abraham Lincoln an Atheist?”
The June 28 issue of the Washington Post included an article by Ted Widmer entitled “Lincoln vs. Trump: Who Said it Best.” The article compares Lincoln’s and Trump’s statements about their education, political opposition, term limits, taxes, modesty, the Civil War, etc. Lincoln’s statements of these topics clearly show the difference between the two men, one acting like a statesman, the other not.
The July 15 issue of the online blog We Are the Mighty published an article by Blake Stillwell on the duel Lincoln almost participated in against James Shields because of the “Rebecca Letters.”
The July 15 issue of the online blog Miami’s Community Newspapers included an article by Bob Diamond entitled “Abraham Lincoln, a Constant Friend to Jews.”
The July 21 issue of the New York Times included a column by Maureen Dowd entitled “Rail-Splitter Versus Hate Spitter,” comparing Lincoln and Donald Trump in light of the latter’s Fourth of July speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
The July 23 issue of the New York Times published an opinion piece by historian David W. Blight entitled “Lincoln Would Not Recognize His Own Party,” in which he compares the Republican Party of Lincoln’s time to that of Donald Trump’s. Blight sees today’s Republican Party as the antithesis of everything for which Lincoln espoused.
The July 23 History Channel blog published a post by Erin Blakemore entitled “During the Civil War, Gen. Ulysses Grant Began Expelling Southern Jews—Until Lincoln Stepped In,” concerning Grant’s General Orders #11.
The July 27 issue of the Washington Post published an article by Gillian Brockell, entitled “You Know Who was into Karl Marx? No, not AOC. Abraham Lincoln,” in which the she discusses the fact that both men read each other’s work and corresponded.
The August 1 issue of the Illinois Times published an article by Bruce Rushton entitled “Is the First Slave Freed by Lincoln under a Parking Lot?” The article concerns Nance Legins-Costley, who won her freedom because of an Illinois State Supreme Court case that Lincoln won. Researchers believe that Legins-Costly is buried under a Peoria parking lot.
Assassination
The March 2018 issue of the Columbia Law Review published an article by Martin S. Lederman entitled “The Law (?) of the Lincoln Assassination.”
The spring 2019 issue of For the People: A Newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association, newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association, published an article by Terry Alford entitled “What Did Booth Say at Lincoln’s April 11, 1865, Speech.”
Jeff Massey, Assistant District Attorney in Oklahoma County, delivered a paper on “The One that Got Away” about John Surratt at Randall University (Moore, Oklahoma) on April 2.
The April 15 issue of the online version of the Philadelphia Inquirer published an article by columnist Ed Colimore entitled “Did John Wilkes Booth Get Away with Murdering President Abraham Lincoln?,” in which he describes the use of facial recognition software has led some researchers working for the Discovery Channel to resurrect the debunked theory that John Wilkes Booth was not killed by Union soldiers, but escaped to live another thirty-eight years under an assumed name.
Siena College in Loudonville, New York, was the site of the world premiere on June 28 of “The Lincoln Dress,” a play by John P. McEneny about the famous dress of Clara Harris that was stained with Major Henry Rathbone’s blood the night of Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theatre. John Wilkes Booth had stabbed Rathbone while making his escape from the Lincolns’ box. The play is set in Albany in 1931 and the four characters include a World War I veteran, a man recently released from a mental institution, a prostitute from Albany’s Green Street, and a maid who works in the Loudonville summer home owned by Clara Harris’ family. They bond as thieves who plot to steal the dress.
The June 28 issue of We Are the Mighty includes an article by Blake Stillwell, which presents a video of a 1956 episode of the TV show I’ve got a Secret of Samuel J. Seymour, the last surviving witness to Lincoln’s assassination. https://www.businessinsider.com/interview-with-the-last-living-witness-of-the-lincoln-assassination-2019-7
Necrology Paul Findley former Republican congressional representative from Illinois and Lincoln scholar died on Friday, August 9 at the age of 98. A congressional representative from 1961 to 1983, Findley’s book on Abraham Lincoln’s years in Congress, entitled Abraham Lincoln: The Crucible of Congress, was published in 1979.