From Out of the Top Hat: A Blog from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum

The February 1994 cover of Scientific American showed a publicity photograph of Marilyn Monroe, from the 1955 movie The Seven Year Itch, arm and arm with an 1863 image of Abraham Lincoln by Alexander Gardner.  The purpose of the cover was to show how digital photography could create photographic images for events that never happened.  Lacking a film negative as reference, digital images make it impossible to distinguish between a scene that reflects an actual event and one that digitally creates a mythical event.

Although Marilyn Monroe never met Abraham Lincoln as depicted on the cover of Scientific American, she did admire him and on at least four occasions was photographed with images of Lincoln or with the greatest popularizer of Lincoln, Carl Sandburg.  The number of biographies of her pales in comparison with those devoted to Abraham Lincoln, but a theme common in most is that she looked upon Lincoln as the father she never knew in childhood.  During a visit to Bryant Cottage in Bement, Illinois, in August 1955, Marilyn Monroe told a reporter, “I have honored and admired Mr. Lincoln since I first heard about him.  As a child, he represented sort of a father to me.  But then I guess he does for everyone in the U.S.”   Her appearance generated a crowd of 10,000 curious onlookers.  Bringing in tow her own photographer, Eve Arnold, Monroe had her visit documented at the house museum where legend, not historical documentation, claims that Lincoln and Douglas met to establish the schedule for debates in 1858.

Bust of Carl Sandburg by Joseph Konzal, ca. 1955. Previously owned by Marilyn Monroe. Part of the Taper Collection now owned by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

The earliest image of Monroe and Lincoln was taken in 1954 by the famed photographer Milton H. Greene.  It shows Monroe standing in a Cadillac convertible holding up a framed photograph of Abraham Lincoln.  The car was a gift from Jack Benny for Monroe’s appearance on his television show The Jack Benny Program.  Milton’s son, Joshua, created a limited edition of 500 copies of this famous photograph that were each stamped, numbered, and signed.  He presented one such copy in 2007 to the Lincoln Collection at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

Len Steckler, a New York City photographer, took a series of three images of Marilyn Monroe and Carl Sandburg in his apartment in December 1961.  Steckler had studied photography with, among others, Edward Steichen, Carl Sandburg’s brother-in-law.  As a photographer, Steckler was called upon to capture images of many celebrities, and he soon formed a friendship with Sandburg.  Steckler also became acquainted with Marilyn Monroe.  These professional relationships led to the meeting between the 35-year-old Monroe and the 83-year-old Sandburg. 

The last meeting between Monroe and Sandburg took place in January 1962 in Hollywood.  Arnold Newman, the legendary New York photographer, was at the small gathering that included Monroe and Sandburg.  Seven images from that evening survive, including one that shows Sandburg teaching Monroe breathing exercises, although most people would conclude that they are dancing.  Monroe had trouble sleeping, and, according to Sandburg, breathing properly would help.

An interesting reference to Lincoln is found in the 1960 George Cukor film Let’s Make Love, starring Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand.  The basic plot has a playboy billionaire businessman, played by Montand, attending a rehearsal in Greenwich Village of the independent Let’s Make Love musical theater company.  The director/producer of the show mistakenly thinks Montand is an actor look-alike of the billionaire who wants a part in the show.  Montand pretends to be an actor to woo Marilyn Monroe, only to find it difficult at the end of the film to prove his true identity.  Worried that Montand is delusional, Monroe provides the following bit of advice:

“There used to be an actor, he played Abraham Lincoln for so many years.  He grew his own beard.  He went around in a shawl.  And you know what they used to say?

He looks like Lincoln, talks like Lincoln.  But he won’t be satisfied until he gets shot.”

It would be interesting to know if Monroe had a hand in adding this reference to the script.  Certainly she was one of Lincoln’s biggest fans.

Abraham and Mary Lincoln employed a number of hired servants over the almost two decades at their Springfield residence.  Among the many individuals who served them was a black house servant named Epsy Smith.  Her association with the Lincoln family undoubtedly accounts for this lengthy obituary that appeared in the
(Springfield) Illinois State Journal, on Tuesday, May 10, 1892, p. 1, col. 6:

                                        SHE WORKED FOR LINCOLN

                                        Death of a Negress Who Knew
                                        Much About Father Abraham.
                                        Aunt Epsy Smith Passes Away in a Rick-
                                        etty Tenement House in Chicago –
                                        Her Eventful History.

“It was in one of the dilapidated old frame tenement houses on Dearborn St. near Sixteenth, Chicago, where the rattle and roar of constantly passing trains never cease, and where such a thing as a garbage cart or street sweeper is unknown, that “Aunt” Epsy Smith died.  It was near 1 o’clock Sunday morning that she breathed her last.  She was of African descent and unknown, so to speak, in the great metropolis, but she had an eventful life — one of almost historic interest.

The 1835 indenture for Hepsey, a mulatto girl who worked for the Ninian W. Edwards family and, she explained, for the Lincoln family.

Away back in 1827 she was a protégé of Ninian Edwards, at the time governor of Illinois.  She was present at the wedding of Abraham and Mary Todd, and after the wedding was a servant in Lincoln’s home.  She nursed Robert T. Lincoln, the present minister to the court of St. James, when he was a baby.  Her death was caused by the grip, from which she had been suffering since last March.  Her exact age is not known, for she was born a slave and no record of birth was made.  But as near as could be told she was about 72 years old.

Epsy Arnsby Smith was her name in full and she was born on the plantation of Arnold Spear, near Shelbyville, Ky.  The Spears were old friends of Ninian Edwards and shortly after his election as governor Mrs. Spears visited the family and brought Epsy, who was at that time 7 or 8 years old, along as a waiting maid.  She was bright and active and the governor took a liking to her, and when Mrs. Spears was getting ready to return home, she gave the child to him.

When Epsy was a miss, Miss Mary Todd, Mrs. Edwards’ sister, came from Kentucky to live with the governor’s family.  About this time Abraham Lincoln became a frequent visitor at the governor’s mansion and he generally asked for Miss Todd.  It was Epsy’s duty to answer the call and in after years she used to tell her children and grandchildren how she used to usher “Massa Linkum” into the house when he was “a cortin’ Mistus Mary.”

She witnessed the wedding ceremony when Lincoln was married, and during the first few years of his married life she was his house servant.  Then she became engaged to Robert Smith, a colored man living in Vandalia.  Shortly before her wedding she came back to live with the family of Governor Edwards and was married at his house by the minister who performed the ceremony for Lincoln.  And the dress she wore on that occasion, a black brocaded silk, was a present from Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln.

Years rolled by: Lincoln was elected president; the war came and the slaves of the south were freed.  Among the first negroes to come north was “Aunt” Epsy’s father, and the proudest day of his life was when his daughter told him that she had worked for the man who had set him free.

 In 1861 her husband died and then she sold her little home and moved to Greenville, where she lived with her daughter Mrs. Julia Barbee, until last March, when she went to Chicago to live with another daughter, Mrs. Catherine Jackson, 1630 Dearborn street.  Mrs. Jakie Smith, also her daughter, went with her.  She had been there but a few days when she became ill with the grip.  Enfeebled by old age she lingered along until Sunday morning, when she was taken with a spasm and died.  As there was no physician in attendance at the time of her death the matter was reported to Lieutenant Gallagher of the armory, who notified the coroner.

After relating the story of her mother’s life Sunday night Mrs. Smith spoke of the anxiety the poor old “mammie” felt lest she should not be buried by the side of her dead husband in the old graveyard at Vandalia. “But we are too poor to send the body there,” she continued, “and I am afraid her dying request cannot be granted.  I know if Massa Robert Lincoln were here he would help us.  But then he is so far away we can’t let him know

 The funeral will be held today from the dingy tenement house where the old woman died.”

The question arises, Was Epsy Smith the same person as an indentured mulatto girl named Hepsey?  Indentures were contractual relationships in which minors were taught employable skills in return for having their basic needs provided.  Ninian Wirt Edwards, who would become Abraham Lincoln’s brother-in-law, signed an indenture of apprenticeship on October 29, 1835, for Hepsey, who was described as “a mulatto girl aged eleven years …having no parent or guardian.”  Edwards agreed to provide her “good holesome (sic) and sufficient meat drink washing lodging and apparel suitable and proper for such an apprentice and needful medical attention in care of sickness and will cause her to be instructed in the best way and most approved manner of domestic housewifery and will cause her to be taught to read and at the expiration of her term of service will give unto her a new bible and two new suits of clothes suitable and proper for summer and winter wear.”  This arrangement lasted until Hepsey’s 18^th birthday. 

Most leading families in Springfield used hired help.  Indentures from the period of the 1830s and 1840s showed that blacks and “mulattos” were the source of this hired help.  If Edwards was using a phonetic spelling for Hepsey, there is little difference between Hepsey and Epsy.  (The same is true with early Lincoln campaign biographies that confused Abram with Abraham.)  That Epsy was clearly part of the Edwards household and witnessed the Lincoln marriage suggests that Elizabeth sent Hepsey to work for her sister Mary after her service ended with the Edwards family.  In fact, Hepsey and Epsy were undoubtedly one and the same.

If Abraham and Mary Lincoln were largely responsible for destroying their own family papers before leaving for Washington, D.C., in 1861, then what did Robert T. Lincoln burn in later years?  Fortunately for historians he wrote down a listing of destroyed documents, in a volume sold as Burr’s Library Index.  His index was created to navigate through his extensive retained correspondence files.  Near the end of the volume there is an entry with the cryptic heading “Papers burned in 1895 and after.”  It is worth transcribing the entire contents of that list, in order to give insight into Robert Lincoln’s behavior.

Robert Lincoln’s list of ‘Papers burned in 1895 & after’

Papers burned in 1895 and after

All my family letters
All M.L. letters of 1875-6
Cheques, 1869-87 incl. 88-89-90-91 & 92
Rects [receipts] 1870-87 incl. 88-89
Washington House lease and papers
Old S&L Docket
All M.H.L. Cheques

Dec 98  All Cash books and ledgers except those current
Dec 00  Old Telephone & Gas Company papers
Dec 03  1897 Res [residential] repair and alterations receipts
Nov 03  Letters to R.T.L. 1877/1879
May 1911  Letters to R.T.L. Since to now—except 10 cases sifted letters kept
May 1911  All Receipts except my late ones
Oct 1913  All Hildene building correspondence
Oct 10-14  All but half a dozen old letters to R.T.L. while attor(?) from Chicago
Oct 10-14  All cheques up to 1905

The list clearly shows that Robert destroyed not his father’s papers, but his own.  It was a common practice to destroy personal letters of a private nature, which accounts for burning the correspondence between himself and his wife.  The period of 1875-6 follows his mother’s confinement and conservatorship, which was undoubtedly a difficult period for both mother and son.  But Robert did not destroy all of these letters, as is evident from the materials that comprise “the insanity file” he kept as a separate folder (the basis for a book published in 1986).  Everything else were things he no longer needed, such as old cancelled checks and business correspondence, materials that most people today put through a shredder rather than burn.

It is likely that Robert lost some of his father’s papers in the 1871 Chicago Fire, or at least he used that fire as an excuse.  In response to one autograph seeker, Robert responded: “I am not the possessor of any autograph letter of my father.  Everything of that kind owned by me was burned in the Chicago Fire.”  When thieves broke into the stable adjoining Robert’s Chicago mansion, he dismissed the matter, claiming the items were “a great many old odds and ends such as books, possibly letters, and that class of things which a man hardly knows what to do with, and yet is very averse to destroying.”

Nicolas Murray Butler’s claim, after Robert’s death, that he prevented Robert from destroying his father’s letters feeds a popular notion of Robert as cold, calculating, and secretive.  Those who knew Robert found him much like his father, and certainly no son did more to patiently deal with the endless requests for a document signed by Abraham Lincoln, endorse a book or painting about Abraham Lincoln, or satisfy the curiosity of the general public who wanted to know his father’s likes and dislikes.  Too much of Abraham Lincoln’s life was already on display for public consumption to be altered by a conspiracy to burn his papers.  The most damning accusations were not contained in Lincoln’s letters but in the published recollections of his associates and friends that lack any independent verification.  It is time to let this conspiracy charge go up in smoke.

Evidently the only live sketch of Lincoln en route to Washington in February 1861.

One of the lesser-known artists of Abraham Lincoln was Freeman Thorp.  Born in Geneva, Ohio, on June 16, 1844, Thorp developed an interest in art.  On February 15, 1861, he took some cardboard and pencils to sketch the train that carried president-elect Abraham Lincoln to Washington, D.C.  The ALPLM acquired the sketch in the 1950s.

Although only a lad, not yet 17 years of age, Thorp had ambition.  Geneva was not a scheduled stop on the route, but Thorp got lucky.  According to Thorp’s daughter, Sarah:

“… Lincoln’s Inaugural train was held for a half-hour or so at Geneva, Ohio, for some minor repairs.  Thorp was at the station to see the train go thro; and armed, as always, with pencil and cardboard, he made the first sketch-in while Mr. Lincoln good-naturedly addressed the waiting crowd.  Thorp was hanging by one long leg over the iron railing of the rear platform of Mr. Lincoln’s coach.  After the sketch had been returned to him (in 1903 or 4) after its long burial in a barrel of waste papers in the Capitol basement, he spent long hours at various times in ‘re-touching’ the face.”

The “barrel of waste papers in the Capitol basement” refers to a time in the 1870s when Thorp was provided a studio “on top of the Capitol, and there for twenty years he worked.”  If this family recollection is accurate, Thorp created the only artist’s portrait of Lincoln en route to Washington, D.C.

Thorp also wrote down his own notes for later reference.  Likely he referred to them when he completed his Lincoln portrait for the United States Senate, which the federal government purchased for $2,000 in 1920.  Clearly the pencil sketch begun in 1861 was referenced in the 1920 portrait.  Here is Thorp’s 1861 description of Abraham Lincoln:

Abraham Lincoln
Descriptive delineation

Hair dark brown Beard dark brown in front of the ears and at the ends but light brown from the ears down to the middle of the chin upper lip only shaved Eyebrows heavy Eyes blue gray deep set much in shadows but clear and well defined, complexion neither florid nor pale but dark a slight mole on the right cheek in no way disfigured his face figure tall and slim, not slender: but muscular features strong rugged expression earnest animated thoughtful with inherent kindness.

Lincoln described himself as having black hair and gray eyes, but those points are mere quibbles given the dim lighting that day, and given that Thorp was able to observe Lincoln only for a brief time.

A popular myth of 1937, based upon the inventive imagination of Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, claimed that Robert Todd Lincoln destroyed many of his father’s papers.  A decade later the great Lincoln scholar David Mearns amply documented why Butler was mistaken in his assumptions about what Robert was burning.  Undoubtedly Butler may have seen Robert burning papers, but they were not those of Abraham Lincoln.  They were probably Robert’s own correspondence and cancelled checks.  What is most often overlooked by historians is what Abraham and Mary Lincoln destroyed before they left for Washington, D.C.

Carl Sandburg’s 1949 portrait of famed Lincoln collector Oliver Barrett provides an entire chapter to describe Barrett’s acquisition of Lincoln manuscripts saved from the flames.  Colorful monikers such as the “hot stove letters” or the “bonfire letters” indicate that the Lincolns themselves were the agents of destruction.  All of the incidents occur as part of their housecleaning in the period immediately before the Lincolns left Springfield in 1861.  The “hot stove letters” threatened death or physical violence upon the president-elect.  Lincoln gladly gave these letters to a cabinetmaker who wished some type of souvenir from Springfield’s most famous citizen.  The “bonfire letters” contained some of the only correspondence exchanged by the Lincolns while he served in Congress.  Mrs. Lincoln was attending to a burn pile in the backyard when a neighbor asked for some of these items.

Further evidence of this practice comes from a letter, now in the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, of Truman H. Bartlett to Mrs. Ada Bailhache.  She was the daughter of Mason Brayman, a legal associate of Abraham Lincoln, and the wife of the editor of the Illinois State Journal.  Bartlett was a Boston artist who spent years interviewing individuals who had known Lincoln, and trying to collect every bit of information about Lincoln’s appearance and habits.  Writing on July 2, 1908, Bartlett inquires:

 “Dear Mrs. Bailhache,

Can you remember if the photo you think is the best of Lincoln was originally a photo or an ambrotype or tintype & small size?  Many of the early pictures of Lincoln were tintypes & ambrotypes.  I have heard on good authority that Mrs. Lincoln burnt many of these little pictures just before she left for Washington in ’61.  Horrid fact!

Yours truly,

T. H. Bartlett”

Writing on Bartlett’s original letter, Ada Bailhache replied:

“I cannot remember if the photo I thought best of Lincoln was an ambrotype or tintype and I think it very probable that Mrs. Lincoln did destroy papers — before leaving for Washington as that is the usual custom of housekeeping on breaking up a home.”

While modern observers may share Bartlett’s shock that significant original materials pertaining to Lincoln were destroyed, the acts of destruction seemed less to hide information than to dispose of accumulated clutter.  Both Abraham and Mary Lincoln freely allowed friends and neighbors to take what they wanted from burn piles.  Unlike America’s founding generation, who were self-aware that they were making history and kept meticulous correspondence files, most Illinois political figures of Lincoln’s generation left meager paper trails.  Stephen A. Douglas, a large figure in state and national politics, left correspondence comprising one small volume.  A casual examination of The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln suggests that the dearth of letters from the 1840s and the early 1850s indicates that the bulk of material may have been consumed in burn piles.

Rescued from the burn pile: Lincoln’s 1848 letter from “this troublesome world.”

A classic gag line from the Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera deals with contract clauses.  Groucho reassures Chico about the contract: “That’s in every contract, that’s what you call a sanity clause.”  To which Chico responds: “You can’t fool me, there ain’t no sanity clause.”  The question of the existence of Santa Claus is the theme of the movie A Miracle on 34^th Street.  Maureen O’Hara plays a divorced mother, Doris Walker, who hires Edmund Gwenn, who plays the character Kris Kringle, to be a seasonal department store Santa Claus.  When she discovers that the person she hired actually believes himself to be the real Santa Claus, Doris must decide whether to keep the very popular Kris Kringle on staff or dismiss him as potentially dangerous and delusional.  Julian Shellhammer, played by actor Philip Tonge, is a colleague of Doris and offers her this advice: “But … but maybe he’s only a little crazy like painters or composers or some of those men in Washington.” 

Abraham Lincoln as Santa Claus, Comic Monthly Dec. 1864

This brings us to the mysterious statements made by the painter Freeman Thorp, who claimed to have sketched Lincoln from life on two separate occasions.  Thorp was born in Geneva, Ohio, and claimed that he made a pencil sketch of president-elect Lincoln as the train passed through the town on its way to Washington, D.C.  (This sketch will be the subject of a later blog.)  Thorp was an accomplished painter who did numerous oil portraits of famous Washington figures that hang in the United States Capitol.  They include Abraham Lincoln, James G. Blaine, Schuyler Colfax, David B. Henderson, and Joseph G. Cannon.  The success of his art career allowed him to retire in Pequot Lakes, Minnesota.  But time was not kind, and the painter died a poor man in Brainerd, Minnesota, in 1922.  Shortly before his death, Thorp wrote the following letter which remained unfinished but made a rather astonishing claim.  It is unclear to whom it was directed other than ‘Editor.’  Spelling and punctuation have been modernized.

                                                                        “Hubert Minn. Dec 24^th 1921

“Editor

            “Dear Sir If you care to consider a matter that can easily be of great importance to your paper to the country and to the world I will be glad to give you all the facts in the matter.  As to my personal standing and reputation I can refer you to the Senior Senator from Minnesota Knut Nelson to my congressman Harold Knutson whip of the House, and Geo. D. Lass President of the First National Bank of Brainerd, Minn. my banker and if permitted will come to Chicago and present convincing proof of what I desire to lay before you.  In brief it is about Lincoln is new and has never been given to or published in any paper as an item of Lincoln’s life, is by far the most important to mankind of any of the great ideas of his master mind, and more important to the World than any other idea of any mortal man in the World, as you will yourself see, if it is practical and I have the indisputable proof that it is easily practical.  The idea is wholly Lincolns no other man ever thought it out or even thought of it.  Yet put in general operation, it will make every acre of land in the World, upland or lowland, desert or swamp, hill or valley the best in the world for the production of all that the world wants in food or raw material of a vegetable nature for life, health, comfort, and enjoyment, producing 4 times as much per acre as can now be done by the best methods now known to Agriculture.  Fruit, timber growth or grazing, and doing this by the Lincoln method eliminates floods, drought, and any possible famine, converts stream beds now alternately dry or flood of muddy water, into living streams of pure water all the year round, quadrupling the water power, maintaining a uniform navigable stage of rivers, makes it unnecessary for the United States to ever buy or import a dollar’s worth of nitrogen, potash, phosphate, guano, or any commercial fertilizer, enables the continued cropping of the soil for any number of years without lowering its fertility.  All this with less labor per acre than now required to make the meager living of the farmer by much harder labor than this requires. Of course this seems incredible but it has been worked out proven absolutely and put in operation on my demonstration tract of 1500 acres here at Hubert, Minn., and is easily practical for the whole World.  If I can be assured of a hearing I will gladly come to Chicago soon after the New Year at my own expense and go over the whole matter with you showing how I came to know Lincoln and what is more important to know more about him, and the ideas of his than any other man has ever had the opportunity to know that which it is important to learn about him.”

Thorp does not provide a clue to what Lincoln’s “great idea” might be.  The only evidence Thorp offers is that it was tested on his own farm in Hubert, Minn.  That he died poor the following October does not offer much evidence of the success of Lincoln’s idea.  Clearly, Thorp was more successful at delineating images of people than their ideas.

The memorable holiday character of Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’s 1843 classic A Christmas Carol brought into popular usage the phrase “Bah! Humbug!”  Scrooge went beyond ignoring the holiday.  He believed it to be a conspiracy of slackers to get a day off from work.  “A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December,” exclaimed Scrooge.  Ultimately, Scrooge’s problem was his inability to embrace the spirit of the season that also included reconnecting with friends, family, and the less fortunate.  The Scrooge model is supported by a recent study suggesting that the higher one’s socioeconomic status, the lower the “empathic accuracy.”  In other words, one becomes less attuned to the needs of others.  In the triumphal ending, Scrooge’s change of heart also allows for the future of individuals such as Tiny Tim to change as well. 

There is little evidence that Abraham Lincoln celebrated Christmas in ways that Charles Dickens’s novella helped advance: holiday dinner, a Yule log, the exchange of presents, stockings by the fireplace, and a decorated tree.  Subscribing to earlier Protestant traditions of visiting friends at New Year’s, the Lincolns apparently never embraced the emerging Victorian symbols of celebration. 

Looking at what is firmly documented for Lincoln’s activities on December 25^th, we find most of his time spent on letter-writing and, throughout the presidency, dealing with affairs of state.  While serving in the Illinois Legislature in Vandalia, Lincoln voted against adjourning for Christmas.  While serving in the United States House of Representatives, Lincoln spent the 1848 holiday straightening out an old legal issue with his friend Joshua Speed, ending the letter, “Nothing of consequence new here, beyond what you see in the papers.”

December 25, 1861, offers two different views of the Lincoln family.  It is clear that the Lincoln boys spent the day with the Taft family.  Daughter Julia would frequently bring over her brothers Bud and Holly to play with Willie and Tad Lincoln.  She later gave a series of lectures at the Chicago Historical Society (now the Chicago History Museum) about her memories of the Lincoln Executive Mansion.  These lectures were published as a book, Tad Lincoln’s Father (1931).  Julia’s father, Horatio Nelson Taft, kept a diary and recorded this for Wednesday, December 25, 1861: “It has been quite a noisey day about the house.  Our three boys and the Two Lincoln boys have been very busy fireing off Crackers & Pistols.  Willie & Thomas Lincoln staid to Dinner at 4 o’clock.”  Meantime, Abraham and Mary Lincoln were entertaining friends from Kentucky and Illinois as well as some members of his cabinet.  Orville Hickman Browning, who was appointed to serve out the remainder of the Senate seat of the late Stephen A. Douglas, was at this dinner.  There is nothing in his diary entry to suggest holiday flair.  It was during this time that diplomatic difficulties with England, over the seizure of two Confederate diplomats from the British mail packet Trent, were at a climax.  According to Browning, Lincoln pulled him aside following the dinner and reassured him that problems over the Trent affair had been amicably resolved.

That it was business as usual at the Executive Mansion on December 25, 1861, is suggested by private secretary John Nicolay.  Writing to his fiancée Therena Bates, Nicolay jokes: “John [Hay] and I are moping the day away here in our offices like a couple of great owls in their holes, and expect in an hour or two to go down to Willards and get our ‘daily bread’ just as we do on each of the other three hundred and sixty four days of the year.”  Once again, the New Year’s reception served as the most significant holiday on the White House social calendar.

In “The Union Christmas Dinner” of 1864, Lincoln invites Rebel soldiers to take their state-named seats at the table once again.

Lincoln received all sorts of gifts throughout the year.  A specific Christmas gift was sent by telegram on Tuesday, December 20, 1864:

To His Excellency President Lincoln:

I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.

W.T. Sherman

Major-General

Undoubtedly one of the most unusual gifts was sent a few weeks before December 25, 1864, by the famed hunter and mountain man Seth Kinman.  Sporting buckskin and long unkempt hair to match a long bushy beard, Kinman began presenting chairs made from animal bones and skins to presidents beginning with James Buchanan and continuing at least through Rutherford B. Hayes.  On November 26, 1864, Kinman visited Lincoln in Washington to present a chair made from elk horns.  Alfred Waud, an artist and illustrator, captured the scene in a drawing now at the Library of Congress.  Lincoln is seen examining Kinman’s rifle, with the elk horn chair in the background.  Clearly, Lincoln was amused by his unusual visitor, who also played two songs for the president on a violin made from the skull of his mule, Dave.

The chair eventually was given by Robert Todd Lincoln to Clinton Lloyd, a friend of Kinman and Chief Clerk of the House of Representatives.  It eventually was passed on to his son, George B. Lloyd of Springfield, Illinois, where it was displayed on several occasions and then disappeared.  Like so many unusual holiday gifts such as gaudy ties, snow globes, and overly imaginative mugs and tea sets, the elk horn chair, one might hope, has been re-gifted with the possibility of resurfacing some day.

1856 Republican ballot, showing Lincoln as an at-large presidential elector for Illinois.

 On August 30, 1860, Abraham Lincoln wrote a reply to Alexander Kelly McClure about the upcoming presidential contest.  McClure, a lawyer, newspaper editor, and chairman of the Pennsylvania State Republican Committee, kept in frequent communication with the Republican presidential nominee.  Lincoln wished to clarify how his chances of victory were materializing in the Keystone State.  “When you say you are organizing in every election district,” Lincoln queried, “do you mean to include the idea that you are ‘canvassing’—‘counting noses?’”  McClure responded that he was counting noses to “the man” in most districts and obtaining a careful “estimate” by loyal party men in the remaining districts.  All signs suggested that Pennsylvania’s 27 electoral votes would go to Lincoln. 

The Electoral College, not a majority of voters, determines who occupies the White House.  Having supporters and detractors over the centuries, the Electoral College was opposed early in his life by Lincoln, who then changed his mind.  Writing on February 13, 1848, to Josephus Hewett, a former Springfield lawyer, Lincoln argued: 

 “I was once of your opinion, expressed in your letter, that presidential electors should be dispensed with; but a more thorough knowledge of the causes that first introduced them, has made me doubt.  Those causes were briefly these.  The convention that framed the constitution has this difficulty: the small states wished to so frame the new government as that they might be equal to the large ones regardless of the inequality of population; the large ones insisted on equality in proportion to population.  They compromised it, by basing the House of Representatives on population, and the Senate on states regardless of population; and the executive on both principles, by electors in each state, equal in numbers to her senators and representatives.  Now, throw away the machinery of electors, and the compromise is broken up, and the whole yielded to the principle of the large states.” 

 While many Jacksonian Democrats preferred to do away with the Electoral College, all political operatives had to yield to the necessity of calculating the electoral math. 

A recently acquired form letter illustrates the calculations which political insiders were generating in anticipation of the 1860 election.  Dr. Charles Leib, a former Pennsylvanian residing in Chicago, began to distribute form letters in late 1859 urging Republican leaders to consider Simon Cameron, a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, as the party’s presidential candidate.  Arguing the electoral math, Leib states: “If we nominate Gen. Cameron and add to the vote of Col. Fremont (114) that of Pennsylvania (27,) New Jersey (7,) Kansas (3) and Minnesota (4,) we will elect him by one majority, if even the democracy [i.e., the Democratic Party] should carry the vote of Illinois (11,) Indiana (13,) California (4) and Oregon (3,) which, however, it will be impossible for them to do.”  Leib warns that “should a candidate be nominated who cannot carry Pennsylvania and New Jersey, he will fail of an election by two votes, should he receive the support of every other free state.”  The letter ends with an electoral breakdown based upon sections — the vote divided between free versus slave states. 

The electoral math was clear to many in both the North and the South that the new Republican party would be able to capture the White House in 1860 if it could build upon its electoral foundation of 1856.  That meant running a moderate who would be appealing in such states as Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kansas, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, California, and Oregon.  It was also clear to Southerners that unless they could run a Northern Democrat who was partial to protecting slavery, the electoral math was against them in any election based upon sectional interests.

   “You must write me a good long letter after you get this,” implored Abraham Lincoln to his estranged fiancée, Mary S. Owens.  “You have nothing else to do, and though it might not seem interesting to you, after you had written it, it would be a good deal of company to me in this ‘busy wilderness.’”  Lincoln’s reference to Sangamon County as a ‘busy wilderness” was written only slightly in jest.  Indeed, Lincoln shared the expansive dreams that most residents had for the future of the county and the towns that had sprung up within its boundaries.  The dreams were built on visions of personal happiness and material advancement.  A fundamental element in realizing these visions rested upon the United States Postal System. 

   Tradition has it that Abraham Lincoln was appointed postmaster of New Salem after women of the village complained about the poor service being given by Samuel Hill and petitioned for his removal.  Even though Lincoln was an anti-Jackson man, President Andrew Jackson approved Lincoln’s appointment, being one among hundreds of postmaster applications to be approved.  The postal system was 19^th -century America’s version of the Internet.  The mails transported information that helped individuals in business and professional development, and the mails provided personal correspondence of the nature Lincoln was seeking from Mary Owens –  letters that could be read again and again in the absence of a loved one.  Letters were precious objects, conveying heartfelt sentiments and sharing experiences and dreams for a better life. 

   A small collection of letters sent from New Salem by residents Matthew Marsh and James Fox Clarke describes the rich Illinois prairie soil and the wonderful opportunities for farming and raising a family.  By enticing family and friends from the exhausted soils of New England to a new life in Illinois, the letters were part of a chain migration, encouraging the rapid settlement of the area. The post office also provided access to newspapers and political speeches made by congressmen, connecting individuals on the frontier to a larger identity as a community, state, and nation.

   Abraham Lincoln’s brief, three-year tenure as postmaster offered him many benefits.  Since mail was not delivered, people had to pick their mail up from Lincoln; this system allowed him to read the various state and national newspapers subscribed to by various residents.  Unlike service today by which the sender pays for the cost of postage, in Lincoln’s time as postmaster, the recipient paid for the privilege of receiving mail.  Postal rates varied depending on the distance traveled and the number of pages in the letter.  A single sheet cost 6 cents for the first 30 miles, and up to 25 cents for more than 400 miles.  But Lincoln was willing to accommodate the residents of the area and occasionally placed correspondence in his hat if he were traveling in the direction of postal patrons located miles outside the village.  He also bent the rules by using his franking privileges as postmaster to waive the cost of a letter for a resident.  Mathew Marsh provided a sketch of Lincoln as postmaster in a letter to his brother: “he is a very clever fellow and a particular friend of mine.  If he is there when I carry this [letter] to the office—I will get him to ‘Frank’ it.”  And frank it Lincoln did, saving George Marsh 25 cents.

   New Salem gave way to the town of Petersburg, ending Lincoln’s career as postmaster on May 30, 1836.   Lincoln had clearly enjoyed his brief stint as postmaster.  He provided the line of communication with the larger world beyond frontier Illinois.  The office allowed a young man with political ambitions an opportunity to meet and mingle with townspeople and farmers alike.  And by connecting with the outside world, the office brought new information and ideas to feed the ambitions and imagination of people, like Lincoln, who saw their future in the further settlement and growth of Illinois.

The painting ‘Lincoln the Postmaster at New Salem, Illinois,’ by Fletcher C. Ransom (1942).

  As Election Day nears, candidates will be out shaking as many hands as possible to indicate to the voters that they are approachable and just ordinary folks.  Baby kissing, once fashionable for candidates, has lost much of its early charm.  The declining appeal probably can be traced to greater awareness of how germs and disease are spread by both hand shaking and kissing.  Barack Obama describes how George W. Bush handled the problem:

   “Obama!” the President said, shaking my hand. “Come here and meet Laura.  Laura, you remember Obama.  We saw him on TV during election night. Beautiful family.  And that wife of yours — that’s one impressive lady.”

   “We both got better than we deserve, Mr. President,” I said, shaking the First Lady’s hand and hoping that I’d wiped any crumbs off my face.  The President turned to an aide nearby, who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the President’s hand.

   “Want some? the President asked.  “Good stuff.  Keeps you from getting colds.”

   Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt.

Lacking both hand sanitizer and a fully developed concept of germs and disease, Lincoln thought of hand shaking as a symbol of trust and friendship.  In formal receiving lines, kid gloves were worn that provided some protection against direct transfer of germs from palm to palm.  But many of Lincoln’s handshake encounters were without gloves, exposing skin to skin.

   Elbridge Atwood, a Springfield resident, wrote to his sister on August 5, 1860, describing an upcoming political rally: “at least all creation are coming and some of the rest of mankind, I pity Old Abe for he will have to stand and shake hands all day.  He is a first rate fellow to shake hands, and every body likes to shake hands with him.”

   Lincoln seems to have had hands of steel, hardened by his frontier experience.  On November 24, 1860, Hannibal Hamlin wrote to his wife, complaining about being in a receiving line with president-elect Lincoln: “They came by thousands.  For two hours and a half it was a continuous shaking of hands.  My hand is sore indeed and I began to doubt if all the bones in it had not been squeezed out.”

   The greatest marathon hand shaking by the President is recorded by the Commissioner of Public Buildings, Benjamin Brown French.  Describing the reception following Lincoln’s Second Inaugural address as “the largest reception I ever saw,” French offered these observations: “From 8 till ¼ past 11 the president shook hands steadily, at the rate of 100 every 4 minutes — with about 5,000 persons!  Over, rather than under, for I counted the 100 several times, and when they came the thickest he was not over 3 minutes, never over 5.  It was a grand ovation of the People to their President, whom they dearly love.”  Lincoln performed another marathon exhibition of hand shaking a month later at the Depot Field Hospital at City Point, Virginia.  Wanting to show his appreciation for the soldiers’ sacrifice for their country, Lincoln shook an estimated 5,000 hands.  Theodore Roosevelt holds the record for shaking hands on the traditional New Year’s Day White House reception.  Approximately 8,513 individuals were greeted by Roosevelt’s hardy hand shake on January 1, 1907.

Volk had Lincoln grasp a broom handle to steady his swollen hand.

   Even Lincoln’s hand grew sore on occasion.  Leonard Wells Volk recalled that while making a plaster casting of Lincoln’s hands “the right hand appeared swollen as compared with the left, on account of excessive hand-shaking the evening before.”  The most famous incident of a sore hand concerns the Emancipation Proclamation.  Lincoln planned to sign the document before the New Year’s reception of dignitaries, but errors in the text required that it be rewritten.  The corrected document was delivered to the Executive Mansion after Lincoln had shaken hundreds of hands.  Lincoln picked up a pen to sign it but stopped because his hand had small tremors after three hours of shaking hands.  When the tremors subsided, he picked up his pen and signed the document, declaring, “I have never in my life felt more certain that I was doing right than I do in signing this paper.”

   Much less frequent than hand shaking, although more appealing to Lincoln, was the opportunity to kiss young ladies on the cheek.  When the president-elect’s train stopped in Westfield, New York, Grace Bedell, the 11-year-old girl who had written to Lincoln to suggest that he grow a beard, was rewarded both by a hand shake and a kiss.  Bedell recalled that Lincoln told her, “You see I let these whiskers grow for you Grace.”

   Benjamin Brown French also documents a marathon kissing session after the Second Inaugural ceremonies.  “In the procession,” wrote French in his diary, “was a sort of triumphal car, splendidly trimmed, ornamented and arranged, in which rode thirty-four young girls.  On our return, the girls all alighted, & I took them in and introduced them to the President.  He asked to be allowed to kiss them all, & he did so.  It was a very interesting scene, & elicited much applause.”  There are no accounts indicating if Lincoln’s whiskers tickled any of the young ladies.