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

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s battle to get the better of his state’s unionized public employees reminds us that a century and a half ago, on September 30, 1859, Abraham Lincoln appeared at the Wisconsin state fair in Milwaukee to deliver a well-wrought speech on the subject of “labor.”   

He collected $100 for a witty and sparkling meditation on the joys of all disciplined work.  Quipping that farmers should beware of politicians singling them out for praise –since farmers “are neither better nor worse than other people,” only “more numerous”– he gave them the higher compliment of taking their work seriously. 

As a young man, Lincoln had preferred books to his father’s farm implements.  But as a 50-year-old politician he spoke appreciatively, even wistfully, of a rural landscape where the mechanical arts progressed amidst natural rhythms.  He sounded like a Walt Whitman evoking a world of daily wonders.

“Every blade of grass is a study,” he mused, “and to produce two, where there was but one, is both a profit and a pleasure.  And not grass alone; but soils, seeds, and seasons — hedges, ditches, and fences, draining, droughts, and irrigation — plowing, hoeing, and harrowing — reaping, mowing, and threshing — saving crops, pests of crops, diseases of crops, and what will prevent or cure them — implements, utensils, and machines, their relative merits, and how to improve them — hogs, horses, and cattle — sheep, goats, and poultry — trees, shrubs, fruits, and flowers — the thousand things of which these are specimens — each a world of study within itself.”

The Milwaukee speech isn’t well known today.  But part of what Lincoln said in 1859 at the Wisconsin state fair — and repeated nearly word for word in his better-known Annual Message to Congress on December 3, 1861 — turned up recently on Democratic and progressive websites during Governor Walker’s showdown with his state’s public workers and Democratic legislators.

The Sheboygan County Democratic Party website quoted Lincoln as saying, “labor is prior to, and independent of, capital.  Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.  Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

Those are indeed Lincoln’s words, but they didn’t mean to him what they suggest to us.  We imagine he’s siding with working people in their perennial campaign to wrest higher wages or greater job control from their employers.  We think he’s giving his support (“higher consideration”) to “labor” in its negotiations or stand-offs with “capital.”

But Lincoln meant something different.  When he spoke of labor and capital he was rejecting the idea that in America any essential conflict existed between them.  Labor got “higher consideration” from him because labor took logical and historical precedence.  It was the replenishing source of economic value.  It lay at the root of all capital.

Lincoln’s own personal image of the quintessential laborer may well have been the man wielding his trusty ax, turning a swath of forest to productive use like this barefoot, Paul-Bunyan-style Lincoln created by Charles Turzak in the 1930s.

Charles Turzak’s woodcut, ca. 1933, gives Lincoln the look of the working man he never aspired to be.

In America, Lincoln thought, people willing to work hard could expect eventually to convert their labor into some small pool of capital.  He was sure no permanent wage-earning class existed in the U.S.  Labor kept renewing its vitality as individuals kept clearing land or inventing new machines — like the hoped-for “steam plow” that Lincoln examined at length in his Wisconsin speech. 

In a speech in New Haven, Connecticut, in March 1860, he did publicly endorse the right of working people to strike (referring to a shoe strike in Lynn, Mass.).  But to him that just meant that free laborers were not slaves.  Free workers could “strike” — stop toiling — whenever they wished.  If their employer didn’t respond adequately to their grievances, they could seek opportunity elsewhere.  Dissatisfied workers needed only the right to quit, something slaves would never get.

As David Donald points out in his biography Lincoln (p. 234), the rail-splitter somehow managed to miss “the growing disparity of wealth between the poor and the rich,” and “gave scant attention to the growing number of factory workers who had little prospect of upward social mobility.”

Had Lincoln lived into the late nineteenth century, would his views have evolved?  We’ll never know.  What we do know is that he always felt special affection for those who started on a low rung of the economic ladder and strove to climb higher.  If he’d ever come to sense that American laborers’ upward path was blocked by new industrial conditions, he might well have given “higher consideration” to what we now call “pro-labor” views.

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.

History is not like wine or scotch; it does not get better as it gets older.  Much of the time it turns sour as the distance grows between the original event and our telling of it.

Yet in some cases the original story was vanishingly told by one person to another, who never wrote it down at all.  Then, it must be rediscovered.  Such a rediscovery happened two weeks ago at the Presidential Library.

In March 1901 a lady with good handwriting wrote from Boston to a well-known Lincoln collector in Chicago named Charles Gunther.  She enclosed, by registered mail, a highly interesting artifact.  She wrote:

“I send you the letter written by Willie Lincoln.  It is probably the only one in existence.  It was kept in the same box with a bon-bon he gave my uncle that was taken from the table at the banquet given for the Prince of Wales at the White House and some of it melted during the warm weather and got on the letter.  Very sincerely,  Adele Rathbun.”

Miss Rathbun was mostly incorrect.  Was her 1901 attention fixed upon the death of Queen Victoria 6 weeks earlier, and the ascent to the throne of the Prince of Wales?  That Prince, known now as Edward VII, had indeed been fêted at the White House, but in October 1860, by President Buchanan.

So Willie took no such bon-bon.  Nor was this the only letter he ever wrote; about 10 survive today.  

Still, this one is the earliest survivor.   In its entirety it reads:

Springfield  April 1859

Dear Friend

I will write you a few lines to let you know how I am getting along   I am pretty well  The roads are drying up  It is Sunday and a pleasant day   I have not any more to say so I must bring my letter to an end

Wm  W  Lincoln

The end 

Who was Adele’s “my uncle”?  Who was Willie’s “Dear friend”?  Since Willie makes no mention of an enclosed sweet, we assume that its recipient put the letter into a box with some chocolate – where else to save a letter from your friend?

The State Historical Library (now the ALPLM) acquired this letter and Adele’s in 1978 from a Chicago dealer, without any story.  It has lain orphan-like with a few later (and clean) missives by the dutiful Willie.  Gwen Podeschi, Reference Librarian at the ALPLM, was asked to start hunting ‘Rathbun.’  She found dozens of possibilities, but never an Adele, and no one the right age.  The key was her turning up of the marriage, in Springfield in June 1858, of Hannah Rathbun to Dr. John Shearer.  Aha: that would be Hannah Shearer, close friend of Mary Lincoln.  Some Maryists would know (but this historian did not) that Hannah’s first husband, Edward Rathbun, had died in Brooklyn, leaving her with two boys, Edward Rathbun, Jr., and James Miner Rathbun, obliging Hannah to move to the home of her brother, Springfield.  Hannah soon met and married Dr. Shearer, and they settled on 8^th Street across from the Lincolns.  The ‘uncle’ to whom Adele Rathbun referred was thus one of these Rathbun boys, sons of the Shearers.

The other clue was found, plainly enough, in Mary’s published letters.  On April 24, 1859, she sent the first of her 11 known letters to Hannah Shearer, who had left Springfield after only 8 months on 8^th Street, for the clear air of Wellsboro, Pennsylvania.  These letters are spicy, full of gossip (not all of it kind), as well as wistfulness for a distant friend whose boys were nearly the same ages as Willie and Tad Lincoln.  Mary wrote on April 24^th – Easter Sunday – and one can picture Willie sitting politely next to his mother, writing to his friend, too.  Mother to mother; son to son.

The sadness of this story, striking like so much in Mary Lincoln’s life, came by degrees.  The Shearers never quite managed a long-planned visit to the White House in 1861, implored though they were; and Willie died on Feb. 20, 1862.  War and death spoiled everything for nation and friends.  Mary never wrote Hannah again … except in November 1864 when she heard that Hannah’s oldest, Edward, Jr., had died.  And never after that.  How painful, yet again, must Mary’s memory of her own lost boy have been, in the reflection of his friend’s early death.

That death left the younger ex-neighbor, James Miner Rathbun, as the father of Adele.  Edward Jr. was thus the uncle in Adele’s 1901 letter.

The Rathbun boys, shortly after moving to Pennsylvania with mother Hannah and her new husband Dr. Shearer, welcomed a new baby brother, or rather half-brother.  The boy was christened William Lincoln Shearer.

The chocolate letter, for all its sad associations in the lives of Mary Lincoln and Hannah Rathbun Shearer, can now be remembered in a better way.  It remains as a happy, and colorful, remembrance of friendly mothers and sons, sharing two Easter Day letters.  Another Prince of Wales will soon ascend to the throne of the United Kingdom, new stories will be invented around that occasion.  Please keep your letters and emails, pass them to kids, and get the stories right.

Recently put on display in the Museum’s Treasures Gallery, this letter by 8-year-old Willie Lincoln is stained with chocolate.

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.

Welcome to “Stories from the Vault” the official podcast of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Each month we’ll be bringing you stories and insights about the artifacts, events, and life of our nation’s sixteenth President.

• Episode 1: We talk with our curator Dr. James Cornelius about our Featured Artifact of the Month for March. We also find out the story behind the donation of a rare photo of Mr. Lincoln’s son, Willie and we answer your questions submitted online. You may listen below or the episode is available for download here: Stories from the Vault Episode 1

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

President Obama, in his February 3, 2011, speech to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, got personal about his religious faith.   As he often does, he invoked Lincoln as a point of reference.  “The presidency has a funny way of making a person feel the need to pray,” Obama quipped.  “Abe Lincoln said, as many of you know, ‘I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.’”

The audience laughed appreciatively at the light-hearted Lincoln aside, some of them probably aware that Lincoln’s religiosity, like Obama’s, has been questioned.  In Obama’s case, many persist in suspecting he’s a half-hearted Christian, if not a closet Muslim, and in Lincoln’s case, some historians have doubted whether his religious language ran any deeper than his desire to please his Protestant supporters. 

In Lincoln, his renowned biography from 1995, David Herbert Donald ascribed the theological tenor of the second inaugural address to Lincoln’s desire to make contact with his vast northern audience of Christian believers.  Ronald White’s Lincoln’s Greatest Speech (2002) showed that Donald’s largely secular Lincoln needed to be retired.  

The president’s rationalism was intertwined, White argued, with deep religious conviction and pronounced theological interest.  Never a professed “technical” Christian, as his wife Mary put it, President Lincoln still took the power of God’s Providence very seriously. 

His apparent indifference toward the orthodox Christian belief in Jesus as redeemer didn’t stop him from embracing an updated version of his parents’ Calvinist Lord: the awesome sovereign Father who actively superintended his earthly creation.

The evidence that Lincoln prayed is abundant, though “prayer” can mean many different things.  It runs the gamut from a two-way conversation with God — including petitioning God for assistance or special favors — to a reverential attitude of humility or gratitude in the face of the unknown. 

In Lincoln’s case it seems to have meant a whole-hearted recognition of God’s power, and a willing submission to it.  As he said in his second inaugural address, this almighty God harbored purposes that human beings could never fathom. 

Non-believers often make the mistake of assuming that “submission” to God’s authority means “resignation” to it, as if giving precedence to God’s unanswerable power entails accepting the futility of independent human action. 

But submission, as Lincoln reveals, actually opens up a vast terrain of responsible activity for human beings.  Ironically, God’s inscrutability gives human beings the authority to “work earnestly,” as Lincoln wrote to his Quaker friend Eliza Gurney in 1864, “in the best light He gives us.”  God doesn’t tell people exactly what to do, but God does assist people in acting conscientiously, according to their best judgment.

Did Lincoln’s form of submission to God really involve being driven to his knees many times, since he had no place else to go?  Lincoln, like Obama, may have used the phrase figuratively, even humorously, if indeed he ever spoke it at all.

Lincoln never wrote down those words, and no one reported him uttering them during his lifetime.  The source of the quotation is the young reporter Noah Brooks, who claimed a few months after the assassination that Lincoln “once said” he’d “been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.  My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.” 

As always, we have to be skeptical about post-mortem recollections of Lincoln’s words.  Observers such as Brooks often push the president’s remarks, however subtly, toward some meaning they hold dear.   Brooks goes on to make Lincoln as pious and reverent as he can: “then he solemnly and slowly added, ‘I should be the most presumptuous blockhead upon this footstool if I for one day thought that I could discharge the duties which have come upon me since I came into this place without the aid and enlightenment of One who is wiser and stronger than all others.’”

By using the term “enlightenment,” Brooks implies that Lincoln thought he received actual divine counsel about the proper course of action.  That would turn his prayer into a two-way conversation: he asked for help, and God supplied at least a clue about the right way to proceed.

But his letter to Eliza Gurney suggests that Lincoln settled for God providing spiritual support, not explicit advice.  God helped people marshal all their resources of concentration and deliberation as they made up their minds.  The “best light” God provided let them express their own “enlightenment.”

Driven literally to their knees or not, Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln concur on the vital necessity of prayer for anyone subjected to the pressures of the presidency.  Prayer offered Lincoln, in Brooks’s words, “his surest refuge at times when he was most misunderstood or misrepresented . . . he was glad to know that no thought or intent of his escaped the observation of that Judge by whose final decree he expected to stand or fall in this world and the next.”

This 1973 book jacket shows Lincoln at prayer in a 1931 sculpture by Herbert Spencer Houck, in the National Cathedral, in Washington, D.C. Houck’s father, a Union Army chaplain, saw Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address.

Whole books about Lincoln first appeared in 1860.  Some of his speeches were separately printed as early as 1839, and aside from newspaper renditions of his words, 1837 saw the earliest published Lincoln document.  Since then, perhaps 17,000 titles have appeared.

Collectors love all of this material, both the writings by Lincoln, and writings about him.  The first two bibliographies about him appeared in 1870.  For the mystery at hand, the important listings were by Daniel Fish in 1906 and 1910; Jay Monaghan in 1943-45; and the Library of Congress in 1960.  Individual great collectors, including Fish, published lists to draw attention to their own holdings – about 1,100 printed items in his case.

The standard today remains the effort by librarian Monaghan, whose 2-volume ‘Lincoln Bibliography’ lists 3,958 items.  It is impossible to acquire a copy of each of those 3,958 items today; dozens of them are too rare or obscure.

So how did a 24-volume set of the Nicolay and Hay edition of Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, published by F. D. Tandy of New York in 1905, go unrecorded by any of these people?

Well-hidden Lincoln, in lustrous leather

It is no mean set, as should be clear from the illustration here.  Bound in full brown morocco leather, with floral Art Nouveau gilt onlays decorating each cover, doublures inside each cover, silk-laid endpapers, gilt-topped pages, and scores of specially added fine engravings of people and scenes sprinkled throughout the text, this was the most extravagant publication on Lincoln ever put out.  Original price?  Unknown.

With false humility the set is dubbed ‘The Log Cabin Edition’; a watercolor of that boyhood home graces each volume’s doublure.  And it seems that none of the major amassers and promoters of Lincolniana ever had a set, viz., the ‘Big Five’ collectors W. H. Lambert (d. 1912), C.W. McLellan (d. 1918), Judd Stewart (d. 1919), Daniel Fish (d. 1924), or J. B. Oakleaf (d. 1930).  Incredibly, Jay Monaghan never saw one; and the great modern collector Oliver R. Barrett (d. 1950) did not either.  Major booksellers of 1905-1960, D. H. Newhall, E. J. Wessen, and C. E. Van Norman, seem never to have offered one.

What everyone saw, and owned, was the 12-volume set of Complete Works as edited by Nicolay and Hay, published also in 1905.  A variety of special imprints of this set came out in the period 1905-1914, with catchy edition-titles like ‘Centennial Edition’ and ‘Biographical Edition’ and ‘Gettysburg Edition.’  The mind races to the obvious phrase to begin a full-life coverage of Lincoln, The Log Cabin Edition, yet no publisher has used it otherwise.  Almost incredibly, Tandy published Fish’s bibliography in 1906, after handling the 24-volume jewel, and apparently kept news it from him.  Or should we not believe Tandy’s printed date of publication?

Tandy took the 12 volumes of Nicolay and Hay, bulked them out with those fine engravings, slimmed each volume, and, presto, 24.  How rare is it?  The printed half-title for each volume of the set acquired in 2009 by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum reads,

“The Log Cabin Edition of the Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln is Extra Illustrated and limited to Eight Numbered Copies of which this is Number 4.”  That digit 4 was penned in by hand.

A lengthy search of library catalogs, collectors’ papers, and auction sales finally revealed  that one set had been privately sold in 1922; and, then, that the University of Texas Library owns a set.  They did not know it.  We helped them realize that it is set number 5.

Here is the most fascinating feature of the set.  The 24^th volume is not printed pages.  It is a volume composed of manuscript letters, 26 of them in the set at the ALPLM, bound to match the others in appearance.  The first manuscript is in Lincoln’s hand, a little note that reads “Sec. of War.  Please see Mr. Edwards a moment.  A. L.”  (Plausibly this was his brother-in-law Ninian W. Edwards, who visited Washington in 1862.)  The other 25 manuscripts are by William Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Horace Greeley, signatures of S. A. Douglas and Rutherford B. Hayes, and various political and military figures pre-1860 and post-1865.  Evidently there was so much of this stuff around in 1905 that a well-heeled publisher could sweep up enough to bind – even 8 sets of it.

The surprising start to volume 24: in Lincoln's hand

My hope is that some college library or two out there simply took in one of these treasure-sets long ago and attached the bibliographic record of the 12-volume original to their 24 volumes; and it has reposed on the shelves, unmolested for decades, because other, handier sets were nearby.  This is more or less what had happened to the set at Texas.  Or, one fears that someone long ago disbound volume 24 for its historic and unique contents, and left the oft-printed rest of it aside.  Does anyone know of a 23-volume set that looks like it lost its caboose?

Collectors!  Browsers of used bookstores!  Spelunkers in the garage sales of the hinterland!  Where are sets number 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, or 8?  One could speculate that each set was produced only by subscription, and that sets 6, 7, and 8 never found sponsors.  But surely 1, 2, and 3 existed.

No, the Lincoln field has not been exhausted.  We daily look forward to another discovery.  Likely the next discovery will not fill 32 inches of shelf space.

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.

To our readers: we share with you this story of an exciting visit last week presented by David Blanchette, our Communications Manager.  The regular blog returns next week.

We work with photographers, film producers, and all sorts of image-makers big and small at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.  Still, it was a pleasant surprise when famed photographer Annie Leibovitz called out of the blue late last summer and asked if she could photograph some Lincoln artifacts for a book she will publish in late 2011, Pilgrimage.  She and her staff talked with Lincoln Curator James Cornelius about items they could photograph, and I handled the usual photography permission process that applies to all such ventures.  Her staff requested that this visit be kept as quiet as possible so Annie could concentrate on her photography rather than distractions.

A date for Annie’s visit was set.  Only to be cancelled.  And re-set.  And re-cancelled.  And re-re-set.  Well, you get the idea.  She is extremely busy, and other jobs bumped this labor-of-love project.

On the third try (or was it fourth?), Annie and her two-man crew arrived at 6:45 a.m. on Wednesday, January 26 in a rented SUV they had driven to Springfield the night before from Lincoln sites in Kentucky and Indiana.  Annie practically bounded out of the car and offered an enthusiastic greeting, especially given the dark morning hour.  Quite tall, with a long mane of blond hair unashamedly going gray; a ready, winning smile; thin, black-framed glasses perched high on her nose; and sporting comfortable athletic shoes to go with her black sweater and pants, Annie looked the part of a seasoned artist who revels in her craft.

As internationally renowned artists go, the group was traveling very light – a couple of camera bags, a tripod, and some hand-held lights.  James Cornelius had several artifacts ready to go on his mobile curator’s cart, and exhibits staff John Malinak and Mike Casey stood ready to open exhibit cases and move exhibit mounts as needed.

Annie first went for Lincoln’s stovepipe hat.  All Museum visitors, young and old, idealistic or cynical, have a “Lincoln moment” when they encounter the real Lincoln hat.  Annie was no exception, her restless energy relenting for just a moment as, chin in hand, she regarded the hat from several angles, expressing her gratitude for the privilege of photographing this most iconic piece of American clothing.  Then, to work.

As artists go, Annie and crew were courteous, appreciative, and very careful around the original artifacts.  They also worked very quickly, with James, John, and Mike kept busy moving, opening, and closing.  Annie and crew were a well-oiled machine – she would choose the angle, her assistants would adjust the tripod and attach the proper camera and lens, and the photography would begin.  Annie photographed with the latest huge- resolution Leica digital camera, but, curiously, also with a point-and-shoot Canon camera, explaining that she used the smaller camera when first starting out on the book and liked the unposed and spontaneous look of its images.

Lincoln’s blood-stained gloves from Ford’s Theatre were next.  These were brought out of the case so Annie could better capture the stains from that fateful night.  At one point, as one of her assistants hovered near the gloves, Annie reminded him to be careful to securely store his light meter in its belt pouch so there was no danger of its falling on or near the artifact.  Click, click, click.  Adjust the angle a little bit; click, click, click.  Switch cameras; repeat the process.  Done.  Smooth, professional, deferential.

Nine o’clock arrived, and we had to vacate the Treasures Gallery so we wouldn’t impede Museum visitors.  James led the procession across the land bridge connecting the Library and Museum, and then down into the Lincoln Vault, where key items from the collection are stored when not on display.  The Gettysburg Address, Mary Lincoln’s diamond necklace, and other artifacts passed in front of Annie’s lenses.  In between takes, James regaled the crew with tales of each Lincoln artifact; his story-telling artistry, honed by years of practice and a true love of the subject matter, proved to be the only thing that caused Annie and crew to pause from their photography.

As the cameras were being put away at the end of the shoot, Annie took one more look around the vault, surrounded by original items from Lincoln’s life.  She hesitated, apparently deciding whether she could try “just one more shot.”  Lamenting that she wished to spend the whole day in the vault but simply did not have any additional time, Annie ended the shoot.

She graciously posed for photographs with all who had helped or observed her that morning, then gave the Museum photographer who had documented her visit a special treat: Annie Leibovitz took my camera, held it at arm’s length, and took a photograph of us standing together.  How many other people can claim they have an original Annie Leibovitz portrait of themselves?

We look forward to seeing Annie again when her book is published, as there might be a special public visit when that occurs.  Until then, we have a rare feeling here at the Museum: a big-name artist visited, and we weren’t reaching for the aspirin.  Enough said.

Photographer Annie Leibovitz captures Lincoln's Stovepipe Hat

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.