Abraham Lincoln made two trips to New England in his lifetime, and I will soon embark on a road trip of my own to follow in his footsteps. This isn’t my first such trip. Pre-COVID I made several road trips – long solo drives tracing Lincoln’s roots through Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, with side trips into Lincoln-related sites in Tennessee, Michigan, Wisconsin, and elsewhere. You can check out my previous road trip reports here or by searching “Chasing Abraham Lincoln.” Seeing the locations in person brought life to my research and helped flesh out my most recent book, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius. Plans to do other trips into New York and New England ground to a halt during the pandemic and my book writing, but it’s time for another drive. New England it is!
Lincoln’s first trip was 1848. The still fairly young one-term U.S. Congressman was asked to head up to Massachusetts between sessions to stump for the Whig presidential candidate, Mexican War hero Zachary Taylor. Taylor was a strange choice for the Whigs, who had generally disapproved of the Mexican War as a transparent attempt to enlarge the territory in which to expand slavery. But the Whigs felt he was the only candidate who could win (both major parties courted him) and that he would be pliable (he professed no firm political views) so they chose him over perennial candidate, Lincoln’s beau ideal of a statesman, Henry Clay. That wasn’t the only problem. As a Southern slaveowner, Taylor rankled the antislavery sensibilities of the liberal wing of the Whig party in Massachusetts, although the more conservative Whigs (e.g., textile mill owners who depended on the availability of Southern cotton) were less concerned. Disaffected Whigs had built a Free Soil movement to promote an antislavery candidate and Lincoln was sent to smooth over ruffled feathers in an attempt to keep party leaders in the Whig camp. Lincoln was well received and did seem to convince many Whigs, and although the central part of Massachusetts with its more stringent Free Soil passions voted for former president Martin Van Buren as the Free Soiler candidate, the full contingent of Massachusetts’s electoral votes went to Taylor. Taylor became president.
Lincoln’s second, and last, trip was 1860. Riding the high of a successful Cooper Union Address, Lincoln again headed to New England, this time bypassing Massachusetts and giving a dozen lectures in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. In the latter state, Lincoln visited with his son Robert, who was at Phillips Exeter Academy preparing to re-take the Harvard entrance exams he had failed so miserably the year before. [Perhaps not surprisingly, Harvard admitted him soon after Lincoln’s presidential nomination a few months later.] This time Lincoln was stumping more on his own behalf and promoting the now Republican party view that slavery must not extend into the western territories. Again, he was well-received, and this time the New England electoral votes were comfortably in Lincoln’s corner (as they would be also in 1864).
My road trip will hit most of the stops Lincoln made during his two visits, although not necessarily in the same order. I had already spent some time in the area, for example, last December when I stopped in Concord, Massachusetts to see the special Lincoln Memorial Centennial exhibit at the Concord Museum. On this trip I’m hoping to touch base with a few colleagues, see a few statues, hit a few museums and other historical sites, and take as many photos as time and weather allow. I’ll post here and on FB if possible.
[Photo of Lincoln Covered Wagon from Enjoy Illinois: https://www.enjoyillinois.com/explore/listing/worlds-largest-covered-wagon/]
Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.
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David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.
His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
