How time flies! The list of Lincoln statues grows, I get interviewed for a documentary, more tasks accumulate, and the big Lincoln in New England cover reveal nears. And that’s just in the last week.
Let’s start with the new Abraham Lincoln statue. Yesterday, September 22, on the anniversary of Lincoln issuing the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, a new statue was unveiled on the steps of the African American Civil War Museum in Washington. The Lincoln Group of DC (of which I am immediate past president) was the principal organizer of the dedication event, and current LGDC president Ed Epstein deserves a huge pat on the back for his efforts to create this wonderful event. I’ve already written a piece for the Lincolnian.org blog and won’t regurgitate it here, so please take a quick hop over to this post to read all about. [But hop right back, because there’s more]
My last post on this site (the one where you’re reading this, assuming you hopped back) gave a quick overview of my recent trip to Machu Picchu and the Galapagos. I’ll have more on that trip soon. I did write about the infamous sea-faring lost shoes on my Hot White Snow blog (the personal side of the writing life), so you can catch up on that here.
Last week I was interviewed for a Civil War medicine documentary project. Before that I reviewed the final proof pages of the manuscript for my new book, Lincoln in New England, which is due out March 3, 2026, from Globe Pequot. I also reviewed the back cover text and have started reaching out to prominent historians for back cover blurbs. More on that soon.
The big news is that all the moving parts are starting to mesh and that I will be revealing the cover graphics for Lincoln in New England: In Search of His Forgotten Tours shortly.
I’ll give you a preview, of sorts, and tell you that the cover is brilliantly colored. And it has – no surprise here – a picture of Lincoln on it!
Check back soon for the big reveal!
[Photo by David J. Kent of the new Lincoln statue under wraps (or maybe it’s the Lincoln in New England book cover?)]
Coming in March 2026: Lincoln in New England: In Search of His Forgotten Tours
Join me on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.
You also follow my author page on Facebook. Also follow me on Instagram.
David J. Kent is Immediate Past 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.
There stands a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Hingham, Massachusetts, New England. It’s immediately across the street from the Samuel Lincoln house. In Hingham, England, United Kingdom there is also a statue of Lincoln. But why? And who was Samuel Lincoln?
The statue in Hingham, England is actually a bust, not a full statue. It was created based on the life mask of Leonard Volk made in 1860 just after Lincoln’s nomination. It depicts a much younger, beardless (and shirtless) Lincoln. It sits in an alcove on the side of St. Andrew’s Church. The bust was installed in 1919 to commemorate the Lincoln ancestry that had for many generations worshiped at the St. Andrew parish.
Another connection is to Robert Burns, the Scottish poet whom Lincoln had a particular fascination. Lincoln had supposedly discovered Burns from Jack Kelso, an enigmatic friend from Lincoln’s New Salem days. Kelso had emigrated to the United States from Scotland, where he had previously been a Glasgow schoolteacher. He apparently owned many volumes of Burns that Lincoln read over and over (ditto for Shakespeare). Lincoln was hooked and recited Burns from memory on many occasions through his life. Robert Burns is eminently present in Edinburgh, including a large monument at the foot of Calton Hill (not far from the aforementioned Lincoln statue). Burns is also one of the three Scottish writers featured in the Writers’ Museum tucked into Lady Stair’s Close a few steps off the Royal Mile that leads to the Edinburgh Castle. He is joined there by Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Scott.
The American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Virginia once had a statue depicting Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad sitting on a park bench. As of this writing it is no longer there, and hasn’t been since 2023. So, where is it?
While at the Valentine I also got to see another “Civil War President.” A statue of Jefferson Davis had stood for many decades along Monument Avenue in Richmond. During the 2020 protests over the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, the Davis statue was vandalized with paint, then pulled down. That statue now sits – or more accurately, lays – in the Valentine’s main gallery. Pink and yellow paint splatters the bronze, Davis’s head is bashed in from the fall off his pedestal, and his right arm is nearly severed. The display symbolizes the city’s change in attitude over its prior adulation of Confederate figures. All of its many dozens of Confederate statues have now been removed, with the exception of a few remaining on the grounds of the Viriginia State Capitol (you walk past them as you proceed from the equestrian statue of George Washington to the Governor’s Mansion). They are now joined by two large group statues, one featuring the many women who fought for voting rights and the other of Barbara Johns and others who fought the battle that would become Brown v. Board of Education. Johns is scheduled to replace Robert E. Lee in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall. Interestingly, it was Edward Virginius Valentine who had sculpted both the Lee statue (now removed from the hall and currently at Richmond’s Museum of History and Culture) and the one of Davis now at the Valentine Museum. Hopefully, Johns will make it into Statuary Hall soon, perhaps after the new governor takes off after this fall’s election.
Abraham Lincoln is best known as the sixteenth President of the United States, long before the POTUS acronym was invented. He was elected in November 1860 and by the time he was inaugurated in March 1861, seven southern states had seceded, with four more joining them just over a month later after the new Confederacy attacked Fort Sumter. But this wasn’t the first time Lincoln had been put forward for executive office. In 1856 he was nominated by his fellow new Republican Party members for Vice President after the party had nominated John C. Fremont for President.
On June 11, 1848, congressman Abraham Lincoln arrived back in Washington, D.C. after having traveled all night from Philadelphia, where he attended the Whig National Convention that nominated Zachary Taylor for president. Upon his return he finds a letter from his wife Mary, who has been visiting her family in Kentucky for several months. These two events begin a campaign and a mystery.
A major auction of Abraham Lincoln artifacts held May 21, 2025, brought in nearly $8 million dollars. The largest amount for any single item was over $1.5 million (including auction fees) for a pair of blood-stained gloves that Lincoln wore the night of the assassination.
