Tag: Abraham Lincoln

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Lincoln’s First Temporary Insanity Case

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Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln once advised in the prosecution of Isaac Wyant, who had his arm amputated after being shot in a border dispute with Anson Rusk. Following his recovery, Wyant sought out and shot Rusk four times, then pleaded not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. Lincoln’s old friend Leonard Swett was on the side of the defense.

The previous June, the two men had been arguing and Wyant attacked Rusk with a large knife. To protect himself, Rusk pulled a pistol and shot Wyant in the arm. Between the damage done and the ensuing infection, Wyant’s arm was amputated. Claiming to go to Indiana to be far away from Rusk, Wyant instead stalked Rusk, eventually following him into the courthouse. The DeWitt Courier later reported the incident:

Rusk entered the office of the county Clerk and was standing behind the stove with his arms folded, when Wyant opened the door and commenced firing an Allen revolver at him. The first ball struck Rusk in the side, the second in the shoulder, and the third ball entered his arm. Wyant then stood over the fallen man, put the pistol to his head and fired the fourth shot, the ball passing entirely through the head, and from the orifice it made oozed the brains. Rusk lived near an hour after, but never spoke, we believe. His murderer, Wyant, tried to make his escape, but was secured a short distance from the courthouse and conveyed [back into the] building. Shortly after he was taken to prison and securely ironed. It is thought nothing will save him from hanging, as a responsible witness was in the clerk’s office at the time of the murder. We understand that the wife of Rusk, who was enceinte at the time of his murder, and her child, which was prematurely born, are not expected to live from one minute to another, and perhaps may be dead now. If they die Wyant will be a triple murderer, and consequently, he should suffer the severest penalty of the law. Circuit court is now in session, but it is thought his trial will not take place this term. Some think there will be a change of venue.
Wyant had been given chloroform by the doctors who amputated his arm, and it was widely believed at the time that chloroform could induced insanity. A long list of doctors testified that the use of chloroform had caused a temporary insanity in Wyant to the point where Wyant was legally insane at the time of the shooting.

This was one of the first such “insanity defense” cases ever tried. Lincoln thought Wyant was faking the mental illness, but the jury found Wyant persuasive and sent him to the state mental hospital for treatment. The temporary insanity defense would later be used successfully by Congressman Daniel Sickles after he shot his wife’s lover in front of witnesses across the street from the White House.

A more substantive murder case, nicknamed the Almanac Trial, hit closer to home and brought into play one of Lincoln’s favorite scientific pursuits, astronomy. Lincoln’s role in setting significant legal precedents through science and technology related cases is discussed in greater depth in Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America, now available for pre-order.

Pre-order Lincoln: The Fire of Genius now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). The price is likely to drop before the final shipment, and any pre-orders will automatically get charged the lower price at fulfillment. Pre-ordering now helps the publisher get a sense of the interest, which could mean a bigger print run. So please go ahead and pre-order without worries. While you’re there, check out my other books.

The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. That will also ensure you get informed of the release date AND will let you try for one of ten free hardcover copies of the book that I’ll be giving away this summer. I’ll also be giving away as many as a hundred e-books. [The book will also be put out on audio]

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

I’ll have much more about the book over the next few months, so join my mailing list here to keep informed.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of 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.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Abraham Lincoln and the Sand Bar Case Sets Legal Precedent

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Abraham Lincoln photoOn March 23, 1860, one of Lincoln’s more famous cases came to trial in the U.S. District Court. Johnston v. Jones & Marsh, more commonly known as the Sand Bar case, was important both because of its subject matter (it highlighted Lincoln’s experience with technology) and because, in an age where trial transcripts were almost never kept, journalist Robert Hitt was paid to sit through the entire trial and create a comprehensive 482-page trial transcript, although he omitted the closing arguments.

The case revolved around the accretion of new land created by various efforts to turn Lake Michigan’s shoreline at Chicago into a practical harbor, something nature had not designed it to do. Channels were dug, piers were built, and a great deal of sand was dredged. Eventually, Chicago had a harbor. In 1833, the government cut a channel across lakefront lots owned separately by William Johnston and William Jones. A newly erected pier caused the accretion of nearly 1,200 feet of new land, roughly six acres, which both Johnston and Jones claimed as their own. After four trials, the last of which found for Johnston, Jones appealed to the Supreme Court, which reversed the judgment and sent it back to the lower courts. At this point, Jones retained Lincoln and, after an 11-day trial, the jury sided with Jones.

The case highlighted Lincoln’s knowledge of natural environments and his clear, logical communication to jurors. A legal colleague, while not specifically talking about the Sand Bar case, seemed to capture the flavor of it when he called Lincoln “an admirable tactician” that “steered this jury from the bayous and eddies of side issues and kept them clear of the snags and sand bars, if any were put in the real channel of his case.” Fellow lawyer Leonard Swett also suggested Lincoln had a knack for focusing the juror on the key question while minimizing the rest. “By giving away six points and carrying the seventh, he carried the case.” Lincoln demonstrated this Euclidean logic and technical expertise in a letter to Johnson’s attorney Robert Kinzie before the trial, querying him on such technical matters as the intersection of the pier, the accreted new lakeshore, and the properties in question, as well as the timing of the land formation and any changes since the initial pier was erected. During the trial, Lincoln’s background in surveying helped him cross-examine the surveyor George Snow, catching that there were two maps created, each one alternatively benefiting the claims of the two litigants.

Lincoln’s questioning of the land surveys was key to winning the case. He was paid $350 for his services (about $11,600 today).

This was just one of many science and technology related cases in which Lincoln was involved, many setting important precedents for the modernization of America. More on that topic in Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America, now available for pre-order.

Pre-order Lincoln: The Fire of Genius now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). The price is likely to drop before the final shipment, and any pre-orders will automatically get charged the lower price at fulfillment. Pre-ordering now helps the publisher get a sense of the interest, which could mean a bigger print run. So please go ahead and pre-order without worries. While you’re there, check out my other books.

The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. That will also ensure you get informed of the release date AND will let you try for one of ten free hardcover copies of the book that I’ll be giving away this summer. I’ll also be giving away as many as a hundred e-books. [The book will also be put out on audio]

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

I’ll have much more about the book over the next few months, so join my mailing list here to keep informed.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of 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.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

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Lincoln: The Fire of Genius Gets #1 New Release Ranking

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I randomly looked at the Amazon page this morning for my forthcoming book, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, and noticed that it had a banner acknowledging it as the #1 New Release.

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius

 

Considering the release date for the book isn’t until September 1, 2022, that’s not a bad start. Of course, the “#1 New Release” is for a subcategory called “Midwest U.S. Biographies,” but there is hope that I can be on the various Best Seller lists soon. You can help by going to Amazon or Barnes and Noble and pre-ordering the book now. Rest assured that you’ll get the best price as it likely will drop before release date and that’s the price you’ll pay.

I introduced the book in an earlier post. I also announced that the foreword was written by political journalist and renowned Abraham Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal.

Many of my recent posts on this website have highlighted of some of the topics covered in the book, so feel free to browse around. I’ll be having some more exciting news coming soon. Check out my Media page for upcoming appearances.

Thank all of you for supporting Abraham Lincoln and my efforts to bring him to a wider audience. In addition to this website, check out the website of the Lincoln Group of DC, the organization of which I am currently president, and where I write a lot more on Lincoln. Be sure to see what the Lincoln Group is doing to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Lincoln Memorial in May!

Pre-order Lincoln: The Fire of Genius now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). The price is likely to drop before the final shipment, and any pre-orders will automatically get charged the lower price at fulfillment. Pre-ordering now helps the publisher get a sense of the interest, which could mean a bigger print run. So please go ahead and pre-order without worries. While you’re there, check out my other books.

The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. That will also ensure you get informed of the release date AND will let you try for one of ten free hardcover copies of the book that I’ll be giving away this summer. I’ll also be giving away as many as a hundred e-books. [The book will also be put out on audio]

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

I’ll have much more about the book over the next few months, so join my mailing list here to keep informed.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of 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.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

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Lincoln’s Day Fretting About the Monitor and the Merrimack

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CSS VirginiaAbraham Lincoln spent much of his day on March 9, 1862 fretting over the battle of the ironclads. The Union ironclad Monitor had fought to a draw with the Confederate ironclad Virginia (former the USS Merrimack) at Hampton Roads, Virginia. The Virginia had been created from the burnt out hull of the Merrimack, left behind at Gosport Navy Yard at the beginning of the war after the state of Virginia seceded. The Merrimack was converted by the Confederate Navy into a seemingly indestructible metallic monster soon to prey on Union ships. Even though the ship was now officially the Virginia, the alliteration of Monitor and Merrimack (and the end of the Confederacy) means most people refer to the ship by its former name, both then and now.*

The day’s consternation started early as Lincoln received a report from General Wool at Fortress Monroe that the Merrimack had destroyed the USS Cumberland and the USS Congress, two Navy frigates, whose wooden hulls and lack of maneuverability were no match for the ironclad behemoth the Confederacy had created. A dispatch received later in the day, described the arrival of the Monitor in time to save USS Minnesota from destruction, then engagement in a pitched battle with the Merrimack. Both vessels were damaged and there was no clear winner. Ironically, both vessels would retreat for repairs and would never fight another battle before their destruction – the Monitor in a storm and the Merrimack/Virginia by its crew.

During the day there was quite some excitement in Washington. Hampton Roads is within easy steaming distance of the Capitol and many in the city were fearful it would simply come up the Potomac and attack. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was particularly anxious about this possibility, and while there was no actual attempt to do so, the fear of an attack kept everyone busy. At one point, Lincoln took a carriage with Senator Browning to the Washington Navy Yard to confer with Commander John Dahlgren, a recurring technical advisor who Lincoln called on repeatedly. While Stanton began plans to block river traffic, word came in that relieved those fears. Lincoln followed reports from his regular perch in the War Department’s telegraph office.

Lincoln had played a major role in cutting through the mutual disgust between the Monitor‘s designer John Ericsson and the Navy Department – the Navy had scapegoated Ericsson for a cannon mishap on the USS Princeton in 1844, which resulted in the deaths of two cabinet members and nearly injuring then-President John Tyler – and he would play a major role in the destruction of the Merrimack/Virginia two months later. I’ll have more on that incident in Lincoln: The Fire of Genius.

*Sometimes the spelling leaves off the “k” to make it Merrimac, but having grown up near the Merrimack River for which it is named, the “k” stays in. To confuse matters more, there was a USS Merrimac during the Civil War, a sidewheel steamer first used by the Confederate Navy but captured and used by the United States Navy.

Pre-order Lincoln: The Fire of Genius now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). The price is likely to drop before the final shipment, and any pre-orders will automatically get charged the lower price at fulfillment. Pre-ordering now helps the publisher get a sense of the interest, which could mean a bigger print run. So please go ahead and pre-order without worries. While you’re there, check out my other books.

The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. That will also ensure you get informed of the release date AND will let you try for one of ten free hardcover copies of the book that I’ll be giving away this summer. I’ll also be giving away as many as a hundred e-books. [The book will also be put out on audio]

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

I’ll have much more about the book over the next few months, so join my mailing list here to keep informed.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of 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.

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Lincoln and the Arctic Explorer

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Isaac Israel HayesAbraham Lincoln had a knack for meeting Arctic explorers. On March 1, 1862, Lincoln wrote to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton:

Dr. Isaac I. Hayes, of Dr. Kane’s Arctic expedition, and more recently of an Arctic expedition headed by himself, is an applicant for Brigade Surgeon; and I would like for him to be appointed at once, if consistent with the rules. Yours truly A. LINCOLN

Hayes was a bit of an adventurer. Born in eastern Pennsylvania, he was raised on his family’s farm and attended a school run by Quakers, where while still a teenager he became an assistant teacher of civil engineering and mathematics. By the time he was 20 years old he was in medical school, then shortly thereafter signed on ship’s surgeon for the Second Grinnell Expedition led by Elisha Kane. The Kane Expedition left New York harbor in 1853 headed for the Arctic, in particular to search of the lost Franklin expedition. Over the course of his ensuing explorations, Hayes mapped the previously unexplored Ellesmere Island. The expedition caused near starvation (his group subsisted on lichens) and the amputation of three frostbitten toes.

Lincoln may have been inspired by Hayes’s lecture tour, which included the Smithsonian Institution. He became one of the most prolific lecturers and writers on the Arctic of his time. After his distinguished Civil War service as head of Satterlee General Hospital in Philadelphia, Hayes wrote a book on his Arctic experiences: The Open Polar Sea: A Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole, in the Schooner United States.

Hayes wasn’t the only ice-bound explorer Lincoln associated with. Charles Wilkes, who would during the war instigate the “Trent Affair” that almost started a second war with England, had previously led the first United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1841) in the South Seas, including Antarctica. Lincoln would meet in the White House with Herman Melville, who some historians suggest may have based his Captain Ahab in Moby Dick on Charles Wilkes. Lincoln also met in the White House with Louis Agassiz, a Swiss-American scientist who is well known for his study of glaciers. [There is much more about Agassiz and Lincoln in The Fire of Genius]

Lincoln had given his lecture on Discoveries and Inventions prior to becoming president and told Louis Agassiz in the White House that he had plans to expand upon it after his second term. That opportunity never came, but Lincoln’s interest in science and technology did become important both in winning the Civil War and modernizing America.

I take a deeper dive into all of these facets in Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, now available for pre-order.

Pre-order Lincoln: The Fire of Genius now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). The price is likely to drop before the final shipment, and any pre-orders will automatically get charged the lower price at fulfillment. Pre-ordering now helps the publisher get a sense of the interest, which could mean a bigger print run. So please go ahead and pre-order without worries. While you’re there, check out my other books.

The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. That will also ensure you get informed of the release date AND will let you try for one of ten free hardcover copies of the book that I’ll be giving away this summer. I’ll also be giving away as many as a hundred e-books. [The book will also be put out on audio]

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

I’ll have much more about the book over the next few months, so join my mailing list here to keep informed.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of 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.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

[Photo: Wiki Commons]

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Abraham Lincoln Accuses Russia of Pure Despotism

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Abraham Lincoln PeoriaAbraham Lincoln accused Russia of being a place “where despotism can be taken pure,” openly dedicated to the exercise of absolute power and cruelly oppressive.

Long before the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the Soviet era, the Russia of Lincoln’s time had been ruled over by Tsar Nicholas I for three decades, succeeded by his son Nicholas II in 1855 (with whom Lincoln formed a sort of alliance). Analysts of the current Putin era suggest he wants to return to the Tsarist era more than the Soviet. Of course, the current crisis also has to do with protecting oil and gas pipelines that are the basis of the Russian economy and Putin’s kleptocracy. Much of this isn’t especially surprising.

In 1852, Lincoln helped organize a meeting of local leaders in Springfield, Illinois with Lajos Kossuth, the former Governor-President of Hungary. Hungary had undergone a political upheaval that I won’t go into here, but Kossuth had made his way in exile to the United States where he met, among many others, President Millard Fillmore. Kossuth sought to appeal to European immigrants in the Midwest, hence the meeting Lincoln arranged. Following the meeting, Lincoln and the other attendees issued a set of resolutions “on behalf of Hungarian freedom.” Among them was a resolution stating, “That the late inference of Russian in the Hungarian struggle was, in our opinion, such illegal and unwarrantable interference.” Resolution No. 7 said:

That we recognize in Governor Kossuth of Hungary the most worthy and distinguished representative of the cause of civil and religious liberty on the continent of Europe. A cause for which he and his nation struggled until they were overwhelmed by the armed intervention of a foreign despot, in violation of the more sacred principles of the laws of nature and of nations—principles held dear by the friends of freedom everywhere, and more especially by the people of these United States.

Which gets us to his accusation. In August 1855, Lincoln wrote a letter to his close friend and confidant Joshua Speed. The issue was the falling apart of the Whig Party that had defined Lincoln through most of his political career, and whether he should join the Republican Party that was arising out of its ashes. The alternative was the “Know-Nothing” Party, officially the American Party but defined by its secrecy of membership.

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can anyone who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.” When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

Russia would become a sort of dumping ground for politicians President Lincoln wanted to get rid of for a time, including Simon Cameron after his failure as Secretary of War.

There was one interesting interaction with Russia late in Lincoln’s presidency, which involved “a continuous line of telegraph through that empire from our Pacific coast.” I’ll have more on that in a following post.

 

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, now available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). His previous books include Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity, 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.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

 

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Lincoln and the Coal Mining Charter

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Coal mining in Civil WarOn February 15, 1853, Abraham Lincoln wrote to John A. Rockwell to inform him he had failed to secure a coal mining charter. Coal was becoming increasingly important to the modernization of America because it was replacing wood as fuel for steamships and railroads. Rockwell and his associates had set up a corporation called the “Vermillion Coal and Manufacturing Company.” As with all companies at the time, it had to be incorporated by the Illinois state legislature.

Lincoln had served four terms – eight years – in the state legislature but had been working as a lawyer for over a decade since that time, so he had state senator Asahel Gridley introduce the bill on February 5th. It was passed by the Senate on February 9th but died in the House upon adjournment. Lincoln was, at least in part, at fault. In his letter to Rockwell, he notes:

I have failed to get your Coal Mining Charter. Being very busy in the Courts when your letter reached me, I let a few days slip before attending to it. A little more than a week before the close of the Session, I got a Bill for the Charter howsoever into the Senate, which Body it passed in about five days. It then went to the H. R. and was lost for want of time. No one was opposed to it, but every one was much more anxious about some other Bill, so it became evident a large proportion of all would be lost.

Lincoln gives some indication of the vagaries of state legislature life, which was a part-time job.

With us there is no lengthening out the Session, over a day, to get through with business. The New Constitution, adopted in 1848, limits the pay of members to two dollars per day for the first six weeks, and to one dollar per day afterwards. The practical result is they never sit a day over the six weeks.

While there was no opposition to the bill, “there was an objection to allowing you to connect by railroads with the Canal and Rock Island roads, all three.” Lincoln got around this by framing the bill to authorize Rockwell “to make only one of such connections, with the option however, as to which one.” He added, “If you continue to desire it, I will get it passed at the next Session.”

According to the bill, the company would have been able to “engage in the business of the mining of coal, iron, clays, and other minerals; and of welling for salt.”

Lincoln was intensely aware of the importance of mineral wealth, and it became a particular interest of his over the course of his legal career. Coal and other mined resources also played critical roles in the Civil War, everything from railroads, steam-powered blockade ships and ironclads, niter for gunpowder, the infamous Trent affair that almost started a war with England, and the rapid acceptance of Nevada as a state just days before the 1864 presidential election.

I take a deeper dive into all of these facets in Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, now available for pre-order.

Pre-order Lincoln: The Fire of Genius now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). The price is likely to drop before the final shipment, and any pre-orders will automatically get charged the lower price at fulfillment. Pre-ordering now helps the publisher get a sense of the interest, which could mean a bigger print run. So please go ahead and pre-order without worries. While you’re there, check out my other books.

The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. That will also ensure you get informed of the release date AND will let you try for one of ten free hardcover copies of the book that I’ll be giving away this summer. I’ll also be giving away as many as a hundred e-books. [The book will also be put out on audio]

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

I’ll have much more about the book over the next few months, so join my mailing list here to keep informed.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of 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.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

[Photo from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/minewars/]

 

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The Time Abraham Lincoln Rejected Siamese Elephants in Favor of Steam

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King of Siam elephantsAbraham Lincoln rejects gift of elephants from Siam by pointing out the advantages of steam power. Lincoln would promote many scientific and technological improvements in his lifetime and his presidency.

On February 3, 1862, President Lincoln writes to the King of Siam declining the King’s offer of “a stock from which a supply of elephants might be raised on our own soil.” Understanding the importance of good diplomacy, Lincoln explains the climate of America was not conducive to raising elephants:

“This Government would not hesitate to avail itself of so generous an offer if the object were one which could be made practically useful in the present condition of the United States. Our political jurisdiction, however, does not reach a latitude so low as to favor the multiplication of the elephant…”

Lincoln goes on to note that “steam on land, as well as on water, has been our best and most efficient agent of transportation in internal commerce.”

Indeed, steam locomotives, steamships, and steam-powered ironclad gunboats on inland waterways have become major contributors to the Northern military strategy during the Civil War. I discuss this more deeply in my forthcoming book, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, scheduled for release on September 1, 2022 and available for pre-order now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

While the offer of elephants was rejected, the King of Siam (present day Thailand) had also sent along royal gifts to Lincoln, including “a sword of costly materials and exquisite workmanship; a photographic likeness of Your Majesty and of Your Majesty’s beloved daughter; and also two elephants’ tusks of length and magnitude such as indicate that they could have belonged only to an animal which was a native of Siam.” Lincoln accepted those gifts for the people of the United States, explaining:

Your Majesty’s letters show an understanding that our laws forbid the President from receiving these rich presents as treasures. They are therefore accepted in accordance with Your Majesty’s desire as tokens of your good will and friendship for the American People. Congress being now in session at this capital, I have had great pleasure in making known to them this manifestation of Your Majesty’s munificence and kind consideration. Under their directions the gifts will be placed among the archives of the Government, where they will remain perpetually as tokens of mutual esteem and pacific dispositions more honorable to both nations than any trophies of conquest could be.

No Siamese elephants reached the United States, but many camels did in an experiment conducted in the 1850s deemed the “Camel Corps.” As European-heritage settlers moved west displacing Native American populations, they found the desert climates of the southwest inhospitable to horses and mules. Camels were imported and found to be especially adept at handling the dry climate. The experiment was dropped, and seemingly forgotten completely, by the Civil War, but that is a story in itself.

[Photo is, not surprisingly, a photoshopped image showing elephants with the 3rd Indiana Cavalry at Petersburg. Thanks to Melissa Winn at CWT for presenting the image on FB in 2020. And yes, those are African elephants, not Asian elephants. Apparently the photoshopper didn’t know the difference.]

Pre-order Lincoln: The Fire of Genius now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). The price is likely to drop before the final shipment, and any pre-orders will automatically get charged the lower price at fulfillment. Pre-ordering now helps the publisher get a sense of the interest, which could mean a bigger print run. So please go ahead and pre-order without worries. While you’re there, check out my other books.

The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. That will also ensure you get informed of the release date AND will let you try for one of ten free hardcover copies of the book that I’ll be giving away this summer. I’ll also be giving away as many as a hundred e-books. [The book will also be put out on audio]

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

I’ll have much more about the book over the next few months, so join my mailing list here to keep informed.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of 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.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

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Journalist Sidney Blumenthal Pens Foreword for “Lincoln: The Fire of Genius”

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David J Kent and Sidney BlumenthalAs mentioned last time, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius is now open for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). I’m honored that journalist Sidney Blumenthal penned the Foreword for the book.

Blumenthal is arguably one of the most astute political observers in the nation. He is also a highly regarded (and highly successful) biographer of Abraham Lincoln. The first three volumes of his planned five-volume treatise on The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln have won many accolades for his depth of research, insight, and writing style. Each volume has won numerous writing awards, including the Lincoln Book Award from the Abraham Lincoln Institute and the Book Prize from The Lincoln Forum.

Previously a staff reporter for The Washington Post and a Washington editor and writer for The New Yorker, Blumenthal has also had commentary routinely published in Vanity Fair, Salon, The Guardian, and many other media outlets. In addition to his highly regarded Political Life of Abraham Lincoln series, it was his July 17, 2020 article in Washington Monthly that caught my attention. On that date I was just about to push the “Send” button to get my final proposal for The Fire of Genius to my literary agent for presentation to publishers. I immediately sent off an email to Blumenthal, who quickly agreed to write a Foreword for the book. I had previously spoken with Blumenthal about the concept, and he had encouraged me to write it, noting that “a full book on Lincoln’s interest in science and technology was needed.” Given my long career in science combined with my lifetime independent study of Abraham Lincoln, I was the perfect person to write it. With his approval, I added his name to my proposal and sent it off. A few months later I had a signed contract with Rowman & Littlefield, for publication under their Lyons Press imprint.

In his Washington Monthly article, Blumenthal argued that “Lincoln’s commitment to science was central to his rise, who he became, how he won the Civil War, and to the United States becoming a modern nation.” This is exactly the theme of my book, so it was almost ordained that he write the Foreword.

He ends his Foreword for the book with the following paragraph:

It became more than an accident of time and sheer coincidence that an ocean apart Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day, February 12, 1809. The child born to a poor dirt farmer in Kentucky and the one born into a wealthy English family wrought revolutions and emancipations. Lincoln was the vindicator of liberal democracy of, by and for the people. Darwin was the scientific voyager of The Origin of the Species and The Descent of Man, of evolution, natural selection and the diversity of life. But in Lincoln’s case the division between statesmanship and science is unnatural. David J. Kent’s invaluable history shows us how Lincoln’s fire of genius was to fuse those elements in order to create a “new birth of freedom.”

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius tells the story of how science and technology gradually infiltrated Lincoln’s remarkable life and influenced his growing desire to improve the condition of all men. It’s a story of how we became a modern nation.

Pre-order is now open on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). The price will inevitably drop before the final shipment, and any pre-orders will automatically get charged the lower price at fulfillment. Pre-ordering now helps the publisher get a sense of the interest, which could mean a bigger print run. So please go ahead and pre-order without worries. While you’re there, check out my other books.

The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. That will also ensure you get informed of the release date AND will let you try for one of ten free hardcover copies of the book that I’ll be giving away this summer. I’ll also be giving away as many as a hundred e-books. [And yes, the book will also be put out on audio]

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of 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.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!

[Photo: David J. Kent and Sidney Blumenthal, author photo]

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Lincoln: The Fire of Genius, Available for Pre-Order

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Lincoln: The Fire of GeniusThe book is available for pre-order on the Rowman & Littlefield website (Lyons Press is a trade imprint of Rowman). You can also pre-order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). Release date is scheduled for September 1, 2022.

My forthcoming book has a cover design, a pre-order form on Amazon, a “want to read” listing on Goodreads, and a scheduled release date.

The full title is Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America. 

But let’s just call it The Fire of Genius.

The title comes from a somewhat obscure science lecture that Lincoln delivered several times in 1858. Moderately attended, the lecture was not exactly his best oratory work, but it ended on the following line:

The patent system…secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things.

Readers will learn through The Fire of Genius how science and technology gradually infiltrated Lincoln’s remarkable life and influenced his growing desire to improve the condition of all men. The book traces this progression from a simple farm boy to a president who changed the world.

I’m excited about the pending release of this book not just because it’s another book I’ve written, but because it blends my two lifelong passions of science and Abraham Lincoln. Growing up on the coast led me to a career that began in marine biology and meandered into environmental consulting. Science was my occupation, but Lincoln was always a side gig. That changed ten years ago when I left my science career and began pursuing in earnest a life of Lincoln. I’ve been researching this particular book for a long time. Way back in 2012, it was a primordial idea for this book that I pitched to an agent at a writing conference. That led to an immediate opportunity to write a book on Nikola Tesla, then Thomas Edison, then a general biography on Abraham Lincoln. While writing all of those (and two specialty e-books), I refined the original concept into its present form. Finally, The Fire of Genius is coming to bookstores near you.

Pre-order Lincoln: The Fire of Genius now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (click on the respective links to pre-order). The price is likely to drop before the final shipment, and any pre-orders will automatically get charged the lower price at fulfillment. Pre-ordering now helps the publisher get a sense of the interest, which could mean a bigger print run. So please go ahead and pre-order without worries. While you’re there, check out my other books.

The book is also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. That will also ensure you get informed of the release date AND will let you try for one of ten free hardcover copies of the book that I’ll be giving away this summer. I’ll also be giving away as many as a hundred e-books. [The book will also be put out on audio]

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

I’ll have much more about the book over the next few months, so join my mailing list here to keep informed.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of 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.

Check out my Goodreads author page. While you’re at it, “Like” my Facebook author page for more updates!