Tag: Abraham Lincoln

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Lincoln Room Dedicated in U.S. Capitol

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Lincoln RoomIt’s official. The room once used by Abraham Lincoln has been designated the Lincoln Room by House Resolution 1063. It’s a fitting tribute both to the 16th President of the United States and to Past-President of the Lincoln Group of DC, John Elliff. I was privileged to attend the dedication ceremony on May 1, 2019 in Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

The road to the dedication is a long one, from one former president to another. Currently Room H-226 in the U.S. Capitol, the space was the House post office during the time that Abraham Lincoln served his single term as a U.S. Congressman from Illinois. The House chambers then are now Statuary Hall, where visitors can see the statues from each of the 50 states (two for each state). A small metal plate in the floor designates where Lincoln’s desk was as a Congressman, way in the back of the hall. Behind it is a door that led to the post office. Today that room is in the rear of the suite designated for the House Majority Whip, currently Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina.

Lincoln would spend many hours between votes and debates in the post office. Representatives didn’t have offices or staffs then, so the post office was a good place to discuss issues of the day and trade stories and jokes.

Flash forward to the present. In 2014 I attended a special ceremony in Statuary Hall celebrating the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s second inaugural. Congressman Rodney Davis, who serves in part of what had been Lincoln’s district, took me into the room then occupied by Steve Scalise, who had set aside the old post office room as an unofficial tribute to Abraham Lincoln.

John Elliff also was at that ceremony. As President of the Lincoln Group of DC he recognized that Rep. Scalise’s unofficial designation might not hold after the results of the 2016 election changed party leadership of the House (much like Lincoln pushing for the 13th Amendment to codify the gains made in the Emancipation Proclamation). After finishing his presidential term in spring 2018, John began working in earnest to convince Congress to officially designate the room as the Lincoln Room.

In August 2018, John Elliff suddenly and tragically passed away. By then he had received commitments from several members of Congress to pass a resolution. The Lincoln Group of DC, the Illinois State Society, and the Abraham Lincoln Association of Springfield, Illinois (and its president, former Lincoln Group of DC officer Bob Willard) all engaged with Congress to support the permanent designation of the Lincoln Room.

Near the end of the 115th Congress, Representatives Darin LaHood and Raja Krishnamoorthi co-sponsored a bipartisan resolution to officially designate the Lincoln Room. It passed and the room was formally dedicated this week. Representatives LaHood and Krishnamoorthi, Lincoln Group of DC President John O’Brien, Illinois State Society President Jerry Weller, and John Elliff’s wife Linda all spoke at the dedication. About 50 proud members of the three organizations attended the event in Statuary Hall and toured the Lincoln Room.

As Representative LaHood noted during the dedication, this resolution and designation would not have been possible without the tireless work of John Elliff and the support of these Lincoln and Illinois organizations.

For me personally this was a fitting tribute to the man who became my Lincoln mentor, John Elliff, as well as to Abraham Lincoln himself. As I wrote in my tribute post last August, John was, as fellow friend and Lincoln scholar Bob Willard noted, “Lincolnian in character – honest, smart, hard-working, empathetic, curious.” Everyone in the Lincoln Group of DC appreciated these characteristics. He was a true leader.

And now he will be forever linked with his own political mentor, Abraham Lincoln. Thank you John, Linda, Bob, Jerry, Representatives LaHood and Krishnamoorthi, and all the members of each of the organizations that made the Lincoln Room happen. See the slideshow below for some photos of the event.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two 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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Sumter, Hunley, and a Die-Hard Confederate

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What do Fort Sumter, the H.L. Hunley, and a die-hard Confederate all have in common? I saw them all during my whirlwind weekend trip to Charleston, South Carolina – where the Civil War began. It was a quick trip but a hugely impactful one. Charleston has a lot to offer, both today and in history.

Fort Sumter – as I hope everyone already knows – was the site of the shots that began the American Civil War. Union Major Robert Anderson had been garrisoned with this 85-man forces at Fort Moultrie (where I also visited) as the construction of Fort Sumter in the middle of Charleston Harbor had yet to be completed. Fearing the easy access of Moultrie to the belligerence of newly formed Confederate armies, Anderson moved his men over to Sumter under the cover of night. In the early morning hours of April 12, 1861, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard began a 34-hour bombardment of the fort. And the war came.

http://www.oldslavemartmuseum.com/

I was honored to be part of a group of volunteers who helped raise the flag over Fort Sumter on Easter Sunday.

Charleston also hosts the H.L. Hunley, the Confederate submarine that sunk the USS Housatonic outside Charleston Harbor in 1864. The Hunley has the distinction of being both the first successful submarine attack in warfare and the only submarine that killed more of its own men than that of its enemy. On its first training cruise, five of the eight crew were drowned due to malfunctioning equipment. On its second, all eight crew members drowned, including its inventor, H.L. Hunley. According to Dave, the volunteer tour guide at the Hunley Center, the aforementioned General Beauregard thought that the underwater ship was a danger more to its crew than to the enemy. He did, however, approve the third mission, crewed by volunteers (a tradition that remains in today’s Naval Submarine corps) and led by Lieutenant George Dixon.

Charleston SC

But here’s where it gets stranger still. Dixon and his crew successfully snuck up close to the Housatonic, struck it with a torpedo (mine) attacked to a forward spar, and sunk the ship to the bottom of Charleston Harbor. The Hunley then mysteriously disappeared, finally located more than a century later by famed writer and explorer Clive Cussler. All eight of the final crewmen on the Hunley died (scientists still today argue about why), but because the Harbor was so shallow, only five of the Housatonic‘s crew died. After viewing the submarine I stopped at Magnolia Cemetery to see the graves of the 21 men who died on the Hunley.

Charleston SCThe Civil War theme didn’t stop there. I also visited an old Slave Mart, where the buying and selling of enslaved people was moved indoors after locals started complaining how the outdoor sales were giving the city a bad name. [It should be noted that Charleston became the fourth largest city in the new United States precisely because of its major role in both the international and domestic slave trades.] I also stumbled upon a man named Braxton (not named after the Confederate General and sugar plantation owner Braxton Bragg, he assured me). Braxton was standing next to the large monument in Battery Park, “Confederate Defenders of Charleston, Fort Sumter, 1861-1865.” He and his two buddies (he was alone this day) have been coming out to guard the statue every weekend for the last four years, that is, when he isn’t playing a Confederate private (or Robert E. Lee) in local reenactments. He had a fascinating story, which I’ll tell in a future post.

To round out the weekend in Charleston I visited Magnolia plantation and gardens, the remnants of a large antebellum rice plantation owned by the Drayton family.

In the middle of all this Civil War theme, I also found time to visit the South Carolina Aquarium on the Charleston waterfront. Along with the Ft. Fisher Aquarium in North Carolina I stopped at on the way back north, this makes something like 57 public aquariums I’ve visited in my life, so far.

I’ll have more on all of these once I sort through photos and notes. 

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two 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 Tesla at the Library of Congress

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Nikola Tesla’s pioneering work with alternating current electricity relies on power generated by a dynamo. Abraham Lincoln had a broad interest in science and technology. And now Lincoln and Tesla are joined in electrical science at the Library of Congress.

While Tesla likely never visited the library, Abraham Lincoln was certainly no stranger to the Library of Congress’s vast holdings. During Lincoln’s two-year term as a U.S. Congressman from 1847 to 1849 he lived at Mrs. Sprigg’s boarding house in a row of such houses from East Capitol Street to A Street SE. Directly behind the Capitol, it was a perfect location for Lincoln and his fellow boarders – mostly other Whigs and abolitionists – to discuss the issues of the day while being close enough to rush over for votes in Congress.

The row of houses was pulled down long after Lincoln’s time to make way for, you guessed it, the Library of Congress. The Jefferson Building of the Library was opened in 1897 and sits right on top of Lincoln’s once home-site. Lincoln as President was a regular borrower of books from the library’s shelves (at that time, the Library of Congress was still housed within the Capitol building). Topics of books loaned to Lincoln ranged from the strategy of war to the plays of Shakespeare, and of course, keeping up on science and technology.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

The Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress has an amazing main reading room, above which looms a beautiful dome hundreds of feet overhead. Around the central oculus is a mural by Edwin Howland Blashfield. Like Nikola Tesla, Blashfield spent much of his early life traveling around Europe. Later, once establishing himself as a widely regarded muralist, Blashfield would paint a mural in the dome of the Manufacturers’ and Liberal Arts building at the World’s Columbian Exposition (the Chicago World’s Fair), the very Fair where Nikola Tesla would become a household name.

Back in the Library of Congress, Blashfield decided on a circular mural designed to represent “Evolution of Civilization.” Various civilizations represent that evolution and the contributions each had made to society. Gazing upward you see this:

Library of Congress Lincoln Main Reading Room
Zooming in to the “one o’clock” position of the above you can see someone very familiar:

Library of Congress Lincoln Main Reading RoomAccording to the Library of Congress’s Abraham Lincoln and Civil War expert Michelle Krowl, and quoting from the book On These Walls: Inscriptions & Quotations in the Library of Congress:

“America is represented by the field of science. The figure, an engineer whose face was modeled on that of Abraham Lincoln, sits pondering a problem. In front of him is an electric dynamo, representing the American contribution to advances in harnessing electricity.”

Well how about that? The visage of Abraham Lincoln is used to epitomize America, and our contribution to society is science, depicted by an electric dynamo harnessing electricity, something that Nikola Tesla was in the forefront of bringing to the American public.

So Tesla and Lincoln are connected in several ways through science. And that’s not the end of the connections between these two men.

For more, check out my e-book on Amazon: Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two 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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Join Us – DC Emancipation and the Emancipation Proclamation – Special Event

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I’m happy to be a part of sponsoring a once in a lifetime special event. On the evening of April 16, 2019 there will be a triple header at the National Archives. You’ll be able to see the original Emancipation Proclamation, see an All-Star Panel discuss the Proclamation and DC Emancipation Day, plus be entertained by the Artists Group Chorale of Washington. And it’s all FREE.

DC Emancipation Day Event

Attendees will be invited to a private viewing of the original Emancipation Proclamation AND DC Compensated Emancipation Act documents beginning at 6 pm. Both documents are signed by Abraham Lincoln. This is a special event. Because of the fragility of these original documents, they are only on display for a short period of time and we’ll have a privileged viewing.

While viewing we’ll be serenaded by the Artists Group Chorale.

At 6:45 pm we will move down to the main auditorium in the McGowan Theater for another song from the Chorale, followed by a discussion of both documents by learned scholars. Moderated by Howard University Professor and leading Abraham Lincoln scholar Edna Greene Medford, the panel includes C.R. Gibbs, Roger Davidson, and Elizabeth Clark-Lewis.

After their on-stage discussion, the microphones will be opened up for audience questions and comments.

This is a rare event and the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia is pleased to be co-sponsoring with the National Archives and the Government of the District of Columbia.

Free registration is suggested to ensure space in the auditorium, but not required. The National Archives is located across the street from the Archives Metro Station between Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues in downtown Washington, D.C.

Please join us for this wonderful event.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two 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 Takes Tad to Richmond on His Birthday

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Lincoln and TadOn April 4, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln took his son Tad into the city of Richmond, Virginia. The city had fallen the day before into Union hands two days before. It was Tad’s 12th birthday.

Tad was born Thomas Lincoln III, in 1853. He was named after Lincoln’s somewhat estranged father, but everyone called him Tad because as an infant he had a large head and was as wiggly as a tadpole. Tad was born with a partial cleft palate that was not externally noticeable but gave him a lisp and made his speech difficult to understand. He and Willie ran ramshackle over the White House until Willie’s premature demise, after which Lincoln doted on Tad to the extreme.

In late March 1865, General Grant had invited Lincoln to City Point (near Petersburg), to which Lincoln immediately accepted. He was not alone; Mary insisted on joining him, so a party including Tad Lincoln, a maid, a bodyguard, and a military aide boarded the River Queen on March 23 for the trip. Son Robert, now an adjunct to Grant’s army, met them on their arrival the next evening. Lincoln took time to visit the troops and confer with Generals Grant and Sherman and Admiral David Porter. Overall it was a restful but productive visit. That changed when Mary Lincoln flew into a jealous rage at seeing General Ord’s wife riding “too close” to her husband, after which Lincoln sent Mary back to Washington. Soon after her departure, however, the Union captured Richmond, which the Confederate leadership had abandoned. She insisted on returning, this time bringing a large entourage that included her ex-slave dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley, who had been born in nearby Petersburg.

During Mary’s absence, Lincoln took Tad into Richmond. After landing at the docks, Lincoln and Tad walked the mile or so to the Confederate White House that had served until a few days earlier as Jefferson Davis’s office. Surrounding him along the way were hundreds of ex-slaves who wanted to see the “Great Emancipator,” while anxious white southerners stared suspiciously from their windows.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet had fled the city on April 2nd, boarding the last open railroad line further south. Retreating soldiers set fire to bridges, the Richmond armory, and various supply warehouses. Untended, the fires grew out of control and large parts of Richmond were destroyed. The city was surrendered to Union officers the next day. Since Lincoln was relatively nearby, he chose to visit the former Confederate capital, bringing along Tad. For Tad, this was a best birthday celebration ever, as he enjoyed wearing military uniforms and “playing soldier,” much to the chagrin of the White House staff and cabinet.

A statue of Lincoln and Tad was erected in modern times at the site of Tredegar Iron Works.

Lincoln and Tad in Richmond

Before heading back to Washington, Lincoln visited the Depot Field Hospital at City Point. Over the course of a full day he shook the hands of more than 6,000 patients, including a few sick and wounded Confederate soldiers. Feeling the pressure of business, Lincoln left City Point to return to Washington on the evening of April 8. The next day, Lee surrendered his army to General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the war.

A week later Lincoln would die from an assassin’s bullet.

Tad survived the trauma of his father’s assassination and his mother’s near-insanity only to die at 18 years old when a common cold developed into severe damage to his lungs. Of Abraham and Mary’s four children, only the oldest, Robert, would live to adulthood.

[Adapted in part from my book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America]

[Photo Credit of Lincoln and Tad statue: Riverfront.com]

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two 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 Meets Joshua Speed…and Mary Todd

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Abe and MaryAfter an unfortunate breakup with a woman named Mary Owens, and with negotiations over moving the capital from Vandalia to Springfield under way, Abraham Lincoln decided to leave New Salem for the big city. The move was advantageous.

But he was broke. Even with his full pay for the last session of the state legislature in hand, Lincoln rode his old horse to Springfield deep in debt. Upon arrival, one of his companions on the trip, William Butler, sold Lincoln’s horse without telling him, paid off his debts, and moved his saddlebags into the Butler household about fourteen miles out of town. Lincoln continued taking his meals at the Butlers without charge for the next five years. After a while Lincoln decided he needed to find a place in town, and he rode in on a borrowed horse with his saddlebags, a few law books, and the clothes on his back seeking residence. His first stop was Joshua Speed’s store. According to Speed, Lincoln asked “what the furniture for a single bedstead would cost.” Putting pencil to paper, Speed told him the sum would be seventeen dollars. Taken aback, Lincoln agreed it was probably a fair price but replied, “If you will credit me to Christmas, and my experiment here as a lawyer is a success, I will pay you then. If I fail in that I will probably never be able to pay you at all.” Seeing his forlorn look, Speed offered:

I think I can suggest a plan by which you will be able to attain your end, without incurring any debt. I have a very large room, and a very large double-bed in it; which you are perfectly welcome to share with me if you choose.

“Where is your room?” asked Lincoln. Speed pointed to the stairs leading from the store to his room. Saying nothing, Lincoln took his saddlebags, went up the stairs, tossed them on the floor, and returned “beaming with pleasure” to say:

“Well, Speed, I’m moved.”

Lincoln shared the room with Speed for the next three-and-a-half years, often with other store clerks and assistants. One such clerk was a very young William Herndon, who later went into partnership with Lincoln. The atmosphere was jovial, and Lincoln was his usual story-telling self. Speed became Lincoln’s closest friend and confidant for the rest of his life, even though Speed eventually returned to his slave-holding family in Kentucky. As was common between men of those days, the two shared their most intimate vulnerabilities, a relationship that rivaled any of Lincoln’s romantic loves. When Speed questioned his affection for the woman he was about to marry, Lincoln helped him through the doubts. Later, when Lincoln was going through the same process, he turned to the happily married Speed for advice. He was seeking counsel regarding his relationship with Mary Todd.

On March 27, 1842, after an on-again, off-again courting of Mary Todd, Lincoln wrote to his friend, Joshua F. Speed, who had by that time moved back to his plantation in Louisville, Kentucky. Lincoln had abruptly broken off the engagement over a year before and it was eating at him.

“Since then, it seems to me, I should have been entirely happy, but for the never-absent idea, that there is one still unhappy whom I have contributed to make so. That still kills my soul. I can not but reproach myself, for even wishing to be happy while she is otherwise.”

Speed managed to counsel his old friend and sometime in 1842 Mary and Lincoln began secretly courting again. Despite her sister Elizabeth’s opposition, the two often met at the Edwards house and sat on the low couch for hours, talking about life and love. Likely they also discussed politics, as by this time Lincoln was actively involved in Whig party activities and Mary was as ambitious as he, perhaps even more so. Their romance bloomed again, enough that Mary flirtatiously and anonymously wrote a letter backing up Lincoln’s own anonymous letter to the local paper mocking James Shields, a political rival. Shields, feeling his honor had been attacked, challenged Lincoln to a duel. Lincoln tried to back out of it, but when Shields insisted, the tall and muscular Lincoln offered up heavy broadswords as weapon of choice. Faced with a severe disadvantage, the short-armed Shields allowed himself to be talked out of the fight.

To the astonishment of the Springfield social set, Lincoln and Mary suddenly decided they would get married—that night. Elizabeth Edwards claimed the wedding occurred with only two hours’ notice, and indeed the marriage license was issued that very day. Lincoln had a “deer in the highlights” look as he approached the hurried ceremony in the Edwards parlor. According to friends, when Lincoln was dressing for ceremony he was asked where he was going, to which he replied, “I guess I’m going to hell.” At least one Lincoln scholar believes Mary may have seduced Lincoln the night before into doing something that obligated him to marriage. Whatever the reason, they were married on November 4, 1842. A week later he seemed resigned to the fact, closing a business letter with:

“Nothing new here except my marrying, which to me, is matter of profound wonder.”

[Adapted from Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America]

[Photo Credit: Photo of print by Lloyd Ostendorf]

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two 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 Applies for a Patent

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Abraham Lincoln is the only president ever to get a patent, for “an improved method of getting vessels over shoals.” He submitted his patent application on March 10, 1849. It was approved two months later. The story leading up to the patent had begun years ago.

Soon after moving to Illinois at the age of 21, Lincoln took his second flatboat trip to New Orleans. Early in the trip his flatboat found itself stuck on the New Salem mill dam. A heroic and ingenious escape involving a bored hole in the bow of the boat put him back on his way. He was so enamored with the people of New Salem that he moved there upon his return.

Lincoln Patent Model

Years later the lawyer Lincoln tried several patent cases. He also served a term in the U.S. Congress. After his first session in Congress he toured New England campaigning for Zachary Taylor as the Whig nominee for president. Lincoln then took a roundabout route past Niagara Falls and through the Great Lakes by steamship, and along the newly opened Illinois and Michigan Canal on his way back to Springfield. While passing through the Detroit River he witnessed another steamboat stuck on a shoal. The captain ordered crew to jam logs, boards, barrels, and anything else floatable under the hull of the ship. It worked, and the ship was able to free itself from the obstruction.

Always observant, Lincoln noted this effort and upon arriving back to his legal practice in Springfield started sketching out a method for rectifying the problem. Lincoln’s invention “combine[d] adjustable buoyant air chambers with a steam boat for the purpose of enabling their draught of water to be readily lessened to enable them to pass over bars, or through shallow water, without discharging their cargoes.” With the help of a local woodworker he constructed a wooden model. He also hired a patent lawyer in Washington to help him prepare the application.

Lincoln Patent Drawing

He received Patent No. 6469. The system was never put to practical use, but it demonstrated Lincoln’s analytical mind and interest in technology, skills that often came into place in his court cases.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two 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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Cooper Union – The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President

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Lincoln at Cooper UnionOn February 27, 1860, a tall, lanky lawyer from Illinois gave a speech at a place called Cooper Union in New York City. The speech would make Abraham Lincoln president. Sounds a bit hyperbolic to say such a thing, and there were many other factors that contributed to Lincoln’s success that election season, but the speech did more to make his name in eastern society than any other event.

While Lincoln was renowned in Illinois, his stories and jokes the highlight of the Eighth Judicial Circuit, he was virtually unknown in the rest of the country. In early 1860 his name was not on anyone’s lips as a possible nominee for the Republican party. And then came Cooper Union.

Lincoln had been invited to speak at Henry Ward Beecher’s church in Brooklyn. He spent months researching his topic in preparation, only to find after arriving in New York that the event had been moved to the larger Cooper Union building in Manhattan. Retouching his speech for a more connected political audience, he stood up on the stage and began with his surprisingly high-pitched voice, which warmed up to a commanding presence after a few minutes.

Eminent Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer in his book, Lincoln at Cooper Union, describes the painstaking research and effort Lincoln put in to prepare for the most important speech of his life. He parses the intricate language of the 90-minute speech, then goes into its structure – three main sections.

The first section provides a historical accounting of the founder’s beliefs regarding slavery. And by accounting I mean in the literal sense, counting up the various votes and statements of the founders as indications of their views on slavery. In short, they didn’t approve of slavery (even though many were slaveholders) but as slavery already was firmly entrenched, they saw not how to eliminate it in one fell swoop. So they opted for a piecemeal approach under the, perhaps naïve, belief that slavery would die under its own immoral weight. Lincoln documents this in great detail.

In the second section, Lincoln directs his words at the people of the South. “You say you are conservative…while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservative? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?” Lincoln notes that being conservative would mean adhering to the beliefs of the founders that slavery was wrong and inconsistent with a nation where “all men are created equal.”

In his final section, the shortest, he asserts that Republicans cannot relinquish their principle that slavery is wrong just to placate the South. He ends with words that have become as famous as his later Gettysburg Address:

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

As one looks back on this speech 159 years later we see how Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party were progressive in their views while remaining true to the Declaration that “all men are created equal.” Southern Democrats of the age were the conservatives in that they sought to preserve an aristocracy-based Southern society where a few rich plantation owners controlled an economy based on inequality.

Oh how the parties have switched places in the intervening years to get us to today.

All Americans would benefit from reading the full Cooper Union speech and learning more about this singular era in American history.

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two 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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Willie Lincoln’s Tragic Death Leads to Advances in Embalming Sciences

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Willie LincolnWilliam Wallace Lincoln, “Willie,” died of typhoid fever on February 20, 1862. President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Lincoln were devastated. Willie’s younger brother Tad was also afflicted, but would live. This personal tragedy on top of the ongoing Civil War was almost too much to bear for both of them; Mary would never completely recover. But Willie’s death, and those of 700,000 soldiers during the Civil War, also ushered in advances in the embalming sciences.

Called in to care for the body, the Charles D. Brown and Joseph B. Alexander undertaking firm embalmed Willie Lincoln using a new process. Their senior employee, Henry Platt Cattell did the actual embalming, as well as that for President Lincoln three years later.

The process of embalming was relatively new. Generally the blood was drained from the body, although it wasn’t necessary in all cases to do so. In Willie’s (and Abraham’s) case, blood was drained through the jugular vein in the neck, while the embalming fluid was pumped into the body via the femoral artery in the thigh. There were several recipes for the embalming fluid. Zinc chloride was the most common preservative, often made by dissolving strips of zine sheets in hydrochloric acid. The fluid slowed down the degradation process, thus preserving the appearance of the body for a longer period of time.

Because of the ongoing Civil War, Willie Lincoln was interred in Oak Hill Cemetery in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. He remained in the Carroll family mausoleum until Lincoln’s assassination, after which Willie’s body accompanied that of the fallen President on the train back to Springfield, Illinois, where both were interred in Oak Ridge Cemetery. Later, all the Lincolns except Robert were laid to rest in the Lincoln Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery. Because of his brief Civil War military service and his long service to subsequent presidents, Robert’s tomb is in Arlington National Cemetery across the river from the Lincoln Memorial.

Interestingly, the Carroll family mausoleum, long forgotten as the temporary location of Willie’s body, has one again become a tourist destination following the 2017 publication of Lincoln in the Bardo, a novel by George Saunders. The book takes place in the Oak Hill Cemetery, where Lincoln visits the site of his son’s tomb. The “bardo” is an intermediate space between life and rebirth; the book features conversations with various specters dealing with their sudden deaths, all watching Lincoln’s overwhelming grief.

Prior to the Civil War, those who died were buried quickly to avoid the nastiness of decomposing bodies. Because of advances made in the art and science of embalming during the Civil War and after, led by the work of Dr. Thomas Holmes, it became standard practice to preserve the dead so that they may make the long trips home for proper burial by their families. When Lincoln himself was embalmed, Dr. Brown remained with the funeral train through its winding route from Washington to Springfield, making necessary touchups along the way to preserve Lincoln as much as possible for the grieving populace. To many, we still grieve today, asking ourselves and those around us – What would Lincoln do?

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two 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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Annual Wreath Laying at the Lincoln Memorial for Lincoln’s Birthday

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Today is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday! Born in 1809, this year would have been Lincoln’s 210th birthday. And as is customary, there is a wreath laying at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

I’ve been privileged to represent the Lincoln Group of DC for the last three years to lay our wreath, which joins wreaths from other Lincoln organizations across the nation. Someone else will have those duties this year because of my travel schedule, but it’s an honor I’ll never forget.

Joining me in the video is Wendy Swanson, the editor of the Lincolnian newsletter for the Lincoln Group of DC.

Lincoln Memorial Wreath LayingIf you aren’t already a member, please consider joining the Lincoln Group of DC. We have members all over the country. For those who are local to the District of Columbia, we have monthly dinner meetings featuring well-known authors and Lincoln scholars, run at least one Civil War battlefield tour a year, have an engaging monthly book study group, and a host of other events and meetings. The Lincolnian newsletter comes out quarterly and includes news about the group as well as scholarly articles about Abraham Lincoln.

Check out the website at http://lincolngroup.org/

 

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!