Tag: Fire of Genius

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Catching Up on Lincoln, The Book

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David at Lincoln MemorialI often check The Lincoln Log to catch up on what was happening this day in Abraham Lincoln’s life. And today I can also update where things stand on my new Lincoln book.

Among other events listed for June 30, 1864 is that Lincoln abandons the idea of colonizing freed black men to Chiriqui, a coal region in what is now southwestern Panama. I discuss both colonization and the role of coal in the Civil War in my forthcoming book. I doubt whether it is truly accurate to say that Lincoln abandoned colonization on any given day, or that he even was as big a proponent of it that history has made him. I discuss that in the book too.

So what is the status of this book?

I submitted the full manuscript to the editor at Rowman & Littlefield last week. I’m currently in my “take a breather” phase, which means I’m desperately working to catch up on all the other obligations I backlogged while busy writing. With the July 4th holiday starting this weekend, the editor has told me that I won’t hear anything for a while. My guess is that by late July I’ll have the editor and copy editor’s edits (e.g., to edit sentences like this one). Barring any major disagreements, the book will be into cover design and layout by August. Our tentative plan is to release the book around February 2022. I’ll provide updates when the publisher settles on a date, and especially when the pre-ordering can begin. Some background on the book is in this earlier post. I’m hesitant to jinx myself by revealing more until the manuscript has been accepted, but expect more this summer. Stay tuned.

The aforementioned backlog included the first Lincoln Group of DC Board meeting I’ve chaired as President. While I’ve been president of scientific organizations four times in my career, this is the first Abraham Lincoln organization for which I’ve carried that responsibility. Luckily, the Lincoln Group Board is exceptionally capable of making the process as efficient as it is active. We have some big issues on the table. First, there is the return to in-person dinner/lunch lectures, which we tentatively are working on to accomplish in October with none other than renowned Lincoln expert Ron White. Second, we are beginning to plan our own Lincoln Memorial Centennial for next May. And we won’t forget all those who have been able to join us on our monthly virtual events – expect to see a continuing schedule of virtual lectures, discussions, and possibly even some hybrid events. You can keep up on Lincoln Group events and Lincoln news on our website at Lincolnian.org.

This summer should also bring more books to review for the Abraham Lincoln Institute book award. I serve on that committee and act as Treasurer for ALI. Unless there is a major COVID setback, we plan to go back to our normal in-person full-day symposium at Ford’s Theatre in March 2022. Videos of previous symposia speakers can be found on the ALI website.

I’m also looking forward to getting in some travel again after more than a year’s hiatus. More on that as it happens.

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His newest Lincoln book is scheduled for release in February 2022. 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.

Follow me for updates on my Facebook author page and Goodreads.

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Lincoln Sues the Railroad Hand That Feeds Him

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Abraham Lincoln photoOn June 23, 1857, Abraham Lincoln sued the Illinois Central Railroad. The Railroad had hired him on many occasions to defend their interests, but on this occasion they balked at the unusually high fee Lincoln charged – $5000. Lincoln had served the railroad well over many years, often taking limited fees, for example he had drawn only $150 for a year’s worth of work encompassing “at least fifteen cases (I believe one or two more) and I have concluded to lump them off at ten dollars a case.” This time, the McLean County Tax Case, he wanted to get paid the value of the work.

After jockeying around to ensure Lincoln was free to represent them, the railroad had paid him a retainer to get him started. The case was complicated, involved several trials, including the Illinois Supreme Court. Lincoln won the case and submitted his bill for $5,000, an amount more than the annual salary of the Illinois governor. After a week he wrote to the railroad’s counsel requesting status, who indicated it had been sent to the company president and attorney, who refused to pay it. Lincoln sued. Knowing he needed to justify such a large amount, Lincoln included an affidavit providing for the depositions of other prominent lawyers, all of them his friends—Norman Judd, Isaac Arnold, Grant Goodrich, Archibald Williams, and his former law partner, Stephen T. Logan—each of whom vouched for the appropriateness of the fee.

In his own brief, Lincoln wrote:

“Are, or not the amount of labor, the doubtfulness and difficulty of the question, the degree of success in the result; and the amount of pecuniary interest involved, not merely in the particular case, but covered by the principle decided, and thereby secured to the client, all proper elements, by the custom of the profession to consider in determining what is a reasonable fee in a given case.

That $5000 is not an unreasonable fee in this case.”

When the case came up for trial, no representative for the railroad was present and the judge awarded Lincoln the five thousand dollars. John Douglass, the Illinois Central railroad’s attorney, did show up the next day and begged for a new trial, which Lincoln did not resist. Setting aside the earlier verdict, they retried the case and the jury again decided for Lincoln. This time they awarded him $4,800 because Lincoln had received $200 as a retainer (in fact, the records show he had received $250). As with all fees received by the firm, Lincoln shared this fee equally with William Herndon.

[Adapted from my forthcoming book, due out in February 2022]

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His newest Lincoln book is scheduled for release in February 2022. 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.

Follow me for updates on my Facebook author page and Goodreads.

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Lincoln Sees a New Weapon He Likes

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Lincoln testing a SpencerAbraham Lincoln had an interest in technology, and on June 10, 1861 he sees a new weapon he likes. I write about this and other incidents in my forthcoming book:

A few weeks into the war, he pressed Captain James Dahlgren on a new gun presented by Orison Blunt. After encouraging Dahlgren to “please see Mr. Blunt,” Lincoln wrote “What do you think of it? Would the government do well to purchase some of them?” When Dahlgren replied positively the same day, Lincoln endorsed the envelope with another prod for action: “I saw the gun myself, and witnessed some experiments with it,” Lincoln wrote, adding “I really think it worthy the attention of the government.” Presumably these were the Enfield-patterned rifles Blunt made for the Army a year later.

Pursuing another promising new rifle, Lincoln wrote to Ripley “to introduce you to Mr. Strong who has what appears to be an ingenious and useful Carbine” and asked Ripley to give it a service test. Strong was an unlikable man with dubious ethics, but his breechloading carbine provided the advantage of faster loading at the base of the shorter barrel compared to the longer barreled, muzzle loading muskets most commonly in use. Ripley was unimpressed. While admitting that the new system was “novel and ingenious,” he told Lincoln that it was no better than any of the other breechloading rifles available, which Ripley found to be too complicated to employ in service. Keep it simple was Ripley’s motto, and he preferred old muskets to simplify supply of guns and ammunition to thousands of green troops.

The above is just a teeny snippet from the new book. I’m doing the final editing for submission to the publisher within the next few weeks. Over the next several months I’ll have more information to release about the book, including a stellar Foreword by a well-known author, a cover reveal, and much more.

Stay Tuned!

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His newest Lincoln book is scheduled for release in February 2022. 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.

Follow me for updates on my Facebook author page and Goodreads.

 

 

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Lincoln, a Flatboat, New Orleans, and Discovering America

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Lincoln flatboatSoon after moving to Illinois, Lincoln made his second flatboat trip to New Orleans. A local entrepreneur and schemer named Denton Offutt approached Lincoln’s relative John Hanks about manning such a journey. Hanks then recruited Lincoln and brother-in-law John Johnston, all of whom now lived in a wooded area west of Decatur near the banks of the Sangamon River. Because of the previous “winter of deep snow,” melting snowpack made the roads impassable by the first of March 1831, forcing the three men to purchase a canoe and paddle down the Sangamon River as far as Springfield, where they expected to find a fully loaded flatboat. Offutt, however, had somehow forgotten to arrange for it.

Frustrated by the delay but eager to continue, Lincoln, Hanks, and Johnston were joined by a local carpenter, Charles Cabanis, and John Roll. While they largely followed the standard design, there were some differences. Because this trip was to include livestock—live hogs in addition to wet and dry goods—the men constructed small corrals and troughs in the boat. They also added a wooden mast and sail to help them maneuver when the wind was gentle enough to push the boat, but not wreck it. After about six weeks of construction, they shoved the 18 feet wide by 80 feet long boat into the Sangamon River just below Sangamotown. They floated the Sangamon River as it wound northwest until meeting the Illinois River near Beardstown, which then turned south until its confluence with the mighty Mississippi River north of Alton for their final thousand miles on the waters to New Orleans. Along the way they would pass St. Louis (where John Hanks turned back because his wife was due to give birth), Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez, and Baton Rouge, giving Lincoln a glimpse at cities that would become important strategic points in the later Civil War.

As he moved down the river, Lincoln discovered how the Mississippi had become the central artery of commerce in the Midwest, allowing farmers from western New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to move their produce to New Orleans. It was here Lincoln discovered the existence of a cosmopolitan, multiethnic, society doing trade with the Caribbean and South America, as well as across the central American isthmus and up to west coast, plus Europe and Africa. Lincoln’s world enlarged immeasurably. No longer subsistence farming and small towns as far as you could walk or ride on horseback, life on the river showed Lincoln a glimpse of upper society. There were wealthy sugar plantation owners who purchased or traded for pork and potatoes. There were poverty-stricken families, both black and white, desperate to barter whatever little they had for whatever little they could get. The river was an economic engine as well as transportation, but he recognized the benefits were unequal in distribution. It made Lincoln think about his own situation, his limited formal schooling and opportunities, and how he might better his condition.

Upon arrival in the Crescent City, he and his companions had to compete for space at the piers with hundreds of other flatboats, two to three deep along the docks for over a mile at the landing site above the city. After crawling over other boats, the men bartered and sold whatever remained of their wares, plus anything acquired along the way. Eventually they would sell the boat itself, sometimes whole to a wealthy buyer, but often piecemeal, taking it apart board by board to sell as lumber or fuel. Overall, they could net a return of about a quarter of the construction cost. On each occasion the crews lingered in New Orleans for as long as they could afford before setting out for home.

[Adapted from my forthcoming book]

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His newest Lincoln book is scheduled for release in February 2022. 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.

Follow me for updates on my Facebook author page and Goodreads.

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Discoveries and Inventions – Lincoln’s Science Lecture (or was it two lectures?)

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Abraham LincolnOn April 6, 1858, in Bloomington, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln gave his first science lecture on what has become known as “Discoveries and Inventions.” Or maybe he wrote two lectures by that name; the issue is a bit murky.

The Daily Pantagraph reported that “Mr. Lincoln is an able and original thinker, and in the department of literature fully sustains the reputation he has so justly earned at the bar.” Others, including Lincoln’s law partner William Herndon, were not so charitable, calling the lecture a “dull, lifeless thing.”

In any case, analyzing the Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions is complicated by the fact that only what appear to be partial transcripts of the lecture remain. John Nicolay in a Century Magazine article called “Lincoln’s Literary Experiments,” and later in the Nicolay and Hay Life of Lincoln, reports only the second half of the lecture. Basler’s Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln has both parts of the lecture, but lists them in two separate volumes as if they were two separate lectures. The confusion comes from the two handwritten parts of the lecture left with the only surviving daughter of Mary Lincoln’s uncle, who passed them to Dr. Samuel Melvin after Lincoln’s assassination, who, believing they were separate lectures, kept one part and sold the other part to Charles Gunther, who later sold it to renowned Lincoln collector Oliver Barrett. In the 1990s, historian Wayne Temple demonstrated clearly that the two parts were indeed from the same lecture. A prominent Bloomington, Illinois newspaper, the site of his most well-attended version of the lecture, carried a significant accounting that includes reference to both sections of the lecture, as well as two subjects—laughter and music—that are not in either section. The lecture most likely included another written piece in the middle, now lost, or Lincoln improvised as he spoke. The two pieces also include some overlap and seeming repetition, for example mentioning Adam’s fig-leaf and steam power in both, which suggests that both pieces are early drafts that Lincoln revised and consolidated into a final lecture.

More recently, Mary and Robert Lincoln historian Jason Emerson discovered letters between Robert and John Nicolay revealing that the two pieces, perhaps additional missing segments, and maybe some revisions, were contained in “a mss [manuscript] book, thin, in black cover, evidently got for the purpose of copying the Lecture into it, as was done in my father in his own hand.” Robert concluded that book was “evidently the one used in delivery.” Unfortunately, Robert lost the book and it has never been found.

Whatever the final length, Lincoln gave the lecture on as many as six different occasions in central Illinois between April 1858 and April 1860. The first was in Bloomington on April 6, 1858. Ten months later, he repeated the lecture in Jacksonville and again in Springfield on February 21, 1859. After giving it in Decatur in January 1860, his planned repeat in Bloomington in April was cancelled as it was about to begin due to poor turnout. His return engagement in Springfield two months after rising to national prominence with his Cooper Union speech, however, was given before a “large and intelligent audience.” Many more requests for Lincoln to present the lecture were made by prominent community leaders across the state, but Lincoln limited himself to places and times that coincided with legal and political business so as not to inconvenience himself.

[Adapted from my forthcoming book]

David J. Kent is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. His newest Lincoln book is scheduled for release in February 2022. 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.

Follow me for updates on my Facebook author page and Goodreads.

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Lincoln Visits the Patent Office

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Abraham LincolnOn March 17, 1863, President Lincoln and his wife, Mary, tour the Patent Office. Lincoln is no stranger to the Patent Office. His own patent model resides there, for Patent No. 6469, “an improved method of getting vessels over shoals.” He took his son, Robert, there when he was a Congressman.

Also as a Congressman, Lincoln often assisted other Illinoisans get patents for their inventions. Lincoln wrote to Amos Williams, for example, telling him to send a description and drawing of his invention, along with $20 for the filing fee. Williams had sent a model, but reminded him that “nothing can be done…without having a description of your invention. You perceive the reason for this.” Similarly, Lincoln visits the  Patent Office to inquire about an application for a patent by Jesse Lynch of Magnolia. “They tell me that no patent has [been] issued to any body,” Lincoln informs Lynch, “on any application made as late as the first of July last.”

On this day, however, the visit is more leisurely. He seems to be on a mission to find a suitable gift for foreign dignitaries. The New York Herald reports:

“This temple of American genius has lately received additions . . . Mrs. Lincoln, with characteristic unselfishness, has sent from the White House a splendid variety of the presents of the Kings of Siam and the Tycoon of Japan. Among the most noticeable is a suit of Japanese armor . . . for which the Knight of La Mancha would have given his boots. . . . The President and Mrs. Lincoln seemed to enjoy greatly this respite from the cares of State among so many interesting objects.”

Lincoln and Mary would return to the Patent Office several times for events raising money for organizations taking care of wounded soldiers. The Patent Office was commonly used for such events as it was one of very few locations with enough open space for large gatherings, outside the White House. On March 6, 1865, the President and Mrs. Lincoln attend the inaugural ball at the Patent Office. The Evening Star notes that:

“Mrs. Lincoln . . . wore a white silk skirt and bodice, an elaborately-worked white lace dress over the silk skirt . . . The President was dressed in black, with white kid gloves. . . . Shortly after midnight the Presidential party were escorted to the supper room.” After dinner, “President Lincoln and party withdrew about one o’clock . . . It is estimated that not less than four thousand persons were present at this ball.”

Today, the Patent Office is now the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum. I spent many a lunchtime inside its inner atrium. Inside rests the official portrait of Abraham Lincoln and all past Presidents through Barack Obama. Perhaps Lincoln is the light shining down through the atrium’s glass ceiling. Lincoln would have felt comfortable in that building.

David J. Kent is 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.

Follow me for updates on my Facebook author page and Goodreads.

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Abraham Lincoln, Blacksmith?

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New Salem blacksmith shopAbraham Lincoln briefly considered apprenticing as a blacksmith. Most subsistence farmers also doubled as tradesmen, working as coopers (barrel makers), tanners (leather makers), distillers (whiskey), brickmakers, shoemakers, or blacksmiths. While still in Indiana he and Dennis Hanks had spent many evenings in the Gentryville general store and at Baldwin’s blacksmith shop trading stories and “yarns,” so Lincoln had seen many an hour of blacksmithing in action.

Blacksmiths were accorded an honored place in the village. They forged the plows, the tools, and the cookware needed to sustain life on the frontier. The village blacksmith was a “gunsmith, farrier, coppersmith, millwright, machinist, and surgeon general to all broken tools and implements,” one scholar put it. He could be called on to forge such a variety of implements as nails, horseshoes, chains, bullet molds, yoke rings, bear traps, bells, saws, and all the metal parts of looms, spinning wheels, and sausage grinders. Lincoln had been familiar with the cast iron plows he used when he was young. With its relatively high carbon content (over 2%), cast iron tends to be brittle, which caused problems for Lincoln back on the farm. On the other hand, iron could be cast into a variety of shapes using molds. As a blacksmith, Lincoln would have learned how to work with wrought iron, which has a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) and much tougher, easy to hammer into useful shapes, could be drawn out into thin wires, corrosion resistant, and more easily welded.

Later, during the Civil War, Lincoln would recall his short-lived experience with blacksmithing to describe his relationship with George B. McClellan, the man he would assign as General-in-Chief of the Union Army but later described as “having the slows” because of his lack of aggressiveness in battle. Lincoln described a blacksmith in his boyhood days that tried to put to a purposeful use a big piece of wrought-iron he had in the shop. Firing up the forge, the blacksmith put the iron on the anvil determined to make a sledgehammer out of it. Giving up on that after a while, he decided to draw it out and make a clevis (a U-shaped fastener). After a few whacks and pumping the bellows to heighten the fire he again stopped. “Okay, maybe a bolt.” Working it hard for a while longer it now was too thin even for a bolt. Frustrated with his lack of success trying to make something useful happen, he proclaimed, “darn you, I’m going to make a fizzle of you.” And with that he dunked it into the water and let if fizz. McClellan, Lincoln told his friend, is someone who should have been productive but no amount of working him hard could make him useful. McClellan’s career soon fizzled out.

Being a blacksmith was respectable work, but it was also hard work, Lincoln decided. The idea of toiling over a hot forge, slinging a heavy hammer for hours on end while sweat poured from his skin was unappealing. Given his distaste for the hard labor of subsistence farming, Lincoln chose not to pursue blacksmithing. He would find some other trade.

[Adapted from Lincoln: The Fire of Genius]

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.

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Lincoln the Surveyor

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Lincoln the Surveyor by Lloyd OstendorfThe Sangamon County Deed Record on February 17, 1836 has this notation from Abraham Lincoln, the Surveyor.

“I hereby certify that the town of Petersburgh has been surveyed according to law, and that this is a correct plat of the same. A. Lincoln.”

“The Surveyor of Sangamon,” Lincoln later wrote in a third-person autobiography, “offered to depute to A[braham] that portion of his work which was within his part of the country. He accepted, procured a compass and chain, studied Flint, and Gibson a little, and went at it. This procured bread, and kept soul and body together.” Calhoun was a devout Democrat and the Whiggish Lincoln only took the job after he was assured his politics would not be held against him.

Over the three years he was deputy surveyor, he surveyed the towns of New Boston, Bath, Albany, Huron, and resurveyed the city of Petersburg. The city had been surveyed years before but Lincoln was asked to redo it when it began to grow more substantially, in part as New Salem began to fade away and its residents moved to nearby Petersburg. He also laid out the area that town fathers decided to name after its surveyor – Lincoln, Illinois. Lincoln christened the town with the juice from a watermelon. Beyond towns he also surveyed and laid out numerous roads and private properties, including a bridge over the Salt River at Musick Crossing. In one case, he found in resurveying some land that the seller had by error granted more land than he received payment for. Lincoln convinced his client, the descendant of the original buyer, to pay the cost of the additional land to the seller’s heirs. He was paid $2.50 for each quarter section of land, although as little as 25 cents for smaller lots.

Overall, Lincoln found surveying to be profitable both financially and in building relationships for his later political activities. “Mr. Lincoln was a good surveyor,” one investor noted, “he did it all himself, without help from anybody except chainmen.” The chainmen were men and boys would carry chains, drive stakes, and blaze trees for Lincoln, always with an ear out to hear Lincoln’s stories and jokes. Others were equally impressed with Lincoln’s honesty and industriousness. Whenever there was a dispute, both parties relied on Lincoln to settle the matter with his compass and chain.

[Adapted from my forthcoming book]

[Photo credit: Lincoln the Surveyor by Lloyd Ostendorf]

David J. Kent is an avid science traveler 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.

Follow me for updates on my Facebook author page and Goodreads.

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Big News! New Book on the Way!

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David J Kent 2019If you follow my Facebook page (which you can do here if you don’t already), you may have already heard about my big news. For those who don’t (and why don’t you?), here is both the news and some additional info. Ready? BIG NEWS! I’m happy to announce that I have signed a contract with Rowman & Littlefield to publish my next Abraham Lincoln book.

There’s a long story behind the creation of this book, and no, I won’t bore you with it. Suffice to say I’ve been researching this topic for quite some time and that it blends my two career backgrounds – Science and Abraham Lincoln. I’ll have more updates, a title reveal, cover reveal, related content, and announcement of a special guest Foreword writer as the work progresses, but here’s some info to whet your appetite.

Rowman & Littlefield is a large, high-end independent publisher founded in 1949. Since that time it has acquired dozens of imprints and publishes everything from scholarly books for the academic market and trade books for the general market. My book is a trade book, written for a widely informed reader. Rowman, or sometimes just R&L, is based in nearby Maryland and has its own book distribution company to get books into Barnes and Noble and independent stores as well as Amazon and other online sales outlets. The plan is to produce hardcover, audio, and electronic (e.g., Kindle) books immediately, with a softcover book to follow in a year or two depending on sales.

Unlike the graphics heavy design of my three previous published books, the new Abraham Lincoln book will be more traditional in design. That means mostly text with a photo spray in the middle (or possibly interspersed throughout; final design is pending). The final word count will be between 80,000 and 90,000 words.

Oh, and there will be a special guest foreword by someone most people in both the political and Lincoln worlds will recognize. More on that in future updates.

My deadline for providing the manuscript is June 1st of this year, with a planned publication date in time for Lincoln’s birthday next year.

I’ll have more updates as time goes on, including the final title, cover, release date, and how to pre-order. And yes, before that I’ll let you know more about the topic and give a preview. You’ll get some hint by clicking around the articles I’ve posted on this website.

Back to writing!

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The Day Lincoln Met Louis Agassiz, Famous Scientist and Polygenist

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Louis AgassizLouis Agassiz arrived at the White House on January 15, 1865 with Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Hooper. The famous scientist would have his one and only meeting with Abraham Lincoln. While the two influential men had never met before, Hooper was well-known to Lincoln. It was Hooper’s home in Washington DC that George McClellan had used as headquarters when he commanded the Union army. Hooper was also briefly the father-in-law of Charles Sumner, who had married Hooper’s daughter but divorced after only a short marriage. Today, however, the focus was on Agassiz.

Lincoln had a penchant for science. He had given a series of lectures of “discoveries and inventions” shortly before being elected president. The expectation was that the two men would bond over their common interest. Journalist and Lincoln friend Noah Brooks, who was present during the meeting, later reported that the conversation “was not very learned.” The two men seemed unsure how to talk to each other. According to Brooks, Lincoln asked Agassiz for the correct pronunciation of his name, and then “prattled on about curious proper names in various languages, and odd correspondences between names of common things in different tongues.”

Agassiz did ask Lincoln if he had ever lectured, to which Lincoln outlined his previous “inventions” lecture, which he hoped to update so to prove there is nothing new under the sun. “I think I can show, at least in a fanciful way, that all the modern inventions were known centuries ago.” Agassiz encouraged him to finish the lecture. Agassiz departed shortly thereafter and Lincoln admitted to Brooks that he “wasn’t so badly scared, after all.” Lincoln had expected to be intimidated by the great scientist’s learning. Instead, he cross-examined Agassiz on things not in the books, which were readily available to him for reading.

This somewhat anti-climatic meeting belied both Lincoln’s inherent interests in science and Agassiz’s lifetime of scientific leadership. Perhaps the press of time and the drudges of a war finally running down after four years of horrendous conflict hung over the impromptu meeting. One would have liked the two of them to sit down and chat about science for hours on end. But the war took priority.

Born in Switzerland before becoming an American citizen, Agassiz is best known for his knowledge of natural history. He became a professor of zoology and geology at Harvard, from which he became a leading influencer on classification of the fishes, geological history, and the fossil record. He’s considered one of the founders of glaciology, although his views on the role of glaciers and ice on the formation of geological structures weren’t always correct. Agassiz damaged his scientific reputation by being a major advocate for polygenism, the idea that different “races” of humans were separately created, with all of the racist beliefs underpinning that idea.

The arguments over monogenism, polygenism, and “types of man” were entwined with the idea of “scientific racism,” more accurately, pseudoscience, used to rationalize the enslavement of African Americans. Lincoln became aware of these arguments as he read on science and tried to find a path toward removing slavery from the nation.

While they hadn’t personally met, Lincoln knew that Agassiz was one of the fifty charter members of the National Academy of Sciences, which Lincoln had signed into law in 1863. The meeting might have been less exciting than it could have been, but both men played significant roles as influencers of American views on race and slavery.

I’ll delve into this more in my forthcoming book, so stay tuned for more.

[Photo of Louis Agassiz: Wikimedia]

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David J. Kent is an avid science traveler 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.