Tag: Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America

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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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Lincoln Fires General-in-Chief George B. McClellan, But Keeps Him Anyway

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George B. McClellanOn March 11, 1862, everyone was thinking about George B. McClellan. Lincoln’s cabinet met and groused about their chronic dissatisfaction with the General. Frustrated with McClellan’s “slows,” Lincoln issued War Order No. 3, which fired McClellan as General-in-Chief but retained him as commander of the Army of the Potomac. He spent the rest of the day explaining his decision. War Order No. 3 stated:

Major-General McClellan, having personally taken the field, at the head of the Army of the Potomac, until otherwise ordered, he is relieved from the command of the other military departments, he is retaining command of the Department of the Potomac.

 

Ordered further: That the two departments now under the respective commands of Generals Halleck and Hunter, together with so much of that under General Buell as lies west of a north and south line indefinitely drawn through Knoxville, Tennessee, be consolidated and designated the Department of the Mississippi; and that, until otherwise ordered, Major-General Halleck have command of said department.

McClellan had been an irritant from the beginning. The embarrassing loss at the first Battle of Bull Run sent Winfield Scott to retirement and left Lincoln desperately searching for a military leader. With few options, he turned to a young George B. McClellan for his next General-in-Chief. The Ohio-born McClellan had exhibited strong leadership in two small skirmishes in western Virginia, and he came highly recommended by Ohio Governor William Dennison and Ohio native Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase.

McClellan masterfully outfitted and drilled his raw recruits into a skilled Army of the Potomac, yet he consistently refused to put them into action. He repeatedly claimed the Confederates vastly outnumbered him, even though he had up to twice as many troops at his disposal. His soldiers loved him, but McClellan’s overabundance of caution led to Lincoln’s significant frustration. Adding insult, McClellan arrogantly considered himself vastly superior to the President, referring to Lincoln in letters home to his wife as “nothing more than a well-meaning baboon” and “a gorilla.”

Peninsula Campaign

Despite his position as General-in-Chief, McClellan rarely communicated his strategy or progress. His insubordination included ignoring the President and retiring to bed after Lincoln had sat patiently in McClellan’s parlor for an hour waiting for him to return from an evening out. Continuing to press his generals to fight, Lincoln suggested that the well-trained army make a frontal assault on Confederate forces between Washington and Richmond. McClellan disagreed, eventually counter-proposing a complicated plan to take the Confederate capital of Richmond from the South, which was in direct opposition to Lincoln’s strategy to defeat armies, not take territory.

After several months of obsessive planning, in March 1862 McClellan began shipping troops down the Potomac River to the Virginia peninsula between the James and York Rivers. The size of the troop movement was unprecedented, with more than 120,000 men, a dozen artillery batteries, and tons of equipment all ferried into place at the base of the peninsula. To Lincoln’s chagrin, further overland movement toward Richmond was painfully slow because of bad weather, mud, and McClellan’s exaggerated opinion of enemy troop strength. The Union forces negated the advantage of surprise, and by the time they advanced toward Richmond the more mobile Confederate army had positioned itself to defend the southern capital. Meanwhile, McClellan, against Lincoln’s wishes, had left the Union capital woefully unprotected.

By any measurement, the Peninsula Campaign was a disaster. The Union survived its critical blunder only because of Lincoln’s strategic decision-making. McClellan, of course, blamed Lincoln for supposedly meddling. A frustrated Lincoln demoted McClellan. This left the president once again in desperate need of a military leader. Generals Henry Halleck, Ambrose Burnside (whose trademark facial hair was the inspiration for the term “sideburns”), Joseph Hooker, John C. Fremont, John McClernand, John Pope, George Meade, and others were all considered by Lincoln but ultimately found wanting. Sitting in the wings were Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman, western generals who had not yet captured the president’s eye.

McClellan’s demotion was short-lived. In utter desperation and after several disastrous Union losses in the summer of 1862, Lincoln once again turned to McClellan as his General-in-Chief.

At the time, Lincoln was experiencing personal heartbreak in addition to the pressure of mounting Union soldier casualties. In February, Mary Lincoln had planned a grand open house to show off the dramatic and expensive improvements she had made to the aging and neglected White House. By the night of the party, however, Lincoln’s two youngest sons had become severely ill. While guests gathered downstairs, Lincoln and Mary repeatedly slipped upstairs to check on their ailing children. Diagnosed with what was likely typhoid fever, Willie progressively worsened. On February 20, 1862, he died. Tad recovered, but never really understood the sudden loss of his older brother and constant playmate.

Mary was devastated, and for the rest of her time as First Lady (a term she coined to refer to her position) she wore nothing but black. Relying even more on her trusted confidante, former slave Elizabeth Keckley, Mary became an even greater burden on household staff and the growing list of Washington insiders who despised her. Lincoln mourned as well, coping by throwing himself more deeply into the continued struggle to save the Union. One part of that struggle was the hugely important battle of Antietam.

Antietam

In September 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee led his Army of Northern Virginia into western Maryland. Following their victory at a second battle of Bull Run, Lee moved his army north to a point near Sharpsburg, alongside Antietam Creek, where they took up defensive positions. With surprising aggressiveness, McClellan’s Army of the Potomac attacked Lee’s forces on September 17. The first assault came from Union General Joseph Hooker on Lee’s left flank, while General Ambrose Burnside later attacked the right. A surprise counterattack from Confederate General A.P. Hill helped push back Union forces. Eventually, Lee’s troops withdrew from the battlefield first. He moved his remaining army back across the Potomac into the safety of Virginia.

Always overly cautious, McClellan made no effort to follow. Lee had committed all of his 55,000 men, while McClellan only ordered a portion of his larger 87,000-man force into the fray. This numerical imbalance allowed Lee to create and exploit tactical advantages he should not have had. When questioned by Lincoln about his failure to pursue Lee, McClellan complained that his army and horses were sore-tongued and fatigued, and thus required rest. Lincoln responded tersely by telegram:

Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigue anything?

Antietam was destined to be the single bloodiest day of battle in American history. The casualties for both armies totaled a staggering 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing.

Despite Lincoln’s frustration, Antietam stood out as an important battle in the fight for freedom. Although essentially a draw, the fact that Lee withdrew from the battlefield first allowed the North to record Antietam as a victory, something that Lincoln had been needing for some time.

He issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation a few days later.

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

[Image Credit: U.S. Signal Corps/National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

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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Lincoln Heads to Hampton Roads for a Peace Conference

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Lincoln RoomOn February 2, 1865, Abraham Lincoln headed to Hampton Roads in Virginia for a peace conference. It almost killed the 13th Amendment.

The House of Representatives was deep into debate about the 13th Amendment to end slavery in the United States. Extraordinary efforts were made on behalf of the administration to get the two-thirds majority needed for passage. It seemed like they had enough. And then someone heard that there were “peace commissioners” in Washington. Looking for a way to end the war without having to pass a constitutional amendment, many Representatives wavered. They sent a message to the President asking if any such commissioners were in town. Lincoln employed a bit of deception, replying that there were no commissioners in the city of Washington and he did not expect any. The vote squeaked through.

Of course, there were peace commissioners, but Lincoln had arranged for them to wait in Hampton Roads, Virginia, for a conference on board the steamboat River Queen. Lincoln had given a factually accurate, if incomplete, response to Congress.

Early on the morning of the 2nd, Lincoln telegraphed General Ulysses S. Grant: “Say to the gentlemen I will meet them personally at Fortress-Monroe, as soon a I can get there. Those gentlemen were Alexander Stephens, former U.S. Congressman from Georgia and current Vice President of the Confederacy, Assistant Secretary of War Joseph Campbell (who had been a Supreme Court Justice prior to resigning), and Robert Hunter (former U.S. Speaker of the House and Senator, then Confederate Secretary of State and Senator). The three men had come on a mission to end the war under terms that were friendly to the South.

Lincoln left Washington around 11:00 AM by special train to Annapolis, where he boarded the steamer Thomas Collyer. He arrived at Fortress Monroe in Hampton Roads late in the evening and immediately meets with Secretary of State William Seward on board the steamship River Queen.

When the five men met the next day, Lincoln was adamant that any peace agreement include reunification of all the states and the permanent end to slavery. Not surprisingly, the Confederate peace commissioners refused those conditions and returned to Richmond. Jefferson Davis, who was not present at the conference, later claimed that Lincoln had demanded “unconditional surrender.” This was false, and was Davis’s attempt to rally the Southern people to continue to fight what was already recognized as a losing battle. Lincoln, while unwavering that slavery must end, was open to compensation to the South. After returning to Washington, Lincoln did press Congress for amnesty and up to $400,000,000 in compensation. Given that the war was clearly nearing its end with a Union victory, neither Lincoln’s cabinet nor Congress was much interested in such an arrangement. No compensation or amnesty act was passed.

By late March, Lincoln would be “relaxing” at City Point near Petersburg, Virginia, where Grant had his camp. Not far down the James River from Richmond, Lincoln would stroll through the former capital of the Confederacy, abandoned the day before by Confederate leadership as the war came to a close. Lincoln would return to Washington on April 8th; Robert E. Lee would surrender Grant the next day. The war was effectively over.

Lincoln would be assassinated a week later.

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

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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Lincoln Presents the Draft Emancipation Proclamation to His Cabinet

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Emancipation ProclamationOn July 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln presented the draft Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. Constructed as a military order, the Proclamation stated “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.” It took some effort to get to this point.

By the early spring of 1862, Lincoln had privately decided to issue an emancipation order. But he kept this decision to himself for many months while secretly drafting his arguments. Meanwhile, he publicly voiced apprehension about such a decision, suggesting that turning the rationale of the war from maintaining the Union to freeing the slaves would cause significant loss of northern support, in addition to creating potentially disastrous implications in the border states.

In April 1862, at Lincoln’s urging, Congress emancipated slaves in the District of Columbia and compensated their owners. That June, Lincoln signed a bill prohibiting slavery in all current and future U.S. territories. Most of these steps went largely unnoticed to anyone not directly affected, but they helped move public sentiment toward freedom. Unknown to anyone, Lincoln was preparing a draft of the now-famous document as he shuttled between the Soldier’s Home where he spent his summers and the telegraph office of the War Department.

On July 13, 1862, Lincoln presented his preliminary draft to Secretary of State William Seward and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles. Both men were caught off guard, but after discussions and suggested changes to the text they agreed to what Lincoln was proposing. Seward warned, however, that the action might sound desperate, given the recent Union losses on the battlefield. He suggested Lincoln wait until after a Union victory. Lincoln agreed.

Meanwhile, on August 19, New York Tribune editor and staunch abolitionist Horace Greeley, perhaps alerted that something was afoot, published an editorial he called “A Prayer for Twenty Millions,” suggesting it was time for the administration to act on the slavery question. Three days later, Lincoln published a reply that somewhat surreptitiously explained his objective in the war:

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be ‘the Union as it was.’ If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

As the world read this, no one knew Lincoln had already drafted his proclamation. His goal for months had been to influence public sentiment so citizens were prepared to accept what he was about to do. In September, the battle of Antietam was considered enough of a victory to heed Seward’s caution, and on September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Written in dry, legal language, the proclamation stipulates that on:

…the first day of January [1863], all persons held as slaves within any state, or designated part of a state, the people shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free…

The initial reaction was as Lincoln expected. Many of the more radical Republicans were ecstatic, while Democrats and other “peace at all costs” proponents saw it as an unnecessarily extreme act. Many voters agreed; Republicans lost twenty-eight seats in the House of Representatives that November. As Lincoln feared, many northerners were vehemently opposed to a civil war to free the slaves as opposed to preserve the Union.

Despite these setbacks, Lincoln was confident that the proclamation was both just and necessary. He explained that his action was solely as a war measure; that is, the proclamation was necessary to deprive the South of slave labor so important to their troop movements. With the danger of losing the border states in mind, the proclamation did not free any slaves in those states or any state or part of state now controlled by the Union. The only slaves who were freed were those in the Confederacy, where the federal government was powerless to enforce their freedom. Some have argued that this made the proclamation meaningless, but it did lead to the escape of many southern slaves into Union divisions. As Union forces captured more territory, freedom slowly spread to a broader group of southern-held slaves.

The Final Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, and along with freedom for slaves in the designated areas was a call for the enlistment of black soldiers. Many freemen as well as escaped slaves joined the Union military. Discrimination was still rampant in the North—black companies were segregated and required a white commanding officer—but for the first time black men had an opportunity to defend their own liberty.

[Adapted from Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America]

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 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 Begins Law Partnership with Stephen T. Logan

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Abraham Lincoln PeoriaOn May 14, 1841, Abraham Lincoln’s law partnership dissolved when his mentor John T. Stuart was reelected to Congress. Lincoln immediately entered into a new partnership with Stephan T. Logan, the man who had assured his moral fortitude and “good character” when he first became a lawyer.

Logan had recently disbanded his partnership with Edward D. Baker, the man after whom Lincoln would later name his second son. Looking for someone as eloquent as Baker to complement his own more intellectual reticence, Logan saw a perfect opportunity with Lincoln. Logan was nine years older than Lincoln, and had established himself as a preeminent attorney in Sangamon County after being equally respected in his native Kentucky. He was serving as a judge in the circuit court when he vouched for Lincoln, but grew dissatisfied with the meager pay and returned to private practice. He saw in Lincoln someone who would be “exceedingly useful to me in getting the good will of the juries,” the one area where Logan was weaker because of his cracking voice and peevish demeanor.

It was a good match for Lincoln, too. Logan had a sharp analytical mind and a command of legal precedents and technicalities. In contrast, while adept at working a jury, Lincoln was rather lazy in his study of the finer points of the law. Like Lincoln, Logan was not overly concerned about his physical appearance; he was more likely to be leaning back in his chair, “his hair standing nine ways from Sunday, while his clothing was more like that worn by a woodchopper than anybody else.”

Lincoln continued doing mostly debt collection cases, but he now received only one-third of the money paid to the firm, as Logan had a less egalitarian profit-sharing policy. But whereas Stuart was largely absentee, Lincoln learned a great deal about the business of the law from Logan. Most critically, he began to understand the importance of detailed case research and preparation. Lincoln was inherently logical in thinking, but Logan taught him to write more precise and succinct case readings. Gone was the flowery language so common in that age; instead he learned to break down the case into its critical components. Under Logan he learned to search out precedents and watch for technical aspects that could be used in his clients’ favor. He still avoided thorough reading of law books—William Herndon would later say that he “never knew him to read through and through any law book of any kind”—but he did “love to dig up the question by the roots and hold it up and dry it before the fires of the mind.”

The firm of Logan and Lincoln was dissolved in 1844, when Logan decided to go into practice with his son. Now an experienced country lawyer, Lincoln decided it was time he became senior partner. Enter William H. Herndon.

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

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 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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The Year in a Writer’s Life – 2019

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David with Hemingway in CubaWhat a year in a writer’s life. I was incredibly busy this year even though I finished no new books. As I look back on what I wrote for 2018, I realize that 2019 was also transitional. Whether that can be considered good or not is debatable.

This was the second year in a row with nothing new in the bookstores. I’ve been writing, and writing a lot, but too often spread out on several new ideas along with the current work(s) in progress. That’s great for creativity, not so great for finishing any individual project. More on that shortly.

My three previously published books (not counting the two e-books) hit a wall in 2019, in part due to a private equity firm buying out Barnes and Noble stores and taking them private. Like many brick-and-mortar stores, B&N has been struggling to compete against online booksellers and secondary sellers via the likes of Amazon and eBay. No longer publicly traded, the new CEO of B&N is rethinking how their stores work. They probably will close some locations and retool others, much like the new CEO did when he took over the British bookseller Waterstones. So why does this affect me? Mainly because my publisher is affiliated with B&N and has effectively been put on hold while B&N figures out its future. The stock of my books is essentially frozen: no new printings, limited numbers of books in stores and in the warehouse, and stiff competition from those secondary sellers (for which I receive zero benefit). I did sell some additional foreign rights, but at this point I need new books on the market to maintain even a semblance of royalties.

My writing life was busy in other respects. I was the keynote speaker at the annual Lincoln-Thomas Day commemoration at Fort Stevens in Washington, D.C. in September. I co-instructed a “Lincoln’s Campaign for the Nomination, 1859-60” at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. And I attended the LEAD: Spirit of Lincoln Youth Academy in Illinois. The LEAD group has given all of the students in the program a copy of my book for the last two years; this year they asked me to come out and speak to them directly.

I also was interviewed and/or mentioned in a variety of outlets in 2019. One 8th grader interviewed me on Lincoln and Emancipation (this was my fourth such interview by students, the first three about Tesla). I was also interviewed on Facebook Live by filmmaker Annabel Park, mentioned in online and print articles, and even made the acknowledgements of a prominent scientist’s book.

While no books made it out the door, my writing appeared in print. Two book reviews were published in Civil War Times magazine. Eight book reviews were published in The Lincolnian. I also entered three writing contests (two didn’t win and one is still in review).

So what is the plan for 2020?

Over the last few months I’ve refocused my writing with the goal of finishing my long-researched new Lincoln book. That is my main objective in 2020, but it isn’t my only one. I’m also now in the initial planning stages of a collaborative travel perspective book that should be fleshed out in the coming month. I have several other books I had been working on piecemeal; the goal is to keep one of them moving while likely punting on the others until 2021.

In addition I will be putting more emphasis on magazine publishing in 2020. I plan to do more book reviews for Civil War Times, the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, and the Lincoln Herald. I’ll also be pitching longer format articles for these journals and, for other magazines, non-Lincoln topics. The goal is to pitch two ideas a month while also entering one writing contest per month.

My speaking schedule increased in 2019 and will increase more in 2020 (and even more in 2021 when I expect to be doing a book tour). When I’m not writing or preparing talks I’ll continue with my 75 books per year reading schedule. If I can squeeze it in, I’ll also get back to developing my photography skills.

All this means is 1) 2020 will be a busy year, and 2) I’ll have to be more efficient than I was in 2019. One thing is certain: I love this writing life.

Happy New Year to all!

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 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 Mary Todd Get Married

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Abraham and Mary Todd LincolnAbraham Lincoln married Mary Todd on November 4, 1842. It came as a surprise to many, possibly even Lincoln himself.

The fourth of seven children, Mary Todd was born in Lexington, Kentucky, to a wealthy slave-holding family. Her mother died when she was only 6 years old. Within two years her father, Robert Smith Todd, remarried and had another nine children with his new wife. Mary Todd and her siblings all had difficult relationships with their stepmother, who essentially ignored them while favoring her own growing brood. Despite these difficulties, Mary grew up in comfort and privilege. The celebrated statesman Henry Clay owned a plantation called Ashland down the road from the Todd household. When she was 13, Mary rode her new pony to Ashland, and Clay, the perennial presidential candidate, noted to his guests, “If I am ever President I shall expect Mary Todd to be one of my first guests.” The precocious Mary said she would enjoy living in the White House.

Robert Todd was rather progressive for a nineteenth-century southern slave owner, and he encouraged his daughters as well as sons to get an education. In part because her stepmother wanted her out of the way, 14-year-old Mary was sent to live at Madame Mantelle’s finishing school for young ladies. There she received a classical education that concentrated on French and literature. She became fluent in French and also studied dance, drama, music, and, of course, the social graces needed to attract a suitable husband. Unlike most women of the time, she also took a keen interest in politics, becoming both knowledgeable and ambitious—and Whiggish. But like all women, politically she had to live vicariously through her husband.

In the fall of 1839 Mary moved from Kentucky to Springfield to live with her older sister Elizabeth, who had married Ninian W. Edwards, son of the former Governor of Illinois. The Edwards home was the center of Springfield’s social scene, and given that the city had far more single men than eligible women, their home was the place to shop for a well-heeled husband. Mary was in her element. Her advanced education gave her the advantage of choosing which of her many suitors she might spend time with, among them Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln.

Joshua Speed invited Lincoln to one of the Edwards soirées. Although Lincoln’s six-foot-four-inch lankiness towered over Mary’s five-foot-two-inch roundness, the two began courting over the winter of 1839–40. The courtship was somewhat one-sided. Lincoln remained a rough, uncouth, awkward man who alternated between sitting quietly and blurting out inappropriate faux pas. He was charmed by Mary’s knowledge and wit, often staring at her in apparent awe as she led the conversation. Still, she saw something in him and their unlikely courtship blossomed, with Mary doing most of the courting.

Initially supportive, Mary’s family (in particular, her sister Elizabeth) came to oppose the mismatch, feeling Mary could do much better. Lincoln was deeply hurt by this opposition, but the two continued to see each other and eventually became engaged.

A Hiatus

And then they stopped. Somewhere between late 1840 and early 1841 they abruptly called off the engagement. Many believed that Lincoln backed out, fearing he could not suitably meet any wife’s needs as a husband because of his distracted nature. Earlier he had told the wife of his circuit-lawyer colleague Orville Browning that he had “come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying” because he can never be satisfied with any one who would be block-head enough to have me.” Lincoln also may have been distraught that his intimate friend Joshua Speed was leaving Springfield to move back to Kentucky. Whatever the reason, Lincoln and Mary were no longer courting throughout 1841 and into 1842.

One More Try

Sometime in 1842 Mary and Lincoln began secretly courting again. Despite 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]

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 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 in Peoria – The Speech Heard Round the World

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Abraham Lincoln PeoriaOn October 18, 1854 Lincoln rose to the forefront of the Republicans with a speech he gave first in Springfield, and then a dozen days later in Peoria. Newspapers published the second presentation, so it came to be known as the Peoria speech. It began when Stephen A. Douglas, the originator of the Kansas-Nebraska policy, spoke to a large crowd at the state fair in Springfield. Lincoln was in the audience and proclaimed that he would respond to Douglas’s arguments, saying “Douglas lied; he lied three times and I’ll prove it!” That evening he did so at the Illinois state house. While Lincoln sat quietly listening to Douglas’s speech, Douglas repeatedly interrupted Lincoln.

Lincoln vigorously condemned slavery. After giving a brief history of slavery in America, he forcefully denounced it. He reiterated his belief that slavery was morally and politically wrong, but also that the Constitution protected it in the areas where it already existed. Therefore, the federal government could not remove it from the South, but it could, and must, restrict its spread into the territories. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, he argued, violated those principles, and Douglas was contradicting himself with regard to his support for the Missouri Compromise, which the Act now voided. Lincoln made his views on the Kansas-Nebraska Act and slavery clear:

I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world—enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites—causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very principles of civil liberty—criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.

Lincoln further argued that slaves and free blacks were men, and as such had the same right to self-governance that white men did. Quoting from the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln asserted that the phrase “all men are created equal” included black men as well as white, and that “no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent.”

These were progressive words in 1854. Being anti-slavery in the North did not necessarily signify belief in equality between the races. Lincoln recognized that even if all slaves were free, society would not function given inherent inequalities, attitudes, and bigotries. Overlooking the fact that most slaves at this time had been born in America, he favored colonization as a means for free blacks to leave the United States and set up black-led countries of their own. Despite this inconsistency, by forcefully arguing for the moral wrong of slavery and the dangers of slavery spreading because of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Lincoln set the framework for a slavery debate that lasted the rest of the decade.

And thus, like the shot fired in Concord, Massachusetts on April 18, 1775 that started the Revolutionary War, Lincoln’s Peoria speech on October 16, 1854 began the intense debate on slavery that would lead to the Civil War. Peoria was indeed, the speech ’round the world.

[Adapted from Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America]

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 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 vs Slavery: The Mary Speed Letter

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Abraham Lincoln Joshua SpeedOn September 27, 1841, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Mary Speed, the half-sister of his good friend Joshua Speed. He spoke up about slavery, knowing that the Speed’s had been raised as slaveowners and having just returned from a long visit to their home in Kentucky. On the trip home he contemplates the inequities of life:

A gentleman had purchased twelve negroes in different parts of Kentucky and was taking them to a farm in the South. They were chained six and six together. A small iron clevis was around the left wrist of each, and this fastened to the main chain by a shorter one at a convenient distance from, the others; so that the negroes were strung together precisely like so many fish upon a trot-line. In this condition they were being separated forever from the scenes of their childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, and many of them, from their wives and children, and going into perpetual slavery where the lash of the master is proverbially more ruthless and unrelenting than any other where; and yet amid all these distressing circumstances, as we would think them, they were the most cheerful and apparently happy creatures on board. One, whose offence for which he had been sold was an over-fondness for his wife, played the fiddle almost continually; and the others danced, sung, cracked jokes, and played various games with cards from day to day. How true it is that “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” or in other words, that He renders the worst of human conditions tolerable, while He permits the best, to be nothing better than tolerable.

Lincoln loathed slavery as far back as the late 1830s, but he rarely spoke out about the slavery question until the 1850s. There were several reasons for his silence, starting with his belief that the institution was dying out. In a response to Stephen A. Douglas in June 1858, he told a Chicago audience that the Republican Party was made up of people “who will hope for its ultimate extinction.” How could it not be so, he thought, given that slavery is morally wrong and politically unsustainable?

This belief proved to be naïve. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 had made it possible to separate cotton fibers from its seeds mechanically; previously this painstaking process was performed entirely by hand and involved hundreds of hours of manual, usually slave, labor. Most northern states had banned slavery, but most southern states saw an expansion of slavery correlated with the growth of “King Cotton.” With the separation (ginning) process speeding the rate of production, plantation owners could dramatically increase the acreage on which they grew cotton. As cotton acreage expanded, more and more slaves were needed for cultivation. Rather than being on the cusp of extinction, slavery was booming.

Once he recognized this reality, Lincoln focused on how to stop its expansion. I talked about some of the ways, in particular his long road to emancipation of enslaved people in the District of Columbia, during my recent keynote address  on Lincoln-Thomas Day at Fort Stevens in the District. I talked about other ways in my book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. I’ll have more on this website in the future.

[Partially adapted from Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America]

[Note: Photo is of Joshua Speed and Abraham Lincoln]

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 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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Keynote Speaker: Lincoln-Thomas Day

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Join me as I give the keynote address at the annual Lincoln-Thomas Day event to be held Saturday, September 21, 2019 from 12 noon to 2 pm at Fort Stevens, Washington, D.C. The event jointly honors Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on Sept. 22, 1862 and Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, the free African-American owner of the land that became Fort Stevens (where Lincoln was chastised with “Get down you fool” as he stood in enemy fire on the Fort’s wall).

This event is also free to the public so please come on down and support me, the National Park Service, and the Military Road School Preservation Trust. More information can be found on the flyer below and the Civil War Defenses of Washington Facebook page.

Lincoln-Thomas Day flyer

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 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!