Lincoln’s Big Blind Memorandum Reveal Party

Emancipation ProclamationNo doubt everyone in the Lincoln world has heard repeatedly about the document we’ve all come to know as the “blind memorandum.” But what about the “reveal party” when Lincoln showed his cabinet what he had written? That event happened on November 11, 1864.

As a quick reminder, on August 23, Lincoln had asked each of his cabinet secretaries to sign the outside of a sealed envelope. He didn’t show them what was inside, only promised to reveal it to them at a later date – after the November 8 presidential election. While this document is so familiar to us today, it turns out that it went unremarked at the time. Allen Guelzo, writing in Lincoln Lore, noted that neither Gideon Welles or Edward Bates – from whose contemporaneous diaries we have gained great insights – nor either of Lincoln’s personal secretaries, made any mention of it. In fact, it wasn’t until 1877 that any mention of the “blind memorandum” was made by anyone. That is when Gideon Welles, whose diary seemed to grow over time, wrote an article in Galaxy magazine in which he described an anxious Lincoln initiated:

a request that I would write my name across the back of it. One or two members of the Cabinet had already done so. In handing it to me he remarked that he would not then inform me of the contents of the paper enclosed, had no explanation to make, but that he had a purpose, and at some future day I should be informed of it, and be present when the seal was broken.

As Guelzo notes, the reverse of the “blind memorandum” does in fact contain the signatures of all seven cabinet secretaries, with “Welles fourth in order after Seward, Fessenden and Stanton, and dated in Lincoln’s hand again.”

Flash forward to November 11. Three days after his surprisingly easy reelection, Lincoln had a big blind memorandum reveal party. While no one bothered to mention the earlier signing requests, this time John Hay captured the moment in his diary:

At the meeting of the Cabinet today, the President took out a paper from his desk and said, “Gentlemen do you remember last summer I asked you all to sign your names on the back of a paper of which I did not show you the inside? This is it. Now, Mr Hay, see if you can get this open without tearing it!”: He had pasted it up in so singular [a] style that it required some cutting to get it open.

Lincoln then read the memorandum:

Executive Mansion

         Washington, Aug. 23, 1864.

    This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly

probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it

will be my duty to so cooperate with the Government President-elect,

as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he

will have secured his election on such ground that he can not

possibly save it afterwards.

The immediate reaction of the cabinet was somewhat confused. Why would Lincoln have written this, then gotten their endorsements without showing it to them? Lincoln, without explaining the secrecy, did explain that he would attempt to work with presumed President-Elect McClellan to raise as many troops as he could for a final trial to win the war, and Lincoln would use his power of office to aid in saving the Union. The cabinet was skeptical that McClellan would have held up his part of such a bargain, as was Lincoln. According to Hay’s diary entry, Seward noted that McClellan would simply respond to Lincoln’s offer with “Yes, Yes,” and the next day also “’Yes-Yes’ & so on forever and would have done nothing at all.”

Lincoln, who had fired McClellan earlier in the war for “having the slows,” knew that Seward was right. “At least,” Lincoln said, according to Hay, “I should have done my duty and have stood clear before my own conscience.”

After the big reveal, the “blind memorandum” took on a celebrity status of its own. Bates asked for a copy, then Welles wanted one too, “then everybody” wanted one, according to a letter Hay wrote Nicolay years later.

[Photo from Wikimedia Commons, “First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation” by Francis Bicknell Carpenter]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

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David J. Kent is Immediate Past President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity andEdison: 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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David J. Kent is an avid traveler, scientist, and Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved AmericaTesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World as well as 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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Dad’s War Stories (from Hot White Snow)

Dad medalsSoon my parents will be visiting from New England. They will spend a few days with me, then a few days with my brother who lives about 20 minutes away. The visit has become an annual event since my return from living overseas, not counting the year of Dad’s major heart surgery.

My mother and father are 83 and 88 years old, respectively.

I’m looking forward to my Dad’s stories. He has a lot of them, though they tend to be repeated often so it seems like more. Some relate to current activities but more and more they are reiterations of stories from long ago. I’m trying to capture as many of them as possible while I still have the chance to share his company.

A favorite story of his can be triggered just by mentioning my European travels. My Dad has been to Europe twice in his life. The second time was in 2010 when I flew him and my Mom over to Dublin and I drove us around a wet Ireland for a week. The only other time was “during the war” (i.e., World War II).

“I was in France during the war.”

“What part of France, Dad?”

“Uh, I don’t know. We took a boat over and were crammed into boxcars all the way through France into some place in Germany. I was a cook by then, you know.”

The story would go on to describe the long days baking bread, making tons of mashed potatoes, and feeding a bunch of hungry soldiers. Invariably it would lead to the Russians.

[More on the Russians…and read the rest of the story…at Hot White Snow]

David J. Kent has been a scientist for thirty-five years, is an avid science traveler, and an independent Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (now in its 5th printing) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. His book on Thomas Edison is due in Barnes and Noble stores in spring 2016.

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