Two Presidents, One Temperament

Lincoln ranting and swearing? That’s hard to believe. And guess who drove him to it? George McClellan.

Lincoln had issued a war order calling for a movement of all land and naval forces on Washington 's Birthday, February 22. What a nice way to celebrate that day.

But instead of a frontal attack at Manassas Junction, McClellan wanted to float his army down the Chesapeake Bay, and march overland to Richmond before the Confederates could block him. Only trouble was, the canal boats carrying the men through a lock on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal were six inches too wide. When McClellan discovered the error, he did nothing.

According to journalist William O. Stoddard, Lincoln was beside himself. (Read all about it in Daniel Mark Epstein’s Lincoln’s Men). Addressing McClellan’s father-in-law, Lincoln yelled "Why in hell and damnation, General Marcy, couldn’t the General have known whether a boat would go through that lock, before he spent a million of dollars getting them there? I am no engineer but it seems to me that if I wished to know whether a boat would go thru a hole, or a lock, common sense would teach me to go and measure it."

I have this vision of McClellan getting off the boat with a tape measure, stringing it across the Chesapeake and Ohio canal lock and calling out "Six inches too short. Oh well."

But did George Washington ever lose his cool? Oh yes, and right on the battlefield. When Major General Charles Lee lost his nerve in pursuit of British troops at Monmouth Courthouse, Washington gave him a virulent "tongue lashing" right on the spot, questioning his loyalty, character and bravery. According to one soldier at the scene, he swore at him until the "leaves on the trees shook."

So what does all this say? Both men were low on patience when it came to commanders hesitating under pressure, but while Washington questioned Lee’s loyalty, Lincoln never did question McClellan’s. He only asked to borrow his army.

Happy President’s Day to you.

Happy 200th Birthday, Abe

So how does it feel to be 200 years old? Fine, apparently. In 2009, Lincoln is looking more alive than ever. Who could have predicted that on this special birthday, we would have a President in office so devoted to Lincoln’s memory and ideals that the 1861 Bible would be re-used in an inauguration ceremony? In fact, Obama’s dedication to all things Lincoln has inspired new markets for memorabilia, leading right up to Christie’s auction house.

On February 12th, Christie's will put up for sale Lincoln's handwritten 1864 re-election victory speech, at an estimated value of $3 to $4 million. That’s right up there with Van Gogh’s Irises. See Christie’s Sells Lincoln.

In Kentucky, an artist has created a 200-tile mosaic of Lincoln out of his photos, portraits and images. Inspired by seeing a 1909 poster of Lincoln made out of 100 images to celebrate his centennial birthday, Jim Erskine, who lives near Hodgenville, decided to create a 200-tile poster for the bicentennial. Will a 300-tile poster appear in 2109? Check out 200 tiles.

To top it off, the U.S. Postal Service released four commemorative stamps on Feb. 9 to celebrate Lincoln’s 200th birthday. The stamps depict Lincoln as a rail splitter, lawyer, politician and president. See four stamps.

But maybe the best way of all to celebrate Lincoln’s 200th is by keeping alive the values he stood for. And remember, 200th birthdays are fun as long as you don’t have to blow out the candles.

Happy birthday, Abe!

Whatever Happened to John?

Back to the Surratts. And why not? Few families are shrouded in more mystery.

Perhaps the most mysterious member of that family was John. Where was John while Lincoln was being assassinated? In Elmira, New York, shopping apparently. He was such a sharp dresser, that clothing stores in Elmira competed for the honor of being his alibi – a sort of "John Surratt shopped here" advertising opportunity.

After Elmira, he was protected by a network of Catholic priests in – where else – Canada, until he could be hustled off to Europe. It is fair to say that there was more anti-Lincoln intrigue going on in Toronto and Montreal than in all the Southern States put together. In fact, if the St. Lawrence Hotel alone had closed its doors, the entire assassination conspiracy might have folded on the spot – to say nothing of the Confederate Secret Service Bureau going homeless.

In Rome, John became one of the Zouaves at the Vatican, until Pope Pius IX summarily kicked him back to America for trial – a wise decision considering the anti-Catholic feeling of the times.

Two trials followed, with John Surratt acquitted at both of them. Because he was in Elmira at the time of Lincoln’s assassination, he could not be linked to the scene of the crime. Now Vincent Bugliosi would have gotten around this nicely. Remember, Charles Manson wasn’t at the scene of the crime either and accurately claimed he "never killed anybody."

Where did John go with his new-found freedom? To South America, and ultimately to Baltimore, where he found a comfortable job at the Baltimore Steam Packet Company until his retirement at seventy-one.

Where did I get all this stuff? From Andrew Jampoler’s book, The Last Lincoln Conspirator. If you’ve got Surratts on the brain, as I obviously do, check out this book for some surprising facts about John’s life after Lincoln.

Jampoler, just as troubled as most historians by the fact that John did not stand by his mother during her trial and execution, grimly reminds his readers that if he had, there surely would have been a 5th body on the scaffold, and a mother-and-son execution even more disturbing than Mary’s alone. Some things are best left the way they stand.

Let's Do Lincoln's Lunch

As Inauguration Day approaches, more and more of Obama’s choices surface, and they are all about Lincoln. Not only has the president-elect chosen the same Bible Lincoln used for the swearing in, but he is selecting a luncheon of Lincoln’s favorite foods. This includes an impressive array of seafood appetizers such as shrimp, lobster and stewed oysters, followed by a main course of duck breast with sour-cherry chutney -- all served on replicas of Mary’s best china. See The full course and more full course.

Thank goodness he didn’t choose Lincoln’s favorite breakfast while in the White House – an egg with a biscuit and sometimes a glass of milk. Amazing what a war can do to your appetite.

The original burgundy velvet Bible he will be using was purchased and inscribed by William Thomas Carroll, clerk of the Supreme Court. It will be on display at the Library of Congress February 12 to May 9 as part of an exhibition titled "With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition." That exhibit will then travel to five other American cities in commemoration of the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth on Feb. 12, 1809. More on Lincoln’s Bible.

Other good stuff – Obama is also tracing the train route that Lincoln took and holding a welcome event at the Lincoln Memorial the Sunday before his inauguration.

Anything else? Oh yes! It's rumored that Obama intends to wear a top hat and grow a beard, but only time will tell if this is true.

Until then, enjoy the "new birth of freedom," complete with calories and recipes from the caterer.

As Abraham Lincoln said....

"...to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."

Nice to hear that Lincoln is alive and well in Presidential acceptance speeches. And this is just the beginning. Not only is Obama's Inauguration theme, "A New Birth of Freedom," taken from a line in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, but his entire leadership style seems to be informed by Lincoln's political wisdom.

It is no secret that Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about Lincoln, "A Team of Rivals," has inspired his method of choosing a cabinet, from retaining Robert Gates to considering Hillary Clinton. His preference for strong personalities with dissimilar views says as much about his own security among opposition as it does about his admiration of a man who made similar bold choices -- a man from his own home state of Illinois.

Goodwin, who met with Obama about her book, recently told NEWSWEEK, "I think he's got a temperamental set of qualities that have some resemblance to Lincoln's emotional intelligence."

If so, he is positioned for a time with as much conflict as the Civil War offered Lincoln. A rising star in his own right, he will need all the considerable gifts he has been given to navigate the economic and political minefields ahead.

But then, this is what great men are raised up to do.

Lincoln and Douglas 150 years later

The 150th anniversary of the Lincoln-Douglas debates is still being celebrated in the seven Illinois cities where they originally took place. These debates, from August through October of 1858, targeted the expansion of slavery in the new territories and proved that you can win even when you lose. Though Lincoln lost the senatorial election, he gained so much public favor that he ultimately won the future presidential election.

A few interesting quotations came from these debates. Lincoln called a self-evident truth "the electric cord ... that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together."

But my favorite analogy of the expansion of slavery is still in his Hartford Connecticut speech of March 5, 1860, where he compared it to a "snake in the Union bed." Finding a snake on the road and killing it, he would be a hero. Finding a snake in his children's bed, he might not kill it for fear of inciting it to bite, but deliberatey tossing a snake into a perfectly safe bed (the new territories) would be foolish. That chilling image of tossing a snake into a place of safety always gets my attention. I wonder if he would have won that senate seat had he used this analogy in 1858. Then I wonder, if he had won that senate seat, might his career have taken a different path altogether less meaningful?

Not if Mary had anything to say about it.

She was up to her ears in it

Even into the 21st Century, advocates of Mary Surratt keep hoping that evidence will surface proving her final words on the gallows to be true: "I am innocent."

But those hoping for her exoneration will be disappointed by Kate Clifford Larson’s book, Assassin’s Accomplice. Larson, initially setting out to prove Surratt’s innocence, became more convinced of her complicity in the course of researching the book. Though wisely leaving the bigger questions unanswered, Larson’s overall pronouncement is – guilty as charged.

I guess it is hard to believe that you could host a series of meetings at your boardinghouse and never once wonder what your son and his handsome friend were up to.

Larson unearths some careful evidence to back up her claims, but never loses that curious respect that we all seem to acquire for Mary Surratt. She points out that Surratt was one of the 19th Century’s true feminists. She embraced Catholicism against her family’s wishes, survived an abusive marriage to an alcoholic husband, raised her children virtually alone, ran her own business, became totally sold out to the Confederate cause, took a man’s risk in a dangerous adventure and accepted a man’s punishment for it. Like Belle Starr, she captures our imagination.

Interesting how Lincoln seemed to have trouble with women named Mary. But if her boardinghouse really was the nest that hatched the egg of the assassination plot, as Johnson claimed it was when refusing her pardon, then surely her death provided the first opportunity for a divided nation to agree on anything. Most people wanted her life spared and were surprised when it wasn’t – right up to the hangman who thought the rope he made for her would never be used.