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Commander-in-Chief Lincoln's Legacy Space

Research and Inferences Offered by Judi Moreillon, Ph.D.


 

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Facts and Inferences

Facts and Inferences on Commander-in-Chief Lincoln's Legacy Space

Facts are in black font; inferences are in brown.

Mood: Abraham Lincoln suffered from what was then called "melancholia" and is now called clinical depression.

Personal Data:

Sex: Male
Born: February 12, 1809 (died April 15, 1865)
Zodiac sign: Aquarius
Marital status: Married to Mary Todd
Children: 3 of 4 sons died in childhood (Robert Todd was the only child to survive to adulthood.)

Sign Up Date: March 1861 - Of course, MySpace didn't exist in 1861. (But if it had, after he became President of the United States, he would have created this legacy space to keep people informed regarding his work. It is important for the leader of the country to be in communication with citizens. That's what a "MySpace" page does. President Obama has MySpace and Facebook pages.)

My Favorites:

Song: "The Battle Cry of Freedom" written by George F. Root (1862)

Lincoln's central belief was in the importance of preserving the Union. I picked this song because of this verse, which captures Lincoln's goal for the Union - "forever":

"The Union forever, Hurrah! boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitors,
Up with the stars;
While we rally round the flag, boys,
Rally once again, Shouting the battle cry of Freedom."

Lincoln used this as his campaign song in the 1864 Presidential Election: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Cry_of_Freedom

Book (Poem): "Oh, Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman (Denenburg 40) Lincoln enjoyed reading aloud. When he was a child, he kept a scrapbook of his favorite words. He might have enjoyed poetry because of his love of words.

I picked this poem, which was written at the time of Lincoln's assassination in 1865 and dedicated to him by author-poet Walt Whitman.

"The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,"

I believe that someone who sacrificed as much as Lincoln did would want to know that his leadership mattered to people. Whitman understood how much preserving the Union meant to Lincoln and how much Lincoln meant to the people (or would mean to the country in the future). Lincoln was assassinated just after his second inauguration (March) and just after Lee's surrender to Grant (April 9th). He didn't fully appreciate the impact of his leadership on the country. I wonder if Reconstruction would have been different if Lincoln had lived to fulfill his second term in office.

Newspaper: The National News - Lincoln's assassination was announced in this Washington, D.C. newspaper.

Film: "Cold Mountain" directed by Anthony Minghella, starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger

Of course, there were no movies during Lincoln's time. I picked this film because it shows the hardships of Confederate soldiers and their families. Lincoln would have avoided the war and all people's suffering - North and South - if he could have done so and still preserved the Union.

Colors: Red, White, and Blue

The colors of the U.S. flag never changed; the stars for the Confederate states remained on the flag throughout the Civil War. Lincoln's belief in the country never changed. As a result, I think these colors would have meant a great deal to President Lincoln.

Friends:

General Ulysses S. Grant - General-in-Chief of the Union Army at the end of the Civil War - This is an inference because I don't know if they were friends. I know they were colleagues and that Grant won many Civil War battles, which probably made Lincoln appreciate him.

John Stewart of The Daily Show - Lincoln was known for his sense of humor. I think he would appreciate Stewart's ability to poke fun at politics and politicians.

President Obama - I think Lincoln would want to meet the first African American President of the United States because he would see that the Emancipation Proclamation (that freed slaves in the Confederacy) contributed to a black man's chances of becoming president - almost one hunred and fifty years later.

Personal Background:

Birthplace: Sinking Spring Farm in Hardin County, Kentucky in a one-room cabin

Hometown: Springfield, Illinois

Education: Attended 18 months of schooling, self-taught, avid reader

Training and occupation: Self-taught lawyer

Height: Six-foot four-inches, plus 8 1/2 inches for my stovepipe hat (http://www.baronhats.com/Lincoln.htm) Lincoln was said to have carried letters in his hat. Lincoln's stovepipe hat is in the collection at the Smithsonian Museum: http://www.smithsonianlegacies.si.edu/objectdescription.cfm?ID=67. I think Lincoln used his height to accentuate his power.

Weight: Thin but strong! I infer that he was strong - before the stress of being President during the Civil War aged him - because wrestlers and people who can wield an axe are strong.

Professional goals:

President of the United States, Maintain the Union

Personal goals:

To survive all of the personal and professional tragedies that life has dealt me... Lincoln experienced overwhelming personal losses with the deaths of his sons, his own depression, and depression in his family. During his presidency, he had relentless stress and sorrow as a result of the Civil War. His photographs show how much he aged physically during his presidency (Denenberg 35). This quote supports my inference: "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Letter to Albert G. Hodges" (April 4, 1864), p. 281. Quoted at: http://web.mac.com/gregwolfe/main/Abraham_Lincoln.html

Interests:

With whom would I like to have dinner?

Mahatma Gandhi

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968)

Although neither one of these leaders were alive during Lincoln's life, I believe Lincoln would have wanted to learn more about their non-violent tactics for social change.

Hero - Henry Clay

Lincoln was known to have admired Henry Clay (1777-1852). Both Lincoln and Clay were members of the Whig Party and both represented the state of Kentucky in Congress. They believed in expanding economic development, including building roads and increasing trade. This is the inscription on Clay's headstone: "I know no North — no South — no East — no West." ("Death and Estate" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Clay) My inference is that Clay, too, considered himself a statesmen of the entire country just as Lincoln did. It's interesting to me that Lincoln admired Clay, yet Clay owned slaves.

Hobbies/Sports: Chopping wood and wrestling

Quote: "Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VIII, "Speech to One Hundred Fortieth Indiana Regiment" (March 17, 1865), p. 361. Quoted at: http://web.mac.com/gregwolfe/main/Abraham_Lincoln.html

Sample Blog Post:

Posted to the Blue and the Gray Blog on July 5, 1863:

Fellow citizens, the news has just reached me that the Battle at Gettysburg is thankfully over, but not before tens of thousands of brave American soldiers died on the battlefield. We are American people. We must preserve the Union. Together, we can overcome our problems. Let us stop this war of brother against brother. We are all blue; we are all gray. We are all one nation.

Of course, there were no blogs in 1863. It probably took one or two days for the news of the end of the battle to reach Lincoln in Washington. I am inferring that the President was ready to end the war at any time. The idea of "we are all blue; we are all gray" comes from the last U.S. presidential election in which President-elect Obama said something similar when he was elected on November 5, 2008: "Americans have sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of red states and blue states,” he said. “We have been and always will be the United States of America." President-elect Obama (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27531033/).

Political views and affiliations:

Party: Whig Party - I believe in expanding the country economically.

Actions in current events: Speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Ambition: To live to see the Union preserved and return to my home in Springfield, Illinois - I am inferring that Lincoln would have wanted to go home, to leave his losses and sorrow behind in Washington, D.C. That is what I would have wanted to do, but I do not know in fact if Lincoln ever wanted to go "home."

Note: The second and subsequent lines in each of the Works Consulted entries below should be indented five spaces.

Works Consulted

"96522529." Abraham Lincoln: Photograph. American Memory from the Library of Congress. Web. 7 Jan. 2010 <http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?pp/PPALL:@field%28NUMBER+@1%28cph+3a53289%29%29>.

"Abraham Lincoln." Son of the South. Civil War. Web. 7 Jan. 2010 <http://www.sonofthesouth.net/>.

"Baron Hats' Lincoln Stovepipe." World's Finest Custom Made Hats - Baron Hats - Hollywood's Hat Maker. Web. 7 Jan. 2010. <http://www.baronhats.com/Lincoln.htm>.

"Battle Cry of Freedom." Wikipedia. Web. 7 Jan. 2010 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Cry_of_Freedom>.

"Clay, Henry." Wikipedia. Web. 7 Jan. 2010 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Clay>.

Denenburg, Barry. Lincoln Shot! A President's Life Remembered. New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2008. Print.

Krull, Kathleen, Paul Brewer, and Stacy Innerst. Lincoln Tells a Joke: How Laughter Saved the President (and the Country). Boston: Harcourt, 2010. Print.

"Lincoln, Abraham." Wikipedia. Web. 7 Jan. 2010 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln>.

"Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865)." DISCovering Biography. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center - Gold. Gale. Reagan High School. 7 Jan. 2010 <http://find.galegroup.com/srcx/infomark.do?&contentSet=GSRC&type=retrieve&tabID=T001&prodId=SRC-1&docId=EJ2102101109&source=gale&userGroupName=hisd_reaganhs&version=1.0>.

McCann Fenton, Matthew. Abraham Lincoln: An Illustrated History of His Life and Times. New York: Time, 2009. Print.

"Smithsonian Press--Legacies--2Shrine to the Famous--Top hat allegedly worn by Abraham Lincoln to Ford's Theater on April 15, 1865." Smithsonian Press--Legacies: Collecting America's History at the Smithsonian. Web. 7 Jan. 2010. <http://www.smithsonianlegacies.si.edu/objectdescription.cfm?ID=67>.

"US Flags during the Civil War." Battle of Gettyburg Resource Center. Web. 7 Jan. 2010 "<http://gburginfo.brinkster.net/CWFlags-US.htm>.

Use Easybib.com for an online citation maker.


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Launched: December 2010
Updated: 16 October 2012