Lincoln Assassination Research Articles

Wet with Blood: The Investigation of Mary Todd Lincoln's Cloak

Wet with Blood is part forensic drama, part history, part exhibit. The site capitalizes on the fascination with DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) testing and forensic science and might be aimed at K-12 students more interested in the next episode of Law and Order than in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Students will quickly discover some fascinating material in Wet with Blood , but the site seems aimed as much at the professional curatorial community as at students. Wet with Blood takes visitors on a virtual tour of the Chicago Historical Society's artifacts related to the assassination of President Lincoln and the promotion after the Civil War through museums and exhibits of these relics, especially the cloak worn by Mary Todd Lincoln on the night of Lincoln's assassination. This site adopts the old media metaphor of a book, and visitors page through the site. The designers have used attractive layouts and strong...

April 1865: the month that saved America

April 1865 was a month that could have unraveled the nation. Instead, it saved it. Here Jay Winik offers a brilliant new look at the Civil War's final days that will forever change the way we see the war's end and the nation's new beginning. Uniquely set within the larger sweep of history, filled with rich profiles of outsize figures, fresh iconoclastic scholarship, and a gripping narrative, this is a masterful account of the thirty most pivotal days in the life of the United States. It was not inevitable that the Civil War would end as it did, or that it would end at all well. Indeed, it almost didn't. Time and again, critical moments could have plunged the nation back into war or fashioned a far harsher, more violent, and volatile peace. Now, in a superbly told story, Winik captures the epic images and extraordinary history as never before. This one month witnessed the frenzied fall of Richmond; a daring last-ditch Southern plan for guerrilla warfare; Lee's harrowing retreat; and then Appomattox. It saw Lincoln's assassination just five days later, and a near-successful plot to decapitate the Union government, followed by chaos and coup fears in the North, collapsed negotiations and continued bloodshed in the South, and finally, the start of national reconciliation. In the end, April 1865 emerges as not just the tale of the war's denouement, but the story of the making of our nation. Provocative, bold, exquisitely rendered, and stunningly original, April 1865 is the first major reassessment of the Civil War's close and is destined to become one of the great stories of American history.

A Heritage of Woe: The Civil War Diary of Grace Brown Elmore, 1861-1868 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS87 Squier's letters contain the usual laments about mail service, high prices, loneliness, and boredom, but they also have nice individual touches. He does not shy away from dealing with the carnage of battle and wryly refers to the regimental surgeon as "Instent death" (6). Although Squier claims "we are not allowed to write the particulars about battle," his own letters belie this assertion . The lengthy report on Shiloh and his superb account of Stone's River nicely combine vivid detail with sensitive reflection. His candor is refreshing. At Stone's River, for example, he notes that the 44th ran and even admits stripping some of the Rebel dead. For students of nineteenth-century political culture, Squier presents the paradox of a man with limited education—at least in spelling—who nevertheless was keenly interested in public questions. He was an ardent abolitionist with a great reverence for the Constitution. A deeply religious man who claimed to be one of only four in his company to abjure swearing. Squier saw an intimate connection between God's will and the Republic's fate. For him, the Confederacy represented rebellion against the creator as well as against the government . Paying close attention to the election of 1864, he railed against George B. McClellan and Copperheads and saw Abraham Lincoln as the "Saviour of our nation." Ridiculing the whole idea of Southern honor, he dismissed Robert E. Lee as nothing but a traitor. Despite Squier's strong antislavery sentiments, his postwar letters revealed a chastened idealism including states rights objections to Black suffrage. Like any good collection of letters, this one offers some unusual details. For example, Squier encountered a patriotic East Tennessee woman bedecked in a garish outfit ofred, white, and blue. He reports the desertion ofKentucky troops after the appearance of the final Emancipation Proclamation and considered William S. Rosecrans a much better general than William T Sherman. The arrests of a few soldiers for rejoicing over Lincoln's assassination receives detailed attention. This well-edited volume will enhance any Civil War collection. But then this is true of all the volumes in the University of Tennessee Press's Voices of the Civil War series—clearly one of most valuable publishing projects in the Civil War field. George C. Rable University of Alabama A Heritage of Woe: The Civil War Diary of Grace Brown Elmore, 1861-1868. Edited by Marii F. Weiner. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. Pp. xlviii, 225. $40.00.) The publication of another Confederate diary suggests that scholars have not yet exhausted the rich manuscript collections of libraries and archives throughout the South. Marii Weiner, who teaches at the University of Maine, discovered 88CIVIL WAR HISTORY Grace Brown Elmore's compelling diary at the South Caroliniana Library several years ago and has provided a judiciously edited version here. This heart-wrenching, extremely personal journal does not lend itself to easy reading. Grace Elmore, twenty-one years old when the Civil War began, was the ninth of twelve children in a distinguished, privileged South Carolina family . Much of the first half of her diary is intensely introspective as she wrestles with her faith and how to lead a Christian life. Family relationships were difficult for her, and she relates numerous quarrels and misunderstandings with her mother and siblings. Elmore also felt trapped by her personal circumstances. Though she craved independence from her family, she complained of the responsibilities that accompanied it when facing poverty and working for a living after the war ended. One of the most compelling accounts in Elmore's diary is her detailed description of Sherman's attack on Columbia. While family members fled the city as the Yankees neared, Elmore and her mother remained in the city to try to protect their family home. The gradual approach of the enemy, the marauding Union soldiers who burned and looted, and Elmore's loathing of these invaders make fascinating reading. She detestedYankees, at one point writing, "My God! that such a race should blot the earth" (73). Another interesting portion of the diary is Elmore's response to life after the War, which confirms many assumptions about Southern White women. She struggled with the...

Dr. Mudd and the Lincoln Assassination: The Case Reopened

Journal Article Dr. Mudd and the Lincoln Assassination: The Case Reopened Get access Jones John Paul, Dr. Mudd and the Lincoln Assassination: The Case Reopened. Conshohocken, Pa.: Combined Books, Inc., 1995. v, 280 pp. $24.95. Robert M. Jarvis Robert M. Jarvis Nova Southeastern University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Legal History, Volume 40, Issue 4, October 1996, Pages 509–511, https://doi.org/10.2307/845416 Published: 01 October 1996

We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts (review)

278CIVIL WAR HISTORY David Rintels's Andersonville is what most readers have come to expect in any portrayal of the most notorious Civil War prison. Stereotypical portraits of the "good guys" versus the "bad guys" dominate. Still, Rintels is a good dramatist, offering well-developed characterizations of a small band of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania soldiers and the Raiders' nemesis, "Limber Jim." (However, the latter pops up so often one almost wants him to go away.) Rintels paints a memorable portrait of deteriorating prison conditions that steadily sap the prisoners' mental and physical health. Yet, the "bloody shirt" portrayal is balanced somewhat by a more sympathetic treatment of Captain Wirz. My main criticism of the screenplay is Rintels's reliance on literary license and anachronisms. Illustrative is a memorable scene wherein Confederate Colonel O'Neal invites the near-death Union prisoners to take a Confederate loyalty oath and thereby obtain their releases. Rintels has the half-dead Massachusetts sergeant order his men to perform a contemptuous "about face." In fact, O'Neal did not appear until fall, when Andersonville was virtually empty, and a small number of fatalistic prisoners did, in fact, become "Galvanized Yankees." Similarly, though an attempt is made to be accurate, the final scene suggests that the prison is emptied at once in early September and its inmates freed. Rather, the hardiest endured another five months at various Southern prisons. And the capture and trial of the Raiders assumes greater importance in the screenplay than in more contemporary accounts. Yet, for all its faults, Rintels's screenplay brings to twentieth-century life the tortured story of Andersonville. Wayne Mahood Geneseo, New York We SawLincoln Shot: One HundredEyewitnessAccounts. Edited by Timothy S. Good. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995. Pp. viii, 215. $42.50, cloth; $17.95, paper.) Only the 1 963 John Kennedy assassination in Dallas compares in shock value in American memory to the fatal shooting of Abraham Lincoln by actor John Wilkes Booth in Ford's Theatre during an April 14, 1865, performance of Our American Cousin. The Lincoln assassination has inspired a massive body of scholarship and still provokes lively debate over such topics of controversy as Booth's mental stability, co-conspirators, and motivation or whether or not the presence ofUlysses Grant in the presidential box would have averted the tragedy or only expanded it. For the thousand or more playgoers, it had to have been a moment of complete confusion followed by a slower realization of horror—the percussion of Booth's Deninger, a brief scuffle between Booth and Maj. Henry Rathbone, Booth's "Sic Semper Tyrannis " leap to the stage and escape from the theater, the sobs ofdespair as medics and military personnel attended to Lincoln book reviews279 and carried his unconscious body to the Petersen home, where he would breathe his last. Taking into account the inevitable "wannabes" who fabricated their narratives, nearly a tenth ofthe audience authored reminiscences ofthat night's events that are reprinted in Timothy S. Good's anthology We Saw Lincoln Shot. The first thirteen narratives, all composed within days of the event by close by-standers and such participants as Major Rathbone, Lincoln's attending physicians and military guard, and the assassin Booth himself, are documents of primary importance to our historical understanding ofthe event. A few ofthe later accounts add to the historical record names of those who helped carry the stricken Lincoln to his deathbed. The vast majority reprinted in the anthology add nothing to our understanding. One is a patently dishonest addition, an 1877 letter from Mary Todd Lincoln to Edward Baker, Jr., on the general topic of bereavement that makes no reference whatever to the assassination. In the mind of the reviewer after this brief read is the question of why this volume was published, why Good labored so mightily to bring forth a mouse. One possible apologia, not explored in the volume, is suggested by Good's notes that the 1877-1908 narratives tended to be less reliable than fresher accounts, with such embellishments as Booth's fractured leg now incorporated into the folklore of the event, and that accounts published from 1909 to 1954 tended to make the eyewitness the...

"No Sorrow Like Our Sorrow": Northern Protestant Ministers and the Assassination of Lincoln.

Sermons as historical documents reflect the thoughts, emotions, values, prejudices, and beliefs of their time. The more popular a preacher, the more likely it is that she or he mirrors the hopes and fears of a significant number of people, explains David B. Chesebrough in No Sorrow Like Our Sorrow. His analysis of more than 300 sermons delivered in a seven-week period following Lincoln's assassination (April 16-June 1, 1865) examines the influence of religious leaders on public opinion and policy during that turbulent period. In the days and weeks following the assassination, Americans flocked to churches in record numbers, seeking comfort, guidance, perspective, or an adequate expression of their own grief. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, had to be turned away. In the sermons they heard or read Chesebrough finds five major themes: the preachers expressed the grief they and their congregations experienced; praised the accomplishments and character of the slain president; blamed the South and the institution of slavery for the murder; demanded harsh justice upon the South, emphasizing rage, hatred, and revenge over forgiveness or conciliation; and fostered the perception of the assassination as providential. Readers interested in America's religious history and the influence of religion on American culture and society, as well as students of the Civil War and Reconstruction, will appreciate Chesebrough's thought-provoking analysis.

American Studies in Black and White: Selected Essays, 1949-1989 (review)

book reviews281 on how anti-Andrew Johnson members of Congress such as Benjamin F. Butler and James M. Ashley tried to implicate the president in the murder plot. Chamblee continues his research into the closing years of the nineteenth century. As late as the 1890s there were still some who claimed to have firsthand knowledge of the Booth conspiracy. Much of the later information was bigoted in nature and tended to implicate the Catholic Church in the assassination. One person who comes off well in this book is Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. The time has come to finally put aside the Otto Eisenschimel allegation that Stanton wanted Lincoln murdered. In 1937 Why Was Lincoln Murdered? (erroneously referred to as Why Was Lincoln Shot? by Chamblee) was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and consequently reached more readers than otherwise would be the case. How many people saw the title of that book and came to accept the treachery of Stanton can never be known. The truth is that Stanton was loyal to Lincoln and pursued the investigation of his murder with honesty and dispatch. In light of what Chamblee has to say about Stanton, it is surprising to find no mention of Stanton: The Life and Times ofLincoln's Secretary of War (1962) by Benjamin P. Thomas and Harold M. Hyman in the bibliography while several older and inferior biographies of Stanton are cited. William Hanchett's book, too, should have been included in the Selected Bibliography; perhaps the author deliberately stayed away from it. The vital research has been done in government documents, archival material, and records of the various inquiries and trials. There are many people besides the conspirators who are given brief biographical attention in this book. It is a serious work of research and writing. Perhaps there will be no need to have further investigation into Lincoln's assassination for a generation to come unless new revelations turn up—which is improbable . With the publication of this study, it can be said that this is all we know and most likely all that we will ever know about events surrounding those tragic days in April 1865. Lewis H. Croce Mankato State University American Studies in Black and White: Selected Essays, 1949-1989. By Sidney Kaplan. Edited by Allan D. Austin. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991. Pp. 336. $39.95.) Perhaps the most impressive feature of this volume of essays is the range and diversity of Sidney Kaplan's subjects and interests. The volume brings together twelve essays written by Kaplan, a historian and black studies scholar, over the course of his career. Eight pieces first appeared in the 1950s or 1960s; two were written in the 1980s. All of the essays examine 282civil war history different features of the African-American experience, or issues concerning white attitudes towards blacks, and cover five different topics: the colonial and revolutionary eras, the Civil War, fiction and fantasy, art, and invention. Although written as many as forty years ago, several of the pieces in this volume have a direct relevance for contemporary scholarly concerns. In this regard, perhaps the most noteworthy contribution is "The Miscegenation Issue in the Election of 1864," an essay that originally appeared in the Journal of Negro History in 1949. Kaplan uncovered the first use of the term miscegenation in a campaign document with this title, issued in 1863. Published anonymously by two antiabolitionist New York Democrats, the authors attempted to present their work as abolitionist literature supportive of the thorough mixing of the races and invited prominent abolitionists and Republicans to respond to their ideas. The conflation of race, sex, region, and politics in both the original document and in the response of various abolitionists offers a fascinating insight into mid-nineteenth century racial and sexual attitudes. Kaplan, however, reads the episode not so much with an eye toward these issues but more with an interest in the workings of the New York press in covering this event. Still, present-day scholars could certainly benefit from Kaplan's presentation of this revealing dialogue. Kaplan does some of his best work in close readings of historical and literary texts. He does...

Mourning and the Making of a Sacred Symbol: Durkheim and the Lincoln Assassination

Mourning and the Making of a Sacred Symbol: Durkheim and the Lincoln Assassination

Mourning and the Making of a Sacred Symbol: Durkheim and the Lincoln Assassination

Mourning and the Making of a Sacred Symbol: Durkheim and the Lincoln Assassination

Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln.

Many Confederates believed that Abraham Lincoln himself was the sponsor of the Union army's heavy destruction of the South. With John Wilkes Booth as its agent, the Confederate Secret Service devised a plan of retribution--to seize President Lincoln, hold him hostage, and bring the war-weary North to capitulation. code word for this stratagem was Retribution. But when Booth was stymied, the Secret Service took another course. They conspired to bomb the White House during a conference of senior Union officials. But this plot also failed. Next, the Confederates devised for Confederate forces to abandon Richmond and Petersburg and to link up with General Joseph E. Johnston in the South before General Grant's forces were prepared to move. This plan was thwarted, however, when Grant took Richmond. By April 9, 1865, Lee was forced to surrender. Yet the willful, ardent Booth, smarting from the South's loss of the war, took decisive action at Ford's Theater during that spring night in 1865. Investigating the assassination from their perspective as career intelligence officers, William A. Tidwell and David Winfred Gaddy, joined by James O. Hall, one of the leading authorities on the assassination, find and follow the clues, interpret the clandestine evidence, and draw well-founded conclusions. They are the first to explore the Confederate Secret Service's link to the death of Lincoln. In Come Retribution, originally published in 1988 and now available again in a paperback edition, they offer startling insights and give a new direction to the well-known and often-told story of Lincoln and Booth. The facts presented and the inferences drawn are provocative, said Nathan Miller in Baltimore Sun. Every account of the Lincoln assassination published in the future will have to take account of the arguments presented in this book.

Reviews and commentatry

CIAs inspector general — the DCI's independent eye: another view Misplaced loyalties: the Pollards and “friends” Wolf Blitzer: Territory of Lies: The Exclusive Story of Jonathan Jay Pollard: The American Who Spied on His Country for Israel and How He Was Betrayed. Harper & Row, New York, 1989, 336 p., $22.50. Counterintelligence: hazards and goofs Ronald Kessler: Spy vs. Spy: Stalking Soviet Spies in America Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1988, 308 p., $19.95. The Lincoln assassination and the confederate secret service William A. Tidwell, with James O. Hall and David Winfred Gaddy: Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, Miss., 510 p., HB $38.50, PB $17.95. A brief tour of American intelligence Bruce D. Berkowitz and Allan E. Goodman: Strategic Intelligence for American National Security Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1989, 232 p., $19.95. Les miserables in modern dress Peter Maas: Manhunt: The Incredible Purs...

Class and Tennessee's Confederate Generation (review)

88CIVIL WAR HISTORY way and without condemnation. Although he indicated that the depredations would demoralize southerners, his main justification for the pillage was the need to sustain the large Federal army, which was far from its supply lines. Osborn emphasized that the march was no lark for the men, especially in the swamplands of lower Georgia and South Carolina. Confederate resistance to Sherman's campaign was also greater than has been generally assumed, though only one major battle—Bentonville— was fought by the armies. Civil War students will be especially interested in Osborn's graphic description of the famous Columbia fire that occurred when Sherman's forces occupied the South Carolina capital. Osborn, in agreement with other Federal accounts, claimed that the inferno began when retreating Confederates piled cotton in the main streets of Columbia and set it on fire. Osbom wrote that he would never forget "the scene of pillaging, the suffering and terror of the citizens, the arresting of and shootingnegroes, and our frantic and drunken soldiers" as the fire engulfed the city (p. 131). His account ends with a description of the grand review of the victorious armies in Washington on May 23-24, 1865, "a sight certainly not to be seen again while we live" (p. 220). In a fine introduction, the editors not only review Osborn's career but also evaluate the importance of the campaign and Sherman's accomplishments . A careful reader will quibble with only a few points. The editors' claim, for example, that Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton after Lincoln's assassination tried to take advantage of the emergency to exercise nationwide martial authority will appear farfetched to the political historian of this period. William C. Harris North Carolina State University Class and Tennessee's Confederate Generation. By Fred Arthur Bailey. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987. Pp. x, 205. $21.00.) Long before Frank Owsley, Fletcher Green, or W. J. Cash sought to establish the egalitarian and democratic nature of the white antebellum South, two far more obscure scholars made a unique attempt to prove the same point. Ironically, their work resulted in what has become one of the more significant challenges to those assumptions. As head of the Tennessee State Archives in 1915, Vanderbilt sociologist Gustavus W. Dyer developed a questionnaire that he distributed among all known Civil War veterans then living in the state. Seven years later, his successor , John Trotwood Moore, revived and completed the project. Through this effort to provide "a true history of the Old South," they elicited from over 1600 respondents detailed autobiographical accounts, focusing on their antebellum situations, social attitudes, wartime expe- BOOK REVIEWS89 riences, and postwar lives. But this wealth of historical and sociological data was simply stored away with little further attention paid to it until the early 1980s when Fred Bailey undertook an extensive and systematic analysis of the questionnaires, of which this book is the final product. Perhaps the reason that neither Dyer nor Moore followed up on thenrich raw materials (Bailey never provides an explanation) was that, far from confirming the presumptions of white solidarity in the Old South, their veterans revealed that before, during, and after the Civil War Tennessee was "more a land of social cleavages than social consensus" (p. 76). Their responses reveal considerable distinctions in antebellum lifestyles , education, mobility, work ethics, and economic opportunity between poor whites, yeomen, and planters. Even more significant is the revelation that each of these groups was very much aware of what distinguished diem from their neighbors above or below them on the socioeconomic ladder. Such discrepancies continued in the Confederate army. Though the tensions between soldiers and their officers that Bailey discusses have been well documented elsewhere, he has also gleaned intriguing details from his sources. Among veterans imprisoned in federal camps, for instance, slaveholders were far more likely to attempt escape than nonslaveholders. Tennessee soldiers had great respect and even affection for the more approachable generals Johnston and Forrest , but deeply resented the aristocratic hauteur of Bragg and Hood. Responses concerning postwar experiences indicate that the war, as central as it was to most veterans' lives, had little effect on either their subsequent economic status...

"Give Him the Hot End of the Poker": Ohio Republicans Reject Johnson's Leadership of Reconstruction

"GIVE HIM THE HOT END OF THE POKER' OHIO REPUBLICANS REJECT JOHNSON'S LEADERSHIP OF RECONSTRUCTION Robert D. Sawrey Two DAYSafter Abraham Lincoln's assassination, William Henry Smith, a radical Republican and the editor of the Cincinnati Daily Gazette, expressed a common view in Ohio ofAndrewJohnson, the new president, when he wrote, "there is ... no man who understands their [southern leaders'] character, or who is better qualified by observation to judge the best mode of dealing with them than he. . . . We are confident that the executive office is safe in his hands, and that his course will at once bring assurance of it to the country."1 Less than one year later another Ohio Republican tellingly conveyed his frustrations with Johnson to James Garfield, suggesting that if the president did not work more closely with Congress, Garfield and Congress would "have no alternative but to open the war with him at once, and givehim thehot end of the poker." An Ohioan from the Western Reserve concluded with a tone of bewildered rage that Johnson was "determined to 'write himself down an Ass.' "2 1 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, Apr. 17, 1865. For other examples of Republican editorial supportin early 1865 forJohnson see ClevelandLeader, Apr. 21, 1865; Ohio StateJournal, Apr. 17, 1865; Lancaster Gazette, Apr. 20, 1865; Scioto Gazette, Apr. 25, 1865; Eaton Weekly Register, Apr. 20, 1865; Sandusky Daily Commercial Register, Apr. 21, 1865; Portage County Democrat, Apr. 19, 1865; Dayton Daily Journal, Apr. 24, 1985. For examples of individual expressions of support for the new president, see Tobias Plants to Andrew Johnson, Apr. 15, 1865, and James Ashley to Andrew Johnson, Apr. 15, 1865, Andrew Johnson Papers, Library ofCongress; Robert Schenck to W. D. Bickham, Apr. 20, 1865, W. D. Bickham Papers, Dayton Public Library, Dayton, Ohio; Aaron F. Perry to Jacob D. Cox, May 13, 1865, Jacob D, Cox Papers, Oberlin College Library, Oberlin, Ohio; William Johnson to Rutherford B. Hayes, Apr. 22, 1865, Rutherford B. Hayes Papers, Rutherford B. Hayes Memorial Library, Fremont, Ohio. 2 W. C. Howells to James A. Garfield, Mar. 26, 1866, James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress; B. F. Hoffman to Garfield, Apr. 30, 1866, ibid. Civil War History, Vol. XXXIII, No. 2, © 1987 by The Kent State University Press 156CIVIL WAR HISTORY From his first days in the presidency and throughout the remainder of 1865 Andrew Johnson received great support in Ohio. For example, when in late May he announced his reconstruction policy, Ohio Republicans , or Unionists as they continued to call themselves, applauded heartily. Such phrases as "a generous offer," "wise and just," and "worthy of Lincoln" appeared in a high percentage of editorials written about his North Carolina and Amnesty proclamations.3 However, these editors also expected that Johnson would be extremely stingy in granting pardons to the fourteen groups he excluded from his general amnesty grant and that, if problems arose in the execution of his plans, Johnson would be willing to amend his policy in order to gain a secure future for the country. In addition, Ohioans endorsed the president's plan to leave the question of black suffrage to southerners. Johnson's support on this matter crossed party lines with numerous Unionists and virtually all Democrats in general agreement that only states could determine suffrage qualifications.4 Even those Unionists who favored the enfranchisement of adult male freedmen generally muted their criticism because they correctly concluded that attacks upon the president would not find sympathy among the mass of Ohioans. While Johnson had been developing his reconstruction policy, a similar process had been occurring in Ohio, where the public debated the numerous issues involved in the reunification of the country. Ohioans generally agreed that a small group of planters who owned large numbers of slaves had led a reluctant South into rebellion. This had been possible because of the tremendous political, economic, and social power of these planters. The best way to crush the influence of that elite was to end slavery and to grant blacks a bare minimum of civil rights so that they could protect their freedom and not fall again under the control of the planters. This conclusion about the power of the planter...

Salmon P. Chase Critiques First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln

SALMON P. CHASE CRITIQUES FIRST READING OF THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN Thomas F. Schwartz The Illinois State Historical Library recently purchased a large collection of nineteenth-century manuscripts relating to Abraham Lincoln's associates. Among the documents were several letters written by members of Lincoln's cabinet addressed to Derby and Miller Publishing Company. The letters endorsed Alexander H. Ritchie's engraving of Francis Bicknell Carpenter's painting First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln.1 Save for Salmon P. Chase's protean but entertaining letter of May 2, 1866, written directly to Carpenter, the letters reveal little that is startling. Taken as a whole, however, they help clarify when the Ritchie print was released for mass distribution and contrast sharply with Chase's response to Carpenter. The story of Carpenter's famous painting is well known.2 From February until July 1864 Carpenter set up shop in the White House as he went about sketching and painting Lincoln and his cabinet. The first viewing took place at the White House on July 22, 1864, although this public showing was largely limited to the president's family, cabinet members, and other interested parties. Carpenter exhibited the painting only for a short period after the July 1864 debut because he was unsatisfied with the result. Nevertheless, he signed a contract with Derby and ' Several thousand documents were purchased at the sale of the King V. Hostick Collection , Leslie Hindman Galleries on Saturday, Apr. 20, 1985, Chicago, Illinois. Four letters which directly comment on the Ritchie print areGideon Welles to F. B. Carpenter, Ma)' 15 and Sept. 24, 1866, F. W. Seward to Derby and Miller, May 19, 1866, and Salmon P. Chase to F. B. Carpenter, May 2, 1866. All are housed at the Illinois State Historical Library, Manuscripts Division. 2 Carpenter's own account is contained in Six Months at the White Housewith Abraham Lincoln: The Story of a Picture (London: Sampson Low, Son & Marston, 1866). Another account is found in Charles E. Fairman, Art andArtists of the Capitol of the United States of America (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1927), 305-9. Civil War History, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, © 1987 by The Kent State University Press SALMON P. CHASE85 Miller, allowing them to make and distribute an engraving based upon his painting.3 Once the contract was finalized, subscription sheets were printed and distributed around the country. Derby and Miller offered the print at a variety of prices, ranging from fifty dollars for an artist's proof copy to ten dollars for a common print.4 President Lincoln was the first to subscribe for an artist's proof copy, followed by his cabinet members who also purchased artist's proof copies. Previous authorities have indicated that the print was issued sometime after the president and his cabinet subscribed, placing public sales in late 1864 or early 1865.5 The actual public distribution of the print, however, clearly occurred after Lincoln 's assassination, probably in May 1866. The revised estimate is based upon the assumption that Lincoln's widow and his cabinet surely would have received the first prints.6 To ensure better public sales, Derby and Miller solicited statements from Lincoln's cabinet members, as well as several other Lincoln associates . Excerpts were printed in both a promotional brochure and advertisements that appeared on the end pages in later editions of Carpenter's book, Six Months at the White House. The advertisements contain portions of a letter by Gideon Welles, Lincoln's secretary of the navy, while the letter of Frederick W. Seward—son of Lincoln's secretary of state, William H. Seward—was printed in its entirety. Welles praised the work as "well done," adding that "some feeling of sadness" came over him when he gazed at the portrait of "the great and good man [Lincoln] . . . whom we all loved." Frederick W. Seward claimed "the fidelity of its portraits enhances the historical interest derived from the subject of the picture." Distributing the picture as an engraving permitted it, as Seward exclaimed, "to be seen and appreciated everywhere throughout the world."7 Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln's troublesome secretary of the 3 See Mark...

Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South , and: No Chariot Let Down: Charleston's Free People of Color on the Eve of the Civil War (review)

BOOK REVIEWS285 But it clearly was not Lincoln's intention to establish any precedent for an "imperial presidency," one which would allow subsequent presidents to meddle in the internal affairs of other nations, under the pretext of saving the world. If Lincoln went beyond the law to save the national government, Oates posits, the Congress went with him, sanctioning his actions (121). This portrait of the tough Lincoln also extends to Reconstruction. Oates argues that Lincoln was prepared to reform and even to reshape the South's shattered society with the help of military force by 1865 (137). In his concluding essay, Oates presents a detailed reconstruction of Lincoln 's assassination and its aftermath. This is followed by a review of the theory that Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln's secretary of war, was a ringleader in a conspiracy to assassinate the president. With justification , Oates crushes this with relish (176). In all fairness to the recent exoneration of Stanton among scholars, however, it must be said that the secretary of war was still responsible for the personal safety of the president. The buck must stop somewhere. Contrary to Oates's belief that he is offering much in new material, new ideas and insights (xiv), he is not plowing new ground. Instead, his sound interpretations and lucid style, combinded with a narrative which sweeps the Lincoln story from birth to death, effectively probes the galaxy of Lincoln myth and countermyth, giving the general audience an upto -date, living portrait of Lincoln. All in all, I think Mr. Lincoln would recognize himself and would be pleased. Ronald D. Rietveld California State University, Fullerton Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South. By Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roark. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company , 1984. Pp. 432. $22.50.) No Chariot Let Down: Charleston's Free People of Color on the Eve of the Civil War. Edited by Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roark. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984. Pp. xii, 174. $16.95.) Black Masters tells a fascinating story, and one equally improbable. In 1816 in upland South Carolina a young slave was freed by his master, who may also have been his father. This freedman, April Ellison, started out to make his way in the most densely slave of all the Southern states. Though surely a daunting task, Ellison had more than his freedom. He possessed indomitable determination along with a special talent: his former master had taught him the trade of making cotton gins. With new status and a new name, William Ellison, this former slave took his trade into the midst of a major plantation district. He moved to Stateburg along the Wateree River in Sumter District. There William Ellison succeeded, but as considerably more than a maker of cotton gins. 286CIVIL WAR HISTORY His gin business did prosper, and with his earnings he bought land, acquired a big house, and became a substantial slaveowner. By 1860 Ellison owned a prosperous gin shop, nearly nine hundred acres, and sixty-three slaves. Moreover he was a respected member of the Stateburg community. Ellison's home, Wisdom Hall, which he bought from Stephen D. Miller, a former governor and father of Mary Boykin Chesnut, was situated in the village amidst the houses of major white planters. Ellison even had a pew in Holy Cross Episcopal Church, the same church in which the white gentry worshipped. William Ellison's rise reads like an American classic, and it surely underscores the economic and social mobility possible in the antebellum South, even in an old state like South Carolina. All the touted virtues of hard work, thrift, and integrity Ellison had in abundance. He also made the right strategic moves to insure the station and future of his family—his children, like those of other successful midlands planters, married into the Charleston aristrocracy. But Ellison was different from all the others. He was black or, more precisely, mulatto, and in the antebellum South that was an important distinction. Even more impressive , Ellison accomplished his rise not in a city like Charleston or New Orleans, not even in the more tolerant racial environs of south Louisiana...

Lincoln and Kennedy: Medical and Ballistic Comparisons of Their Assassinations (review)

80CIVIL WAR HISTORY Anti-Masonic party in various Northern states, whose members migrated to the Whigs, strongly indicate this same urban, commercial outlook dominated that organization. It is entirely possible Watson has hit upon something that ethnoculturalists have tended to overlook. This conjecture is not embodied in Watson's work, however, but is merely an observation of the reviewer. Watson does place emphasis on the role that issues and rhetoric played in local politics, and Southern politics in general to help voters view their own time and place, and their part in deciding the future course of the nation. The near absence of ethnocultural factors after 1828 leaves these Southern voters and leaders freer to concentrate on the economic impact of party proposals. Watson has written an excellent local history of party development. He uses his sources astutely. He has combined traditional methods with systematic ones that are summarized in numerous tables which he has explained quite clearly to the "non-elect" (non-systematicians). He has made a significant contribution to the historical literature of the period and of the South. John D. Morris Kent State University Lincoln and Kennedy: Medical and Ballistic Comparisons of TheirAssassinations . By John K. Lattimer. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980. Pp. xxii, 378. $19.95.) Previous generations of Lincoln scholars abandoned the study of Lincoln's assassination to an adoring public whose flawed inquiries produced an endless confusion about the facts as well as a slightly negative view of professional historians. J. K. Lattimer is a medical doctor standing in the popular tradition who has produced a handsome, large format, heavily illustrated volume, one-third devoted to an examination of President Lincoln's murder and two-thirds to President Kennedy's. Dr. Lattimer roots his Lincoln section in the responsible studies by Professors Hyman, Hanchett, and others and thus avoids major pitfalls, regarding the murder as the act ofJ. W. Booth's small group. But problems suffuse the text. He rarely attempts to establish the chain of possession for pieces of evidence, an absolutely basic step before making judgments . For example, he discusses the angle made by Boston Corbett's bullet through Booth's cervical vertebrae by referring to the bones now held by a museum, but never demonstrates whether they are authentic or if they have survived one hundred and twenty years tamper-free. Speculation and non-germane facts are often substituted for evidence. He admits we do not know what pistol Corbett used, but baldly asserts it must have been a .44-caliber. Next, he provides us a picture of his .44 and reports on various and utterly meaningless "tests" he performed with iti Again, he states that Booth shot Lincoln with a .44-caliber Derringer and then prints a photograph of his Derringer, not the murder weapon. BOOK REVIEWS81 When the urologist strays from the works of scholars he tends to err. He surmises Booth learned of Lincoln's decision to attend Our American Cousin from a newspaper; he cites no references. Booth got his mail at Ford's theater and it was there he heard of the coming visit. Lattimer goes far beyond the evidence when he attributes to Booth a long-range dedicated allegiance to the principles of the Confederacy (this enables him to compare Booth with L. H. Oswald who is wrongly seen as a dedicated Communist). At best the record shows Booth to be an emotional, second-rate actor, in love with himself, who was as frequently motivated by whims as he was by the flattery of his circle of day-laborers, semiliterates , and societal dregs. The Kennedy section is one of the most error-ladened accounts in a literature notorious for its irresponsbility. Dr. Lattimer blindly accepts the official version of the murder and makes his text fit it, the facts notwithstanding . Among the scores are: Marina Oswald did not lock her husband in the bathroom to keep him from shooting General Walker; the door locked on the inside. Oswald did not carry a rifle into the Depository that morning; the only witness testified he entered emptyhanded . Commander Humes did not burn his autopsy notes; there is a signed receipt for their delivery to U.S...

Violence in Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"

Offers a reading of "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" that demonstrates how Whitman uses the poem to sublimate the violence of Lincoln's assassination, so that "what on the purely historical level is a man's unnatural death at the hands of another man--a violent 'crime'--becomes on more symbolic levels a natural, necessary creative event."

Lust for Fame: The Stage Career of John Wilkes Booth (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Lust for Fame: The Stage Career of John Wilkes Booth. By Gordon Samples. (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1982. Pp. xii, 238. $21.95.) Readers interested in John Wilkes Booth's possible motivation for Lincoln 's assassination will find very little on this subject in Gordon Samples 's book. But for those whose interest in Booth encompasses more than his "one mad act," Samples's volume provides a mine of interesting information. The book includes lengthy contemporary quotations from newspaper reviews of Booth's stage performances. These amply support Samples's thesis that despite the infamous deed that obscures all his other achievements, John Wilkes Booth was a very talented and highly acclaimed actor. Equally valuable are the excerpts from recollections of individuals who had known Booth personally during his years as a travelling star. Many of these were published originally in obscure and difficult to locate sources and the author is to be commended for bringing them to light. Several of Booth's own letters, some previously unpublished , are also includedin Samples'snarrative, shedding further lighton the more attractive aspects oftheactor'spersonality. Thebook also contains a number of photographs, a chronology, and a sampling of representative casts ofplays in which Booth acted. Footnotes andbibliogrphy further reveal the author's extensive research. Nevertheless, in spite of the volume's strong points, there are also some serious problems with the work. Factual errors, often of the most careless sort, abound. Readers with even a minimal knowledge of the period will be stunned by the misinformation that places Booth and fellow members of the Richmond Grays "preparing to board a special military train which would take them to Charleston, South Carolina, to guard the captured abolitionist, John Brown . . . "(p. 40). There is also the surprising remark describing Montgomery, Alabama, as the "last capital of the Confederacy" (p. 179). While it might be argued in the author's defense that he is a theater historian, not a Civil War specialist, when one considers that he spent many years researching Booth's life, it is nothing short of amazing that he consistently dates Booth's firing of the fatal shot at Lincoln on April 15, 1865; then, to confound his readers yet further, he also tells us that Lincoln was "killed on Good Friday" (p. 6). Nor are the factual errors, of which these examples are only a few, confined to matters peripheral to the author's interest. Unfortunately, 169 170CIVIL WAR HISTORY even in carrying out his major objective of chronicling the life of Booth before the assassination, similar mistakes abound. Booth certainly never attended St. Charles' College at Pikeville, Maryland, astheauthor states (p. 12); when his father Junius Brutus died, John Wilkes was fourteen, not thirteen as Samples avers (p. 14); and even in thechronology, which purports to give a complete list of Booth's stage appearances, certain important (and easily documented) engagements are left out entirely. The author also displays vast confusion on the date and significance of Booth's Canadian travels. He seems to think that Booth went to Canada at least twice, and in fact, narrates events properly dated to October, 1864, as if they occurred before the actor's longengagementin Boston in April and May of that same year. When it comes to the matter of the assassin 's escape, readers familiar with the last twelve days of Booth's life will wonder why Samples speaks of "the diary he kept during the six days and five nights of the escape" (p. 3). More serious, however, than any actual errors of fact is the author's uncritical acceptance of data from highly questionable sources. The GreatConspiracy (an anonymous, fictionalizednarrativebestdescribed as a "penny dreadful," publishedinPhiladelphiain 1866) is cited entirely too often as if it were a reliable fount of historic fact. In one instance (p. 166), Samples even quotes as an authentic letter of Booth to his girl friend, EUa Starr Turner, a piece obviously produced by the vivid imagination of the author of The Great Conspiracy. News stories written by the colorful but not entirely reliable "Gath" Townsend are also accorded far too much reliability. A final criticism, in yet another area, is the author...

Gideon Welles: Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Gideon Welles: Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy. By John Niven. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Pp. 676. $17.50.) Gideon Welles served as Navy Secretary during a momentous period in American history. Appointed to office on the eve of a bloody civil war, he performed his duties efficiently and effectively during the holocaust that followed, and earned the enduring gratitude of historians by keeping a detailed diary of those eventful times. The value of Welles' diary prompted its publication in several editions over the years, but no adequate biography of his life appeared. To satisfy that need, John Niven of Claremont Graduate School has drawn heavily on Welles' diaries, correspondence and writings, and on the collections of his contemporaries , to produce a well written, insightful study that not only casts Welles in a more realistic role as a wartime decision-maker but also carefully delineates his extended career in state and national politics . The result is a major contribution to the political history of the mid-nineteenth century. Despite its title, Niven's book does not focus exclusively on Welles' Civil War years—nor is it a full-scale biography. The first half of the volume presents Welles' pre-1860 career as a newspaper editor and politician in Connecticut. The son of a wealthy Glastonbury businessman, Gideon grew up shy, conscious of a nervous stammer, but ambitious. He became interested in writing, drifted into journalism, and found his first success in writing biting editorials for the Hartford Times, edited by John M. Miles, "a slovenly little man with flaming red hair," who became Gideon's mentor. Niven skillfully charts Welles' leadership in the state Jacksonian, Loco Foco, Free Soiler, Anti-Nebraska Democrat and Republican parties, and describes how he and the "Hartford Regency" sought to profit from national issues to gain victories at the polls and a share of the spoils. Although Welles' influence seems overdrawn in some places, the author reveals a great deal about Connecticut politics—and the relative role that state played in New England and on the national scene. The remaining chapters deal mainly with Welles' eight years (186169 ) as head of the Navy Department. Under Lincoln, the bewhiskered, stern-visaged secretary supervised the naval blockade of the Southern coast, cooperated in launching expeditions to open enemy ports, and promoted naval construction. In discussing Welles' administration, Niven focuses primarily on cabinet politics, rather than on departmen261 262civil war history tal operations and inter-departmental rivalries. Welles' delegation of authority regarding personnel matters, naval operations, and purchasing brought criticism from cabinet members, congressmen, and naval officers. Some questioned his capacity to handle his responsibilities (in an appendix Niven argues that Welles was indeed the senior decisionmaker in his department), while others pointed to the civilians (especially Welles' brother-in-law) who were prospering from naval contracts . Never a member of Lincoln's inner circle, Welles stands out as a hardnosed, suspicious administrator constantly on the defensive— and who in a tiny, cramped hand recorded in his diary a measure of praise for himself, and at the same time depreciated the merits and actions of others. After Lincoln's assassination, Welles remained in the cabinet, offering advice and encouragement to Andrew Johnson; he clashed repeatedly with Stanton and developed a deep-seated contempt for Grant. Upon retirement, he settled in Hartford, wrote about his wartime experiences, and published a book entitled Lincoln and Seward (1874), which was the first major promotion of the Lincoln legend. Niven's focus on Welles' political career presents problems. In the first place, this emphasis makes the reader feel that the volume is more of a "life and times" study than a biography. In a sense, Welles seems to live and move behind plate glass, his personality not being fully felt. More use of quoted matter from his diaries and letters would have remedied this. Also, the discussion occasionally becomes greatly detailed and the subject seems submerged—or Welles shares the stage with other figures (e.g. John Miles) for extended periods. One wonders, too, what Miles, Lincoln, Stanton, Seward and other said about him. In addition, the book has certain mechanical weaknesses. The text should have had a...

AP Coverage of the Lincoln Assassination

AP Coverage of the Lincoln Assassination