Reading Lincoln's Mail
1959; Indiana University Press; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1942-9711
Autores Tópico(s)Race, History, and American Society
ResumoOn the evening of February 6, 1861, the political of Illinois and the beauty and fashion of Sangamon County crowded into the plain frame house at the northeast corner of Eighth and Jackson streets in Springfield. Horace Greeley's New York Tribune called the gathering brilliant affair, though perhaps it used the term elite a bit loosely. Several hundred neighbors crossed the black walnut thresh old that night to say good-by to Abraham Lincoln.1 Ac cording to one account, 'it took twenty minutes to get in the hall door. . . .' 2 Robert Todd Lincoln, an eighteen-year old Harvard student, facetiously titled the Prince of Rails, functioned as an usher, but had little success in hurrying friends past his father who insisted upon responding to each handshake with an anecdote. Next morning, the Lincoln family moved to the Chenery House, Springfield's leading hotel, and four days later they set out for Washington.8 Before leaving, however, Lincoln and his secretary, John Nicolay, collected the accumulated papers of the Prairie Years. They stuffed lectures and literary essays into an old carpetbag and turned it over to Cousin Elizabeth Todd Grimsley for safekeeping. Legal papers were left with William H. Herndon, Lincoln's partner, in their second floor office at 109 North Fifth Street. Political correspondence was bundled up and put abroad the train for Washington, where it would be needed in the troublesome months to come.4 Henry Villard, a reporter for the hostile New York Herald, complained of its volume. 'Baskets full of petitions and recommendations' arrived with each mail, and neither Mr. Lincoln nor his secretary was 'equal to the task' of 'an swering a hundred or so letters every day.' With obvious
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