BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Ford's Theatre NHS (Museum)

DC -- Ford's Theatre NHS (Museum):

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Description of Pictures: I'd photographed the exhibit in 2009 when it reopened but, back then, my approach was to type up the text of the signs and then delete the pictures of the signs. Since then, I've changed my way of processing this.

Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon

underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.

Slide Show: Want to see the pictures as a slide show? [Slideshow]

Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FORDSM_120212_074.JPG: The President's Day: "I consider myself fortunate if at eleven o'clock... my tired and weary Husband is there, waiting in the lounge to receive me." -- Mary Lincoln Lincoln's Morning: Lincoln rose early, often with the sun. Some mornings he could be seen hailing a newspaper boy on Pennsylvania Avenue. Most of the time he read a summary of the latest news prepared by his secretaries. Lincoln worked for a couple of hours before breakfasting on coffee and an egg, supplemented occasionally with bacon. All in a Day's Work: At nine o'clock the president made the first of several visits to the nearby War Department. Or he might review his correspondence. Two to three hundred letters arrived at the White House every day; Lincoln's secretaries handled the majority of these, destroying any threats before their intended victim could see them. Keeping Shop: At ten o'clock, Lincoln opened what he called his "shop" to callers. For the next three hours -- except on Tuesday and Fridays, when the Cabinet met -- the president had his "public opinion bath," confronting office seekers, consulting members of Congress, interviewing soldiers or journalists, or greeting members of the public who wished to shake his hand. In Cabinet: Twice a week, Lincoln met with his Cabinet. It was not a harmonious body. The other members envied Secretary Seward's close relationship with the president. Attorney General Bates complained that each department acted independently. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair quarreled with virtually everyone while Treasury Secretary Chase barely concealed his ambition to replace Lincoln in 1864.
2. FORDSM_120212_187.JPG: "What would the nation think of its President stealing into its capital like a thief in the night?" -- Abraham Lincoln
3. FORDSM_120212_214.JPG: A Revolving Door of Union Generals: Winfield Scott Irvin McDowell George B. McClellan John Pope Ambrose Burnside Joseph Hooker
4. FORDSM_120212_372.JPG: December 1863: The Completed Capitol: Confined to his sickbed by a strain of smallpox, Lincoln was not present early in December 1863, when thousands gathered in Washington. Less than a month after his proclamation at Gettysburg, a 19-foot-tall Statue of Freedom was hoisted over 300 feet to the top of the newly completed Capitol dome. The cheers of the crowd drowned out those who had opposed the expensive construction project as the nation tore itself apart. But that, said Lincoln, was precisely why the dome must be completed. "If people see the Capitol going on, it is a sign we intend the Union shall go on." 1864: Reconstruction: First Draft: By the first part of 1864, Lincoln was in the thick of a heated debate over Reconstruction of the South -- assuming the North eventually prevailed on the battlefield. On December 8, 1863, Lincoln has issued his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. The proclamation pardoned all Confederates who took an oath of loyalty to the Union. The president had already implemented a plan in Louisiana and Tennessee that allowed a new government to be constituted once 10% of each state's inhabitants pledged allegiance to the Union.
5. FORDSM_120212_399.JPG: John H. Surratt: This twenty-two-year-old former Catholic seminarian had extensive connections to Confederate agents in Richmond. Using the family tavern in Maryland as a base, Surratt became a courier for Confederate intelligence operations. Surratt was introduced to Booth by Dr. Samuel Mudd, whose home in Charles County, Maryland was conveniently located along escape routes from Washington to Baltimore. Surratt, in turn, helped recruit Lewis Powell. By the time Booth dropped his abduction plan in favor of assassinating Lincoln, Surratt was in Canada on a mission authorized by Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin. Of the original conspirators, he along would escape punishment. His mother, Mary, was less fortunate.
6. FORDSM_120212_401.JPG: Michael O'Laughlin: Like his friend Sam Arnold, late in 1864 O'Laughlin was living hand to mouth, employed by his brothers' feed business in Baltimore. He welcomed the invitation extended by his childhood friend, John Wilkes Booth, to rewrite history by joining Booth's conspiracy to kidnap Lincoln. Also like Arnold, O'Laughlin was nowhere near Ford's Theatre the night Lincoln was killed. Later turning himself in to authorities, he received a sentence of life imprisonment in the brutal conditions of Fort Jefferson, some 70 miles west of Key West, Florida. He died there of yellow fever in September 1867.
7. FORDSM_120212_404.JPG: Edman "Ned" Spangler: A stagehand at Ford's Theatre, Ned Spangler had known the Booth family for years. So it wasn't unusual for the actor to ask Spangler to watch his horse in the alley behind Ford's while he went inside for five minutes. Himself busy moving scenery between acts, Spangler turned the animal over to "John Peanuts" -- more properly known as John Burroughs -- a theatrical jack-of-all-trades who handed out programs and sold peanuts between acts. For his troubles, Burroughs was severely struck in the head by Booth's bowie knife as the assassin lunged for his horse and dashed into the night. Within hours, Spangler was arrested and charged as an accomplice. In the trial that followed, he was convicted and given a jail sentence of six years -- the lightest penalty pronounced on any defendant. He was pardoned in 1869 by Andrew Johnson.
8. FORDSM_120212_407.JPG: Samuel Arnold: In the war's closing months, Sam Arnold -- an unemployed clerk -- was doing odd jobs on his brother's Maryland farm. It wasn't difficult for Booth to recruit Arnold, a former soldier in the Confederate army, in his kidnapping plan. "I found Booth possessed of wonderful power in conversation and become perfectly infatuated with his social manners and bearing," Arnold would later recall. By March 1865, however, Arnold was having second thoughts. Abandoning Washington, he got a job at Fortress Monroe, not far from Norfolk. That's where he was found on April 17 by detectives, aided by papers found in Booth's Washington hotel room. Arnold talked freely, implicating Dr. Mudd, who would later help to save Arnold's life during a yellow fever epidemic that swept the military prison in the Florida Keys, to which both men were condemned. Sam was pardoned and released in 1869.
9. FORDSM_120212_409.JPG: Dr. Samuel Mudd: Nearly 150 years later, debate continues to swirl around Mudd and his role in the Booth conspiracy. Was he merely a country doctor in the wrong place at the wrong time -- attending to Booth's shattered ankle and allowing him to spend the night at his home near Bryantown, Maryland? Or was Dr. Mudd, in fact, part of the conspiracy from the beginning? Recent scholarship has revealed that the two men knew each other long before their fateful encounter the night of April 14 and Mudd introduced Booth to John Surratt. At his trial, the doctor's insistence that he had only met Booth once was easily disproved. Judged guilty, he escaped hanging by a single vote. Mudd would do much to redeem his reputation by caring heroically for victims of the yellow fever epidemic that struck the garrison at Ford Jefferson, where he was imprisoned until pardoned by Andrew Johnson in 1869.
10. FORDSM_120212_413.JPG: George Atzerodt: Born in Prussia (now part of Germany), George Atzerodt was a carriage painter by trade. By 1864, the twenty-nine-year-old made his living off the Potomac River. Ferrying Confederate spies across the river; Atzerodt knew the intricate networks of creeks and inlets in the tangled, marshy environment of southern Maryland and eastern Virginia. Such knowledge was invaluable so long as the Booth conspirators planned on spiriting Lincoln out of his capital, and evading pursuers on the roads south to Richmond. Assigned to kill Vice President Johnson at his Washington hotel on April 14, Atzerodt had no taste for murder. The would-be assassin got drunk instead. This didn't prevent his later arrest, trial, or execution.
11. FORDSM_120212_417.JPG: John Wilkes Booth: The youngest member of America's most celebrated theatrical family, 26-year-old John Wilkes Booth was noted for his dashing good looks and trademark athleticism on stage. A native of Maryland, Booth was familiar to Washington audiences for his performance in Richard II and other Shakespeare tragedies. In July 1864, Booth clandestinely met with Confederate agents at the Boston hotel. He backed a plan to kidnap Lincoln and hold him hostage in exchange for the release of southern prisoners with which to replenishing Confederate ranks. On Inauguration Day, 1865, the actor and five of his co-conspirators stood a few feet away as :Lincoln spoke of binding up the nation's wounds. With Lee's surrender a month later, the kidnapping plans changed. If he could not have victory on the battlefield, Booth decided, he would have revenge at the point of his own gun.
12. FORDSM_120212_420.JPG: David Herold: "Davey" Herold hailed from a well-off Washington family. A young pharmacist's assistant Herold once sold a bottle of castor oil to the Lincoln White House. His familiarity with and access to chemicals was valuable to Booth, especially if chloroform or some other disabling agent was required to overcome a president resisting abduction. Beyond this, Herold brought to the conspiracy a hunter's familiarity with the Maryland countryside. It was Herold who accompanied Lewis Powell on his murderous visit to the Seward residence. Herold met up with Booth and accompanied him on his 12-day flight through Maryland and into Virginia, where they were both apprehended in a tobacco barn near Port Royal. Giving himself up to soldiers from the Sixteenth New York Cavalry did not spare Herold from the hangman's noose.
13. FORDSM_120212_422.JPG: Mary Surratt: At her conspiracy trial and beyond, strenuous efforts were made to prevent Mrs. Surratt from becoming the first woman in America to be executed by the Federal government. In fact, a majority of the military tribunal that convicted her also requested that her life by spared -- a recommendation rejected by Andrew Johnson. According to Johnson, far from the simple pious widow portrayed by her defenders, Mrs. Surratt "kept the nest that hatched the rotten egg." Her boarding house on Washington's H Street served as a meeting place for Booth and his fellow conspirators. The proprietress herself carried incriminating messages for Booth, including a request to have some weapons ready for him to pick up at the Surrattsville (now Clinton, Maryland) tavern the night of the assassination. Her son, John, was regarded by many as a major figure in the plot.
14. FORDSM_120212_432.JPG: Lewis Powell (aka Lewis Paine): The son of a Baptist minister, Lewis Powell was a quiet boy who earned the nickname "Doc" for his care of sick animals. After joining the 2nd Florida Infantry at the age of 17, Powell was captured at the Battle of Gettysburg. He escaped with the help of a volunteer nurse. In January 1865, Powell left the Confederate army, swearing an oath of allegiance to the Union under a false last name -- Paine. He became one of Mrs. Surratt's boarders on H Street, where he met John Wilkes Booth. On the night of April 14, Powell was assigned to kill Secretary of State William Seward. Powell arrived at Seward's home with David Herold, claiming they were there to deliver a prescription. The secretary, who had been injured in a carriage accident on April 5, was recovering in bed. Insisting he had to deliver the medicine in person, Powell was stopped on the stairs by Sewards' son, Frederick. Powell drew his revolver; when it misfired he clubbed Frederick across the head. Powell burst into the secretary's room, stabbing Seward in the face and neck with a bowie knife. The jaw splint that Seward was wearing may have saved his life. Powell escaped but was arrested at Mary Surratt's house three days later.
15. FORDSM_120212_438.JPG: The Plot to Kidnap Lincoln: By 1864, the tide of war was shifting toward Union success. A group of Confederate supporters, led by John Wilkes Booth, began to plan a scheme to assure Southern victory; kidnap the president. The conspirators met at Mary Surratt's boarding house less than a mile from the White House.
16. FORDSM_120212_445.JPG: April 14, 1865: Lincoln's Day: 8:00am: The president breakfasts with Mrs. Lincoln and their sons Tod and Robert, the latter newly returned from the front. 9:00am: Lincoln promises Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax that he'll give lawmakers at least sixty days notice before calling a special session of Congress to deal with issues of Reconstruction. 10:00am: Lincoln meets with his new minister to Spain, former New Hampshire Senator John P. Hale -- whose daughter Lucy happens to be romantically involved with John Wilkes Booth. 11:00am: Before the morning's Cabinet meeting, Lincoln sends a messenger to nearby Ford's Theatre, confirming that he and Mrs. Lincoln will attend that evening's performance of Our American Cousin. 12:00 Noon: Besides the regular members of his Cabinet, General Grant is on hand for a spirited discussion of Reconstruction. It is "providential," says Lincoln, that Congress has adjourned until December, giving him time to re-admit rebellious states, while protecting former slaves in their hard-won freedom. 1:00pm: Lincoln related to his Cabinet a dream in which he finds himself traveling by water toward "an indefinite shore." He takes it as a favorable omen, adding that he has had the same dream before several other turning points in the war. 2:00pm: At his Cabinet members depart, General Grant apologizes for being unable to accompany the Lincolns to the theatre that evening. The general and his wife, Julia, are eager to see their children to New Jersey. 3:00pm: After additional paperwork and meetings with some Maryland politicians, Lincoln leaves his office for a carriage ride with the First Lady. Their destination: the Navy Yard in southeast Washington. 4:00pm: Concluding their visit to the ironclad vessel Montauk, the presidential couple retrace the route to the White House. "Dear Husband, you almost startle me by your great cheerfulness," Mary tells the president. 5:00pm: Back at the White House, Lincoln encounters Illinois Governor Richard Oglesby and another old friend from Illinois. He invites them inside for a chat. 6:00pm: Lincoln reads aloud to his guests from one of his favorite humorists. A butler appears to announce dinner. Lincoln continues his reading. It is perhaps his favorite form of relaxation. 7:00pm: The president belatedly joins Mary at the dinner table. Following a hurried meal, Lincoln has his second meeting of the day with Speaker Colfax. As the clock strikes eight, the president scribbles out a card confirming an appointment that next morning for Massachusetts Congressman George Ashman. 8:00pm: His business for the day concluded, Lincoln walks out of the North Portico to a waiting carriage. Together with Mrs. Lincoln, he stops at the corner of Fifteenth and H Streets to pick up their guests for the evening, Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancee, Clara Harris, daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris. At 8:30pm, the Lincolns arrive at Ford's Theatre. The performance stops and the orchestra plays "Hail to the Chief." 9:00pm: As the play continues, Lincoln gets a chill and puts on his overcoat. During the intermission, John Parker, the president's bodyguard, goes to Star Saloon for a drink. He does not return for the beginning of Act III. 10:15pm: Lincoln and Mary hold hands. Mary wonders what young Clara will think, and the president replies, "She won't think anything about it." On stage, Actor Harry Hawk is getting to the punch line of the play's best joke: "Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal -- you sockdologizing old mantrap!" The audience laughs.
17. FORDSM_120212_447.JPG: April 14, 1865: John Wilkes Booth's Day 8:00am: John Wilkes Booth is sound asleep in Room 228 of Washington's National Hotel after a late night in a city still celebrating the end of the war -- "Everything was bright and splendid," he later wrote his mother. "More so in my eyes if it had been a display in a nobler cause." 9:00am: Booth rises, dresses, and repairs to the hotel dining room for breakfast. 10:00am: He is seen breakfasting in the company of two young female admirers. 11:00am: Booth strolls four blocks to Ford's Theatre. Picking up his mail, he learns of a letter delivered to Ford's that morning -- confirming that the President and Mrs. Lincoln will attend that evening's performance of Our American Cousin. General Ulysses S. Grant is also expected to accompany the Lincolns. 12:00 Noon: Booth visits a nearby stable, where he arranges to rent a horse for his planned escape. 1:00pm: The chief conspirator visits the H Street boarding house of Mary Surratt to whom he entrusts a small wrapped package containing a set of field glasses to be delivered to the family tavern in Surrattsville, Maryland. Booth also gives her a message to carry to the proprietor: some gentlemen would come by later that same night to pick up a pair of guns. 2:00pm: From Mrs. Surratt's, Booth goes to Grover's Theatre. Here he writes another letter, addressed to the editor of the National Intelligencer. At the nearby Kirkwood Hotel, Booth leaves a card for Vice President Andrew Johnson, in hopes of ascertaining Johnson's schedule that evening -- the better to add the vice president's name to the list of murdered government officials. 3:00pm: Outside Ferguson's restaurant Booth is spotted on his rented horse. "He can run just like a cat!" he boasts. 4:00pm: Booth encounters fellow actor John Matthews on Pennsylvania Avenue. He hands over the letter intended for the National Intelligencer, and asks him to deliver it. Not until the next morning will Matthews tear open the envelope. Horrified by its contents and fearful that he will be implicated in Booth's crime, he burns the letter. 5:00pm: In the course of their conversation, Matthews points out a carriage containing General and Mrs. Grant down Pennsylvania Avenue, headed for the train station. Spurring his horse, Booth pursues the retreating carriage. Julia Grant will never forget the glaring face staring at her through he carriage window. The Grants don't know it, but they have escaped an assassin. 6:00pm: Booth has a drink at the bar next door to Ford's Threatre and then returns to his hotel for dinner. 7:00pm: Back at the National Hotel, Booth makes final preparations. He asks a clerk if he plans on attending Ford's. "There is going to be some splendid acting tonight," he declares. 8:00pm: At the Herndon House, a boardinghouse just around the corner from Ford's, Booth reviews plans with co-conspirators Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and David Herold. 9:00pm: Booth approaches the rear of Ford's Theatre through a narrow passage known as Baptist Alley. Dismounting from his horse, he taps lightly on the backstage door. Stagehand Ned Spangler admits him to the theatre. Booth asks Ned to watch his horse. 10:15pm: Booth wedges the door of the Presidential Box shut with the log of a wooden music stand that he had left there earlier. He stands a few feet behind the president, his gun pointed toward Lincoln's left ear. As the audience laughs at a joke, Booth pulls the trigger.
18. FORDSM_120212_451.JPG: Good Friday: April 14, 1865 was Good Friday. That morning Robert Lincoln, himself just back from the front, showed his father a photograph of Robert E. Lee. "It is a good face," remarked the president. "It is the face of a noble, brave man. I am glad that the war is over at last." Later, Lincoln met with his Cabinet. In the afternoon, he went for a carriage ride with Mary telling her, "We must both be more cheerful in the future: between the war and the loss of our darling Willie, we have been very miserable." Good-Bye Crook: A few minutes before eight, a carriage drew up to the North Portico of the White House to take the Lincolns to Ford's Theatre. Before climbing in, the president turned to the guard who would not be accompanying him to the theatre. "Good-bye, Crook," he said. The young man was taken aback. Always before Lincoln's parting comment had been, "Good-night, Crook." Colonel William Crook worked in the White House for 46 years, serving every president from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt. This photograph shows him sometime between 1890 and 1910,.
19. FORDSM_120212_455.JPG: Booth's Boast: Before William Withers went to Ford's Theatre to lead the orchestra on April 14, 1865, he stopped in next door at Taltavull's Star Saloon. According to some sources, Withers ran into John Wilkes Booth, who was drinking and laughing with several friends. One of them joked that Booth would never be as great an actor as his father. Booth smiled a replied, "When I leave the stage for good, I will be the most famous man in America." The Actor Rehearses for his Role: John Wilkes Booth knew Ford's Theatre well. As a popular and well-known actor he had access to the theatre at all hours. In fact, since he traveled so frequently, he often received mail at Ford's Theatre. He also knew every twist and turn and secret passage in the building. Booth, always a consummate professional, supposedly rehearsed the assassination previous to killing the president. He had attended a dress rehearsal of the play that day and planned his escape route. Ford's Word: For many years, visitors to Ford's Theatre have shared the rumor that John Wilkes Booth drilled a hole in the door of the presidential theatre box, with which to spy on the president. In fact, John T. Ford, the owner of the theatre, admitted that it was he who had drilled the hole. According to Ford and ten eyewitnesses, Booth shouted, "sic semper tyrannis" from the Ford's Theatre stage. The phrase, meaning "thus always to tyrants," is Virginia's state motto.
20. FORDSM_120215_15.JPG: Photographs: Photographs carried by Booth at the time of his capture. The women included Booth's fiancee, Lucy Hale, and four actress friends: Alice Grey, Effie German, Fannie Brown, and Helen Western. Lucy Hale was the daughter of Senator John P. Hale, a well-known abolitionist.
21. FORDSM_120215_26.JPG: The Plot to Kidnap Lincoln: By 1864, the tide of war was shifting towards Union success. A group of Confederate supporters, led by John Wilkes Booth, began to plan a scheme to assure Southern victory: kidnap the president. The conspirators met at Mary Surratt's boarding house, less than a mile from the White House.
22. FORDSM_120215_43.JPG: Ford's Theatre Box Door: Inner door to the presidential box at Ford's Theatre. For many years, the story persisted that Booth drilled a hole in the door. However, in 1962 theatre manager John Ford's nephew, reiterating what his uncle had written after the assassination, came forward: "John Wilkes Booth did not bore the hole in the door leading to the box Abraham Lincoln occupied the night of the assassination... The hole was bored by my father, Henry Clay Ford, or rather on his orders, and was bored for the simple reason that it would allow the guard... easy opportunity whenever he so desired to look into the box rather than open the inner door to check on the Presidential party..." -- Frank Ford in a letter to Ford's Theatre historian Dr. George J. Olszewsku, April 13, 1962
23. FORDSM_120506_004.JPG: Abraham Lincoln: Rising Over Independence Hall: First Principles: It is February 22, 1861, and the sun has just risen over Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Thousands have gathered on this -- Washington's Birthday -- to watch President-elect Lincoln raise the flag of a nation whose very existence is in doubt. Something about the historical associations of Independence Hall inspired Lincoln to an eloquence beyond his previous whistle-stop rhetoric. Hope to the World: "It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the motherland; but something in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future times. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance." -- Abraham Lincoln at Independence Hall, February 22, 1861 Lincoln's Promise: Lincoln concluded his speech with a promise of his own. "If this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle... I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it."
24. FORDSM_120506_013.JPG: The Making of a Legend: Lincoln soon had cause to regret, the furtive nature of his trip into the nation's capital. A New York Times reporter named Joseph Howard claimed that the president-elect had arrived in Washington disguised in "a Scotch plaid cap and a very long military cloak, so that he was entirely unrecognizable." The story had no basis in fact, but this did not prevent other journals from reporting it as truth, much to the embarrassment of Lincoln and his supporters. Lampooning Lincoln: Cartoonists in particular had a field day with Lincoln's image. Northern and southern papers alike published sketches ridiculing the president. This life-size figure visible through the window is based on one notorious Vanity Fair caricature.
25. FORDSM_120506_014.JPG: Washington in the 1860s: Lincoln would recognize much about the capital to which he was returning a dozen years after his single term in Congress. Washington City, home to 61,000 inhabitants in February 1861, was a raw, unsanitary place. Southern sympathies predominated, and separate legal codes governed people of different races. From the White House, the new president could look across the malarial Potomac Flats to the marble stump of the Washington Monument, abandoned in 1854 for lack of funds. Worse, he could smell the rotting City Canal, an open sewer running along the line of today's Constitution Avenue, into which local residents tossed dead animals. Pigs, Mud -- and Politicians: Flocks of geese and roaming pigs slowed traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue, the city's main thoroughfare, and one of only two paved streets in Washington. This did not prevent clouds of dust from enveloping pedestrians in the dry season; when it rained the Avenue was transformed into a sea of mud, equally menacing to ladies' skirts and the gold lace favored by the capital's diplomatic corps -- all 44 members.
26. FORDSM_120506_021.JPG: Lincoln in Washington: President-Elect Abraham Lincoln: In November 1860, a sharply divided electorate chose Abraham Lincoln as the nation's 16th president. The Illinois Republican won barely 40% of the vote in a four-way contest. His party's opposition to the spread of slavery led by South Carolina, six weeks later, to secede from the Union. Six other Southern states followed -- with eight more slaveholding states handing in the balance as Lincoln prepared to assume the presidency. The Road to Washington: On February 11, 1861, Lincoln departed his hometown of Springfield, Illinois for a twelve-day rail journey to Washington. At Philadelphia's Independence Hall, Lincoln raised the American flag and spoke of the tenet of freedom outlined in the Declaration of Independence. He concluded with a promise: "If this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle ... I would rather be assassinated on this spot than to surrender it." "What would the nation think of its President stealing into the capital like a thief in the night?" -- Abraham Lincoln The Making of a Legend: In Philadelphia, Lincoln learned of a plot to murder him two days later in Baltimore. His advisors convinced the reluctant president-elect to cut his journey short and take a night train for Washington. A New York Times reporter, Joseph Howard, claimed that Lincoln arrived in Washington disguised in "a Scotch plaid cap and a very long military cloak." The story was false, which didn't prevent other journals from reporting it as true.
27. FORDSM_120506_027.JPG: "A Compound Cabinet": In assembling his original Cabinet, Lincoln strove to bridge party alliances. "The President is determined to have a compound Cabinet," concluded William Seward, the new Secretary of State. Reflecting the diversity of the young Republican Party, four of Lincoln's seven original choices were former Democrats, while three were old-line Whigs like himself. "He wished to combine the experience of Seward, the integrity of Chase, the popularity of Cameron; to hold the West with Bates; attract New England with Welles; please the Whigs through Smith; and convince the Democrats through Blair." -- John Hay and John G. Nicolay, Secretaries to President Lincoln Adversaries Turned Allies: It was remarkable that the new president included in his Cabinet all his major rivals for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination. He must be on guard, friends told him, lest these recent adversaries eat him up. They were just as likely to eat each other, said Lincoln.
28. FORDSM_120506_030.JPG: Petitioning the President: Lincoln's Office Seekers "Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself." -- Abraham Lincoln
29. FORDSM_120506_035.JPG: Office Seekers: One morning Lincoln met with a group advocating a candidate for Commissioner of the Sandwich (later Hawaiian) Islands. Not only was he qualified for the post, said the man's friends; but the Hawaiian climate would benefit his uncertain health. Lincoln cut them short. "Gentlemen," he announced, "there are eight other applicants for that position, and they are all sicker than your man." Office Seekers: Faced with unending lines of office seekers eager to feed at the public trough, Lincoln somehow managed to keep his sense of humor. Returning from Gettysburg in the autumn of 1863, the president took to his sickbed wild a mild form of smallpox. The patient seemed almost pleased when the doctors told him that his condition was highly contagious. "Good," said Lincoln, doubtless thinking of the jobseekers infesting the White House. "Now at last I have something I can giver everyone."
30. FORDSM_120506_039.JPG: Office Seekers: After hearing out a female petitioner, Lincoln scribbled a message for her to take to a nearby government office. "The lady bearer of this says she has two sons who want to work," it read. "Set them at it, if possible. Wanting to work is so rare a merit, that it should be encouraged." Inevitably, however, Lincoln disappointed more of his visitors than he gratified. One disgruntled jobseeker went so far as to denounce the chief executive to his face as an ingrate. "Why, I am one of those who made you President," he practically shouted. "Yes," sighed Lincoln, "and it's a pretty mess you got me into!" Office Seekers: Lincoln's ingenuity was put to the test by two heavily promoted candidates for an Ohio postmastership. Tired of meeting rival delegations and of resolving written testimonials to the superiority of each candidate, the president had a brainstorm. "This matter has got to end somehow," he declared. Then he asked for a pair of scales. When the competing piles of documents were weighed, it was found that the petitions and letters favoring one candidate outweighed those of the other by three-quarters of a pound. This was good enough for the harassed president. "Make out an appointment for the man who has the heavier papers," he instructed his clerk.
31. FORDSM_120506_043.JPG: Office Seekers: A naturally kind man, Lincoln had a knack for deflating the pretensions, without wounding the feelings, of those whose desire for government employment surpassed their qualifications. "So you want to be Doorkeeper to the House?" he inquired of one caller. "Well, have you ever been a doorkeeper? Have you ever had an experience in doorkeeping?" The man admitted that he hadn't. "Any theoretical experiences?" pressed Lincoln. "Any instruction in the duties and ethics of doorkeeping?" "Um... no," said the petitioner. "Have you ever attended any lectures on doorkeeping," asked the president. "Have you read any textbooks on the subject?" The conversation went on in this vein, Lincoln indulging his sense of the ridiculous -- without ever subjecting his visitor to ridicule. Eventually, even the would-be doorkeeper agreed that he was ill-prepared for so important a post. Retrieving his hat, he took his leave, grateful for the president's attention.
32. FORDSM_120506_048.JPG: A Swarm of Office Seekers: Next to the war itself, nothing required more of Lincoln's time and energies than the office seekers who invaded his White House. Scarcely a decade had passed since then -- Congressman Lincoln had lobbied unsuccessfully for the position of Commissioner of the General Land Office. This gave him a curious empathy with the would-be postmasters, department clerks, generals, judges, quartermasters, lighthouse keepers, and ministers abroad who clogged the hallways and staircases leading to his second floor office. Horses and Oats: There were limits to the president's generosity. For one thing, said Lincoln, he had "more horses than oats." In addition, he had no qualms about dismissing employees of questionable loyalty to the Union -- or the party that had elected him its first president. By one estimate, he replaced almost 90% of the federal workforce, which in 1861 numbered around 1600 members. His skillful handling of rival factions and egos demonstrated Lincoln's steady growth as president and party manager.
33. FORDSM_120506_052.JPG: The U.S. Sanitary Commission: This quilt was made by two ladies for a fund-raising auction at the 1864 Sanitary Fair in Philadelphia. With the start of the war, many who couldn't fight on the front lines -- women, older men, religious leaders -- wanted to volunteer and contribute to the Union war effort. In 1861 the government formed the United States Sanitary Commission to coordinate these efforts. The Sanitary Commission was a precursor to today's Red Cross. Nursing the Sick, Feeding the Hungry: Volunteers for the Sanitary Commission cooked for the soldiers, ran hospitals, sewed uniforms, nursed the sick, and organized Sanitary Fairs. The Commission helped cut the disease rate of the Union Army in half. Fairs were popular -- and socially acceptable -- ways for women to assist the Union. Fair visitors received a full meal and could browse and buy donated goods. The tireless men and women of the Sanitary Commission raised nearly 25 million dollars for the Union Army.
34. FORDSM_120506_056.JPG: "I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice for their conduct during this war. I will close by saying, God bless the women of America!" -- Abraham Lincoln, at the Sanitary Fair in Washington DC. March 18, 1864
35. FORDSM_120506_059.JPG: Vice President Hannibal Hamlin: A former Democrat-turned-Republican, Hamlin was a farmer's son from Maine who had dabbled in newspaper work and the law before climbing his state's political ladder. From the outset, Lincoln treated the former senator with more that the usual respect accorded vice presidents. Among other things, he confided the makeup of his Cabinet to Hamlin. It was Hamlin who suggested Gideon Welles -- a fellow New Englander -- to be Secretary of the Navy. After their inauguration in March 1861, the new president spoke highly of his Yankee understudy -- though his personal regard wasn't enough to keep political considerations from replacing Hamlin in 1864 with a Tennessee "War Democrat" named Andrew Johnson.
36. FORDSM_120506_062.JPG: Secretary of State William H. Seward: In his long political career as governor and senator from New York, Seward had championed the rights of persecuted Catholics as well as fugitive slaves. In the process, he alienated both pro-slavery southerners and the more cautious members of his own anti-slavery party. The presumptive favorite for the 1860 Republican nomination, Seward initially took his defeat by "a little Illinois lawyer" hard. Over time the two men forged a close alliance. Lincoln entrusted foreign policy to Seward, who came to respect the president's leadership. With his hawk-like nose, casual dress, and perpetual cigar, Seward was one of Washington's more colorful figures. His gift of mimicry helped seal the bond with storytelling Lincoln, though Mary Lincoln never made friends with the man she denounced as "that dirty abolition sneak."
37. FORDSM_120506_065.JPG: Postmaster General Montgomery Blair: In the 19th century, the position of Postmaster General was often given to the governing party's key supporter. The Postmaster was seen as largely a figurehead, but he had one vital responsibility: to dispense patronage -- lucrative local positions -- to other party loyalists. Blair came from a political family. His father, Francis P. Blair, had been an intimate friend and adviser to Andrew Jackson. Montgomery relocated to Missouri, where he achieved fame as court counsel for Fred Scott, the fugitive slave at the center of a controversial Supreme Court ruling that opened the door to slavery's territorial expansion. Many Republicans disapproved of Lincoln's invitation for Montgomery to join his Cabinet. But the president, desperate to appease the border states, held firm against the protests.
38. FORDSM_120506_068.JPG: Secretary of the Interior Cabel B. Smith: To head the newest Cabinet department, Lincoln turned to this Indiana lawyer and editor, with whom he had once served in Congress. At the Chicago convention that endorsed Lincoln for president, Smith seconded Lincoln's nomination. Ordinarily this would not have been enough to land Smith a place at the Cabinet table, but Lincoln's convention managers had promised the crucial state of Indiana whatever it wanted -- and it wanted Smith. Generally viewed as the least distinguished member of Lincoln's Cabinet, Smith contributed little to the administration before he left Washington following the 1862 mid-term election to become a federal judge.
39. FORDSM_120506_072.JPG: Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase: Tall, heavyset, and inclined to take himself very seriously, this Ohio Democrat-turned-Republican had known more than his share of personal tragedy. Death had claimed all three of his wives and four of six children. No one questioned his courage: a passionate foe of slavery, Chase had risked bodily harm to defend fugitive slaves fleeing Kentucky for Ohio. Egged on by his bewitching daughter Kate, his ambition to be president was on a par with his anti-slavery fervor. Lacking a sense of humor, he resented Lincoln for having one, declaring pompously, "I have never been able to make a joke out of this war." Though he appreciated Chase's skilled management of the nation's wartime finances, Lincoln found him a prickly ally
40. FORDSM_120506_075.JPG: Secretary of War Simon Cameron: A former newspaperman who had grown rich through banks and railroads, Cameron had become the "Czar of Pennsylvania," a political boss whom many believed to be corrupt. It was said by his enemies that the only thing he wouldn't steal was a red hot stove. This ruled out any chance that Cameron could have the position he wanted -- Secretary of the Treasury. In fact, Cameron never would have been in the Cabinet at all had Lincoln's convention managers not promised him a place in return for Pennsylvania's fifty delegates. "How can I justify my title of Honest Old Abe with the appointment of a man like Cameron?" Lincoln supposedly asked a friend. In the end, political necessity trumped ethical concerns. But not for long -- Cameron's incompetence at the War Department led to his replacement a year later by the far more capable Edwin Stanton.
41. FORDSM_120506_078.JPG: Attorney General Edward Bates: A conservative politician from the border state of Missouri, Bates was yet another of Lincoln's rivals for the Republican nomination. At 67 he was the Cabinet's oldest member, a veteran of the War of 1812, a state official and congressman who had rejected an offer to serve as Secretary of War under President Fillmore. As an old line Whig, Bates believed in government support for economic development. In this, he echoed Lincoln's own thinking. When the president-elect offered to come to St. Louis for a discussion of Cabinet prospects, Bates insisted on going to Springfield instead. His courtesy was equaled by his loyalty to an embattled chief.
42. FORDSM_120506_081.JPG: Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles: An Andrew Jackson Democrat from Connecticut, Welles' credentials to run the Navy Department were meager: during the Polk administration he had overseen the Navy's Bureau of Provisions and Clothing. Lincoln himself joked that "Uncle Gideon" couldn't tell the different between a ship's bow and its stern. This didn't prevent Welles, with his flowing beard and grey wig, from earning from wartime nickname of Neptune. Not only did his department successfully enforce a blockade of the South; it also conducted a number of successful amphibious operations that were critical to northern victory. Welles kept a diary that remains one of the best insider accounts of the Lincoln presidency.
43. FORDSM_120506_093.JPG: A Revolving Door of Union Generals
44. FORDSM_120506_100.JPG: 1863: Taking Command: Untested in battle, the president faced a steep learning curve when it came to directing the army. Lincoln grew frustrated when his generals did not produce successes. He complained that his armies moved too slowly and did not capitalize on their gains. In an April 9, 1862 letter to McClellan, Lincoln wrote; "I think it is the precise time for you to strike a blow -- By delay the enemy will relatively gain upon you -- that is, he will gain faster by fortifications and reinforcements, than you can by re-enforcements alone." 1863 was the turning point of Lincoln's presidency. The year would test Lincoln's abilities -- to harness the Union's military and industrial might -- to find generals who could exploit such advantages -- and to prevent Northern war-weariness from reaching fatal proportions. "This War Is Eating My Life Out": In public, Lincoln adopted a bloody but unbowed stance toward his critics. "If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business," he said. "I do the very best I know how -- the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference." Around friends, however, Lincoln dropped his mask. "This war is eating my life out," he told one. "I have a strong impression I shall not live to see its end."
45. FORDSM_120506_101.JPG: July 4, 1863: A Memorable Fourth: By the spring of 1863, Lincoln understood something that eluded most of his generals: the war would not end with the seizure of the Confederate capital at Richmond, but with the destruction of Confederate armies in the field. With Confederate General Lee's 70,000-man force invading Pennsylvania soil, the president dismissed Hooker and turned to a Pennsylvanian, Major General George Meade. Rumors of a great, possibly decisive battle began to circulate. Lincoln was at the telegraph office until midnight on July 3. Victory at Vicksburg and Gettysburg: July 4 -- the nation's birthday -- brought confirmation that Lee had been driven off at Gettysburg. Three days later came word of an even greater Union triumph. After a prolonged siege, Ulysses Grant had forced the surrender of the Confederate stronghold at Vicksburg, Mississippi. With the might "Father of Waters" -- the Mississippi River -- closed to Confederate commerce, the South was effectively split in two.
46. FORDSM_120506_104.JPG: War Resistance: A Northern peace movement flourished, especially in the Middle West, where secret groups like the Sons of Liberty lent aid and comfort to the Confederates. Foes of the administration feared a dictatorship in the making -- charges which were given substance when government officials jailed thousands who allegedly impeded the war effort. General Ambrose Burnside took it upon himself to shut down the Chicago Times for its strident attacks on the administration. Lincoln himself overruled Burnside.
47. FORDSM_120506_111.JPG: Winfield Scott: A hero of the Mexican-American War, Scott was considered one of the ablest commanders of his time. By the time he was called to command forces during the Civil War, he was nearing 80 years old. Scott devised the Anaconda Plan that served as a blueprint for Union victory, but was too elderly and infirm to implement it himself. Irvin McDowell: Despite having never commanded troops in battle, the West Point-educated McDowell was put in charge of the Army of Northeastern Virginia. Pushed into battle with an inexperienced army, he presided over the Union rout at the First Battle of Manassas, or Bull Run.
48. FORDSM_120506_116.JPG: George B. McClellan: A superb organizer, he did more than anyone to create the Army of the Potomac. Yet he could not overcome his own hesitancy in the field, or Confederate defenses outside Richmond. Summoned to overall command a second time following General Pope's defeat, he turned back Lee's invasion of the North at Antietam, but lacked the will to go after the retreating rebels.
49. FORDSM_120506_125.JPG: John Pope: Following his Union successes in Missouri and Mississippi, Pope was appointed to command the Army of Virginia. Newly entrusted with command of an inexperienced army, he rashly predicted victory, but failed to produce it at the Second Battle of Manassas, or Bull Run. Ambrose Burnside: Best remembered now for his contributions to facial hair, Burnside oversaw successful Union campaigns throughout North Carolina. A reluctant commander, he compensated for his lack of confidence with battlefield recklessness -- resulting in the bloodbath at Fredericksburg.
50. FORDSM_120506_126.JPG: Joseph Hooker: West Point graduate Joseph Hooker was a distinguished career military officers before his defeat at Chancellorsville, Virginia, in 1863. Vain and indiscreet, Hooker assured Lincoln, "I am going straight to Richmond, if I live." Confederate General Robert E. Lee had other ideas.
51. FORDSM_120506_129.JPG: George Meade: A civil engineer and surveyor, George Meade never intended to become a combat officer. His success in battle brought him to the attention of his commanding officers and the president. Thin skinned and irritable he was likened by his troops to "a damned google-eyed old snapping turtle." At Gettysburg he won a great victory, but distressed Lincoln by his failure to pursue Lee's retreating army. Ulysses S. Grant: Ulysses Grant had left military life after the Mexican-American War and was working for his father's leather shop. When Lincoln put out a call for volunteers, Grant organized a group and led them into Springfield, Illinois. Criticized for his drinking, depression, and failing finances, Grant emerged from his western victories the most celebrated American general since George Washington. To critics he was little more than a butcher. But Lincoln welcomed his unrelenting aggressiveness.
52. FORDSM_120506_133.JPG: March 1863: Instituting the Draft: In March 1863, Lincoln's government announced a military draft -- the first in U.S. history (the Confederacy had resorted to similar measures several months earlier). Conscription was unpopular, not least of all because of a provision in the law that allowed anyone with $300 to hire a substitute or buy their way out of service. Anti-draft riots broke out in several Northern cities. The worst erupted in New York that July. For three days, rioters -- most of them Irish immigrants too poor to buy exemption from the draft -- terrorized black neighborhoods, set fire to conscription offices, and ransacked the homes and businesses of prominent Republicans. Over 100 people died in the violence, which didn't end until the arrival of federal troops summoned from the recent battle of Gettysburg. August 1863: An Historic Meeting: In August 1863, Lincoln met Frederick Douglass for the first time -- the first black man to have an audience with the president. Douglass, who had served as a one-man recruitment agency for African-American troops, complained that these recruits were paid $7 a month compared to $13 for white soldiers. Lincoln was sympathetic, but he asked Douglass to keep in mind how many Americans opposed even the idea of blacks in uniform. He was taking a significant political risk, said the president. He also assured Douglass that pay inequities would be addressed -- as they were within the year. In total, 180,000 African-Americans -- one of every ten Union soldiers -- fought for the North. Thirty thousand black soldiers would make the supreme sacrifice.
53. FORDSM_120506_137.JPG: Fall 1863: A Slow Walker: In the fall of 1863, Lincoln wrote a letter to be read at a meeting in Springfield, Illinois. He began by acknowledging that not everyone was happy over his efforts to end slavery. "You say you will not fight to free negroes," Lincoln took his critics. "Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union... But negroes, like other people, act upon motives," added the president. "Why should they do anything for us, if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive -- even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept." There would be no turning back on emancipation. "I am a slow walker," Lincoln once remarked. "But I never walk back." June 1863: The Greatest Communicator: Lacking modern means of mass communication did not prevent Lincoln from reaching, educating, and inspiring his countrymen. A classic example of Lincoln's persuasive powers came in a letter from June 1863. Some New York Democrats were mad at Lincoln for the arrest of an Ohio congressman accused of promoting military desertion and hindering the draft. "Must I shoot a simple-minded boy who deserts," wrote Lincoln, "while I must not touch a hair of the wily agitator who induces him to desert?" Half a million copies of Lincoln's letter were printed for distribution, and read by as many as 10,000,000 people -- a greater share of the national audience than might tune into a modern day presidential address on television. In November, the offending congressman was crushed at the polls.
54. FORDSM_120506_140.JPG: A Distinctive Voice: With his earthy stories and homespun turns of phrase, Lincoln didn't sound like other statesmen of the time. Some thought his use of language unpresidential. Following one speech, traditionalists protested his use of the term "sugar-coated." The public printer went to the White House to remind the president of the difference between a message to Congress and an Illinois stump speech. He found Lincoln unmovable. "John, that term expresses precisely my idea, and I am not going to change it," he told his visitor. "Sugar-coated" must stand. The time will never come in this country when the people will not understand exactly what 'sugar-coated' means."
55. FORDSM_120506_150.JPG: A New Birth of Freedom: "Short, short, short." This is how Lincoln described his remarks at the November 19, 1863 dedication of a military cemetery on the Gettysburg battlefield. He wasn't the main speaker of the day. That honor was reserved to Edward Everett, a distinguished former Massachusetts governor, senator, and Harvard president. On the night before his speech, Lincoln received word that his son, Rad, was recovering from a bout of typhoid fever. Reassured, the president listened along with a crowd of 5,000 as Everett spoke for over two hours.
56. FORDSM_120506_153.JPG: It was Lincoln's turn to speak. In 272 words, he did more than dedicate a cemetery -- he dedicated the living to nothing less than "a new birth of freedom" in a land itself re-dedicated to the old idea that all men were created equal. Thought few guessed it at the time, Lincoln had delivered the most famous speech in American history. His tribute to government of, by, and for, the people continues to inspire freedom-living people the world over.
57. FORDSM_120506_156.JPG: The Completed Capitol: Confined to his sickbed by a strain of smallpox. Lincoln was not present early in December 1863 when thousands gathered in Washington. Less than a month after his proclamation at Gettysburg, the 19-foot-tall Statue of Freedom was hoisted over 300 feet to the top of the newly completed Capitol dome. The sheers of the crowd drowned out those who had opposed the expensive construction project as the nation tore itself apart. But that, said Lincoln, was precisely why the dome must be completed. "If people see the Capitol going on, it is a sign we intend the Union shall go on." Reconstruction First Draft: By the first part of 1864, Lincoln was in the thick of a heated debate over Reconstruction of the South -- assuming the North eventually prevailed on the battlefield. On December 8, 1863, Lincoln had issued his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. The proclamation pardoned all Confederates who took an oath of loyalty to the Union. The president had already implemented a plan in Louisiana and Tennessee that allowed a new government to be constituted once 10% of each state's inhabitants pledged allegiance to the Union.
58. FORDSM_120506_160.JPG: The Thirteenth Amendment: Lincoln's initial blueprint for the postwar South was more lenient than the congressional Republican's in its treatment of former rebels. When the "Radical" Republicans insisted on immediate emancipation of all slaves everywhere, Lincoln replied that Congress lacked the authority to do this -- only a Constitutional amendment could make permanent the wartime measure contained in his Emancipation Proclamation. Thus was laid the foundation for the Thirteenth Amendment, passed by Congress early in 1865. March, 1864: Into the Wilderness: In March 1864, Lincoln entrusted command of Union forces -- over half a million strong -- to the slight, mostly silent Ulysses Grant. Grant spent as little time as possible in Washington, preferring to be in the field with his troops. His aggressiveness produced results, but they also produced record casualties. "Grant has gone into the Wilderness," said Lincoln that spring, referring to a tangled no man's land south of the Rapidan River, "crawled in, drawn up the ladder, and pulled in the hole after him." "Grant is the first general I've had!" -- Abraham Lincoln
59. FORDSM_120506_162.JPG: June 1864: A Divided Party: Nothing posed a greater threat to Lincoln's re-election than war weariness. Early in the year the president had skillfully defeated a trial campaign launched by friends of Treasury Secretary Chase. Other Republicans wanted to nominate Grant, but the general refused. This left a small faction committed to John Charles Fremont. On June 7, delegates meeting in Baltimore nominated the president for a second term. For Vice President, they named Andrew Johnson, a former Democrat who was serving as war governor of Tennessee. July 1864: The President Under Fire: In July, Washington was threatened by a Confederate army of 20,000 led by Jubal A. Early. At one point, the invaders were scarcely two miles from the Soldier's Home -- forcing Lincoln to vacate and return to the White House. On the afternoon of July 12, the president braved Confederate bullets while standing on the ramparts of Fort Stevens, part of the capital's outer defenses. Seeing Lincoln exposed, a general ordered the area cleared.
60. FORDSM_120506_166.JPG: August 1864: The 1864 Presidential Election: The 1864 election pitted Lincoln against Democratic opponent George McClellan. Democrats condemned the war and made it plain that their administration would not share Lincoln's commitment to ending slavery. As the summer dragged on, McClellan looked like a winner. On August 23, 1864, Lincoln invited his Cabinet to sign the back of a paper whose contents were unknown to them. Only after the election did they learn what it said: "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 co-operate with the 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." A Front Porch Campaign: Nineteenth century presidential candidates did not campaign in the modern sense. Lincoln made just three trips away from Washington during his presidency, but he found ways to communicate his message. Besides writing letters for publication, the president greeted groups at the White House. In August 1864, Lincoln told a visiting Ohio regiment: "I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am a living witness that nay one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has. It is in order the each of you may have through this free government... an open field and a fair chance... that you may all have equal privileges in the race of life... It is for this the struggle should be maintained, that we may not lose our birthright."
61. FORDSM_120506_169.JPG: Pulling Strings: At the end of August, unhappy Republicans sought Lincoln's replacement on their party's ticket. Then the tide turned: on September 2, 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman took Atlanta. Within days came word of Union triumphs in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, and at Mobile Bay. The good news could not have come at a better time. The president cut deals with his critics on Capitol Hill. He agreed to remove Montgomery Blair from his Cabinet in return for Fremont's withdrawal from the race. Lincoln pulled strings -- Sherman agreed to furlough soldiers in his army so they could vote in pivotal early elections in Indiana. One week before Election Day the state of Nevada was admitted to the Union. With its three electoral votes in his camp, Lincoln predicted he would defeat McClellan 120 electoral votes to 114. November 1864: Election Day: Tuesday, November 8 was the last time Lincoln's name would appear on a ballot. The president observed that most of the elections he had run were marked by bitterness and rancor -- despite his own lack of vindictiveness. Lincoln's doubts about the election outcome were quickly dispelled. Early returns showed him winning Baltimore -- once the seat of violent opposition to the Union. Every northern state except New Jersey and Delaware sided with Lincoln. Jubilant, the president dished out hot oysters at the war department telegraph office. In the midst of a terrible civil war, he had won 55% of the popular vote and taken the Electoral College by 212 to 21.
62. FORDSM_120506_173.JPG: Political Cartoon: "The Two Platforms -- Columbia Makes Her Choice": From Frank Leslie's Budget of Fun, this cartoon implies that Lincoln would restore the Union by force or arms, while the Democrats, by seeking peace, would divide the United States into two nations.
63. FORDSM_120506_178.JPG: Election Ephemera: Campaign buttons and posters are not new to elections. In Lincoln's day, supporters created buttons, medals, and prints, and even wrote songs to show their support for their candidate. The selection of artifacts in the case at left are from the 1864 election and come from supporters of both Lincoln -- the Republican candidate -- and McClellan -- the Democratic candidate.
64. FORDSM_120506_181.JPG: The March to War: A Cabinet in Crisis: In his inaugural address, Lincoln had made two vows; to "hold, occupy, and possess" southern forts and other federal properties -- and to avoid firing the first shot in any conflict. How to honor these seemingly contradictory promises dominated the first month of the Lincoln Administration. With his Cabinet divided on whether to abandon or reinforce Fort Sumter, Lincoln played for time. The first shots of the Civil War were fired two months before Lincoln took the oath of office. On January 9, 1861, the supply ship Star of the West entered Charleston Harbor to reinforce Fort Sumter with troops and supplies. The Confederates took this as a blatant act of hostility. Under fire and suffering minor damage, the ship turned back. In the first week of April, the president decided to resupply Fort Sumter by sea. Lincoln assured South Carolina's governor that, provisions aside, no attempt to bolster Sumter's military defenses could be made -- so long as the guns of Charleston remained silent. "Let Slip the Dogs of War": At 4:30 on the morning of April 12, 1861, 42 secessionist guns and cannons fired the first of 4,000 rounds at the red brick fort three miles outside of Charleston, South Carolina. The American Civil War had begun.
65. FORDSM_120506_189.JPG: Spring 1861: Washington Waits for War: Before his presidency, Abraham Lincoln's military career consisted of 77 days in the Illinois militia. Lincoln himself mocked his battlefield exploits as a private and elected captain in the 1832 Black Hawk War, acknowledging that the only blood he had spilled came as a result of mosquito bites. But no one was laughing in the spring of 1861. A third of all U.S. army officer [sic] had defected to the newly established Confederate States of America, whose president, Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War under President Pierce, boasted a long and distinguishable military career. Through April, wild rumors circulated: Davis, it was whispered, had 60,000 soldiers ready to take Baltimore, Philadelphia -- and Washington. "Why Don't They Come?" 2,000 barrels of flour were stored at the Capitol in anticipation of a possible siege. Howitzer guns and sandbags surrounded the Treasury Building, where Lincoln and his Cabinet were prepared to make a last stand. Each day an anxious president scanned the horizon for Northern troops with which to defend his beleaguered capital. "Why don't they come?" he asked. "Why don't they come?" April 25, 1861: Deliverance: It was noon on April 25th when a train pulled into the Baltimore and Ohio station bringing the Seventh Regiment of volunteers from New York. Cheers rang out as the New Yorkers, nearly a thousand strong, marched smartly down Pennsylvania Avenue. At the White House a smiling Lincoln greeted the troops. Later, the men found relief by splashing in the fountain outside Willard's Hotel. Following in their footsteps came men from Rhode Island and Massachusetts. "Fort Washington": Soon all of Washington took on the trappings of a military encampment. The White House became a barracks, with soldiers bedding down in the East Room. At the Capitol, the Sixth Massachusetts moved into the Senate chamber. In all, 4,000 troops took shelter in the vast unfinished structure, in whose basement brick ovens produced 50,000 loaves of bread each day.
66. FORDSM_120506_193.JPG: May 1861: The Anaconda Plan: The hero of the Mexican War (1846-1848), Winfield Scott -- now 80 years old and weighing 300 pounds -- was an unlikely commander. But the general had not lost his strategic talents. Expecting a lengthy war, Scott crafted for Lincoln's approval what became known as the Anaconda Plan. Scott would squeeze the life out of the Confederacy First Southern coasts would be blockaded. Then the South itself would be sliced in two, with Northern forces seizing control of the vital Mississippi River. Additional pressure would be applied as Union armies tightened their grip on such important ports as New Orleans and Mobile. McClellan Assumes Command: In November 1861, Winfield Scott yielded his command to the young and energetic General George McClellan. But it was Scott's strategic vision that formed Lincoln's battle plan. May 24, 1861: The First Casualty: From his second floor office, Lincoln could observe Confederate activity in nearby Alexandria and on Arlington Heights, just across the Potomac. Early on the morning of May 24, a regiment of New York Zouaves -- colorfully dressed soldiers recruited from that city's fire department -- set sail for Alexandria. Leading the assault was 23-year-old Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, a virtual son to Lincoln, in whose Springfield law office Ellsworth had once clerked. The Union's First Martyr: Spying a Confederate flag atop the Marshall House Inn, Ellsworth dashed to the roof of the building and cut down the banner. Coming back down the stairs, he was shot and killed by innkeeper James W. Jackson. At the White House, Lincoln was devastated. "My boy! My boy!" cried the president. "Was it necessary this sacrifice be made?" At the president's orders, Ellsworth's body was brought to the East Room for a public funeral. The Union had its first martyr.
67. FORDSM_120506_196.JPG: July 4, 1861: Defining the War: On July 4, 1861, Lincoln sent a special message to Congress. It was the first in a series of presidential letters, speeches, and other public communications, all designed to influence public opinion and maintain support for the war. He began be defining the conflict itself. "On the side of the Union is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of man -- to lift artificial weights from all shoulders... to afford all an unfettered start, and a fair chance in the race of life." A War over States Rights: Lincoln's message to Congress made it clear that the purpose of the war was to uphold the Union and democratic government. Lincoln remained silent on the issue of slavery, not wanting to alienate border states like Kentucky and Missouri. But how much longer could he remain silent?
68. FORDSM_120506_198.JPG: General George B. McClellan: "I can do it all." -- George B. McClellan to Lincoln "Little Mac" In July 1861 -- days after the unexpected defeat of the Union Army at Bull Run near Manassas, Virginia -- Lincoln entrusted the Army of the Potomac to 35-year-old General George B. McClellan, a brilliant organizer dubbed "The Young Napoleon" by his admirers. At first, the appointment seemed inspired. The charismatic McClellan instilled confidence in troops still shaken from the humiliation of Bull Run. McClellan would prove too cautious to be effective as a commander. He greatly overestimated the strength of enemy forces and spent monthly drilling troops rather than taking decisive action. After the Republicans sustained heavy losses in the November 1862 congressional elections, Lincoln relieved McClellan of his duty, replacing him with divisional commander Ambrose Burnside.
69. FORDSM_120506_206.JPG: July 1861: Seeking an Edge: Lincoln was constantly on the lookout for weapons that might tip the scales in the Union's favor. Ignoring local laws, the president personally tired out the latest guns on what is now the National Mall at 6:30 in the morning. He also showed interest when the director of the Smithsonian Institution, Joseph Henry, introduced him to "Professor" Thaddeus Lowe, who insisted that hot air balloons could give Northern forces a military advantage. Modern Warfare: Not only could balloons provide eyes in the sky; by utilizing telegraph wires between his aerial platform and agents on the ground, Lowe was able to demonstrate the balloon's communications possibilities. In fact, Lowe sent Lincoln a message while floating high above the Mall. November 1861: Holding McClellan's Horse: McClellan treated the men in his ranks with more deference than he showed his superiors. Case in point: one evening in November 1861, Lincoln called at the general's Washington home, only to find McClellan out. On returning, McClellan was notified that his Commander-in-Chief was patiently waiting for him in the parlor. Rather than meet with Lincoln, whose questions and advice he had come to resent, McClellan had a servant inform the president and his party that he had retired for the night. Lincoln made light of the snub. To angry associates he said, "I will hold the McClellan's horse if he will only bring us success."
70. FORDSM_120506_208.JPG: November 1861: The Trent Affair: In addition to domestic policies, Lincoln had to worry about the possibility of foreign governments recognizing, or even assisting the Confederacy. In May 1861, Queen Victoria declared her government's neutrality. In November 1861, an American naval captain stopped and boarded the British Royal Mail vessel HMS Trent -- and compounded his offense by removing from the ship James Mason and John Slidell, recently appointed Confederate envoys to Great Britain and France, respectively. Britons clamored for war to avenge the national insult. Queen Victoria' government dispatched 8,000 soldiers to Canada. For Lincoln, there were no good options. Should he release Mason and Slidell, and accept public humiliation? Or should he hang on to them, and risk war with a European powers [sic]? A Bitter Pill: "One war at a time," Lincoln ultimately concluded. Bitter as the pill might be, he would swallow it. The Confederate commissioners were released; January 1862: Cleaning Out The Rats: Someone had to pay the price for Northern losses and reports of corruption in military purchasing. Early in January 1862, Lincoln decided to replace Secretary of War Simon Cameron. Canny as ever, the president publicly defended Cameron from his critics. At the same time, he proposed to make him Minister to distant Russia. He thus retained Cameron's loyalty -- even as he rid himself of a political embarrassment. Edwin Stanton: The new Secretary of War was Democrat Edwin M. Stanton, a hugely energetic Ohio lawyer whose appointment surprised many. Years earlier in a highly publicized patent case, Stanton had publicly insulted his fellow attorney Lincoln as "that damned long armed Ape." Lincoln didn't hold grudges. Stanton's ruthless prosecution of the war made him invaluable. The new secretary himself put it best. "As soon as I can get the machinery of the office working, the rats cleaned out, and the rat holes stopped, we shall move."
71. FORDSM_120506_211.JPG: January 27, 1862: Lincoln Takes Charge: On January 27, Lincoln issued General War Order Number 1, calling for all Northern armies and naval units to take the offensive by Washington's Birthday, February 22. Four days later, the president issued a second order, directing McClellan to attack Confederate forces west of Washington. McClellan had a different plan. He would transport the Army of the Potomac -- over 100,000 men -- by water to the Virginia coast, then fight his way to Richmond. Lincoln yielded the initiative. After several weeks passed with no movement, the president announced a re-organization of the army. McClellan, he declared, "has got the slows." Shoveling Fleas: It was the end of April before McClellan launched his plans to take Richmond from the southeast. For weeks a small Confederate force at Yorktown tricked "Little Mac" into thinking he was opposed by a huge army. Actually, McClellan had a nearly three to one advantage at one point coming within four miles to Richmond. Believing himself outnumbered, he appealed to Lincoln for reinforcements. "Sending men to that army is like shoveling fleas across a barnyard," said the president, "not half of them get there." Outmaneuvered by Robert E. Lee, McClellan had lost his nerve. He was about to lose his command. March 6, 1862: Battle of the Ironclads: Washington was in a panic. At a hastily called Cabinet meeting, Secretary Stanton looked out a window toward the Potomac River and predicted a cannonball might sail through the White House any minute. The object of his alarm was an ungainly naval vessel called the Virginia by her Confederate builders -- but better known as the Merrimac, which was the name she had worn as a Union frigate of 40 guns. Sinking the Stars and Stripes: Scuttled by retreating Northern forces, the Merrimac's hull and engine had been raised by her Confederate captors, then sheathed in iron plates, and equipped with a four-foot iron battering ram. On the afternoon of March 8, the world's first ironclad made quick work of two wooden ships flying the Stars and Stripes. Overnight, the entire Union fleet was rendered obsolete. The nation's capital cowered in terror. A Fighting Cheesebox in a Raft: Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles had a secret weapon of his own in reserve -- an even stranger looking ironclad, the Monitor, likened in appearance to a cheesebox in a raft. The next day the Monitor and the Merrimac fought a savage battle off Hampton Roads, Virginia that lasted four hours and ended in a draw. But the Merrimac's brief reign of terror was over.
72. FORDSM_120506_215.JPG: Ulysses S. Grant: "The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on." -- General Ulysses S. Grant Unconditional Surrender: January 1862 was not a happy time around the Lincoln White House. McClellan's Army of the Potomac was getting nowhere. Then, in February, came a double dose of good news from the West. With 15,000 men and 7 gunboats, General Ulysses S. grant captured Fort Henry, a strategically important outpost on the Tennessee River. Grant next moved on to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, informing its commander that he would accept nothing but "unconditional and immediate surrender." On February 16, 1862, the white flag went up. A Confederate army of 14,000 was captured at Fort Donelson. A week later, rebel forces abandoned the Tennessee capital of Nashville. The North had a new here -- "Unconditional Surrender": Grant.
73. FORDSM_120506_228.JPG: April 1862: A Fighting General: April 1862 brought unexpected good news to the Lincoln White House. After being surprised by attacking Confederates at Shiloh Church, on the banks of the Tennessee River, Ulysses Grant waged a fierce counter-attack that drove the Southern army from the fields and opened the door to Mississippi. At sea, Union fleets captured Fort Pulaski, guarding Savannah, Georgia; Apalachicola, Florida; and Biloxi, Mississippi. Before the end of the month, Admiral David Farragut's flotilla ran the gauntlet of Confederate defenses below New Orleans. Soon a Union army of 18,000 occupied the South's greatest ports. Thank God for Grant: Lincoln issued a proclamation calling on his countrymen to thank Almighty God for their victories. Then rumors began to circulate charging Grant with drunkenness at Shiloh. Urged to remove Grant from command, Lincoln was adamant. "I can't spare this man. He fights!" May 20, 1862: Homesteads, Railroads -- and Taxes: Not all of Lincoln's presidency was taken up with the war: On May 20, 1862, he signed the Homestead Act, which gave any citizen 160 acres of land in return for a $10 registration fee and a promise to stay on the land five years. "Uncle Sam" was giving away farms -- that was the message that drew countless immigrants and other Americans to new lives west of the Mississippi. The Pacific Railway Bill: Six week later, on the first day of July, Lincoln gave final approval to the Pacific Railway Bill, authorizing the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads to build a transcontinental line linking Iowa to California. The government would provide vast tracts of land, along with generous loans, to each company. Paper Dollars: Under Lincoln, a strengthened central government also issued the first greenbacks, or paper money, and assessed the first income tax in U.S. history to help pay for a war costing $2 million a day.
74. FORDSM_120506_231.JPG: June 1862: Changing the Guard: In the third week of June 1862, Lincoln made a trip to West Point, where he consulted with the retired Winfield Scott. On Scott's word, the president selected a new General-in-Chief. Henry Halleck -- nicknamed "Old Brains" -- was a skilled administrator and former West Point professor. But he lacked imagination and shied away from difficult decisions. Whipped Again! The President re-organized Union forces in Virginia, entrusting a new army there to a western general named John Pope. At the end of August, Pope faced Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on the same Bull Run field where Union troops had been humiliated a year before. History repeated itself. "Well, John, we are whipped again, I am afraid," Lincoln told his secretary John Hay at the end of a three-day bloodletting. Reluctantly, Lincoln recalled McClellan to command the shattered army. September 1862: What Might Have Been: At the start of September 1862, an anguished Lincoln told his Cabinet he felt almost ready to hang himself. Following his victory at Second Bull Run, Lee pressed his army north, crossing into Maryland and threatening Pennsylvania. McClellan regarded his subsequent victory over Lee at Antietam as "a masterpiece of [military] art." To Lincoln, it was yet another missed opportunity to destroy the rebel forces and end the war. General McClellan's Bodyguard: On October 1, Lincoln visited McClellan's camp. To a Springfield friend who had accompanied him, the president asked, "Hatch, what is all this?" "Why, Mr. Lincoln, this is the Army of the Potomac." "No, Hatch, no. This is General McClellan's bodyguard." When the general claimed he couldn't advance because his cavalry horses were fatigued, the president shot back, "Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?" Clearly, McClellan's days were numbered.
75. FORDSM_120506_241.JPG: Freedom Road: "Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." -- Abraham Lincoln Legal Slavery: At the time of Lincoln's election to the presidency, there were 4,000,000 slaves in the United States. Lincoln's position on slavery was clear. He hated it as an institution. He did not believe however that he had the legal authority to attack it -- much less abolish it -- in those parts of the Union where it was most deeply entrenched. The Road to Emancipation: For Abraham Lincoln, the road to Emancipation began as an infant, when he parents joined an abolitionist church in Kentucky. His family's subsequent move to Indiana was at least partly influenced by Thomas Lincoln's disdain for slavery. As a 19-year-old flatboatman, Abraham saw human beings bought and sold in a New Orleans slave market. The sight haunted him for years. If slavery wasn't wrong, Lincoln would assert, then nothing was wrong. But it how could he constitutionally rid America of this moral stain? It was a question that challenged and, ultimately, defined his presidency.
76. FORDSM_120506_245.JPG: 1837 "The institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and policy." -- Lincoln and fellow Whig Daniel Stone -- both Illinois State legislators -- protest an endorsement of slavery by the Illinois General Assembly.
77. FORDSM_120506_248.JPG: 1849: Congressman Lincoln introduces a bill to allow for emancipation in the District of Columbia, with slave owners to be financially compensated for their slaves. The proposed legislation goes nowhere.
78. FORDSM_120506_251.JPG: 1854: The Kansas-Nebraska Act repeats the Missouri Compromise, opening northern and western territories to slavery's spread. Lincoln denounces the act. "My ancient faith teaches me that all men are created equal," he tells an Illinois audience. "My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia -- to their own native land."
79. FORDSM_120506_254.JPG: 1855: "I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes, and unrewarded toils... I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations, under the constitution, in regard to your slaves." -- Lincoln to his friend Joshua Speed, a Kentucky slave owner
80. FORDSM_120506_259.JPG: 1858: "I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free... It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new -- North as well as South." -- Lincoln "House Divided" speech, Springfield, Illinois
81. FORDSM_120506_263.JPG: 1861: "I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we cannot hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland." -- Lincoln's rationale for overruling General John C. Fremont''s unilateral declaration of freedom for "confiscated" slaves in Missouri -- like Kentucky a pivotal border states in which slavery was the norm.
82. FORDSM_120506_265.JPG: 1862: April 16, 1862 President Lincoln signs legislation to end slavery in the District of Columbia. Since his inauguration Lincoln has affirmed that he must do nothing to alienate the border states teetering on the edge of secession. With the war going badly he begins to rethink his options. July 13, 1862 En route to the funeral of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton's infant son, Lincoln confides that he is seriously thinking of emancipating southern states as "a military necessity." "We had about played our last card," Lincoln would say later, "and must change our tactics, or lose the game."
83. FORDSM_120506_268.JPG: 1862: July 22, 1862 Lincoln confides in his Cabinet, reading them a draft proclamation that would free, as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the United States. Intense debate follows. Might the act lead to slave insurrection? Could it withstand challenges in the courts? Lincoln reluctantly agrees to put his draft aside. August 14, 1862 Meeting with a delegation of prominent African Americans. Lincoln proposes a colony for free blacks in Central America. "I do not known how much attachment you may have toward our race," he tells the group. "It does not strike me that you have toward our race," he tells the group. "It does not strike me that you have the greatest reason to love them." He says nothing of the proclamation sitting in his desk.
84. FORDSM_120506_275.JPG: The Master Politician: With no polls to guide him, Lincoln relied on his instincts to judge when the moment for action was right. "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery," he told newspaper editor Horace Greeley at the end of August 1862. "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some slaves and leaving others alone, I would also do that." Behind the scenes, Lincoln informed an Illinois friend days later that he was ready to declare the emancipation the moment "he was convinced that it could be made effective, and that the people were with him." September 17, 1862: At Antietam Creek in western Maryland, George McClellan's Army of the Potomac turned back Robert E. Lee's forces. This was victory enough for Lincoln to go public, on September 22, with a preliminary proclamation. Public reaction was mixed. In that fall's elections, Republican candidates suffered heavy losses -- many of them blamed Lincoln for turning a war over states rights into a war on slavery. January 1, 1863: New Year's Day 1863 dawned cold and cloudless in the nation's capital. Lincoln was up early, scratching out a final draft of the proclamation before his usual meager breakfast. At 11:00 that morning, the doors of the White House were thrown open for the annual New Year's reception. Thousands lined up outside the Blue Room. Not until two o'clock was the president able to return to his upstairs office. Emancipation Proclamation: Shaking so many hands had left Lincoln's army unsteady. The last thing he wanted was for posterity to read hesitation into a shaky signature. "I never in my life felt more certain that I was doing right than I do in signing this paper," said Lincoln. "Anyway, it is going to be done." Slowly, carefully, he scrawled his full name. Then he smiled. "That will do," he remarked.
85. FORDSM_120506_279.JPG: Emancipation Proclamation: This artistic copy of the Emancipation Proclamation -- in German -- was created in 1865 by W.H. Pratt, a clerk from Iowa. Heavier pen strokes in the script highlight Lincoln's features.
86. FORDSM_120506_287.JPG: A Home Away From Home: Nineteenth-century presidents had no Camp David to escape to. The closest thing to a summer White House was a 14-room cottage on the grounds of the Retired Soldiers' Home, a heavily wooden tract three miles northwest of the White House. James Buchanan had found refuge there from Washington's scorching heat and mosquitoes. The Lincolns began using the place in the summer of 1862. Lincoln's Summer Schedule: During the summer Lincoln commuted to the White House from the Retired Soldiers' Home. Each morning he rode to the White House on horseback or in a carriage. He was usually at his desk by 8am. He returned to the cottage in the evening, where he did more paperwork. Late night meetings were not uncommon, and it is believed that Lincoln wrote much of his Emancipation Proclamation at the Soldiers' Home. Protecting the President: Worried over her husband's safety, Mrs. Lincoln begged him not to make the trip out Seventh Street without protection. Eventually, her husband agreed to let a detachment of cavalry surround his coach while traveling to and from the summer White House. At other times he fell back into his old habits, riding unaccompanied. One night in 1864, both horse and rider were startled by a shot, which made a hole in Lincoln's tall stovepipe hot. Lincoln laughed it off. No one else did.
87. FORDSM_120506_297.JPG: Welcome Home: The :Lincoln's new home dwarfed anything they had previously known. Indeed, their entire Springfield house would have fit comfortably in the East Room. Size wasn't everything, however. A third of the mansion's 31 rooms were located in a rat-infested basement. The first floor was used for public entertaining, while presidential work spaces occupied much of the second floor (there would be no West Wing or Oval Office until the next century). Private Quarters: The Lincolns had just seven rooms for their private quarters. The president seemed perfectly content with his new surroundings, despite the stench of the nearby canal, which his secretary John Nicolay likened to "the ghosts of twenty thousand drowned cats." The only physical change Lincoln made was a partition dividing the public reception room outside his office. This enabled a harassed chief executive to slip unobserved between the office and nearby family quarters without running the usual gauntlet of office seekers.
88. FORDSM_120506_315.JPG: The President's Day: Afternoon: Mrs. Lincoln conspired with a White House cook to devise dishes -- like chicken and gravy -- though would afford the president a more substantial lunch than his usual apple, biscuit, and milk. Afterwards, Lincoln returned to his office for additional paperwork or visitors. On rare occasions Lincoln might attend a public lecture at the Smithsonian or on Capitol Hill. Late Nights: Lincoln's workday usually extended well into the night. If he was at the Soldier's Home Cottage, he might find time to read aloud from Shakespeare tragedies or volumes of poetry. At the White House, dinner -- often topped off with apple pie -- might be followed by coffee and conversation in the Red Room. Better yet, if old friends were in town, Lincoln indulged in political gossip and storytelling in his office upstairs. Sunday: Sundays offered a break from regular office hours, but no respite from the war. Though he never formally joined it, Lincoln often attended services at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. Shying away from the role of public theologian, the president remarked humorously, "It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues."
89. FORDSM_120506_319.JPG: August 9, 1864 handwritten letter from Abraham Lincoln to William P. Fessenden. The text is a request to place "$25,000 as appropriated in an act to encourage immigration," and notes that Secretary of State Seward endorsed it as "approved."
90. FORDSM_120506_330.JPG: September 30, 1864 pardon for John N. Still, signed by Abraham Lincoln.
91. FORDSM_120506_333.JPG: June 11, 1861 letter written by Abraham Lincoln to Henry W. Hoffman, the collector at Baltimore. The text reads: "Can you not give Mr. Balloch the inspectorship he desires? I shall be obliged if you will,"
92. FORDSM_120506_337.JPG: Letter written by Abraham Lincoln and dated April 30, 1864, ordering the exchange of Confederate and Union prisoners. The letter reads, "Let H.H. Brogden, now in prison at Fort Delaware be sent to Major Mulford, at City-Point, to be exchanged for any one of the same rank held a prisoner by the rebels."
93. FORDSM_120506_348.JPG: Diversions: "If there is a worse place than Hell, I am in it." -- A despairing Abraham Lincoln, after the military disaster at Fredericksburg. Lincoln had few diversions to take his mind off the war. He laughed out loud at humorists like Artemus Ward and Petroleum V. Nasby (both pen names). "Ward rests me more than any other man," he told one White House visitor. Often the Lincolns took afternoon carriage rides or went to concerts, since the president enjoyed all kinds of music, from grand opera to military bands. Lincoln at the Theatre: Lincoln's favorite form of recreation was the theatre. Along with minstrel shows and an Irish comedian named Barney Williams, he relished Shakespeare's comedies for their wit and insights into human character. It was Shakespearean drama that the president quotes from memory before young clerks at the War Department. Following one battlefield defeat, Lincoln found solace in these haunting lines from Macbeth: "Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more..." (Act V, Scene V) Edwin, John Wilkes Booth's brother, was the foremost Shakespearean actor of his time. Unlike his brother, he was a staunch supporter of the president.
94. FORDSM_120506_353.JPG: An Eerie Encounter: In November 1863, the Lincolns attended a Ford's Theatre performance of The Marble Heart, starring the youngest member of the famous Booth theatrical family, 24-year-old John Wilkes Booth. Handsome and athletic, Booth was an authentic matinee idol. Pretty Sharp: Booth was fervently pro-Southern, making no attempt among his intimate associated to conceal his growing hatred of Lincoln. He hinted as much that evening, glancing up at the presidential box even as he delivered some of the play's most threatening lines. "He looks as if he meant the for you," one of the presidential party remarked to Lincoln. "He does look pretty sharp at me, doesn't he?" conceded Lincoln.
95. FORDSM_120506_359.JPG: The Second Inaugural Address: On January 31, 1865, Lincoln used his influence to secure passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery throughout the United States. Five weeks later the president took the oath of office a second time. The sun came out from the clouds as he delivered his famous words, invoking the Almighty in justifying the long war, even as he appealed for a peace "with malice toward none, with charity for all." "A Sacred Effort": That night Lincoln welcomed Frederick Douglass to a White House reception. "There is no man in the country whose opinion I value more than yours," said the president. "I want to know what you thought of it." In response, Douglass called the speech "a sacred effort." Lincoln beamed. It was the last time the two men would meet.
96. FORDSM_120506_364.JPG: Visiting Richmond: Richmond fell on April 2, 1865. On learning the news, Lincoln immediately set off for the Confederate capital, Tad in tow. Striding through still smoking ruins, he was halted by the cries of former slaves. "Glory to God! Glory! Glory! Glory!" they shouted. Some sang. Others knelt to their liberator. "Don't kneel to me," said Lincoln. "That is not right. You must kneel to God only, and thank Him for the liberty you will heretofore enjoy. I am but God's humble servant."
97. FORDSM_120506_367.JPG: No More Talk of Hanging: On April 9 -- Palm Sunday -- Robert E. Lee surrendered what remained of his once formidable army at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. Although Confederate forces were still fighting in the field and the war would not be over until May, in Washington shouts of joy mingled with demands for vengeance. Hanging, it was said, was too good for the traitor Jefferson Davis. Lincoln had other things on his mind. "This talk about Mr. Davis tires me," he told his Cabinet. "I hope he will mount a fleet horse, reach the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and drive so far into its waters that we shall never see him again."
98. FORDSM_120506_375.JPG: Theatre Critic: Lincoln held strong opinions about how Shakespeare should be presented. "A farce, or a comedy, is best played," he explained. A tragedy is best read at home." Nor did he mind sharing his theories with theatre professionals. For example, after seeing actor James Hackett as Falstaff in Henry IV, the president wrote Hackett to tell him how much he enjoyed his work. Hackett then published the letter, exposing Lincoln the drama critic to newspaper ridicule. No Rest for the Weary: Worse, Hackett showed up at the White House one day -- not to discuss Shakespeare but to petition Lincoln, unsuccessfully, for a job as U.S. consul in London. It was an ironic response to a president who went to the theatre for a few hours' rest from the office seekers who hounded him all day.
99. FORDSM_120506_378.JPG: In this letter to James Hackett, Lincoln writes "I think the soliloquy in Hamlet commencing 'Oh my offense is rank' surpasses that commencing. 'To be or not to be.'" James Hackett as Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV, circa 1859 Hackett contacted Lincoln in March 1864 to invite him to several upcoming performances at Ford's Theatre.
100. FORDSM_120506_382.JPG: John Ford's New Theatre: In 1861, theatre manager John T. Ford converted the vacant First Baptist Church on 10th Street into a music hall and playhouse. When the popular "Ford's Athenaeum" was destroyed by fire the following year, Ford decided to rebuild. His Ford's "New Theatre" opened in August 1863.
101. FORDSM_120506_384.JPG: These are a few of the properties that John T. Ford owned and managed, circa 1873. The Latin phrase translates to "increase and multiply."
102. FORDSM_120506_403.JPG: Willie Lincoln: Everyone agreed that William Wallace Lincoln was his parents' favorite, and, of all the Lincoln children, the one who was most similar to his father. Thoughtful and bookish, it was Willie who took his brother to task after Tad smashed a White House mirror with a ball. "It is not Pa's looking glass," said the older boy. "It belonged to the United States government." Together with Tad and other children, Willie established a fort on the White House roof from which they fired salvos -- using logs painted to resemble cannons -- at Confederate Virginia across the Potomac.
103. FORDSM_120506_406.JPG: Thomas "Tad" Lincoln: His nickname derived from his large head, said to resemble a tadpole. Tad was a lively, mischievous child who shared his mother's temper. He suffered from a speech impediment -- the result of a cleft palate -- and possible learning disabilities. "Let him run," said the president, "he has time enough left to learn his letters and get pokey." One day Tad hitched a pair of goats to a chair and drove himself through a crowded East Room reception. On another occasion he stood behind his father at a review of Union troops and waived a Confederate flag. When not devouring strawberries intended for a state dinner or training a toy cannon on his father's Cabinet, Tad often stood at the foot of the staircase leading to the presidential offices and charged a five cent "entrance fee." In 1863, Tad made a new friend -- a turkey sent to the White House for Christmas dinner. He named the bird Jack and interrupted a Cabinet meeting to demand a presidential pardon -- a tradition that is still carried on nearly 150 years later.
104. FORDSM_120506_416.JPG: William Wallace Lincoln: December 21, 1850 - February 20, 1862: The Lincoln's most memorable social event was also their most painful. Five hundred guests thronged the White House on the night of February 5, 1862. Many stayed until three the next morning. They found their host and hostess distracted, however, and with good reason. Throughout the evening, as the Marine Band played the Mary Lincoln Polka and guests dined on terrapin and turkey, the Lincolns took turns sitting with their eleven-year-old son, Willie, who was ill with typhoid. Two weeks later, on the afternoon of Sunday, February 20, Willie died. "Well, Nicolay," a devastated Lincoln said to his secretary, "My boy is gone -- he is actually gone!" The president grieved in private, interrupting work to shed tears behind closed doors. Mary, distraught, barely functioned for months. Never again would she set foot in the Green Room where Willie's body was embalmed.
105. FORDSM_120506_432.JPG: Executive Makeover: As she made her way from one shabby room to another, Mary Todd Lincoln was appalled by the torn draperies and peeling wallpaper, rickety furniture, and sagging floors of her new house. The White House might have been the largest private residence in the country, but in appearance it resembled nothing so much as third-rate hotel. She resolved to make the place into something every American could be proud of. The White House had undergone several changes since its original design and construction in 1792. This 1817 design drawing by architect Benjamin Latrobe shows a proposed portico, which was later constructed.
106. FORDSM_120506_435.JPG: Congressional Appropriations: When Congress voted a $20,000 appropriation to improve the White House, the First Lady traveled to Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. She brought back elegant furnishings, imported French wallpaper, a 190-piece Haviland dining service costing $3,195, and a sumptuous Brussels carpet to cover the vast floor of the East Room.
107. FORDSM_120506_443.JPG: A Complete Transformation: Rooms were repainted or replastered. Decades of grime were scrubbed away. In an upstairs guest room, Mary placed a seven-foot rosewood bed -- popularly known today as the Lincoln Bed, though the president almost certainly never slept in it. Everyone agreed; Mrs. Lincoln had transformed the old house. Then the bills started to arrive.
108. FORDSM_120506_447.JPG: Toy Sword owned by Tad Lincoln
109. FORDSM_120506_449.JPG: The Bills Come Due: Mary Todd Lincoln's taste was matched by her extravagance. Her shopping excursions as First Lady became notorious. But she couldn't keep her decorating bill a secret from her husband, since it involved public funds. Lincoln was furious to learn that his wife had overspent her $20,000 congressional appropriation by more than $6,700. "It would stink in the nostrils of the American people," raged the president, for him to approve "flub dubs for this damned old house, when the soldiers cannot have blankets." He vowed to pay the costs himself. Congress came to his rescue, burying the overruns in some deficiency bills.
110. FORDSM_120506_454.JPG: Let these men take the oath of Dec. 8 1863 and be discharged. March 8, 1865 -- A. Lincoln Southern soldiers had to take the Oath of 63 in order to be discharged, Lincoln signed this a month before his death. Hand-written note by Abraham Lincoln.
111. FORDSM_120506_461.JPG: A Misunderstood First Lady: The press branded Mary a spendthrift because of her tastes in furnishings and clothing. Journalists hounded her, recording every purchase she made in renovating the White House. Yet no reporters accompanied Mary on her visits to Union hospitals, where she wrote letters for wounded soldiers and read aloud to patients. Likewise, her charitable efforts on behalf of newly freed slaves won scant notice. After Lincoln's death, Mary believed herself nearly bankrupt. In 1867, she tried unsuccessfully, to auction some of her gowns in New York City, an endeavor that was met with scorn by the public. After Lincoln's death, souvenir hunters tore apart and stole many objects and furniture in the White House while Mary was in mourning on the second floor.
112. FORDSM_120506_506.JPG: The Gun That Killed Abraham Lincoln: With a single shot, John Wilkes Booth changed the course of American history. The gun he chose was a .44-caliber pistol, made by Henry Deringer of Philadelphia. One shot was all that Booth had. The gun was favored for its small size -- it could easily be concealed inside a pocket. It shot a single, round lead ball, weighing nearly an ounce -- and was most accurate at close range.
113. FORDSM_120506_512.JPG: A Single Shot: After John Wilkes Booth shot the president at close range with his single shot deringer, he dropped the pistol on the floor of the theatre box. Pulling out his knife, he swiftly moved to jump over the balcony, grappling momentarily with Major Henry Rathbone, a guest of the Lincolns. Rathbone was severely cut in the brief scuffle with Booth and suffered major blood loss. Booth's deringer was later discovered on the floor of the box and turned over to military authorities as they began to gather evidence in their investigation of the assassination of President Lincoln.
114. FORDSM_120506_528.JPG: The Booth Conspiracy: In August 1864, John Wilkes Booth visited Baltimore, where he met Samuel Arnold and Michael O'Laughlin, old childhood friends, each of whom had served in the Confederate army. Booth enlisted their help in a plot to kidnap Lincoln while the president traveled between his cottage on the grounds of the Soldier's Home and the White House. By abducting Lincoln before he could win a second term, Booth helped to reverse the course of the war. But as Confederate prospects dimmed, the conspiracy took on a more sinister shape. One plan envisioned placing explosives in the White House, enough to kill not only the president but his entire Cabinet as well. Plans Change: With Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865, the kidnapping scheme became moot. At some point, Booth changed his plan and resolved to assassinate Lincoln. Acting on Booth's orders, his fellow conspirators planned to murder Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward.
115. FORDSM_120506_531.JPG: Selections from John Wilkes Booth's Diary: "... I struck boldly, and not as the papers say. I walked with a firm step through a thousand of his friends, was stopped, but pushed on. A colonel was at his side. I shouted Sic semper before I fired. In jumping broke my leg. I passed all his pickets, rode sixty miles that night with the bone of my leg tearing the flesh at every jump. I can never repent it, though we hated to kill. Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment. The country is not what it was. This forced Union is not what I have loved. I care not what becomes of me. I have no desire to outlive my country...."
116. FORDSM_120506_533.JPG: Evidence of the Conspiracy: Investigation into Lincoln's assassination began immediately after the shooting, under the direction of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Investigators were led by Mary Surratt's boarding house, where Booth had often stayed. Three nights later -- on April 17 -- investigators again visited the Surratt home. Lewis Powell arrived at the house late that night carrying a pickaxe, claiming that he had been hired to dig a ditch. Mary denied this story, but both parties were taken into custody. Meanwhile, George Atzerodt had aroused suspicions at the Kirkwood Hotel, where he was supposed to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson. A search of is hotel room revealed a loaded revolver; a knife, a map of Virginia, and a bankbook belonging to John Wilkes Booth. John Wilkes Booth's Diary: When Booth fled Ford's Theatre, he carried with him few items: an appointment book that he used as a diary, a compass, and a Bowie knife. Along his escape route, Booth met up with fellow conspirator David Herold and traveled with him to Mary Surratt's tavern in Maryland. There, they picked up field glasses (binoculars) and a Spencer carbine rifle. Booth's diary provides unique insight into the mind of Lincoln's killer. Booth expected to be hailed as a hero, but instead he was condemned for his actions.
117. FORDSM_120506_537.JPG: The Meeting Place: The house on H Street served as a convenient meeting place for John Wilkes Booth and his fellow conspirators, two of whom -- Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt -- were occasional boarders. Mrs. Surratt's son John, youngest of her three children, was also part of Booth's original plot to kidnap Lincoln. As a Confederate courier, John Surratt knew every inch of the roads between Washington and Richmond. He also had important contacts in the Confederate government. John left Washington before the assassination. 541 H Street: When her husband died in August 1862, 42-year-old Mary Surratt was left saddled with debts. Two years later, the widow decided to lease her family's tavern in Surrattsville, a Maryland crossroads 13 miles southeast of Washington, and move to the nation's capital. Mary occupied a ten-room, three-story residence on H Street, which she ran as a boarding home.
118. FORDSM_120506_540.JPG: 541 H Street: When her husband died in August 1862, 42-year-old Mary Surratt was left saddled with debts. Two years later, the widow decided to lease her family's tavern in Surrattsville, a Maryland crossroads 13 miles southeast of Washington, and move to the nation's capital. Mary occupied a ten-room, three-story residence on H Street, which she ran as a boarding house.
119. FORDSM_120506_542.JPG: Medical Kit: Medical kit used by Dr. Samuel Mudd at the time he administered aid to Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth. Though Mudd protested is innocence, he was sentenced to life in prison and sent to the Dry Tortugas Islands in Florida. In 1867, there was an outbreak of yellow fever at the prison. When the prison doctor died, Mudd took over the position, halting the spread of the disease. In 1869. President Johnson pardoned Mudd, Edman Spangler, and Samuel Arnold.
120. FORDSM_120506_549.JPG: Playbill: Playbill from the Ford's Theatre production of Apostate, starring John Wilkes Booth.
121. FORDSM_120506_558.JPG: Rope: Rope found in Edman Spangler's room during investigations following Lincoln's assassination.
122. FORDSM_120506_562.JPG: Reward Poster: Reward poster believed to have been put out on April 20, 1865 by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The poster misspells Herold's name as "Daniel Harrold."
123. FORDSM_120506_569.JPG: Revolver: Revolver used by Lewis Powell during his assassination attempt on Secretary of State William Henry Seward. Inside the Secretary's house, Powell had a confrontation with Seward's son, Frederick. When his gun misfired, Powell struck Federal several times with the pistol, fracturing his skull. Frederick remained in a coma for days but survived the attack.
124. FORDSM_120506_574.JPG: Bowtie: Blue and black striped bowtie worn by conspirator George Atzerodt
125. FORDSM_120506_579.JPG: Appointment Book: Appointment book used by John Wilkes Booth as a diary during his 12-day flight. The diary, printed and sold in St. Louis, opens with 24 pages of reference almanac information; tide charts, train schedules, and meteorological data. Blank pages are headed with printed dates, from "Saturday, June 11, 1864" to "Thursday, December 29, 1864." Booth was in the habit of using these pages for notes and letters -- numerous pages are missing.
126. FORDSM_120506_586.JPG: Switchblade Pocketknife: Pockefknife carried by John Wilkes Booth during his escape.
127. FORDSM_120506_592.JPG: Compass and Leather Case: Compass used by John Wilkes Booth during his escape.
128. FORDSM_120506_600.JPG: Signal Whistle: Whistle carried by John Wilkes Booth during his escape. Signal whistles were used as means of communication across distances.
129. FORDSM_120506_619.JPG: Toothbrush: Toothbrush used as evidence during Lewis Powell's trial -- it still bears the number assigned to it for the trial. In his testimony, George Atzerodt recounted meeting Powell for the first time: "A strong, stout man -- no hair on his face -- rather good looking -- wild look in his eyes -- he carried a tooth-brush with him."
130. FORDSM_120506_628.JPG: Colt Revolvers and Cases:| Revolvers and cases carried by John Wilkes Booth during his escape. They were with him when he was caught and killed.
131. FORDSM_120506_633.JPG: Knife and Knife Case: Horn-handled dagger used by John Wilkes Booth to stab Major Henry Rathbone after shooting Abraham Lincoln. The dagger is engraved with the words "Liberty" and "America."
132. FORDSM_120506_645.JPG: Boot and Spur: Boot and spur worn by John Wilkes Booth. Booth arrived at Dr. Samuel Mudd's house on April 14, 1865, in need of medical care for an injured leg. Mudd cut the boot to remove it from Booth's swollen ankle. Five days later, investigators arrived at Mudd's house and found the boot.
133. FORDSM_120506_654.JPG: Hood: Reproduction of the canvas hoods worn by the conspirators during their imprisonment at the Old Penitentiary The hood covered the entire head except a small opening at the mouth. The original hoods are in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
134. FORDSM_120506_660.JPG: Knife and Case: Knife owned by George Atzerodt, who was tasked with the murder of Vice President Andrew Johnson. The night of the assassination, Atzerodt sat at the bar at the Kirkwood Hotel, trying to work up his courage. When that failed, he wandered the streets of Washington, eventually throwing the knife into the gutter; the knife was later retrieved and used as evidence in his trial.
135. FORDSM_120506_688.JPG: Quilt: Quilt made to auction at the 1864 Sanitary Fair in Philadelphia. The quilt has been signed by President Lincoln, members of his Cabinet, popular northern generals, and other prominent public figures.
136. FORDSM_120506_696.JPG: A. Lincoln
137. FORDSM_120506_700.JPG: S.P. Chase Cincinnati
138. FORDSM_120506_702.JPG: Geo B McClellan Maj Gen ...
139. FORDSM_120506_705.JPG: U.S. Grant Lt. Gen. U.S.A.
140. FORDSM_120506_708.JPG: W.T. Sherman Maj Genl
141. FORDSM_120506_711.JPG: J. Kilpatrick Brig. Genl Va A of P
142. FORDSM_120506_714.JPG: D. B. Birney Maj Genl A...
143. FORDSM_120506_716.JPG: G.K. Warren Maj Gen ...
144. FORDSM_120506_720.JPG: Gideon Welles
145. FORDSM_120506_722.JPG: H. Hamlin
146. FORDSM_120506_725.JPG: Our Flag Its meteor form, Shall ride the storm, Till the fiercest of foes surrender, The storm gone by It shall gild the sky A rainbow of peace and of splendor! T. Buchanan Read
147. FORDSM_120506_728.JPG: Geo. H. Thomas Maj Genl USA
148. FORDSM_120506_737.JPG: Alex H. Vinton St. Mark's Church New York
149. FORDSM_120506_741.JPG: ... truly ... A.E. Burnside Maj Genl ... Annapolis April ... 1864
150. FORDSM_120506_745.JPG: Winfield S. Hancock Major General US Vols Comdr 2d Corps
151. FORDSM_120506_749.JPG: Benj. F. Butler
152. FORDSM_120506_750.JPG: Robert Anderson Brig Gen USA
153. FORDSM_120506_754.JPG: John Sedgwick Maj General USA
154. FORDSM_120506_756.JPG: "0 woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, & hard to please. And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou." Edw. Bates of Ind
155. FORDSM_120506_760.JPG: M. Blair PMG [Post Master General]
156. FORDSM_120506_763.JPG: William H. Seward Auburn
157. FORDSM_120506_766.JPG: S.J. Du Pont R Admiral US Navy
158. FORDSM_120506_769.JPG: Winfield Scott 1864 Winfield Scott 1864
159. FORDSM_120506_771.JPG: Andrew Johnson of Tennessee Andrew Johnson of Tennessee
160. FORDSM_120506_778.JPG: Millard Fillmore Buffalo April 9, 1864 Millard Fillmore
161. FORDSM_120506_781.JPG: William Cannon Gov Del [Governor of Delaware]
162. FORDSM_120506_788.JPG: Lincoln's Last Speech: On the night of April 11, two days after Lee's surrender to Grant, Lincoln gave his last speech. A crowd gathered outside the White House, calling for the President. Lincoln stood at the window, just above the main door. Reporter Noah Brooks held a light so that the president could read. Tad gathered his father's pages as they fluttered to the floor. In his speech, Lincoln hinted at his plans for the postwar South, and for the first time in public introduced the view that: "It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers." The Last Speech He'll Ever Make: In the crowd at Lincoln's speech that night was John Wilkes Booth. On hearing Lincoln's endorsement of black suffrage, the actor snorted, "That's the last speech he'll ever make." "We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart." -- Abraham Lincoln, April 11, 1865
163. FORDSM_120506_793.JPG: ???
164. FORDSM_120506_797.JPG: Who Is dead in the White House?" On April 11, Lincoln revealed an eerie dream, much to Mary's horror. Hearing the sounds of weeping coming from somewhere in the White House, he had left his bed and made his way to the East Room. There he met with a sickening surprise. "Before me was a catafalque," said Lincoln, "on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. " 'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers. 'The President' was his answer. 'He was killed by an assassin!' "
165. FORDSM_120506_800.JPG: Clara Harris and Henry Rathbone: Clara Harris and Henry Rathbone were recently engaged when they were invited by the Lincolns to join them at Ford's Theatre. Immediately following the shooting, Rathbone jumped out of his seat and grappled with Booth. Booth stabbed Rathbone in the arm and leapt from the theatre box. Rathbone never forgave himself for letting Booth get away. He and Clara married and moved to Germany. On December 23, 1883, Rathbone recreated his own version of that fateful night 18 years earlier; he shot and killed Clara and stabbed himself. When the police arrived, he claimed there were people living behind the pictures on the wall. He died in an asylum 28 years later.
166. FORDSM_120506_803.JPG: The Orchestra Master: April 14, 1865 should have been a great day for William Withers, Jr. He was the orchestra master at Ford's Theatre; that evening he was to play his composition, "Honor to our Soldiers" for the president. Withers was standing at the rear of the stage when he heard shots. Moments later, John Wilkes Booth came tearing across the stage, shouting at Withers to let him pass. Booth slashed at him with his dagger, slicing two holes in Withers' jacket and knocking him to the floor.
167. FORDSM_120506_807.JPG: Framed Wallpaper Sample: Framed fragment of wallpaper from the presidential box at Ford's Theater.
168. FORDSM_120506_826.JPG: Gloves: Gloves worn by Major Henry R. Rathbone, one of the Lincolns' guests at Ford's Theatre.
169. FORDSM_120506_834.JPG: ???
170. FORDSM_120506_846.JPG: Calling Card: Calling card belonging to Major Henry R. Rathbone, guest of the Lincolns at Ford's Theatre April 14, 1865.
171. FORDSM_120506_850.JPG: Our American Cousin playbill
172. FORDSM_120506_863.JPG: Opera Glass Case: Mrs. Lincoln's opera glasses and case were found in the Presidential Box following her husband's assassination. These were turned over to police, and the glasses were returned to the finder as a souvenir of the event.
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (DC -- Ford's Theatre NHS (Museum)) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 2016_DC_Fords_Museum: DC -- Ford's Theatre NHS (Museum) -- Painting: Lincoln Borne by Loving Hands (12 photos from 2016)
- 2015_DC_Fords_Museum: DC -- Ford's Theatre NHS (Museum) (15 photos from 2015)
- 2013_DC_Fords_Museum: DC -- Ford's Theatre NHS (Museum) (25 photos from 2013)
- 2011_DC_Fords_Museum: DC -- Ford's Theatre NHS (Museum) (1 photo from 2011)
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- 2005_DC_Fords_Museum: DC -- Ford's Theatre NHS (Museum) (4 photos from 2005)
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2012 photos: Equipment this year: My mainstays were the Fuji S100fs, Nikon D7000, and the new Fuji X-S1. I also used an underwater Fuji XP50 and a Nikon D600. The first three cameras all broke this year and had to be repaired. Trips this year: three Civil War Trust conferences (Shepherdstown, WV, Richmond, VA, and Williamsburg, VA), a week-long family reunion cruise of the Caribbean, another week-long family reunion in the Wisconsin Dells (with lots of in-transit time in Ohio and Indiana), and my 7th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including side trips to Zion, Bryce, the Grand Canyon, etc). Ego strokes: I had a picture of Miss DC, Ashley Boalch, published in the Washington Post. I had a photograph of the George Segal San Francisco Holocaust memorial used as the cover of Quebec Francais (issue 165). Not being able to read French, I'm not entirely sure what the article is about but, hey! And I guess what could be considered to be a positive thing, my site is now established enough that spammers have noticed it and I had to block 17,000 file description postings for Viagra and whatever else.. Number of photos taken this year: just below 410,000.
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