Latest light on Abraham Lincoln : and war-time memories

Front matter

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The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

Latest Light on

Foreword

IT is indeed a special providence that a unique man like Dr. Ervin Chapman should just at this time of great emergency give to the world a work on Abraham Lincoln, in the preparation of which he has been engaged for more than half a century.

Of 'Tarticeps Criminis," "Bob" Burdette said, "Doctor Chapman is the only man who could write this book," and the same is true of the "Latest Light on Abraham Lincoln and War-time Memories." No one but this "Statesman-Preacher," as he is called, could so successfully have supplemented the three thousand Lincoln publications that have appeared, with a work that is unlike all that has been written concerning Abraham Lincoln.

From boyhood Doctor Chapman has been engaged in literar}^ pursuits and his writings have always been distinguished for their fascinating originality. His books entitled, "A Stainless Flag," "The Czolgosz of Trade and Commerce," and "Particeps Criminis," have been widely and eagerly read. At sixteen he was on the lecture platform. At eighteen he was active in the organization of the Republican party and took the stump for Fremont, and at twenty-two he made one hundred speeches for the election of Abraham Lincoln as President. T\Tien but a lad he could repeat from memory the greater part of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution of the United States. "Jefferson's Letters," the "Madison Papers," "The Federalist," "Benton's Thirty Years' View," and "Democracy in America," were his delight while still in his teens and those works are yet in his possession with his original annotations. I have been thrilled with interest as I have handled those old, well-worn but well-preserved volumes, in the perusal of which

2 FOREWORD

this studious country boy unconsciously prepared for the great work he was destined to accomplish. The knowledge of the fundamental principles of civil government acquired by the study of such great books gave strength and imagination to the fervid eloquence of the "Boy Orator," as he was then called. He was brought into close association with the most distinguished men of the nation, and after the election of Lincoln as President he was called to Washington to fill an important position in the Federal government and to be an active participant in many of the decisive movements of those historic times, some of which were not known to the public and are not until now mentioned in history.

During his connection with the government at Washington, Doctor Chapman began the accumulation of data which has made possible the production of this great work. His claim that during those fifty years nothing of value respecting Lincoln has escaped him seems fully justified by the wealth of information he has here given to the public. Without the extraordinary opportunities and the thorough personal preparation, which began in boyhood and has continued through an extended life, no author could have written a work of such great and permanent value ; and from a field less extended or less productive such riches could not have been acquired. Momentous measures and movements have passed like a panorama and men have come and gone as in a moving pageant since Doctor Chapman began his preparation for this work. !N'ot one man is now living who was then prominent in public life. At that time Blaine, Conkling, Grant, and Garfield were just beginning to attract attention. Cleveland, Harrison and McKinley were unknown. John Hay was only a President's private secretary; Roosevelt had seen but seven summers, Taft eight, and Woodrow Wilson was a restless boy of nine years in a Presbyterian manse in Virginia.

And while this procession was passing Doctor Chapman, like a toiling miner, was delving in the rock for the gold that enriches the pages of this historical masterpiece. In this he

FOREWORD 3

has not been hindered but helped by the ceaseless activities that have made his life so full of notable achievements. As a pastor, platform lecturer, participant in great conventions, and valiant leader in reforms, he has always been the champion of those civic and national ideals which he learned from the great books he studied so diligently in early life, and which with such consummate skill he has in this work shown to be the mainspring of the marvelous life of Abraham Lincoln.

He has been a preacher of great earnestness and power, with pronounced evangelistic gifts and inclinations, but he is most distinguished as an authority on the fundamental principles of civil government, and as a wise and successful leader in reform movements. When the Anti-Saloon League was organized in California there was a unanimous and unyielding demand that Doctor Chapman should become the leader of that new and unique movement, and so incomparable were his achievements in that field that no one has ever doubted the wisdom of his selection for that difficult work. It was my good fortune to be one of that great assembly in San Francisco that sent Doctor Chapman out into California as superintendent of the Anti- Saloon League. The League was at that time understood to be an experimental movement but Doctor Chapman insisted that while its activities might be in a measure determined by conditions, its ideals must be fixed and immovable, and that the liquor traffic must be regarded and dealt with not as a business but as a crime, and that the League must always oppose the adoption of liquor license and any increase of the liquor license tax. He had learned these fundamentals from Lincoln and he adhered to them as tenaciously as the great Emancipator insisted that all rightful opposition to slavery must be based upon the unalterable proposition that slavery is wrong.

Dr. Howard H. Russell, founder and first superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League, says : "From the day Doctor Chapman began the study of law in 1856 until 1898 when he became superintendent of the California Anti-Saloon League, every day of his life seems to have been spent in a school of discipline.

4 FOREWORD

development and instruction for his state-wide and nation-wide work." And when Doctor Chapman induced the National League to declare that the liquor license tax was "an entrenchment for the liquor traffic and the higher the tax the stronger that entrenchment," Doctor Russell said, "Doctor Chapman has convinced us all. I believe this is one of the most important measures we have thus far undertaken." And when a year later the League was led to declare that the liquor traffic is "not a business but a crime," the national superintendent, Dr. P. A. Baker, said to Doctor Chapman, "You have lifted us a notch higher." Upon that high level Doctor Chapman's "Stainless Flag" address was prepared and delivered throughout the length and breadth of this nation under the auspices of the ISTational League. It was my supreme privilege when a pastor in Brooklyn to hear that epochal address in New York City and subsequently to learn of its great influence in creating and maintaining the conviction now so dominant in the nation that civil government cannot rightfully give legal standing to the traffic in strong drink. That address on "A Stainless Flag" is not outranked in power and eloquence by either ISTeal Dow or John B. Gough.

As the doctrines of Abraham Lincoln prepared Doctor Chapman for his great influence in temperance reform, so his work in that reform contributed very largely to his preparation for this monumental work on Lincoln. Without the least break or delay he passed from the strenuous struggles of the Anti-Saloon League to the work of classifying and arranging the varied and scholarly material he had accumulated. I was closely associated with him when he turned from all other activities to the happy labor of preparing the manuscript of this work. I observed the enthusiasm with which he retired from the public arena of conflict and sought the quiet seclusion in which he could work without interruption. And I have been thrilled with delight as I have seen this work take definite form and expand into such magnificent and masterful proportions. My hopes were high when I first learned of the plan and scope of the pro-

ERVIX CHAPMAN, D.D, LL.D.

FOREV/ORD 5

posed volume, and I fully appreciated Doctor Chapman's rare fitness for the task he had undertaken, but I had never imagined that to the thousands of Lincoln publications another could be added of such surpassing interest and value. And my greatest astonishment is in finding in this work so much valuable information which does not appear in any other publication. I am delighted to note the characteristic courage with which the author calmly sets aside as untruthful many harmful statements concerning Lincoln which have been given wide publicity, and the conclusive evidence he produces in support of his declarations.

It is not a new Lincoln but a true and real, indeed a living Lincoln, which Doctor Chapman gives us in this work, a Lincoln of whose lineage and birth, and personal appearance and religious belief and experience we have every reason to be proud. And it is that incomparably great and gracious Lincoln whom the world must ever hereafter behold, admire and imitate.

Doctor Chapman has placed a grateful posterity under everlasting obligation to him for this brilliant masterpiece.

Chaeles Edwaed Locke^ Pastor First Methodist Episcopal Church, Los Angeles, Cal.

Preface

THIS work is the product of more than half a century of diligent preparation and labor. It is added to the vast Lincoln library in the belief that it contains fresh and heretofore unpublished information relative to Abraham Lincoln and men and events of his day. My personal participation in the activities of the national government during Mr. Lincoln's Presidency, and my intimate acquaintance and close official association with many of the most prominent men of that day afforded me the best of facilities for acquiring knowledge of what was then in progress throughout the nation. Therefore, my personal reminiscences of those years, which are published for the first time in this work, contain much valuable information which other writers seem not to have secured.

In addition to this are the accumulations of prolonged and careful research in which nothing of value relative to Lincoln has been overlooked. More than two thousand publications have been carefully examined and made to contribute to the data which makes authentic every statement of this work. From books and other war-time publications, from national and local official records, and from Confederate documents and histories, items have been gathered and woven into connected records of events which form important new contributions to authentic history. The disclosures thus made are of great significance and some of them are so astounding that the validity of the history may at first be doubted. But investigation will establish, beyond question, the truth of every statement and deduction contained herein.

I have been greatly favored and aided in all this prolonged and taxing research. Data that had been lost have by diligent search been recovered, and much of which I had never heard came unsought into my possession and has been used to the

8 PREFACE

great advantage of this work. Many doors have been voluntarily opened to me, affording admission to unsearched realms abounding in new and exceedingly valuable material. Sympathizing friends and strangers, hearing of the nature and purpose of my work, have contributed information that has aided me greatly to enrich these pages with choice Lincolniana in literature and art.

I was especially fortunate in the extended research which made possible the preparation of the account of the Jaquess- Gilmore Mission, knowledge of which during its progress was not had even by the President's confidential secretaries, nor by any member of his Cabinet. A great flood of light is by that fascinating story cast upon the character and inner life of Abraham Lincoln, revealing his secret meditations and his undeclared hopes during even the darkest period of his life. Very extensive and unfrequented fields were perseveringly surveyed in securing the information given in that chapter. Each item is fully authenticated by unquestionable records, but here only have they been united so as to tell the thrilling story of that unique and marvelously successful adventure.

The chapter devoted to quotations from the diary of Lincoln's pastor. Rev. P. D. Gurley, D.D., is of special interest and value. The existence of this daily record by the able and distinguished minister who, during Mr. Lincoln's Presidency, was his beloved spiritual adviser and his esteemed and trusted counsellor, has for some time been known to a limited number of persons and has eagerly been sought by writers and publishers, but until the present it has been withheld from publication. I was delighted to secure the manuscript from Doctor Gurley's daughter, Mrs. Emma Gurley Adams of Washington, D. C, and I heartily commend it to the reader.

A considerable portion of this work is devoted to the correction of errors. No man in American history is so generally misunderstood as Abraham Lincoln. Erroneous statements and opinions relative to his ancestry, early life, family relations, personal appearance, bearing, habits, attitude to reforms, and

PREFACE 9

religious belief and experience have long remained uncorrected to the great detriment of the world's heritage in one of its most important characters. Those misrepresentations and misconceptions have come from conditions existing during Mr. Lincoln's life, and from the malice or inexcusable carelessness of writers since his assassination.

Mr. Lincoln was before the nation for only seven years and was known to the people of his own state for but a slightly more extended period. However, during all of that time there was in progress throughout the nation a great moral and civic movement which was characterized by intense bitterness of spirit, and personal animosities.

Mr. Lincoln was an active and influential participant in that contest and during its progress he was the target for the most vindictive and cruel personal assaults known to political campaigns. At first the misrepresentations were only such as are usual in heated political contests, for he was always held in high esteem by his partisan antagonists in Illinois. But when his fame became national, and the movement against slavery became dangerous to that institution, the warfare against him sank to a lower level and was prosecuted with less regard for truth and honor.

So long as damaging misrepresentations were confined to the campaign statements of his political antagonists their influence was not seriously harmful, but when his former law partner, William H. Herndon, published in his "Life of Lincoln" that he was of illegitimate birth and had declared to him that the same was true of his mother, the wicked falsehood was accepted as true, and added immensely to the force of other untruthful statements that were given wide circulation. As is shown in this work Herndon's statement was promptly and indignantly denied and was proved to be without the least foundation. But after that had been done it continued to be reproduced in later works and was given wide publicity.

Herndon was a pronounced infidel and in his book states that Lincoln also was an unbeliever. This declaration was

10 PREFACE

confirmed by Lamon, another infidel author of a Lincoln biography, and has been repeated by many careless writers and widely proclaimed by enemies of Christianity and of Lincoln until, in spite of his own strong, unequivocal declarations to the contrary, it is very widely believed to be true. In like manner many other harmful errors have been published and accepted until the true image of Lincoln is quite generally seen through a mask of unfortunate misconceptions.

These conditions should not be permitted to continue. It is due the memory of Lincoln that his image, so admired by the world, should be unmasked and made to appear in public thought in its unmarred purity and beauty. The misleading legendry which has become associated with his name should be cast aside and forgotten, and the truthful history of this greatest product of the new world should be reverently learned in its entirety and faithfully repeated to all the world, and to succeeding generations. To aid in accomplishing this result is the chief purpose of this work.

The charming "Stories about Lincoln" which form a chapter are pleasingly illustrative of his unique and delightful personality. Mr. Lincoln's own stories have been given large space in other publications, but brief accounts of events with which he was connected, such as are here given, have had less publicity. They are, however, bright and lovely gems picked up on vast fields of research and are here given their illuminating historical settings.

The topical arrangement of Mr. Lincoln's declarations of religious beliefs and experiences constitute a feature peculiar to this work. By this grouping of his own statements it is possible to ascertain, with but little effort, the exact truth relative to this very interesting and important matter. The collecting of this material from the large number of books consulted and its arrangement topically has been the most prolonged and tedious feature of the preparation of this work. But it has been a labor of love and of imspeakable delight Ministers, lecturers, lawyers, teachers and writers are busy o

_ -j K A > c pa

PREFACE II

people and only a limited number have access to the thousands of publications in which this material may be found and from which it has been patiently collected and classified, as gold is gathered from a mine and cast into form for convenient use. If this shall prove helpful to my busy, burdened fellow workers I shall feel amply rewarded for my tireless labors to that end.

Special mention is here made of the efficient services of Miss Glenn Will in the diversified lines of labor by which this book has been produced. She has three times crossed the continent and prosecuted extensive research in public and private libraries and in museums and collections of rare Lincolniana. Too much cannot be said in commendation of her labors and achievements.

It is a great pleasure here to acknowledge the valuable assistance of Rev. James M. Campbell, D.D., in the preparation of this volume. Doctor Campbell has attained international fame as the author of many books of great worth, and to his ability and learning the character of this book is in no small measure due.

In a statement as brief as this must be it is not possible to mention all who have aided me in securing data or in the preparation of this work. One mind has been constantly alert and watchful for facts and suggestions concerning Lincoln, and by that assistance from my wife this publication has been made possible. With like constancy, though for a less extended period, our children have added to my resources of literature and art, and thus and otherwise have shared in my labors and achievements.

Hon. Robert T. Lincoln has with characteristic courtesy responded to all my requests for his counsel and assistance, and in interviews and by correspondence, his encouragement and aid have been exceedingly helpful. Persons in charge of public and private libraries, and of collections of Lincolniana have extended every needed courtesy. In prosecuting that research assistance of special value has been received from D. M. Gaudier, D.D., Mrs. W. E. McVey, Rev. George W. Wilson, D.D.,

12 PREFACE

Rev. P. C. L. Harris, Miss Carline Mclllvaine, Howard H. Russell, D.D., LL.D., Miss Laura R. Church and Mr. Douglas Yolk.

Authors and publishers have with uniform cheerfulness granted permission to reproduce as has been requested. For such courtesies special acknowledgment is here made to Mr. Truman H. Bartlett, Century Company, F. C. Iglehart, D.D., Methodist Book Concern, Robert M. Browne, M.D., Mr. Frederick H. Meserve, George P. Putnam's Sons, Miss Ida M. Tarbell, Mrs. jSTellie Blessing Eyster, Mr. J. L. G. Ferris, William J. Johnson, D.D., the Gerlach-Barklow Company, Mrs. Caroline Hanks Hitchcock, Houghton, Mifflin Company, Colonel A. K. McClure, Francis Grierson, Esq., Scribner's Magazine, Everybody's Magazine, Little, Brown & Company, L. C. Page & Company, Mr. John W. Lincoln, Miss Helen Nicolay, Mr. 0. H. Olroyd, Mr. Harry Roseland, General James F. Rusling, Colonel W. O. Stoddard, Doubleday, Page & Company, and Hon. Henry W. Melvin.

From others whose names do not here appear I have received encouragement and aid which I hope ever to remember with appreciation and gratitude. And as I lay aside the pen with which these pages have been written, upon this work believed to have been begun and conducted under the promptings of the Divine Spirit, "I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God."

ERVIN CHAPMAN.

Los Angeles, Califohnia.

CONTENTS Part I

CHAPTER PXQH

I. Lincoln — Fortune's Favorite 17

II. Lincoln's Personal Appearance 43

III. The Jaquess-Gilmore Mission 83

IV. Lincoln and Temperance 141

V. Lincoln and Slavery — Opposed to Slavery 176

VI. Emancipation Considered 193

VII. Emancipation Proclamation 219

VIII. Constitutional Amendment 249

Part II

I. Reminiscences of Lincoln's Second Inaugural. . 277

II. Lincoln's Religious Faith 299

III. Lincoln's Religious Faith — (Continued) 319

IV. Lincoln's Faith in Prayer 364

V. Lincoln's Religious Experience 395

VI. Lincoln and Horace Greeley 441

VII. The Wade-Davis Manifesto 484

VIII. Excerpts from Unpublished Manuscript by Dr.

P. D. GuRLEY 499

Part III

I. Short Stories about Lincoln 511

Index 557

"From the union of the Colonists, Puritans and CavaHers, from the strengthening of their purposes and the crossing of their blood, came he who stands as the first typical American, the first to comprehend within himself all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty and grace of this Republic, Abraham Lincoln. He was the son of Puritan and Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and in the depth of his great soul the faults of both were lost. He was greater than Puritan, greater than Cavalier in that he was American. Let us build with reverent hands to the type of that simple but sublime life in which all types are honored." — Henry W, Grady.

ILLUSTRATIONS

OPPOBITH FAQE

Lincoln in 1856 Title

Ervin Chapman, D.D., LL.D 4

The author while making his one hundred speeches for Lincoki's first

election as President 10

The badge he wore in parades during that campaign 10

The ticket he voted four years later 10

Lincoln's mother's bible 30

Cabin in which Abraham Lincoln was born 32

Early pursuit of knowledge 32

Stephen A. Douglas 34

Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln 36

Tablecloth presented by Mrs. Lincoln 40

Lincohi in 1861 46

Lincoln and detective Pinkerton 50

The greatest among the great 52

Lincoln at Cooper Institute 56

Leonard W. Volk and his busts of Lincoln and Douglas 60

Bust of Lincoln, made by Leonard W. Volk, April, 1860 62

Lincohi in 1848 64

First pictm'e as candidate for President 66

Last picture of President Lincohi 66

Abraham Lincoln in 1860, soon after his nommation 68

Lincoln in 1863, a few days before he delivered the Gettysburg address. . 70

Why people thought Lincoln homely 82

Colonel James F. Jaquess 84

Abraham Lincoln in 1847, pledging Cleopas Breckenridge to total abstinence 150

Howard H. Russell, D.D., LL.D 152

President Lincoln and his Cabinet 228

Facsimile of manuscript by R. M. Devens 230

Lincoln and the contrabands 248

Hon. James M. Ashley of Ohio 258

Memories 274 i6 ILLUSTRATIONS

OPPOSITE

PAGE

President Lincoln during the battle of Gettysburg 276

Chief Justice Salmon Portland Chase 280

Bible on which Lincohi took oath of oflBce 290

Seal of the Supreme Court affixed to the bible on which Lincoln took the

oath of office 1861 292

Discoveries and inventions, being facsimile of first pages of the lecture

supposed to have been lost 303

Father Charles Chiniquy 328

Hon. James F. Wilson of Iowa 346

N. Bateman 350

General Daniel E. Sickles 386

General James F. Rusling 388

General Rusling's certificate 390

Col. W. O. Stoddard 414

President Lincoln and family 426

Horace Greeley 440

Rev. Phineas D. Gurley, D.D., President Lincoln's pastor, and the New

York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C 500

Bouquet of flowers picked and presented by Abraham Lincoln at the

White House 502

Deathbed of Lincoln 504

The Village Blacksmith. This engraving hung in the room where President Lincoln died 506

Facsimile letter written by Lincoln April 6, 1860 510

As seen and loved abroad. A picture woven in silk in Switzerland in

1865 522

Henry Ward Beecher 536

David R. Locke, author of humorous Nasby writings greatly enjoyed by

President Lincoln 540

VOLUME I nessed by his youngest son, a lad of but six years of age, who was with his father at the time. Two older sons, who had accompanied their father to his work, witnessed the tragedy from a distance, and knowing that the attack indicated that other savages were lurking in the vicinity, fled, one to the nearby cabin for his rifle, and the other to the settlement for help. But the boy kept his faithful vigil close beside his father's lifeless form.

The Indian, as he approached his victim, saw the lad; and as he stooped to bear him as a trophy to his fellow savages, a well-aimed bullet from the cabin terminated his life. The boy thus rescued was Thomas Lincoln who became the father of Abraham Lincoln, the honored ruler and saviour of the nation.

Under the old English law of primogeniture, which was then in force in Kentucky, the large estate of Thomas Lincoln's father was inherited by the eldest son; and Thomas became dependent upon his widowed mother who was unable to contribute adequately to his needs. Little is known of his life until he became a man and found employment at day labor in a Kentucky frontier settlement.

A typical frontiersman was Thomas Lincoln, of stalwart form, and of fine qualities of heart and mind; as brave and fearless as had been his father ; and as amiable and gentle as was his mother. He was tall and of great width of shoulders, with neck, chest and limbs fitted to grapple with the heavy tasks of the timbered wilderness, and subdue it into beauty and productiveness.

By common consent he became the arbiter of difficulties among his neighbors, for he was ever wise and fair in his judgments and fearless and effective in maintaining the verdicts he so frequently was called upon to render. These qualities were in Thomas Lincoln united with a childlike piety and humble trust in God. He was not learned in scholarship or books, but he was well and widely educated in the lessons of early pioneer experience and in Christian faith and life.

Judge H. C. Whitney tells us that, "William G. Greene, who spent one day with Thomas Lincoln and felt interested to make a study of him, avers that he was a man of great native reasoning powers and fine social magnetism, reminding him of his illustrious son. He describes him as 'very stoutly built, about five feet ten inches high, and weighing nearly two hundred pounds.' His desire was to be on terms of amity and sociability with every one."^

William Eleroy Curtis has this to say of him: "He must have had good stuff in him, for when he was twenty-five years old he had saved enough from his wages to buy a farm .in Hardin county. Local tradition represents him to have been 'an easy going man, slow to anger, but when aroused a formidable adversary.' ""

Mrs. Caroline Hanks Hitchcock says : "He had been forced from his boyhood to shift for himself in a young and undeveloped country. He is known to have been a man who in spite of this wandering life contracted no bad habits. He was temperate and honest, and his name is recorded in more than one place in the records of Kentucky. He was a churchgoer, and if tradition may be believed, a stout defender of his peculiar rehgious views. He held advanced ideas of what was already an important public question in Kentucky, the right to hold Negroes as slaves. One of his old friends has said of him that he was 'just steeped full of notions about the wrongs of slavery and the rights of men, as explained by Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine.' These facts show that he must have been a man of some natural intellectual attainment.

"Considering the disadvantages under which he labored, he had a very good start in life when he became engaged to Nancy Hanks'. He had a trade and owned a farm which he had bought in 1803 in Buffalo, and also owned land in Elizabethtown. If all the conditions of his life be taken into con-

1 Lincoln the Citizen, pp. 6-10.

2 The True Abraham Lincoln, p. 18.

sideration, it is not true, as has been said, that Thomas Lincoln was at this time a shiftless and purposeless man."^

Indeed in every needed quality Thomas Lincoln was fitted to become the father of the one who, in his day, was both the Moses and the Joshua to deliver an enslaved race from the house of bondage, and to lead them into the land of promise. No excesses of his own, or of his ancestors, mingled weakening poison in the blood which flowed throughout his stalwart frame. He possessed qualities of body and mind that constitute the richest heritage which any man can give to posterity.

And that those noble qualities might, with certainty, be inherited by his offspring, it was provided that when Thomas Lincoln stood at the hymeneal altar, Nancy Hanks should stand beside him, and then and there plight with him her solemn marriage troth. She was his superior in every high quality. In charm of personality, exuberance of spirits, and deep religious experience she was unequalled in all that 'frontier region. She was of worthy and distinguished ancestry, extending back through brave and brawny pioneers to the famous early heroes of Virginia.