Lucy's Bones, Sacred Stones, & Einstein's Brain

by Harvey Rachlin

  These pages of the Gettysburg Address, known as the Nicolay copy, or first draft, are believed by some scholars to have been the copy that Lincoln read from at Gettysburg.

  As mentioned, the Nicolay copy, which is assumed to have been given to Nicolay by Lincoln, unlike the Hay manuscript, contains fold marks. That it was written before the speech is almost a certainty, just as all the other surviving copies being written after the address is almost a certainty. But is it the reading copy?

  Mearns and Dunlap conclude in Long Remembered that the pages Lincoln held in his hand when delivering his Gettysburg speech are the Nicolay copy. Plausible, perhaps, but there are some problems with that conclusion.

  First, the last line on the first page of Nicolay makes little sense. It reads, “It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedica” (“we here be dedica” is penciled in above the crossed-out phrase “to stand here”; the next page picks up with “ted to the great task remaining before us”). The words do not fit together; it would not be characteristic of Lincoln to deliver a speech from a manuscript with such sloppily edited prose.

  Another important point weighing against the Nicolay copy is that it lacks the words under God. The several contemporary published newspaper accounts of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address include the words under God. How is it that reporters picked up these words, yet they do not appear in the Nicolay or Hay copies?

  It is possible that Lincoln ad-libbed, but that, too, would have been out of character. Rather, it was typical of Lincoln to perfect a speech before delivery. That he did not complete the speech until the morning he gave it would make it more likely that he improvised the phrase, but it would still be improbable, for he clearly took considerable pains in composing the speech.

  Indeed, there are unresolved problems with the conclusion that the Nicolay copy was Lincoln’s reading copy. That it was written before Lincoln went to Gettysburg, or when he was there, is quite probable. Lincoln was still working on his speech at David Wills’s home both the evening before and the morning of his address. The second page of Nicolay has the appearance of being drafted in Wills’s home. It was written in pencil (page 1 is in ink) and is on different paper. It’s almost as if Lincoln lost page 2 and tried to remember what he had written. That supposition can’t be verified, however, and there are arguments against it, but the Nicolay copy should at least be considered contemporary to the event. Perhaps it was one of Lincoln’s last working drafts, or perhaps he read from one or the other of its pages, so at least one page of the reading copy survives. Yet why one and not the other?

  Alternatively, it might be judicious to conclude that the reading copy is lost in its entirety. After the speech some reporters, surprised by its brevity, asked to see the manuscript. It’s possible that Lincoln may have handed it to a journalist and that it was never returned. In the end, of course, all the arguments both for and against the Nicolay copy or a lost copy as the real Gettysburg Address come down to pure speculation.

  There are three explanations for the reading copy: it is the Nicolay copy; it was lost or destroyed sometime after the event; or it lies hidden somewhere. Some of the theories are tantalizing, but the mystery of the Gettysburg Address may never be solved.

  LOCATIONS: Nicolay copy: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C*

  Hay copy: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  Everett copy: Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield, Illinois.

  Bancroft copy: Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

  Bliss copy: The White House, Washington, D.C.

  Footnote

  *The Nicolay copy at the Library of Congress is permanently sealed in a special filtered case with an argon gas environment.

  THE APPOMATTOX SURRENDER TABLES

  DATE: 1865.

  WHAT THEY ARE: Two tables that were part of a momentous event in American history. On one, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant wrote the terms of surrender for the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and signed it. On the other, General Robert E. Lee signed a letter stating he agreed to accept the terms of surrender. These transactions essentially brought an end to the Civil War.

  WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE: Grant sat at a wooden trestle table with an oval top and two spool legs at each side, connected to bases that are joined by another spool. Lee sat at a wooden table with a pedestal base and a square white sculptured marble top.

  A divided nation had long dreamed of this moment. For four difficult years, American society was torn apart by the all-consuming war between North and South. More than half a million lives had already been lost; whole cities had been torched; brothers and sons and fathers were pitted against one another on opposite sides of the firing lines. A sense of hopelessness and futility pervaded the land. As the conflict dragged on, people prayed for the day when it would come to an end.

  On the morning of April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee made a final attempt to break through Union forces that were preventing the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia from moving south. The effort failed and resulted in assaults by Union troops.

  Deeming his situation, and that of the South, hopeless—just five months earlier General William Sherman had burned Atlanta and torn through Georgia—Lee directed Lieutenant General James Longstreet and Major General John Brown Gordon to send out flags of truce across the battle lines, which were about a mile long. (Portions of one flag of truce do exist today. A Captain Robert Mooreman Sims of the Confederate army fastened his white linen towel to his saber and rode into General George Armstrong Custer’s camp. The towel came into the hands of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Whittaker, who shared portions of it with Custer. One portion is now at the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, Appomattox, Virginia; another is at the National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.)

  Union commanders accepted this offer of surrender and set a meeting for that very same day. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant allowed Lee to select the site of the meeting, and that turned out to be the home of Wilmer McLean in Appomattox Court House, a village that held the county seat.

  McLean traded in sugar during the war and was a private resident of Appomattox Court House. He lived there with his wife and five children, and the family owned several slaves. General Lee ordered his military secretary, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Marshall, to ride into Appomattox Court House to select a site for the meeting. In his memoirs Marshall wrote that the first person of property he met was Wilmer McLean. He asked McLean to suggest a site, and McLean pointed out a home. Marshall rejected it because it was unoccupied and poorly furnished. McLean then volunteered his own home.

  The McLean family sitting outside their house in August 1865, where General Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant four months earlier.

  At about 1:00 P.M., General Lee arrived at the three-story redbrick McLean residence, accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Marshall, who entered the house with him, and Private Joshua O. Johns, who remained outside with the horses. Shortly afterward, General Grant and several Union generals and staff officers arrived. They held their meeting in the first-floor parlor room, a typical mid-nineteenth-century middle-class parlor, soon to become known as the “surrender room.” Lee was dressed in a fresh uniform and carried his sword; Grant was wearing a soiled private’s uniform with a lieutenant general’s stars, and he didn’t have his sword.

  There were two tables (some accounts say three) in the parlor. General Lee sat at a marble-topped table placed to the left of a spool-legged oval table, where Grant sat.

  Grant allowed Lee to surrender with dignity. There was no humiliation, not even a demand that Lee turn over his sword. They carried on a discussion in a gentlemanly fashion, as they had in their correspondence to each other over the past few days.

  On April 7 Grant had written to Lee that “the result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance” and asked him to prevent any further bloodshed by surrendering. That night Lee wrote back asking the terms under whi
ch Grant would accept the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, and Grant replied the next day, April 8, with the condition “that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again, against the Government of the United States, until properly exchanged.” Grant was confident Lee would surrender and communicated this in a letter to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

  Lee did surrender—on April 9 he requested in two communications an “interview” to discuss the terms—and now Grant, seated across from Lee, was ready to write out the terms of surrender. Before Grant at his table was a manifold writer, a kind of ledger book in which the user placed carbons between its sheets to make duplicate copies. Using a mother-of-pearl-tipped stylus to write, Grant wrote out the words that would end the Civil War (the letter would be on two pages):

  Appomattox C. H. Va.

  Apl. 9th 1865

  GEN R. E. LEE,

  COMD. G C.S.A.,

  GEN.

  In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th inst. I propose to receive the surrender of the Army of N. Va. on the following terms: towit;

  Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate. One copy to be given to an officer designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate. The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged and each company or regimental commander sign a like parole for the men of their commands.

  The Arms, Artillery and public property to be parked and stacked and turned over to the officer appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side Arms of the officers nor their private horses or baggage. This done each officer and man will be allowed to return to their homes not to be disturbed by United States Authority so long as they observe their parole and the laws in force where they may reside.

  Very respectfully

  U. S. Grant Lt. Gn

  A divided nation is united. This painting shows Union general Ulysses S. Grant sitting on the right at an oval table, on which he wrote the terms of surrender of the Confederate army, and Confederate general Robert E. Lee sitting at the square white marble-topped table with a pedestal base, on which he signed a letter accepting Grant's terms of surrender.

  After writing out the surrender terms, Grant reviewed it quickly with Lieutenant Colonel Ely S. Parker, then handed the letter (manifold copies at Scheide Library, Princeton, New Jersey, and the New York Historical Society, New York City) over to Lee to review and discuss. Lee read it and acknowledged the terms were generous and “would have a very happy effect upon my army,” and requested some minor changes, which he made in pencil (the letter above contains Lee’s changes). After some other discussion, Grant told Lieutenant Colonel T. S. Bowers, a senior adjutant, to write the letter over in ink so the military surrender could be formalized, but Bowers was too nervous and gave the job over to Colonel Parker. The Union officers had not brought ink with them, and General Lee’s secretary, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Marshall, offered his inkwell. After writing out a copy at the oval table, Parker handed the letter over to Grant, who signed the document (Marshall retained the ink copy of the letter, and his descendants passed it on October 12, 1955, to Robert E. Lee’s birthplace, Stratford Hall in Stratford, Virginia). At the marble-topped table Lee signed in ink a letter to Grant dated April 9, prepared by his military secretary, Colonel Marshall: “I received your letter of this date containing the terms of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia as proposed by you. As they are substantially the same as those expressed in your letter of the 8th inst., they are accepted. I will proceed to designate the proper officers to carry the stipulations into effect.” Although some Confederate armies would continue fighting and the last would not surrender until June 23, the War Between the States had essentially been ended.

  Lee, who spoke little during the meeting, left McLean’s house in mid afternoon, followed by Grant. Lee returned to the Confederate camp and told his troops to go home and “become as good citizens as you were soldiers.” News of Lee’s signing of the surrender agreement was greeted with frenzied cheers by the Union soldiers. They began to celebrate but were immediately ordered to halt by General Grant, who felt the defeat of the opposing army, brethren in nationality, needn’t be celebrated.

  The momentousness of the parley did not go unappreciated by its eyewitnesses, who yearned for some trophy of the room for posterity. Even McLean recognized that the furnishings of his surrender room were no longer ordinary objects but wonderful historical mementos, and by some accounts he was not inclined to give them up. Before we concern ourselves with the oval and marble-topped tables, perhaps the two most prized pieces of the room, let’s consider the disposition of the other parlor furnishings that were removed from McLean’s house the day of the surrender and which have survived. There are four such items: The cane-back chair in which General Lee sat was obtained by Charles Whittaker, the chief of staff on General Custer’s command. The swivel chair on which General Grant sat—it tilted back, had wooden arms and a black horsehair back—was obtained by General Henry Capehart, a brigadier general in General Custer’s cavalry division. Both chairs are now at the National Museum of American History.

  On the marble-topped table where Lee signed the letter was a pair of candlesticks. These were obtained by Brigadier General George Sharpe, the assistant provost marshal of the military police for the federal army. Sharpe purchased them from McLean for ten dollars, and they were eventually donated by Sharpe’s children to the Senate House Museum, Kingston, New York. There was also a small rag doll in the parlor that belonged to eight-year-old Lucretia McLean. Later dubbed “the silent witness,” the rag doll was obtained by Captain Robert Moore, who was on General Philip Sheridan’s staff. The doll was donated to the Appomattox Court House National Historic Park on December 17, 1992.

  The only other McLean parlor furnishings from the surrender day known to exist are a secretary-bookcase, which in 1904 was donated to the National Museum of American History by Caroline P. Stokes, who purchased it from Wilmer McLean’s daughter, Mrs. Nannie Spilman, and two vases that were on the mantle and a sofa, which are all at the Appomattox Court House National Historic Park. Now back to the prized pieces of the room, the surrender tables.

  The spool-legged oval table on which Grant wrote the terms of surrender went to Major General Philip H. Sheridan. One story behind this transaction is that when McLean refused the twenty-dollar gold piece Sheridan offered him for it, Sheridan dropped the money and left, later sending a squad of troops to collect the table. There is also a published account of 1866 that says Custer was seen riding off from the Appomattox surrender with the table over his shoulder.

  Whichever account is true, the oval table did become the property of General Custer. The Sheridan account holds that Sheridan, who revered Custer and considered him an important factor in the Union’s victory, gave the table to Custer on the day of surrender as a present for his wife, Elizabeth. Indeed, the following day Sheridan wrote a letter to Mrs. Custer stating he had given the table to her husband. Years after General Custer’s death at the Little Bighorn River, Elizabeth Bacon Custer went to Paris to teach art and left most of her possessions in storage in the United States. In May 1912 she loaned the oval table to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and in 1936 bequeathed it to the museum along with some other relics of American history, including a portion of Captain Sims’s white linen towel, his flag of truce.

  General Edward O. C. Ord of the Union army, who had received Lee’s white “flag” (one of several white “flags”) earlier that day, wanted the marble-topped table on which Lee signed the letter stating he agreed to accept the terms of surrender. By one account, McLean did not want to give it up, and Ord just seized it. In a more credible account, McLean accepted forty dollars from Ord for the table. (Since McLean didn’t leave any writing of the events that took place in his parlor on the day of surrender, one ha
s to weigh the different accounts with the reliability of those who rendered them.)

  Ord’s marble-topped table stayed in his family, first at the Confederate White House at Richmond where the Ords resided following the war, and then in San Diego, where they later moved. After Ord’s death his widow was in desperate financial straits, and she thought selling the Lee table might alleviate her situation.

  In 1887 Mary Ord corresponded with the prosperous Chicago candy maker and Americana collector Charles Frederick Gunther, for the purpose of selling the table. One of her sixteen children, a daughter, was ill, and Mrs. Ord needed money. Gunther requested proof of the authenticity of the table, and in a letter dated January 12, 1887, Mrs. Ord stated that General Grant’s letter identifying the table was left with her papers at Fort Monroe in Virginia, and “there is no one there I could call upon to look through them in order to get it.” She said she would have General Grant’s widow, Julia, testify in a letter that hers was the actual table, and that if Gunther purchased the table, she would on her return to Fort Monroe find the letter and turn it over to him. “In the meantime,” wrote Mrs. Ord, “I am in great need of money. If you could conclude the bargain at once, and send me the thousand dollars by any safe way, you would greatly oblige.”

  Julia Grant, at Mrs. Ord’s request, confirmed the authenticity of the table. In a letter dated January 26, 1887, Julia Grant wrote “this is to certify that Mrs. General Ord is the possessor of the table which General E. O. C. Ord presented to me in 1865 as the identical one General Grant used to write and sign the articles of the Appomatox [sic] surrender upon.” Mrs. Grant actually had the surrender tables confused, incorrectly identifying the Lee table as the Grant table. In March 1887 Mrs. Ord agreed to accept Gunther’s offer of one thousand dollars for the table (she had wanted three thousand dollars for it) and asked if he would remit to her a first installment of four hundred dollars. The table was shipped from California to Chicago in three boxes; its condition was so poor (the marble slab was broken) that it could not be sent fully assembled.