Lincoln

by David Herbert Donald

  “THE LAST OFFER OF RECONCILIATION” This 1865 lithograph, by Kimmel & Forster, imagines a scene in which Lincoln, backed by Seward, Stanton, Grant, and other Union officers, stretches out the hand of friendship to Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. The goddess of Liberty looks on approvingly, while an African-American rejoices in his new freedom. Though the scene is entirely fictitious, it captures the generous spirit that animated Lincoln’s Reconstruction policies.

  Collection of Jack Smith, South Bend, Indiana

  Sources and Notes

  The basic source for any biography of Abraham Lincoln is his own writings. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler and others, is authoritative; eight volumes were published in 1953 by the Rutgers University Press, an Index volume followed in 1955, and two small supplements were issued in 1974 and 1990. I evaluated the technical merits of this edition in the American Historical Review 59 (October 1953): 142–149. Almost equally important are the largely unpublished Abraham Lincoln Papers in the Library of Congress, which contain Lincoln’s incoming correspondence together with drafts and copies of many of his own letters and messages. Fortunately these are available on microfilm in ninety-seven reels. A rich sampling of these papers up to July 1861 appears in David C. Mearns, ed., The Lincoln Papers (2 vols.; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1948). Harold Holzer, ed., Dear Mr. Lincoln: Letters to the President (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1993), includes many other letters, mostly from the same collection. Rivaling the Lincoln Papers in importance is the Herndon-Weik Collection, also in the Library of Congress, which contains thousands of pages of legal documents, interviews, and letters collected by Herndon for his Lincoln biography. These papers are also available on microfilm, in fifteen reels. Selections from these papers, sometimes inaccurately edited, appeared in Emanuel Hertz, ed., The Hidden Lincoln: From the Letters and Papers of William H. Herndon (New York: Viking Press, 1938).

  An enormous amount has been published about Lincoln. Jay Monaghan’s Lincoln Bibliography, 1839–1939 (2 vols.; Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1943), lists 3,958 books and pamphlets, and thousands more have appeared since. Paul M. Angle, A Shelf of Lincoln Books: A Critical Selective Bibliography of Lincolniana (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1946), is a judicious evaluation of this literature. Monaghan’s bibliography does not include articles in magazines, some of which can be located through Richard Booker, Abraham Lincoln in Periodical Literature, 1860–1940 (Chicago: Fawley-Brost Co., 1941).

  The Lincoln Kinsman (54 numbers, 1938–1942) was devoted to Lincoln’s genealogy and relatives. Beginning with April 15,1929, Lincoln Lore, a publication of the Lincoln National Life Insurance Co., Fort Wayne, Indiana, has offered thousands of valuable short articles. The Lincoln Herald, published quarterly by Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, Tennessee, carries more extensive essays. The Abraham Lincoln Quarterly, published by the Abraham Lincoln Association in Springfield between 1940 and 1952, included some of the best scholarship, and since 1979 its tradition has been upheld in Papers of the Abraham Lincoln Association (after 1988 called Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association).

  Lincoln Day by Day: A Chronology, 1809–1865, edited by Earl S. Miers and others (3 vols.; Washington, D.C.: Lincoln Sesquicentennial Commission, 1960), is an indispensable guide. So is The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, by Mark E. Neely, Jr. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982). Archer H. Shaw, ed., The Lincoln Encyclopedia (New York: Macmillan Co., 1950), is also useful.

  Of the many biographies Abraham Lincoln: A History (10 vols.; New York: Century Co., 1890), by John G. Nicolay and John Hay, is the most complete. Herndon’s Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life (3 vols.; Chicago: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1889), by William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, is revealing on Lincoln’s early years. Albert J. Beveridge’s Abraham Lincoln, 1809–1858 (2 vols.; Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1928), offers the fullest account of Lincoln’s career in Illinois politics. Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (2 vols.; New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1926) and Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (4 vols.; New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1939) together form the most imaginative and humanly flavorful of all the biographies. The most scholarly large-scale biography remains J. G. Randall, Lincoln the President (4 vols.; New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1945–1955), the last volume of which was ably completed by Richard N. Current.

  Two important recent studies which—correctly, in my opinion—emphasize the war years are Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), and Phillip S. Paludan, The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994).

  Of the many one-volume lives the best are Benjamin P. Thomas, Abraham Lincoln: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952); Reinhard H. Luthin, The Real Abraham Lincoln (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1960); and Stephen B. Oates, With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Harper & Row, 1977). Because I wanted, so far as possible, to write a biography from the original sources, I have not read or consulted these distinguished works in the preparation of the present volume. I cannot say, however, that I have not been influenced by them, for I used these books in my classes for many years and there are doubtless unconscious echoes of them in this biography.

  Charles Hamilton and Lloyd Ostendorf, Lincoln in Photographs: An Album of Every Known Pose (Dayton, Ohio: Morningside, 1985), is authoritative. James Mellon, The Face of Lincoln (New York: Viking Press, 1979), offers superb reproductions of the best of these photographs. Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), by Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., et al., is a fascinating photographic history.

  On Lincoln historiography readers should consult Benjamin P. Thomas, Portrait for Posterity: Lincoln and His Biographers (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1947), and Merrill D. Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), which is especially valuable.

  It has been difficult to know how to annotate this book. Almost every aspect of Lincoln’s life has been the object of much study; most subjects are treated not merely in the biographies and the general histories of the period but in specialized monographs. If I were to cite all the books and articles consulted in the preparation of this biography, I would have a book at least twice as long as the present one. My solution of the problem has been to offer for each chapter a brief discussion of the principal sources I found most useful. I hope these paragraphs may serve as guides to further reading.

  The actual notes are largely confined to giving sources for quotations and facts included in the text. I have not thought it my task to use these notes to correct errors that I think previous biographers have made or, except in a few absolutely necessary cases, to enter into historiographical discussions. This is a book about Lincoln—not a book about the literature about Lincoln.

  I have tried to quote my sources as accurately as I could. In particular, I have given Lincoln’s words exactly as he wrote them and have not thought it necessary to interject [sic] in order to point out his infrequent errors in spelling or grammar. In the interest of readability I have throughout transcribed “&” as “and.” I have also taken the liberty of omitting initial and final ellipses. Thus, had I decided to use a phrase from Lincoln’s July 20, 1860, letter to Cassius M. Clay, I would not give it as “... at Rockport you will be in the county within which I was brought up ...,” but as “At Rockport you will be in the county within which I was brought up.” I believe that this usage does not distort the meaning but makes it easier for a reader to follow the story. (Ellipses have been scrupulously employed to signify that words within a passage have been omitted.)

  ABBREVIATIONS AND SHORT TITLES EMPLOYED IN NOTES

  AL—Abraham Lincoln

  ALQ—Abraham Lincoln Quarterly

  Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln—Jean Harvey Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1
987)

  Bates, Diary—Howard K. Beale, ed., Diary of Edward Bates, 1859–1866 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1933)

  Beveridge—Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1809–1858 (2 vols.; Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1928)

  Browning, Diary—Theodore C. Pease and James G. Randall, eds., The Diary of Orville Hickman Browning (2 vols.; Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1925–1933)

  Carpenter, Six Months—Francis B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln (New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1866)

  Chase, Diary—David Herbert Donald, ed., Inside Lincoln’s Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries of Salmon P. Chase (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1954)

  Chase MSS—All citations are to the microfilm edition issued by the Library of Congress, which includes Chase letters from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Library of Congress, and other sources.

  CW—Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler

  Day by Day—Earl Schenk Miers, ed., Lincoln Day by Day (3 vols.; Washington, D.C.: Lincoln Sesquicentennial Commission, 1960)

  Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon—David Herbert Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948)

  Donald, Sumner—David Herbert Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970)

  Duff, A Lincoln—John J. Duff, A. Lincoln: Prairie Lawyer (New York: Rinehart & Co., Inc., 1960)

  Hay, Diary—Tyler Dennett, ed., Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1939)

  HEH—Huntington Library, San Marino, California

  Herndon’s Lincoln—William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, Herndon’s Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life (3 vols.; Chicago: Belford-Clarke, 1890). Throughout I have cited this edition, which appears to be identical to the first edition, published in 1889.

  Hidden Lincoln—Emanuel Hertz, ed., The Hidden Lincoln: From the Letters and Papers of William H. Herndon (New York: Viking Press, 1928)

  HWC—Herndon-Weik Collection, Library of Congress

  ISHL—Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield

  JISHS—Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

  Journal—Springfield Illinois State Journal

  LC—Library of Congress

  LH—Lincoln Herald

  Lincoln MSS, LC—The Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress

  LL—Lincoln Lore

  McClellan, Civil War Papers—Stephen W. Sears, ed., The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1989)

  Nicolay and Hay—John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History (10 vols.; New York: Century Co., 1890)

  Pratt, Personal Finances—Harry E. Pratt, The Personal Finances of Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, Ill.: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1943)

  Randall, Lincoln the President—J. G. Randall, Lincoln the President (4 vols.; New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1945–1955). The final volume, Last Full Measure, was completed by Richard N. Current.

  Randall, Mary Lincoln—Ruth Painter Randall, Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1953)

  Register—Springfield Illinois State Register

  Sandburg—Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (4 vols.; New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1939)

  Segal, Conversations—Charles M. Segal, ed., Conversations with Lincoln (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1961)

  Strong, Diary—Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas, eds., The Diary of George Templeton Strong: The Civil War, 1860–1865 (New York: Macmillan Co., 1952)

  Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln—Justin G. Turner and Linda Levitt Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972)

  UR—University of Rochester

  Welles, Diary—Howard K. Beale and Alan W. Brownsword, eds., Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson (3 vols.; New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1960)

  WHH—William H. Herndon

  Zornow—William F. Zornow, Lincoln and the Party Divided (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954)

  CHAPTER ONE: ANNALS OF THE POOR

  The basic source for Abraham Lincoln’s early years is the collection of letters and statements that his law partner, William H. Herndon, made shortly after the President’s death. The originals of these documents are in the Herndon-Weik Collection in the Library of Congress, and there are copies in the Ward Hill Lamon MSS in the Huntington Library. Emanuel Hertz published an extensive sampling of these papers in The Hidden Lincoln: From the Letters and Papers of William H. Herndon (New York: Viking Press, 1938), but the transcriptions are not very reliable.

  Drawing heavily on the Herndon materials, Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1809–1858 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1928), is the most richly detailed account of Lincoln’s early years, but it is marred by the author’s much too negative view of the Hanks family and his low opinion of Thomas Lincoln. Louis A. Warren offers a valuable corrective in Lincoln’s Parentage and Childhood (New York: Century Co., 1926) and Lincoln’s Youth: Indiana Years, Seven to Twenty-One, 1816–1830 (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1959). Ida M. Tarbell, In the Footsteps of the Lincolns (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1924), presents much information in a charming fashion. Charles B. Strozier, Lincoln’s Quest for Union: Public and Private Meanings (New York: Basic Books, 1982), is an intelligent and persuasive interpretation of Lincoln’s early years from a psychoanalytical perspective.

  19 in his ancestry: He did answer a number of inquiries about his Lincoln ancestors, saying that he knew only about members of his father’s and his grandfather’s generations. CW, 1:455–456, 459–460, 461–462; 2:217–218; 4:37, 117.

  19 “I should say”: CW, 3:511.

  19 “make of it”: John L. Scripps to WHH, June 24, 1865, HWC.

  19 during the 1780s: Adin Baber, Nancy Hanks of Undistinguished Families (Kansas, Ill., privately published, 1960), p. 40.

  20 power of analysis: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:3–4. Lincoln cautioned Herndon not to mention this conversation while he was alive. So far as I know, Herndon first revealed it in a letter to the bibliographer Charles Henry Hart, dated Dec. 28, 1866. Hart MSS, HEH. Thereafter, he told it many times, with a number of variations. For instance, in letters to Ward H. Lamon (Feb. 24, 1869, and Mar. 6, 1870, Lamon MSS, HEH), he declared that Lincoln said that “a Virginia nabob” or “nobleman” took advantage of his “poor and credulous” grandmother.

  20 out of wedlock: There used to be much controversy about the legitimacy of Nancy Hanks. William E. Barton, The Lineage of Lincoln (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1929), accepted Herndon’s story. Warren, Lincoln’s Parentage and Childhood, vigorously rejected it. The argument has now died down, and most—but not all—scholars believe she was illegitimate.

  20 charge of fornication: For an explanation of this charge, and a defense of Lincoln’s grandmother, see James A. Peterson, In re Lucey Hanks (Yorkville, Ill., privately published, 1973), chap. 5.

  20 Lincoln’s maternal grandsire. See two careful explorations by Paul H. Verduin: “New Evidence Suggests Lincoln’s Mother Born in Richmond County, Virginia, Giving Credibility to Planter Grandfather Legend,” Northern Neck of Virginia Historical Magazine 38 (Dec. 1988): 4354–4589, and “Lincoln’s Tidewater Virginia Heritage: The Hidden Legacy of Nancy Hanks Lincoln” (unpublished address to the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia, Oct. 17, 1989).

  20 “of that people”: CW, 4:60–61.

  20 “and absolute darkness”: W. D. Howells, Life of Abraham Lincoln (facsimile ed.; Springfield, Ill.: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1938), p. 18. Howells’s biography carries unusual authority because Lincoln, at the request of a friend, read it and corrected what errors he found in the margins.

  21 of public service: This account of the Lincoln family relies heavily on Thomas L. Purvis, “The Making of a Myth: Abraham Lincoln’s Family Background in the Perspective of Jacksonian Politics,” JISHS 75 (S
ummer 1982): 148–160, an important interpretation. Ida Tarbell, In the Footsteps of the Lincolns, offers excellent sketches of these early Lincolns. Those interested in the more technical aspects of Lincoln genealogy should consult J. Henry Lea and J. R. Hutchinson, The Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909); Marion Dexter Learned, Abraham Lincoln: An American Migration (Philadelphia: William J. Campbell, 1909); and Waldo Lincoln, History of the Lincoln Family (reprint ed.; Boston: Goodspeed’s Book Shop, 1981).

  21 “mind and memory”: CW, 2:217.

  21 “of the family”: Francis F. Browne, The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln (Chicago: Browne & Howell Co., 1913), 1:4. See also “Uncle Mordecai Lincoln: Only Lincoln Relative with Whom the President Was Familiar,” Lincoln Kinsman, no. 12 (June 1939).

  22 a difficult time: My account of Thomas Lincoln and his property holding derives principally from Warren, Lincoln’s Parentage and Childhood.

  22 “and good natured”: Samuel Haycraft to WHH, Aug. 1, 1865 [?], HWC.

  22 “the creek bottoms”: E. R. Barbee to William H. Herndon, May 25, 1866, Lamon MSS, HEH.