Books
DEAR ABE
Excerpts from The Lincoln Mailbag:
America Writes to the President, 1861-1865
Edited by Harold Holzer Published by Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, 1998
From time immemorial, newly elected officials have faced requests from favor-seekers. No sooner do politicians settle into office, it seems, than the public comes calling. Citizens want the trappings of celebrity in the form of photographs or autographs. And they want the benefits that flow from power, be it endorsements for causes or commitments of time. And, most especially, they want jobs.
That was no less true for Abraham Lincoln. But knowing that somehow makes him seem more human, more in scale than the outsized image we have of our Civil War president from Illinois. Indeed, Harold Holzer's latest collection of letters — with the original grammar and punctuation — helps put this state's, perhaps the nation's, most exalted politician into perspective.
Lincoln got plenty of letters from Illinoisans. In early 1861, Joseph Peters of Danville sought a post out West. "My Dear old Friend," he began. "I have not had the pleasure of seeing you since your nomination to the position you now so Honorably Fill; I have Been Rather unfortunate in my attempts to see you." Apparently, Peters had taken sick February 11, the day President-elect Lincoln stopped in Danville to give a brief speech before heading on to Washington, D.C.
After assuring the new president that he has always been "an uncompromising Lincoln man & undoubtedly will Remain so," Peters got to the point. "I have Some Desire to Emigrate west and I therefore ask of you to give me an associate Judge Ship in one of the Territories in which a Territorial Government has Been Recently Established."
Then, just in case Lincoln's memory needed jogging: "you are acquainted with me & have Been for Twenty years & have Been a citizen of Illinois for Twentyfive years and if in your kindness & goodfeeling to me you can give me Such an appointment it will help me very much & will be greatfully Received & you Shall never have any cause of Regret so far as I am concerned."
Holzer, who credits William W. Layton of Washington, D.C., for bringing the letter to his attention, notes there is no record of a reply — or of an appointment for Peters.
Of course, Lincoln couldn't satisfy every job-seeker, even if he restricted himself to "Dear old Friends" from back home. But William G. Flood was likely one lucky Illinoisan who secured patronage — and all the more surprising because he was a Democrat. Flood wrote to Lincoln in the fall of 1861, asking to be appointed Pay Master in the Army. His letter is part of the collection at the Illinois State Historical Library. "I feel competent to perform the duties of that office entirely to your satisfaction and will be much gratified to receive the appointment," Flood wrote. "But if there should be obstacles in the way I shall feel grateful for whatever."
According to Holzer, Flood was a longtime supporter of Lincoln rival Stephen A. Douglas. But, he writes, "Lincoln evidently had a soft spot for Flood." A day after getting the letter, he endorsed it to Secretary of War Simon Cameron. "The writer," argues the note over Lincoln's signature, "is a good Unionman though not a Republican. He was with me in the Ills. Legislature more than 25 years ago. he is a reliable man, and if there were a place for him he would fill it well." Holzer notes that no record of Flood's appointment has been found, "but there's no reason to believe that he was not awarded a job of some kind."
In fact, paymaster appears to have been a popular request. But at least one writer had eclectic interests. In October 1861, B.J.F. Hanna of Alton sent the new Republican president "A List of Offices Any One of which I shall be very glad to accept."
His options were as follows:
1.— Secretary of the Territory of Nebraska.
2. — Consulship of Glasgow, Scotland
3. — Congressional Librarian.
4. — Indian Agency at Omaha, Nebraska
5. — Commissioner of Public Buildings, Washington
6. — Assistant Congressional
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Librarian
7. — Captain of the Capitol Police
8. — Any $2,000 a year Consulship in Scotland, England, or Ireland.
9. — A Clerkship in Washington — 3rd or 4th Class preferred"
"Among the innumerable requests for jobs Lincoln received in the early months of his administration," Holzer adds, "few were as thorough as this list of ever-declining expectations from a citizen of his home state. There is no record of a reply."
Jobs weren't the only favors writers wanted from Lincoln. They requested his autograph, a profile appropriate to put on a medal and snips of his hair. And they sought to enlist him in their causes. Some of them personal, and highly creative.
In January 1864, Geo. W. Walter wrote:
"I propose giving a concert in yr city about
Easter for my own benefit having never
asked the Public aid before during my life,
& shall feel most proud & happy that you
would permit the use of yr honored name,
& that of yr. most estimable wife, as consenting to be present by invitation."
By way of further encouragement: "I intend offering to my Washington Friends, a combination of talent, such as has not been heard before in yr city."
There's no evidence Lincoln went or answered the letter. But Walter's wasn't the only request of a commercial nature. In fact, 20th century readers might be amused to know that even Lincoln got junk mail. One Boston publisher sent the president a copy of a prospectus for a book on French history, offering to add his name to the subscriber list. The note recommends that he simply "clip off the lower part of the last page with your signature, if you kindly accede to our solicitation, — & mail it to us."
Letters also sought Lincoln's endorsement for social causes. Two Chicago groups hoped to get the support of the president from Illinois, one apparently without success.
In May 1861, Frederic Hudson and George Charles Betts wrote that they were about to form "a Band of Hope & Union, an organization for the enrolment of the young under the standard of Total Abstinence, to teach them the outside of the public house is the best side and knowing your principles and the potency of a great and good name, we earnestly and respectfully solicit yours, as the Patron of our Temperance Union." There's no record of a reply. While interested in the temperance movement, Lincoln was not obsessed with it.
But one other request from the Midwest did get results, after some persistence. Mrs. D. P. Livermore succeeded in getting Lincoln's help in October 1863 on behalf of the Chicago Sanitary Commission, a branch of the U.S. Sanitary Commission. She proposed that Lincoln donate an item for sale at a fair sponsored by "the patriotic women of the Northwestern States" to benefit sick and wounded soldiers. They "confidently hope," she wrote, "to realize from $25,000 to $50,000."
"The greatest enthusiasm prevails in reference to this Fair, which is now only two weeks distant. There are very few towns in Northern Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa that are not laboring for it. Artists are painting pictures for it, manufacturers are making elegant specimens of their handiwork for the occasion, tradesmen are donating the choicest of their wares, while women are surpassing their ordinary ingenuity and taste in devising beautiful articles for sale, or decorations for the walls of the four spacious halls we are to occupy.
"The Executive Committee have been urgently requested to solicit from Mrs. Lincoln and yourself some donation to this great Fair — not so much for the value of the gift, as for the eclat which this circumstance would give to the Fair. It has been suggested to us from various quarters that the most acceptable donation you could possibly make, would be the original manuscript of the proclamation of emancipation. and I have been instructed to ask for this, if it is at all consistent with what is proper, for you to donate. There would be a great competition among buyers to obtain possession of it, and to say nothing of the interest that would attach to such a gift, it would prove pecuniarily [sic] of great value. We should take pains to have such an arrangement made as would place the document permanently in either the State or the Chicago Historical Society.
"There would seem great appropriateness
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in this gift to Chicago or Illinois, for the benefit of our Western Soldiers, coming as it would from a Western President. We hope it may be possible for you to donate it to us.
"But if it be not possible, then allow us to ask for some other simple gift, from Mrs. Lincoln and yourself — sufficient to show that you are cognizant of our efforts and are interested in them."
Because Lincoln did not reply immediately, the fair organizers enlisted the aid of U.S. Rep. Isaac N. Arnold of Chicago. Arnold sent a telegraph urging Lincoln to send the Proclamation. And on the eve of the fair, Lincoln sent a reply to the "Ladies having in charge of the North Western Fair" that reveals something of himself, and of the federal bureaucracy.
"According to the request made in your behalf, the original draft of the Emancipation proclamation is herewith enclosed. The formal words at the top, and the conclusion, except the signature, you perceive, are not in my hand-writing. They were written at the State Department by whom I know not.The printed part was cut from a copy of the preliminary proclamation, and pasted on merely to save writing.
"I had some desire to retain the paper; but if it shall contribute to the relief or comfort of the soldiers that will be better."
He signed, "Your obt. Servt. A. Lincoln."
Holzer notes that the Proclamation was sold at the fair for $3,000, earning Lincoln a gold watch for being the largest contributor. The document was deposited in the Chicago Historical Society, as promised. But it, along with Lincoln's cover letter, were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1871.
The Ladies of the Chicago Sanitary Commission had sufficient cause, and clout, to get the attention of a president distracted by the details of a nation in turmoil. Thousands of others did not. And for good reason. No one, according, to Holzer, knows how many letters Lincoln received. Estimates range from 250 to 500 pieces a day. But even if he has nothing else to do, no public official can respond to every letter from the public.
Over the course of his presidency, Lincoln entrusted three aides with responsibility for his mail. These aides determined which letters Lincoln would see and which would be filed away. One was the young Illinois journalist William Osborne Stoddard, who in 1866 penned a story about his experiences for a New York newspaper. "As a general thing," he wrote, "during the war, we believed that so soon as a man went clean crazy his first absolutely insane act was to open a correspondence, on his side, with the President."
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