Lincoln's Other White House

Elizabeth Smith Brownstein

Description

The Lincolns spent the summer of 1862 north of the White House at the Soldiers’ Home. The lush, cool hill overlooking the squalid capital promised the Lincolns an escape from the "city of stink." Despite fears about Lincoln’s vulnerability in the secluded place, Lincoln spent a quarter of his presidency at the Soldiers’ Home. But until the National Trust for Historic Preservation began restoring the cottage, little had been done to explore this missing link in Lincoln’s life. Elizabeth Smith Brownstein fills in a critical gap. Using diaries, letters, and eyewitness accounts, she provides unusual perspectives on Lincoln’s relationships, traces the evolution of Lincoln’s image, examines the Lincoln marriage, and more. Lincoln’s Other White House is a vivid evocation of a turbulent era, and an intimate portrait of the still elusive president.

Sujets

• Heads of State
• Presidents
• Lettres et linguistique
• List of Presidents of the United States
• Biography
• American Civil War
• Autobiography
• Abraham Lincoln

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 août 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781620459478
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Lincoln s Other White House
Also by Elizabeth Smith Brownstein
If This House Could Talk: Historic Homes, Extraordinary Americans
Lincoln s Other White House

The Untold Story of the Man and His Presidency
Elizabeth Smith Brownstein
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 2005 by Elizabeth Smith Brownstein. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
Illustration credits: pages 9 , 31 , 35 , 44 , 86 , and 192 , the Library of Congress; pages 14 , 77 , 90 , and 129 , courtesy of the Lincoln Museum, Fort Wayne, Indiana; pages 22 and 97 , the Albert H. Small Collection; page 25 , copyright Applewood Books, Inc. Reproduced by permission of Applewood Books and harpersweekly.com ; page 47 , the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution; page 57 , the Fort Ward Museum; page 62 , the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis; page 67 , the Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana. Photograph by Virginia Williams; page 82 , courtesy of LeRoy A. Fladseth, grandson of Sgt. Smith Stimmel, Union Light Guard; page 99 , courtesy of the Illinois State Historical Library; page 115 , reprinted by permission of the Friends of Jes W. Schlaikjer; page 121 , the Gilder Lehrman Collection, on deposit at the New-York Historical Society (GLC 2572); page 133 , the Smithsonian Institution Archives, record unit 95, box 28, folder 33, neg. no. 2003-19540; page 143 , the Chicago Historical Society; page 155 , the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce; pages 160 , 186 , and 200 , courtesy of Picture History; page 166 , the Foster Hall Collection, Center for American Music, University of Pittsburgh s Library System; page 170 , Ronn Palm s Museum of Civil War Images, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; page 210 , Architect of the Capitol; page 227 , the Alaska State Museum, Juneau (cat. no. II-B-833).
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Brownstein, Elizabeth Smith, date.
Lincoln s other White House : the untold story of the man and his presidency / Elizabeth Brownstein.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 978-0-471-48585-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10 0-471-48585-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865-Homes and haunts-Washington (D.C.). 2. Cottages-Washington (D.C.)-History-19th century. 3. United States Soldiers Home-History-19th century. 4. Washington (D.C.)-History-Civil War, 1861-1865. 5. Washington (D.C.)-Buildings, structures, etc. 6. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865-Family. 7. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865-Friends and associates. 8. United States-Politics and government-1861-1865. 9. Presidents-United States-Biography. I. Title.
E457.64.B76 2005
973.7 092-dc22
2004029638
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my great-grandfather, Patrick Edgar, killed at the Battle of the Wilderness, and to all the brave men and women who have given their lives for our beloved country
C ONTENTS

Foreword

Prologue

PART ONE Lincoln s Long Journey to the Soldiers Home

1 Beginnings

2 The Riggs Villa

3 Washington and the White House

PART TWO Lincoln at the Soldiers Home

4 Embattled Retreat

5 The Lincoln Marriage

6 Lincoln s Achilles Heel

7 Lincoln s Favorite Storytellers

8 Lincoln and Freedom

9 Poems on Slavery

10 Lincoln s Secretary of War

11 Lincoln and the Tools of War

12 Lincoln s Quartermaster General

13 Lincoln as Commander in Chief: The Soldiers

14 The Generals

15 The Political General: Daniel Sickles

16 The Professional General: Joseph Hooker

17 The Political General: Benjamin Butler

18 Lincoln and His Cabinet

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Notes

Additional Sources

Index
F OREWORD
As recently as 2000, Abraham Lincoln s other White House at the Soldiers Home in Washington, D.C., was one of the city s-and the nation s-true hidden treasures, out of sight and largely forgotten by historians and the general public alike. In that year, efforts got under way to rescue the site from obscurity and return it to the spotlight it so richly deserves.
First, the National Trust for Historic Preservation included a cottage there on its 2000 list of America s Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places, noting that the Armed Forces Retirement Home, which owns the property, didn t have the funds to undertake a long-deferred and much-needed restoration. A short time later, President Clinton ensured that the site would be protected under federal law by officially designating it the President Lincoln and Soldiers Home National Monument. Since then, an energetic and effective public/private partnership-involving the Armed Forces Retirement Home, the National Park Service, and an impressive array of preservationists, generous donors, public officials, and historians-has helped the National Trust develop an ambitious plan for converting this important piece of the nation s history into a publicly accessible historic site and premier learning center.
Why so much fuss over a relatively modest building on an out-of-the-way hilltop some distance removed from the capital s monumental core? The answer is simple: this is the most important unknown presidential site in the nation and, at least arguably, the site with the greatest potential to help us explore several aspects of Lincoln and his presidency that have been unknown, misunderstood, or underappreciated until now.
From 1862 to 1864, Lincoln and his family spent several months each year at the Soldiers Home. In other words, the home was Lincoln s residence for almost a quarter of his presidency. It was here that he held important meetings and conferred privately (often late at night) with military leaders, members of Congress, and foreign diplomats-as well as with trusted advisors and friends. It was here that he spent hours brooding over the conduct of the war and agonizing over its impact on the nation. It was here that he refined his doctrine of emancipation.
But the Soldiers Home was more than a busy workplace. It was also a breezy refuge from the din and heat and stench of downtown Washington, and it offered a welcome respite from the never ending stream of visitors and favor seekers who plagued Lincoln at the White House. It was a place where he could read, relax with his family, chat with the soldiers who guarded him, heal from the loss of his beloved Willie, restore his inner peace, and prepare himself for the rigors of another day as leader of a country at war.
This is what makes the Soldiers Home unique-and uniquely important. Most of us are familiar with near iconic tales of Lincoln the gawky young lawyer known for his humor and homespun eloquence, the Illinois politician suddenly thrust onto the national stage, the martyred Father Abraham. But the Soldiers Home offers new and enlightening perspectives on Lincoln the president and the man. Having admired Elizabeth Smith Brownstein s book If This House Could Talk very much, I know she was the perfect person to write this one, bringing together wonderfully, as she always does, the many stories gathered from newly revealed, original sources.
The very survival of the 160-year-old building now known as the Lincoln Cottage is a minor miracle, and its future promises to be as rich as its past. With the fresh information and insights she presents so engagingly in these pages and the help of our many partners and friends, the National Trust will ensure that the Lincolns retreat is a place where everyone-students and teachers, scholars and tourists-can experience a new encounter with, and gain a new appreciation for, the rich heritage that is ours as Americans.
-Richard Moe President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation
P ROLOGUE
The poet Walt Whitman attracted a glittering crowd of celebrities to the last of his famous lectures on the man he most loved-Abraham Lincoln. It was April 14, 1887, the twenty-second anniversary of the president s murder, and the poet himself had just a few more years to live. The steel magnate Andrew Carnegie was in the audience at the gorgeous little Madison Square Theater i