Review: Interesting Insights to the Lincoln Legend
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 1, 2014
This book filled a lot of gaps in the Lincoln story.  It consists of a series of anecdotes remembered by contemporaries of Abe Lincoln.  Many are humorous  stories or jokes that he liked to tell and many are reiterated by more than one person.  Some are sayings lifted out of speeches that he made, especially that occurred during the Lincoln/Douglas debates.  These stories are more or less placed in chronological order from Abe's boyhood days through his whole life experience and end the evening of his assassination as he prepared to go to the Ford Theater.  These saying as remembered as coming from the very mouth of the to be 16th President prove that his was a life-long aversion to slavery in all of its forms.  I have read opinions that his interest was in the preservation of the Union more than the end of slavery, but I think these quotes from Lincoln's own mouth show his horror and outrage against slavery from his early manhood, not to minimize his desire to preserve the Union.Another area is Lincoln's faith.  These stories from Abe's own mouth show his devout faith in Christianity, the Bible, and prayer from his boyhood, and his ever intensifying faith as the horrors of the Civil War ran their course.  I have read opinions by contemporaries in his law-practice days that Lincoln was an atheist or at best an agnostic.  No statements of that nature come from Abraham's mouth in this book, and if at all true would seem to reflect a stage of questioning in his early professional days before he became a candidate for office.Several more observations can be made:  I did not know that he had been in love twice before the alliance with Mary Todd.  One girl named Anne or Annie had been engaged to someone from the East before she was enamored with Lincoln.  The eastern swain had gone back east to get permission from his relatives as he considered himself to be of a higher class and needed the permission of his family in order to marry the western Annie.  During the absence of the Easterner, Annie sickened and died.  Abe was devastated.  He wept at her grave and was disconsolate for a long time.  Mary Todd was his third love.  I hadn't remembered that  another suitor of Mary's was Douglas, the Little Giant, Lincoln's political rival.  Douglas was short, round, and well-dressed.  Most would have predicted that he would be Mary's choice, however, she unpredictably picked Lincoln, the ungainly, rustic giant.  It was commented that Mary saw the diamond inside the rough exterior.Another interesting thread was the many threats and assassination attempts that were made against Lincoln's life from the beginning of his political success and his unconcern about them.  He stated that he believed his life was secure until his Maker called for it.  He astounded people by evading his body guards and taking unusual risks.  In the last days of the war, he visited the front lines against all advice.  By the time the hue and cry arose to forbid such a risky act, he had already been there and safely returned.This collection was evidently put together and edited quite close to time of the events.  Much of the language is archaic to my ear, and when explanations are made to help the reader understand, they are still geared to a much earlier generation.  Some of the jokes lost their humor for me because of the archaic language.  At that time, the general public evidently thought that three of our presidents had been poisoned for political ends as their vice presidents would be more favorable to the desired policies.  These stories were not given as controversial but as the accepted opinion of the day and were mentioned to show that there were grounds to believe the story of a White House kitchen worker who said he had been offered a large amount of money to poison the milk of the Lincoln household.  (The teetotaler family drank milk as their favored beverage.)  The poisoned presidents were considered to have been William Harrison, and the Generals Taylor and Scott.