Did William Coggeshall Save Lincoln's Life?

[Eva Elisabeth]

(09-16-2016 06:42 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Re.: "According to Mary's telling, the incident occurred when Coggeshall and Lincoln transferred from the Harrisburg car to the Baltimore car where they were to be 'by themselves'" - I quote from Mary's account:

"Near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the presidential party was to change railroad cars and the train would be switched off to proceed to Baltimore. Lincoln and Coggeshall were the last to go out to the other car. 'As they neared the door, they heard a hissing sound and discovered a Hand Grenade just ready to explode. As Mr. Lincoln reached the door, Mr. Coggeshall grasped the shell and hurled it through the open window where it [had] been dropped into the car. As it struck beyond the tracks and exploded, no one was hurt.'"

Unless I missed it (I beg to apologize in case) I still miss someone (of those who think it possible) show up how the action was pulled through.
Assuming the trains were in motion - a horse rider approaching the train in full gallop? What does it need to make a "Hand Grenade just ready to explode"? Can you perform that while riding? From where/how if not from horeseback? Which other options were there, and how easy was it to throw such a ready-to-go item quickly through the window of a moving vehicle?

Thanks for any enlightenment!

[L Verge]

I made a posting early on about checking the history of hand grenades, and it seems to me that the CW era ones were thrown like a dart and had to land on their "noses" in order to explode. Another likelihood that the incident didn't occur. Has anyone found anything on the construction of grenades of that era to dispute it? Coal bombs worked on boats because they reacted to heat. What was the equivalent on land?

[John Fazio]

(09-19-2016 05:54 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(09-16-2016 06:42 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Re.: "According to Mary's telling, the incident occurred when Coggeshall and Lincoln transferred from the Harrisburg car to the Baltimore car where they were to be 'by themselves'" - I quote from Mary's account:

"Near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the presidential party was to change railroad cars and the train would be switched off to proceed to Baltimore. Lincoln and Coggeshall were the last to go out to the other car. 'As they neared the door, they heard a hissing sound and discovered a Hand Grenade just ready to explode. As Mr. Lincoln reached the door, Mr. Coggeshall grasped the shell and hurled it through the open window where it [had] been dropped into the car. As it struck beyond the tracks and exploded, no one was hurt.'"

Unless I missed it (I beg to apologize in case) I still miss someone (of those who think it possible) show up how the action was pulled through.
Assuming the trains were in motion - a horse rider approaching the train in full gallop? What does it need to make a "Hand Grenade just ready to explode"? Can you perform that while riding? From where/how if not from horeseback? Which other options were there, and how easy was it to throw such a ready-to-go item quickly through the window of a moving vehicle?

Thanks for any enlightenment!

Eva:

It strikes me that much of the issue turns on perception. As I read the account, I picture the "presidential party" (who are not identified with particularity, so it is anyone's guess who they are) filing out of a car of one train (the Harrisburg train) preparatory to crossing to and then boarding a second train (the Baltimore train). Lincoln and Coggeshall are the last to exit the Harrisburg train, but have not yet exited it. They are nearing the door. As they do so they hear the hissing sound from the explosive device. After 47 years, there is really no telling what it sounded like. Sputter or flutter may have morphed into hissing. No matter; what counts is that it made a sound of some kind that alerted Coggeshall to the presence of the device and the danger just as Lincoln reached the door. According to the account, the device was in the car, not outside of it, having been deposited there through an open window of the car. Whoever placed the explosive device (always assuming the authenticity of the story) could not have been on horseback, but must have surreptitiously approached the window and then dropped the device through it and into the car near where Coggeshall and Lincoln were standing prior to their exit. It is quite plausible for someone to have done this and then to have run like the devil to get away from the scene, to avoid the explosion and to avoid being detected. What is harder to explain is why none of the other members of the presidential party noticed what had happened or made any record of it, apparently. The account has them filing out of the Harrisburg train ahead of Lincoln and Coggeshall, but then says nothing more about them. Instead, it states that after Coggeshall threw the device through the open window, and after it exploded harmlessly some distance away, he sprang upon the Baltimore train where the President awaited him. They took a seat together and the train then leaped forward. They did not speak for a while, but then did. Again, nothing is said about anyone else in the presidential party. Perhaps Mary's silence about the others can be explained by the fact that she was concentrating on her husband and Lincoln, not on anyone else. She wanted to convey the story that had been told to her by her husband, i.e. the saving of the President's life. She had no interest in any of the others. Whether or not her husband did, when he told her the story, is not knowable.

To repeat: I find it hard to believe that Coggeshall and/or his wife, Mary, and/or his descendants Ralph Busbey and Freda Postle Koch, all lied. Accordingly, I believe the core of the story is true, but the details are not clear and may never be.

John

[Eva Elisabeth]

Mr. Fazio - so the essence of this is it somehow mysteriously happened? If it did happen there should at least one possibility of the how be possible to ("re") construct. How could you approach the windo of a moving train and throw a ready-to-go grenade through it?

Please notice that as I said earlier, if Coggeshall embellished and the descendants, who could just rely on his words, believed him, they would not be liears even if telling a tale (they believed in to be true). The source still remains one single person.

---

Obviously this was the most advanced grenade of those days:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchum_Grenade

[RJNorton]

Coggeshall says he rode the inaugural train, the funeral train, and was present for the Gettysburg Address. I have no books that verify any of this. John, can you cite some sources for Coggeshall's claims?

Additionally, Koch's book says, "After William Coggeshall saved Lincoln from possible death, the President appointed him an official presidential bodyguard. Coggeshall had the rank of Colonel and was a member of the Secret Service."

There is a footnote for the above which states, "It was not the Secret Service as we know it today but at the time a group of bodyguards appointed by the President and paid for by the presidential discretionary fund."

John, can you tell us about this group of men and the fund? I do not believe I have read about it in any other book. If any of this (Coggeshall being a Secret Service bodyguard to Abraham Lincoln in Washington) really happened why would it not be in Ward Hill Lamon's book? Or Fred Hatch's book? Or John Hay's diary? Or Baker's book?

In all honesty, it has always been my feeling that Lincoln was not really concerned with security, and prior to the summer of 1864 often rode alone on horseback to/from the Soldiers' Home.

[John Fazio]

(09-20-2016 03:50 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Mr. Fazio - so the essence of this is it somehow mysteriously happened? If it did happen there should at least one possibility of the how be possible to ("re") construct. How could you approach the windo of a moving train and throw a ready-to-go grenade through it?

Please notice that as I said earlier, if Coggeshall embellished and the descendants, who could just rely on his words, believed him, they would not be liears even if telling a tale (they believed in to be true). The source still remains one single person.

---

Obviously this was the most advanced grenade of those days:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchum_Grenade

Eva:

1. I do not understand your second sentence. Could you please re-write it.
2. The train was not moving. It could not very well be moving if people were exiting from it.
3. We really do not know who or what the original source is. We suppose it is Coggeshall, because Mary said so. But Mary may be lying. It is also possible that the letter from Mary is a fabrication and that Busbey and/or Koch are lying. We do not know who the liar or liars are, if any of them. If Coggeshall really is the original source, then your statement about his descendants is true, but we do not know with certainty that he is; we only have Mary's word for it, and possibly not even that.
4. The explosive device was deposited into the car in February, 1861. The device you referred us to was patented in August, 1861. Obviously, they are not the same device. "Grenade" was probably a word loosely and inaccurately used to describe a bomb of some kind.
5. I have learned that Freda Postle Koch died in 1993. Busbey is also deceased. I do not know who has custody of the Coggeshall papers, but they would be worth reading if one wanted to pursue this. I haven't the time.

John

[Eva Elisabeth]

In my second sentence I repeated the request of someone please describing the modus operandi. Where was the attacker when he threw the granade, where did he go?
Were the trains in a station? Then someone should have witnessed the explosion. Also if the train(s) weren't moving there was probably little to no engine noise. And how would the grenade have "struck behind"?

"Changing trains" here sometimes also refers to changing cars of moving trains when some cars would be detached in the next station and attached to another.

[L Verge]

As time permits, I am going to try to research hand grenades that might have been used prior to the Ketchum one that I referred people to weeks ago when this subject came up. Just because the patent was applied after the February "supposed" event does not mean that the Ketchum was not used previous to that.

If it was a device even similar to the Ketchum, please note the phrase about the explosive needing to be thrown in an arc. That might prove a little difficult, aiming through a square, open train window (even harder, the closer the culprit got to the train).

I am also confused as to why there was no flurry of activity - even on Coggeshall's part. Since the rumors were rampant and surveillance reports were confirming that a plot was suspected along the route, why wouldn't there be definite action taken to at least report the incident? It wasn't like someone had dropped a handkerchief - it was definitely an attack with a weapon. At that point, wouldn't a proper bodyguard or anyone have reacted (even if it had been a brick or stone that was heaved in the window)?

[L Verge]

Found the following online ref: the history of grenades (also found that the military units named "Grenadiers" in England took their name from this weapon long before our Civil War and that "shrapnel" is named after a British officer who invented this evil type of explosive).

"The problem was that the grenades themselves were pretty useless. They were either too small to have much effect or too heavy to throw very far, and the fuses were prone to going out if the grenade landed on wet ground. That’s if you could get it lit; in an age before Zippo lighters, that meant having a lantern handy, or sparking a tinder box. Either way, throwing a grenade took some preparation. By the early 19th century they had mostly vanished, and the Grenadier companies became shock troops – with their size and bulk they were ideal for spearheading bayonet charges or assaulting a defended position.

"Grenades made a brief comeback during the American Civil War, when both sides used them – many traditional ones with fuses, but also experimental impact-fired ones. These weren’t very successful; at one battlefield, over a hundred intact grenade bodies were found, but no fragments to indicate that any had gone off. The result was that, by the end of the century, grenades had faded away again.

"Then came the First World War, and the carnage of the trenches. In this new form of warfare, the grenade returned with a vengeance."

I believe that William Coggeshall's story came to life 47 years after Lincoln's inaugural trip? That would conveniently place its telling in the middle of WWI as grenades returned to the limelight.

[John Fazio]

(09-20-2016 11:58 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Found the following online ref: the history of grenades (also found that the military units named "Grenadiers" in England took their name from this weapon long before our Civil War and that "shrapnel" is named after a British officer who invented this evil type of explosive).

"The problem was that the grenades themselves were pretty useless. They were either too small to have much effect or too heavy to throw very far, and the fuses were prone to going out if the grenade landed on wet ground. That’s if you could get it lit; in an age before Zippo lighters, that meant having a lantern handy, or sparking a tinder box. Either way, throwing a grenade took some preparation. By the early 19th century they had mostly vanished, and the Grenadier companies became shock troops – with their size and bulk they were ideal for spearheading bayonet charges or assaulting a defended position.

"Grenades made a brief comeback during the American Civil War, when both sides used them – many traditional ones with fuses, but also experimental impact-fired ones. These weren’t very successful; at one battlefield, over a hundred intact grenade bodies were found, but no fragments to indicate that any had gone off. The result was that, by the end of the century, grenades had faded away again.

"Then came the First World War, and the carnage of the trenches. In this new form of warfare, the grenade returned with a vengeance."

I believe that William Coggeshall's story came to life 47 years after Lincoln's inaugural trip? That would conveniently place its telling in the middle of WWI as grenades returned to the limelight.

Laurie:

Thank you for the thorough research. I do believe you have exploded the notion that the device in question was a grenade of the kind used later in the war. It must have been another kind of audible explosive device. They are quite common. In fact, I raised five and my wife raised two. If you like that joke, laugh. If not, just say it bombed.

John

[Gene C]

I liked it John

[RobertLC]

It has been a while since I read The Hour of Peril, by Daniel Stashower and The Baltimore Plot, by Michael J. Kline, but I don’t recall either author mentioning William Coggeshall. Perhaps I missed it, but my sometimes drowsy memory remembers nothing related to Coggeshall with respect to the so called Baltimore Plot.

Maybe I would be better served if I were to re-read both books, but time will not permit me that luxury at this point.

However, this is a most intriguing topic. I hope additional sources can be found to dissuade us or persuade us one way or the other.

Thanks everyone.

Bob

[RJNorton]

(09-20-2016 08:15 PM)RobertLC Wrote:  However, this is a most intriguing topic. I hope additional sources can be found to dissuade us or persuade us one way or the other.
Bob

Hi Bob. This is exactly why I began this thread. You nailed the essense perfectly.

For years I have had this book by Freda Postle Koch entitled Colonel Coggeshall: The Man Who Saved Lincoln (published in 1985). The book is full of claims that I have never seen anywhere else. These include Coggeshall saving Lincoln's life by throwing live ordnance out the inaugural train's window at Harrisburg, Coggeshall becoming a very special friend to Lincoln and acting as a bodyguard, Coggeshall attending Cabinet meetings and councils of war in the White House, Coggeshall having private conferences with individual Cabinet members, Coggeshall going on secret missions at Lincoln's request, Coggeshall being recommended by Lincoln to head the Secret Service, etc.

The sum of all of this is that the reader feels there was a very close relationship between Abraham Lincoln and William Coggeshall.

I have not seen any corroboration of any of this in other Lincoln books I own. For example, Coggeshall is not mentioned a single time in Lincoln Day By Day. The best Lincoln biographies, such as Donald's, have no mention of Coggeshall in the text. Sandburg mentions him one time, but he uses something Coggeshall himself wrote as his source. There is no known written correspondence between Coggeshall and Lincoln.

In The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, Coggeshall is not cited a single time by author Mark Neely, Jr.

So I began the thread simply asking others if they had ever come across any independent corroboration of any of Coggeshall's claims.

John Fazio is an outstanding researcher and feels the grenade story is historical. At this point in time, John and I simply disagree on Coggeshall's claim of saving Lincoln by throwing the grenade out the train's window.

In all honesty I have not seen proof/evidence that any of Coggeshall's claims really happened.

[L Verge]

(09-20-2016 04:43 PM)John Fazio Wrote:  

(09-20-2016 11:58 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Found the following online ref: the history of grenades (also found that the military units named "Grenadiers" in England took their name from this weapon long before our Civil War and that "shrapnel" is named after a British officer who invented this evil type of explosive).

"The problem was that the grenades themselves were pretty useless. They were either too small to have much effect or too heavy to throw very far, and the fuses were prone to going out if the grenade landed on wet ground. That’s if you could get it lit; in an age before Zippo lighters, that meant having a lantern handy, or sparking a tinder box. Either way, throwing a grenade took some preparation. By the early 19th century they had mostly vanished, and the Grenadier companies became shock troops – with their size and bulk they were ideal for spearheading bayonet charges or assaulting a defended position.

"Grenades made a brief comeback during the American Civil War, when both sides used them – many traditional ones with fuses, but also experimental impact-fired ones. These weren’t very successful; at one battlefield, over a hundred intact grenade bodies were found, but no fragments to indicate that any had gone off. The result was that, by the end of the century, grenades had faded away again.

"Then came the First World War, and the carnage of the trenches. In this new form of warfare, the grenade returned with a vengeance."

I believe that William Coggeshall's story came to life 47 years after Lincoln's inaugural trip? That would conveniently place its telling in the middle of WWI as grenades returned to the limelight.

Laurie:

Thank you for the thorough research. I do believe you have exploded the notion that the device in question was a grenade of the kind used later in the war. It must have been another kind of audible explosive device. They are quite common. In fact, I raised five and my wife raised two. If you like that joke, laugh. If not, just say it bombed.

John

Maybe we should declare this horse dead and blame it all on Tad making too much noise...

[ELCore]

(09-21-2016 05:18 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  The sum of all of this is that the reader feels there was a very close relationship between Abraham Lincoln and William Coggeshall.

I think we are safe to conclude that, if most of these outlandish claims are false, then they are all false.

And... as I wrote that, the legal principle false in one, false in all came into my mind:

Quote:If you believe that any witness or party willfully or knowingly testified falsely to any material facts in the case, with intent to deceive you, you may give such weight to his or her testimony as you may deem it is entitled. You may believe some of it, or you may, in your discretion, disregard all of it.

I feel sure that, in his long legal career, Lincoln must have availed himself of this principle from time to time.