Seward Project

[Kieran McAuliffe]

The news that the papers of William Seward are being digitized may finally allow me to find the answer to a question that has intrigued me for years. And that is “Did William Seward accompany Abraham Lincoln on a tour of the Gettysburg battlefield on the morning of November 19, 1863 – the morning of Lincoln’s address?”

A distinguished Canadian politician, William McDougall, known as one of the Fathers of Confederation, was visiting Washington and visited the White House on November 18 to greet the President. Lincoln is said to have asked McDougall to come back another time as he had to go to Gettysburg to give a speech. He then suggested McDougall accompany him on the train.

McDougall went to Gettysburg and was there to hear the famous speech. He says that he awoke early on the morning of the 19th and accompanied Lincoln and Seward in a buggy on a tour of the battlefield. Half the books I have referenced say that the tour did happen, and half say that it did not.

Unfortunately McDougall left no notes or papers. The papers of this Canadian politician are contained in one file folder – and a very thin one at that. What happened to McDougall’s papers is a mystery. The description of the tour comes from a son who quotes a letter he received from his father. That letter is said to have described the events of those two days.

I find it interesting that with all those people present in Gettysburg, and on the train, that no one seems to have recorded the tour of the battlefield. It seems unlikely that Lincoln stayed in his hotel room on the morning of the 19th. Lincoln was an early riser. What did he do with his time that morning? I can’t imagine Lincoln having no interest in seeing the battlefield.

I am hoping that somewhere in the Seward papers there might be a note or letter or diary entry that describes the events at Gettysburg on the morning of November 19, 1863.