Robert Lincoln and the military
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11-04-2014, 02:24 PM
Post: #8
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RE: Robert Lincoln and the military
This is a very good site and also has a timeline of events from April 9-14 showing Robert arriving in D.C. on April 14: http://www.fordstheatre.org/sites/defaul...incoln.pdf Since Robert was a junior officer whose main duty was to escort visiting dignitaries around Grant's headquarters, is it possible that more than one ship came up the Potomac from City Point and that RTL was not on Grant's flagship (if things were still called that)?
I also found this description of that time period on that site: Washington in the Throes of Victory Fruitful and teeming with hope, the North had … been celebrating heartily since the fall of Richmond. That day merited a whopping 900-gun salute. After Appomattox, 500 guns against boomed throughout the city, shattering windows across the way from the White House in Lafayette Square and from Georgetown to Capitol Hill, Judiciary Square to Center Market, Negro Hill to Swampoodle, Rock Creek Park to the fine estates of Harewood and Kalorama in the far off suburbs north of Washington, have been “delirious with joy.” For the better part of this week, the jubilation has been everywhere: bonfires burn on every corner, flags snap festively in the wind, normally dour men stomp their feet and wave their arms, children scamper about, chanting and cheering… Washington reeks of one endless round of festivities: lawn fetes, bazaars, wild saloon gatherings, smokers, parties, torchlight parades, and theatricals. And most of all the people are hungering for speeches, above all, from the president. “Speech!” a crowd of some 3,000 cries out at the White House on Monday evening. Then once more: “Speech!” – as though it were a simple one word cheer, an antiphon, echoed and reechoed by the beaming, tearful, exultant Unionists who rejoiced in the ecstatic evidence that their sacrifices had not been in vain. But Abraham Lincoln curiously puts them off, instead promising to deliver an address on Tuesday night. Oddly enough, only Lincoln, in his exhausted condition, seems strangely immune to the intoxicating glow of impending military victory. But why? Since the stunning news of Appomattox, he should be relishing the splendid vindication of sticking to his guns over the last four years, of finally twitting his enemies and his critics, and huddling with his aides and closest friends in enjoying the moment. To be sure, there has been a striking change in his mood since Lee’s surrender. For those who have seen him in the past few days, he “is like a different man,” “his face is shining,” his conversations are “exhilarating,” his whole appearance is “marvelously changed.” But others notice something else: he is still so exhausted that one newspaper, the New York Tribune, urgently pleads that “his energies much be spared” if he is to complete his second term. And, to some, he is almost at loose ends. He hasn’t been sleeping well, troubled by insomnia and haunted by bizarre and ghoulish dreams. He is afflicted with fierce headaches. He is thirty pounds underweight. One evening, aides notice that he is grave and pale, even visibly disturbed. Mary Lincoln observes how “dreadful solemn” he is. And he is beset by dark thoughts. Earlier that week, along the James River near City Point, he and Mary had strolled through an old country graveyard. “You will survive me,” he inexplicably muttered to her. “When I am gone, lay my remains in some quiet place like this.” (From Jay Winik, April, 1865: The Month that Saved America. HarperCollins, 2001.)11 |
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