Preponderance of the Evidence in a Civil Trial

[David Lockmiller]

(03-22-2020 05:06 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  I shared the above post with a research teammate, Richard "Rich" Hileman, a retired trial lawyer and genealogist, because I thought he might find it interesting.


"As for the Fehrenbacher’s rating system, I have my own peeve with that. . . .Those [A, B, and C] are their three objective categories. The next category is D which is “a quotation about whose authenticity there is more than average doubt.” Lots of things reported by Herndon they put in this category, including Herndon’s statement that Lincoln told him his mother was illegitimate. Their argument for this is ridiculous.

Rich"
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I was blind, but now I see, sort of.

Steve W.

I want to know and retain for history as much truth about Lincoln as there can be preserved . . . but no more than the truth. I believe as your friend Richard "Rich" Hileman implies that the "D" standard unfairly and unjustly eliminates truthful stories about Lincoln by limiting "Lincoln truth" to the Fehrenbachers' "objective" (A, B, and C) standards.

I recently initiated a thread titled “I would rather be defeated with the soldier vote behind me than to be elected without it.”

The source of this quote is Ida M. Tarbell, “A Reporter for Lincoln: Story of Henry E. Wing, Soldier and Newspaperman” (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1927), p. 70.

In her book "Team of Rivals" at page 664, Doris Kearns Goodwin referred to Henry Wing in this section of text as a "visitor" and not by name. But her footnote specifically references Ida M. Tarbell's book, “A Reporter for Lincoln: Story of Henry E. Wing, Soldier and Newspaperman.”

At page 620 in "Team of Rivals," Goodwin writes: Lincoln hugged and kissed a young reporter on the forehead who arrived at the White House with a verbal message from the general [Grant] that said: "there is to be no turning back."

But her footnote specifically references Ida M. Tarbell's book, “A Reporter for Lincoln: Story of Henry E. Wing, Soldier and Newspaperman.” And, thus, the anonymous "young reporter" can be immediately identified as Henry Wing, cub reporter for the New York Tribune.

But why did not Doris Kearns Goodwin not tell more of Henry Wing's story and also why did she not specifically identify him in both anecdotes?

At post #15 of the same thread, I wrote:

To repeat, it was a most prophetic and fateful meeting for President Lincoln by way of what occurred after the formal meeting ended and the members of President Lincoln’s cabinet had withdrawn.

“You wanted to speak to me? said Mr. Lincoln.

“Yes, Mr. President. I have a message for you – a message from General Grant. He told me I was to give it to you when you were alone.”

In an instant the President was all awareness, intent – “Something from Grant to me?”

“Yes,” blurted out Henry. “He told me I was to tell you, Mr. President, that there would be no turning back.”

The harried man had waited long – three years – for such a word – the one word that could have brought him help in his despair; and his long arm swept around and gathered the boy to him, and bending over he pressed a kiss on his cheek. “Come and tell me about it,” he said.

They sat down, and suddenly all of Henry’s journalistic discretion was gone. Here was one who had the right to know, and so he told him of the horrors and uncertainties of that day in the Wilderness – of men fighting without knowing where they were going, fighting in groups not masses; of Hancock, left without support; of Warren’s over-caution, bottling up the troops that Hancock had expected to support him; of a day gone wrong from start to finish.

He told how, when night had come and commanders and correspondents had gathered at headquarters, there had been angry charges, one officer accusing another; of Meade’s decision that they should fall back north of the river, reestablish their lines, and try again later, and how General Grant had come in with his quiet but final, “No, we shall attack again in the morning.”

In "Team of Rivals," Henry Wing is referred to in the text as an anonymous reporter.

In my opinion, this constitutes a form "Lincoln scholar to Lincoln scholar" intimidation. If "Lincoln truth" is limited to only the "A,B, C" standard for truth espoused by the Fahrenbacher's, how much is lost to "truthful Lincoln history"?

Doris Kearns Goodwin could have quoted Ida Tarbell's book at length, but she chose for some reason not to do so.

I wrote in my thread: Until proven otherwise, I believe the accounts as written in “A Reporter for Lincoln, Story of Henry E. Wing,” by Ida M. Tarbell, The Macmillan Company (1927).