Surratt Society Meeting and "Conference" 2021

[Rob Wick]

Quote:I apologize to Scott if he clearly answered this question in his excellent talk. What surprises me is that there is even a debate on this. All 3 primary sources (John Hay, Dr. Charles Sabin Taft, and James Tanner who were present at the death scene) agree on Stanton saying "ages." No one who was present when Lincoln died claimed Stanton said "angels." So why is there a debate? In many instances what we know of the details of the Lincoln assassination saga is due to only one primary source, but in this case we actually have 3. So can someone clearly enunciate why the 3 primary sources are questioned?

Scott mentioned the names of many authors who use "ages" and many of whom use "angels." But somehow I missed the root cause of the debate.

Roger,

Adam Gopnik wrote about that in the New Yorker. While his article is far too long to copy exactly here, this is what he says about the question, which he first approached after reading Swanson's Manhunt.

For those interested in reading the entire article, here is the link.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/...s-and-ages

The relevant portion:
But what did Edwin Stanton really say at Lincoln’s deathbed? Swanson’s endnotes lead one to Jay Winik’s endnotes in his book on the end of the Civil War, “April 1865.” I called Winik, an author and historian, and he said, a little ruefully, that his insertion of “angels” into the text had been “the element most open to misinterpretation” in his ambitious and far-ranging volume. His endnote leads one, eventually, to “Twenty Days,” by Dorothy and Philip Kunhardt, Jr., a well-made book of photographs from the eighteen-sixties, which in turn leads the reader directly to the ur-source of the angels. The unorthodox, heretical account of Stanton’s words is actually much easier to “source” than the canonic and orthodox and familiar one: it comes from a stenographic record made in the bedroom that night by a young man named James Tanner.

Tanner was a corporal who had had both legs amputated after the Second Battle of Bull Run—he walked on peg legs—and lived in the house next door to the boarding house, Petersen’s, where Lincoln was taken. Sometime that night, as Stanton was beginning to interrogate witnesses to the shooting, one of his generals appeared on the steps of the Petersen house and called out for someone who could write shorthand. Tanner heard him, and hobbled down to take dictation. He spent the rest of the night beside the dying President.

The scene in the famous “rubber room,” as Holzer has called it—in the endless prints and other popular images, the walls of the room expand constantly outward, pressed by the number of dignitaries who had to be included—was uglier than even the more faithful imagery shows. Lincoln’s head wound was bleeding throughout the night, and the doctors had to remember to cover up the blood with fresh towels when Mrs. Lincoln, fallen into a grief from which she never really recovered, wandered in. Lincoln was laid diagonally across the too short bed, knees up, and naked underneath the mustard plasters that had been placed on his chest.

Stanton took charge, dictating messages and taking evidence, with Tanner pressed into service as his secretary. At last, at seven-twenty-two in the morning, Tanner writes:

The Reverend Dr. Gurley stepped forward and lifting his hands began “Our Father and our God” and I snatched pencil and notebook from my pocket, but my haste defeated my purpose. My pencil point (I had but one) caught in my coat and broke, and the world lost the prayer, a prayer that was only interrupted by the sobs of Stanton as he buried his face in the bedclothes. As “Thy will be done, Amen” in subdued and tremulous tones floated through the little chamber, Mr. Stanton raised his head, the tears streaming down his face. A more agonized expression I never saw on a human countenance as he sobbed out the words: “He belongs to the angels now.”

Note, though, that while Tanner presumably heard all this, he didn’t actually claim (as is sometimes implied in the pro-angels literature) to have recorded it in situ, what with the broken pencil. Still, his account, the ur-source of the “angels” quote, sounds fairly solid.

Best
Rob