(03-18-2018 04:05 AM)RJNorton Wrote: I checked my files and found he was carrying 9 newspaper articles, not 8. Here are some details:
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The first and the fourth describe Emancipation of the Slaves in the new State Constitution of Missouri which called for giving slaves their Freedom on July 4, 1870. They are critical of the Radical Republicans in Congress who argued for more immediate release.
... the radicals are not satisfied with the death of slavery. Like the boy who pounded the dead snake, they want to "make it deader." and we have no objections to any blows inflicted upon the institution. But because the President did not yield to demands of the radicals that seemed intolerant and obtrusive, he is charged by hundreds of furious journalists with deserting "the cause of freedom.." The charge is unfounded and absurd. doubtless he would rejoice as heartily as any radical, at the speedy abolition of slavery in Missouri, but he is not disposed to encourage excess that might damage the good cause itself.
The second and third clippings relate the two platforms of the contending political parties in the election of 1864 without comment.
The fifth and sixth purport to be actual letters from disaffected Southern soldiers found on the battlefield. "The Conscript's Epistle to Jeff Davis" is especially colorful in its language, calling the chief executive of the rebelling states a "bastard President of a political abortion."
The seventh clipping contains the famous marching orders of General William Tecumseh Sherman issued on November 9, 1864, which dispatched his troops to fight their way across the South to the Atlantic Ocean. There were to be no supply trains. The soldiers were to live off the land, but were specifically ordered to discriminate "between the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious" who were "usually neutral or friendly."
The eighth and ninth clippings are articles favorable to President Lincoln, One recounts a speech by Reverend Henry Ward Beecher in Philadelphia at the Academy of Music. The other reports a letter from the English Reformer John Bright to the American newspaper editor Horace Greely which is full of praise for Lincoln's leadership and his re-election as President in the fall of 1864. We see his presidency, Bright wrote, as "an honest endeavor faithfully to do the work of his great office, and in the doing of it, a brightness of personal honor on which no adversary has yet been able to fix a stain."
Source: Dr. Edward C. Papenfuse, retired Maryland State Archivist
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Additionally the President was carrying more papers than the Library of Congress states. These papers fell out into the street as the men were carrying Lincoln across the street to the Petersen House. The papers were turned over to Edwin Stanton; nobody knows their location today.
Roger, do you, or does anyone else for that matter, know if anyone has identified the dates and publications of the clippings that were found in Lincoln's pockets?
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