Killing Lincoln - Nat Geo (Reactions)

[John E.]

(02-23-2013 01:45 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  John, Robinson's statement has puzzled me, too, but I think that Seward's bedroom was in the southwest corner of the house facing Lafayette Square.

Linda,

I think the sketch is wrong. Seward was in the southwest corner and his son on the northwest corner. Take a look at the diagram again and compare it to photos of the house. You can see that there were three windows on the top floor, not two.

[RJNorton]

Please forgive...here I go questioning history again. I realize most every Lincoln book ever published includes Tad with the group that walked the streets of Richmond. My question: is there any other source other than William H. Crook for this? Crook's memories on a lot of things, written many years after the fact, have been found to be suspect. Dr. William Hanchett, for example, has studied Crook's reminisces and found they fall into the myth category. Yet it seems all authors accept Crook's account that Tad was with the group. Is there another source that supports Crook's account? Was Crook himself even with the group when they walked through Richmond?

[LincolnMan]

Good question. On the surface, it would seem very risky for Lincoln to bring Tad with him to Richmond. Why would he unnecessarilly expose his son to possible harm?

[Linda Anderson]

(02-23-2013 10:57 PM)John E. Wrote:  John, Robinson's statement has puzzled me, too, but I think that Seward's bedroom was in the southwest corner of the house facing Lafayette Square.

Linda,

I think the sketch is wrong. Seward was in the southwest corner and his son on the northwest corner. Take a look at the diagram again and compare it to photos of the house. You can see that there were three windows on the top floor, not two.


[/quote]

You're right, John. Pelz left out the center window in the front as Laurie points out in Post 66. In Seward's time there were probably two windows in his bedroom overlooking Lafayette Park to the west and another overlooking Pennsyvania Avenue to the south. Pelz's diagram shows the house after the Blaines added six windows on the south side in 1889.

This is the photograph that is most often used to show Seward's house but it was taken after the Blaines added the six windows. See Seward: Lincoln's Indispensible Man illustration 17 for a photograph that shows the Seward house when the Sewards lived there.

Here are two aerial views of Lafayette Square showing the Seward house in Seward's time. The kitchen and the stable are in the back yard. Thanks, Betty, for sending these to me.



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[BettyO]

I've noticed one other thing as well, Linda. Seward's house is the only one with a "Widow's Walk" on the roof - the other houses surrounding it don't seem to have that feature -

[L Verge]

Linda,

I'm confused (what else is new?). In Seward's time, if one stood in the Square and looked straight at the front door of the house, would the third floor have three windows across the front or two? I thought the additional windows were added on the side of the house during the Blaines' residency -- not on the front.

My point is that the middle window on the third floor, if there in 1865, was likely not in either front bedroom. Federal and Georgian architecture often had a small, unheated room at the top of the stairs that served as a closet - or there may not have been a room there at all, just a window in a blank space to give light to the stairway. I can name quite a few of the historic houses here in my own county that have just that same layout. Around the 1920s (or earlier depending on the wealth of the family), that area became the inside bathroom.

[Linda Anderson]

Good catch, Laurie. I didn't notice that Pelz had left out the center front window. If you had looked straight at the front door of the Seward house in Seward's time, there would have been three windows across the front or the west side. The six windows were added on the south side to give more light to the house. However, I think Pelz got the diagram right (except for omitting the center window) because he was drawing what he saw. He got the location of Seward's bedroom wrong because somebody gave him the wrong information. I would think that the center window was in Seward's room since it was the master bedroom.

I had wondered, too, if the center window was part of the hall but I read in an article about the Blaines' daughter's wedding that the staircase was in the back of the house.

Betty, thanks for pointing out the window's walk. Do you think the architect, Jacob Swimley, included it because he was building it for Commodore John Rodgers who had a distinguished career in the U. S. Navy?

[RJNorton]

Linda asked me to scan and post a photo from Walter Stahr's book. Linda, I hope this is the right one!

[Linda Anderson]

(02-24-2013 03:49 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Linda asked me to scan and post a photo from Walter Stahr's book. Linda, I hope this is the right one!

That's it! Thank you, Roger. That is the only photo I have seen of the south side of the Seward house before the six windows were added in 1889.

[MaddieM]

(02-24-2013 03:49 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Linda asked me to scan and post a photo from Walter Stahr's book. Linda, I hope this is the right one!

Was this photo taken long before, or long after Seward's attack. the doorway is different but the windows look the same to me.

[BettyO]

This was taken before the attack, Maddie.

The house was remodeled in the 1880's I think it was - long after the attack. Linda Anderson would know -

[Hess1865]

I also noticed that Tad addressed his father as "Papa-day" on the show.

[Linda Anderson]

(02-24-2013 06:43 PM)BettyO Wrote:  This was taken before the attack, Maddie.

The house was remodeled in the 1880's I think it was - long after the attack. Linda Anderson would know -

Maddie, the number of windows on the front of the house stayed the same but six windows were added to the south side of the house in 1889. You can see the windows in the photo that John Elliott posted earlier in the thread.

[RJNorton]

(02-24-2013 11:31 PM)Hess1865 Wrote:  I also noticed that Tad addressed his father as "Papa-day" on the show.

Good morning, Mr. Hess. The research for this show was amazing. Regarding Tad's speech problem, John Hutchison writes:

"The available eyewitness accounts also provide insight into the specific articulation difficulties encountered in Tad's speech. Elizabeth Keckley wrote that Tad always called her "Yib," presumably substituting /y/ for /l/ in the nickname "Lib." Crook reported four articulation errors in his account. First, Tad pronounced Crook's name as "Took," substituting /t/ for /k/. Second, he omitted the /r/ in the /kr/ consonant cluster. Third, he called his father "Papa day," a substitution for "Papa dear." The second and third error patterns would suggest difficulty in pronouncing the liquid consonant /r/. Fourth, when referring to Tom Pendel, Tad dropped the non-stressed second syllable of Pendel. He would say "Tom Pen." Ruth Painter Randall recounts a story of Tad's referring to a neighbor, Mrs. Sprigg, in an "appealing lisp" as "Mith Spwigg."

The entire article is here.

[Laurie Verge]

There has been thought that Tad's pitiful comment, "They have killed Papa dead." was really "They have killed Papa Dear." since that was Tad's term for his father.