Huh, shocking how memory is fading, I know I knew this. I think it was one of his later friends. Stanton?

---

(If not he, McClellan would be my next guess. Language fits both.)

Good job, Eva! Indeed it was McClellan.

In a letter to his wife, dated November 13, 1861, McClellan wrote:

"The President is an idiot…I went to the White House shortly after tea where I found the original gorilla…the President is nothing more than a well meaning baboon…There never was a truer epithet applied to a certain individual than that of the ‘Gorilla!"

No googling, please.

What is the name of the person who noted this?

"I must say, and I am proud to say, that I never was treated by anyone with more kindness and cordiality than were shown me by that great and good man, Abraham Lincoln, by the grace of God president for four years more."

Sounds like Frederick Douglass, but that would be too easy. However, that's still my guess.

Best
Rob

Rob, that is a logical and excellent guess, but it was not Douglass.

Was it a wounded soldier or a mother asking Lincoln for a pardon?

Good thinking, Anita, but it was not a wounded soldier or a mother asking Lincoln for a pardon.

Given that they are talking about how they were treated, I would guess that otherwise people would treat them poorly, so whomever it is must be an African-American. Was it Dr. Alexander Thomas Augusta?

Best
Rob

That is another good guess, Rob, but it wasn't Dr. Augusta.

Someone named Hanks?

How about Sojourner Truth.

Nope, not a Hanks, Michael. Congratulations, Dennis - indeed it was Sojourner Truth. She visited the White House and saw President Lincoln on October 29, 1864. This would have been 11 days before the 1864 presidential election.

My source for the quote: Lincoln as I Knew Him: Gossip, Tributes, and Revelations from His Best Friends and Worst Enemies edited by Harold Holzer, p. 201.

(10-04-2020 03:50 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Nope, not a Hanks, Michael. Congratulations, Dennis - indeed it was Sojourner Truth. She visited the White House and saw President Lincoln on October 29, 1864. This would have been 11 days before the 1864 presidential election.

My source for the quote: Lincoln as I Knew Him: Gossip, Tributes, and Revelations from His Best Friends and Worst Enemies edited by Harold Holzer, p. 201.

Just for the record, I did not look up the quote. Good memory still prevails in an old man. Dennis.

(10-04-2020 03:50 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Nope, not a Hanks, Michael. Congratulations, Dennis - indeed it was Sojourner Truth. She visited the White House and saw President Lincoln on October 29, 1864. This would have been 11 days before the 1864 presidential election.

My source for the quote: Lincoln as I Knew Him: Gossip, Tributes, and Revelations from His Best Friends and Worst Enemies edited by Harold Holzer, p. 201.

I also thought that the correct answer was Sojourner Truth. I recalled that I had made an earlier post about the October, 1864 meeting of Sojourner Truth with President Lincoln. I did a Search herein and found the post. The part that I included in my post did not include the line that Roger posted in his question and I did not go back to the original post which was from Six Months at the White House.

My 2018 post which may be of interest to others reads as follows:

"Sojourner Truth," the slave preacher whom Mrs. Stowe has described as embodying all the elements of an African prophetess or sibyl, when over eighty years old, left her home, at Battlecreek, Michigan, with the unalterable purpose of seeing the Emancipator of her race before her death. She reached Washington the last of October, 1864.

He then arose, gave me his hand, made a bow, and said: "I am pleased to see you."

"I said to him: 'Mr. President, when you first took your seat I feared you would be torn to pieces, for I likened you unto Daniel, who was thrown into the lions' den; and if the lions did not tear you into pieces, I knew that it would be God that had saved you; and I said if He spared me I would see you before four years expired, and He has done so, and now I am here to see you for myself.'

"He then congratulated me on my having been spared. Then, I said: 'I appreciate you, for you are the best President who has ever taken the seat.' He replied thus: 'I expect you have reference to my having emancipated the slaves in my proclamation.' . . . I then said: 'I thank God that your were the instrument selected by Him and the people to do it.'

"He then showed me the Bible presented to him by the colored people of Baltimore, of which you have heard. I have seen it for myself, and it is beautiful beyond description. After I had looked it over, I said to him: 'This is beautiful indeed; the colored people have given this to the Head of the Government, and that Government once sanctioned laws that would not permit its people to learn enough to enable them to read this Book.'

He took my little book, and with the hand that signed the death-warrant of slavery, he wrote as follows: -- "For Aunty Sojourner Truth, Oct. 29, 1864. A. Lincoln.'

("Six Months at the White House," F. B. Carpenter -- pages 201 - 203.)

This post was on the thread "RE: Abraham Lincoln Religion in Politics," post #11, March 22, 2018.

Upon my retirement from Community Mental Health two years ago- my patients gave me a surprise party. Among the gifts was a beautiful Lincoln statue for my office desk at home. I was deeply touched. It seems I did get through to some people with my answers to their inquires on Mr. Lincoln. For that I am so grateful.