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+--- Thread: Who wrote this letter? (/thread-4984.html)
Who wrote this letter? - Anita - 08-12-2024 06:19 PM
No Googling please
Who is the writer?
"I shall not feel that you are quite safe until the 4th of March is passed. I am glad there is but 10 days more. Mr Lincoln is having a pleasing tour - it must be especially
gratifying to the damsels who were kissed in the presence of the multitude. I wish men would not allow women to make fools of them but the do - sometimes."
RE: Who wrote this letter? - J. Beckert - 08-12-2024 06:34 PM
Being March 4th. used to be Inauguration day - Mary Lincoln?
RE: Who wrote this letter? - Anita - 08-12-2024 10:09 PM
Joe it's not Mary but it does sound like her. You're on the right timeline with Inauguration Day.
Hint. The writer is concerned for the safety of a person close to Lincoln.
RE: Who wrote this letter? - J. Beckert - 08-12-2024 10:49 PM
Last shot in the dark, Anita - one of Mary's sisters?
RE: Who wrote this letter? - STS Lincolnite - 08-13-2024 07:09 AM
Wild guess: Therena Bates (who would later become the wife of John Nicolay)?
RE: Who wrote this letter? - Anita - 08-13-2024 12:13 PM
Joe and Scott these are logical guesses but not correct. This should help narrow the field.
The letter is written 10 days from March 4 making it Feb. 22. Hint. The year is 1861. The person the letter is addressed was cleared to meet Lincoln when he arrived in Washington on Feb. 23. The writer is his wife.
RE: Who wrote this letter? - Rob Wick - 08-13-2024 12:33 PM
Is it the wife of Elihu Washburne?
Best
Rob
RE: Who wrote this letter? - Anita - 08-13-2024 02:48 PM
Rob you are so close. Indeed Washburne was waiting at the station when Lincoln's train arrived.
The writer is Frances Miller Seward writing from Auburn to husband Henry.
https://sewardproject.org/18610222FMS_WHS1
Interesting note that Seward claimed he was at the station but Washburne says he didn't show up. Pinkerton agreed with Washburne.
RE: Who wrote this letter? - RJNorton - 08-13-2024 05:37 PM
I checked Walter Stahr's Seward biography, and he indicates Seward was not there. Stahr feels Seward was probably waiting at Willard's Hotel "to avoid attracting attention at the station."
RE: Who wrote this letter? - Anita - 08-13-2024 07:29 PM
Roger, thanks for the Stahl link.
Here's a well researched article from the Rochester Library Bulletin
Volume XX · Spring 1965 · Number 3
Seward and Lincoln: The Washington Depot Episode
--GLYNDON VAN DEUSEN
Excerpt
This 6:00 A. M. train on February 23 was on time, and Lincoln was on it. Washburne met it. The question is, was Seward there also? On this point there is conflicting evidence.
Seward wrote to his wife the same day: "The President-elect arrived incog. at six this morning. I met him at the depot; and after breakfast introduced him to the President and Cabinet. . ." Charles Francis Adams, Congressman from Massachusetts and close friend of Seward, wrote in his diary that same day that Lincoln had arrived at six o'clock, and had been met by Seward and Washburne who took him to Willard's Hotel. Nicolay and Hay, in their monumental biography of Lincoln, said the same thing. Lucius E. Chittenden, Register of the Treasury, recorded in his Reminiscences of Lincoln that
The street lights were not yet extinguished on the early morning of the 23d of February, when Elihu B. Washburne and Senator Seward stepped from a carriage at the ladies' entrance of Willard's Hotel. A tall man with a striking face, followed them into the hall, the swinging doors closed, and the future president and preserver of the republic was safely housed in its capital.
But wait, there's much more!!! https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/2482