Who wrote the lines of poetry "quoted" by Lincoln at the Soldiers' Home?

[David Lockmiller]

I was reading last night from F. B. Carpenter's book "The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln, Six Months at the White House" (p. 224) the two poetry quotes by Lincoln to the women at the Soldiers' Home cemetery and wanted to know who was the poet and the name of the poem from which Lincoln quoted. I was able to find the first two lines with a Google book search: “How Sleep the Brave” by William Collins (1746). But a similar search for the second two lines which Lincoln "afterwards quoted" -- "And women o'er the graves shall weep, Where nameless heroes calmly sleep." - I could not find either the name of the poet or the poem.

Is it possible that Lincoln himself became the anonymous poet in that moment, in that place, in the fall of 1864?

The complete narrative from one of the women’s story in the San Francisco Bulletin, as written by Carpenter at pages 223-24, reads as follows:

The ‘Home’ only admitted soldiers of the regular army; but in the graveyard near at hand there are numberless graves – some without a spear of grass to hide their newness – that hold the bodies of volunteers.

While we stood in the soft evening air, watching the faint trembling of the long tendrils of waving willow, and feeling the dewy coolness that that was flung out by the old oaks above us, Mr. Lincoln joined us, and stood silent, too, taking in the scene,

“How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country’s wishes blest,” –
he said, softly.

There was something so touching in the picture opened before us, -- the nameless graves, the solemn quiet, the tender twilight air, but more particularly our own feminine disposition to be easily melted, I suppose, -- that it made us cry as if we stood beside the tomb of our own dead, and gave point to the lines which he afterwards quoted: --

“And women o’er the graves shall weep,
Where nameless heroes calmly sleep.”

[RJNorton]

(01-21-2016 11:56 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Is it possible that Lincoln himself became the anonymous poet in that moment, in that place, in the fall of 1864?

David, what you propose as a possibility will be my guess as to the answer to your trivia question. I will guess Lincoln himself.

[David Lockmiller]

(01-21-2016 04:39 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(01-21-2016 11:56 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Is it possible that Lincoln himself became the anonymous poet in that moment, in that place, in the fall of 1864?

David, what you propose as a possibility will be my guess as to the answer to your trivia question. I will guess Lincoln himself.

Roger, you are the only one who has expressed an opinion whether Lincoln was the author of the lines of poetry “quoted” by Lincoln regarding the “women crying over the graves of nameless heroes” as if they were their own family members. I know that you award a prize for a correct answer to your Lincoln trivia questions. Therefore, I award as a prize my sincere appreciation for your “guess” in support of my theoretical conclusion.

[RJNorton]

Thank you very much, David. I did what I think was a pretty thorough search for those words in other works, and I drew a blank. The only logical conclusion I could come up with was as you proposed - that Lincoln himself devised the words.

This doesn't totally preclude the possibility that a poem exists that contains these exact words, but I could not find it. My money is definitely on Lincoln at this point.

[David Lockmiller]

(01-25-2016 05:20 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Thank you very much, David. I did what I think was a pretty thorough search for those words in other works, and I drew a blank. The only logical conclusion I could come up with was as you proposed - that Lincoln himself devised the words.

This doesn't totally preclude the possibility that a poem exists that contains these exact words, but I could not find it. My money is definitely on Lincoln at this point.

I agree with you, Roger. Isn't it wonderful what Google has enabled humans to accomplish? It reminds me of Spock back on the Enterprise asking questions of information within the Galaxy and within recorded time. Ten or fifteen years ago, I would not even have tried to do a research on my Lincoln question.

And, your point about "preclud[ing] the possibility that a poem exists" reminds me of a specific episode of the Gene Roddenberry Star Trek series with Captain Kirk. In this episode, the Enterprise was thrown back in time and ended up in the atmosphere of Earth badly damaged and with only impulse power. The U. S. Air Force sent up fighters to investigate the radar blips. I believe that one of the planes was about to fire upon the damaged Enterprise. Captain Kirk ordered that a tractor beam be placed upon the plane to prevent this. But the plane was too fragile and began to break up. Scotty was able to locate the pilot and beam him over to the Enterprise.

Initially, Kirk was in a quandary as to what to do about the pilot. He had seen the future. Spock did a search and determined that the pilot had accomplished nothing of historical significance in his lifetime and the decision was made to keep him on the Enterprise. This naturally upset the pilot and he fought against the decision.

However, Spock did an additional subsequent search of the pilot's progeny and determined that a son of the pilot born years later made an important historical contribution. The pilot remarked: "I'm going to be a father!" He helped Captain Kirk retrieve the video footage evidence from the pilot's plane of the Enterprise from the Air Force intelligence unit, repairs were made to the Enterprise, the pilot was returned to Earth, the Enterprise raced to the gravitational pull of the Sun, and the Enterprise and crew were catapulted forward to their own time. End of story.

I did not have to do a Google search of the particular Star Trek episode. I used my fallible memory only.

[Gene C]

(01-25-2016 11:41 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  I agree with you, Roger. Isn't it wonderful what Google has enabled humans to accomplish?

I did not have to do a Google search of the particular Star Trek episode. I used my fallible memory only.

Good memory!
"Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them."
Spock - The Ultimate Computer, Season 2,Episode 24

[David Lockmiller]

(01-25-2016 12:02 PM)Gene C Wrote:  "Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them."
Spock - The Ultimate Computer, Season 2,Episode 24

Gene Roddenberry was the creator of the Star Trek series which I have enjoyed very much over the years and, yes, I did watch the episodes as they first appeared on TV when I was in college at the University of Illinois.

The prescient episode, here referenced by “our Gene,” related to Artificial Intelligence (A. I.) taking command of Kirk’s starship in a mock combat exercise against other Starfleet vessels. Things did not go as planned.

At the outset, Captain Kirk asked a pointed question:
KIRK: I'm curious, Doctor. Why is it called M-5 and not M-1?
Doctor DAYSTROM: Well, you see, the multitronic units one through four were not entirely successful. This one is. M-5 is ready to take control of the ship.

The following story, “Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates Warn About Artificial Intelligence” appeared in the Observer, by Michael Sainato, on August 19, 2015:

“Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history,” wrote Stephen Hawking in an op-ed, which appeared in The Independent in 2014. “Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.” Professor Hawking added in a 2014 interview with BBC, “humans, limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded by A.I.”

Mr. Hawking recently joined Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and hundreds of others in issuing a letter unveiled at the International Joint Conference last month in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The letter warns that artificial intelligence can potentially be more dangerous than nuclear weapons.

Elon Musk called the prospect of artificial intelligence “our greatest existential threat” in a 2014 interview with MIT students at the AeroAstro Centennial Symposium. “I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish.” Mr. Musk cites his decision to invest in the Artificial Intelligence firm, DeepMind, as a means to “just keep an eye on what’s going on with artificial intelligence. I think there is potentially a dangerous outcome there.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has also expressed concerns about Artificial Intelligence. During a Q&A session on Reddit in January 2015, Mr. Gates said, “I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned.”

* * * * *

The countervailing force against measured restraint in government policy by all nations, friend and foe alike, as regards the advancement of military weaponry utilizing Artificial Intelligence is exemplified by the following analogous President Abraham Lincoln story. The source reference is from the book “Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration” by L. E. Chittenden (Lincoln’s Register of the Treasury) at pages 212-14 (published in 1891).

Suggestions of the necessity of armored vessels for harbor defense were strongly pressed by Major Robert Anderson, very soon after he arrived in Washington from Fort Sumter. He reported that one of the Confederate batteries in Charleston harbor was covered with bars of railroad iron, in such a way that the guns of the fort made no impression upon it. Having learned from experience that a battery so protected was impregnable, and there being no reason why like armor could not applied to a floating as well as to a land battery, Major Anderson argued that the Confederates would almost certainly undertake the construction of iron-clad vessels, and we were not provided with similar vessels to resist them, they would take and hold possession of our navigable rivers and harbors, and so inflict an irremediable injury on our seaport cities and their commerce.

The action of the Confederate Congress in May, 1861, in appointing a commission to adopt plans for raising the Merrimac, then sunk in Norfolk harbor, and her conversion into an armored vessel, added force to the views of Major Anderson, and produced a strong impression upon Mr. Welles, our Secretary of the Navy, and at least one of his most competent subordinates.

Gustavus V. Fox was one of the President’s favorites. He had acquired Mr. Lincoln’s confidence by his intelligent views relating to the proposed reinforcement of Fort Sumter, immediately after the inauguration, and had accepted the office of Assistant Secretary of the Navy at his special request. He was an experienced retired naval officer, he possessed attractive personal qualities, his judgment was conservative, and he was always a welcome guest at the Executive Mansion. I was so fortunate as to have secured his friendship, and I have made several visits to the President in his company.

On one of these visits, in May, I hear the President ask Mr. Fox his opinion of armored vessels, and of Major Anderson’s suggestion. Mr. Fox replied, in substance, that he subject was under active consideration in the Navy Department, but that it was novel; it was very important, and though generally impressed with the practicability of such vessels, he was not yet prepared to commit himself to any fixed opinion.

The President, somewhat earnestly, observed that “WE MUST NOT LET THE REBELS GET AHEAD OF US IN SUCH AN IMPORTANT MATTER,” (emphasis added) and asked what Mr. Fox regarded as the principal difficulty in the way of their use. Mr. Fox replied that naval officers doubted their stability, and feared that an armor heavy enough to make them effective, would sink them as soon as they were launched. “But is not that a sum in arithmetic?” quickly asked the President. “On our Western rivers we can figure just how many tons will sink a flatboat. Can’t your clerks do the same for an armored vessel?”

“I suppose they can,” replied Mr. Fox. “But there are other difficulties. With such a weight, a single shot, piercing the armor, would sink the vessel so quickly that no one could escape.”

“Now, as the very object of the armor is to get something that the best projectile cannot pierce, that objection does not appear to be sound,” said the President.
Mr. Fox again observed that the subject was under active examination, and he hoped soon to be able consider it intelligently, and the conversation turned upon other matters.

When we left the White House, Mr. Fox observed that the President appeared to be deeply interested in the subject of iron-clads; that it was most important, but it was new, and would encounter all the prejudices of the naval service. But its importance was such that its investigation would be pressed as fast as possible, with a view of a least trying the experiment.

Within a few days there was a rumor that the Bureau of Construction in the Navy Department, through the influence of Mr. Fox, was engaged upon plans for an iron-clad vessel. As soon as Congress met, on the 4th of July, a bill was introduced which authorized the Secretary of the Navy to appoint a Board of Construction of three naval officers, to whom the plans for an iron-clad vessel were to be submitted, and, if the board approved them, the secretary was authorized to contract for its construction.

* * * * *
Science Magazine reported on January 27, 2016 at 1 PM:

Eighteen years after a computer beat then-reigning world champion Garry Kasparov at chess, a machine has defeated a professional player at the ancient eastern board game Go. The new advance is much bigger, artificial intelligence (AI) researchers say, as Go is such a computationally demanding game that even a decade ago some researchers thought a computer would never defeat a human expert. At the beginning of the game, each player has roughly 360 options for placing each stone. So after five plays, the board can be in any of more than 5 trillion different arrangements. In total, the number of different possible arrangements of stones stretches beyond 10 to the 100th power, rendering it impossible for a computer to play by brute force computation of all possible outcomes. The machine won not by virtue of overwhelming computational power, but by employing "machine learning" tools that enable it to teach itself and to think more like humans do.

* * * * *
I wonder who is going to build the M-6.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Fascinating post, David - linking Lincoln and Hawkins (another fascinating and exceptional personality) via this fascinating (and a bit scaring) topic. I don't recall the exact year estimated but I think computers will soon be able to process information faster than the human brain.

[ELCore]

I reflect from time to time on the unbelievable power of the Internet as a source of knowledge.

One thing I think of in this regard is "Mortality", Lincoln's favorite poem. He spent, literally, most of his adult life wishing he knew who had written that poem. He did not find out until he was president, and one of his generals heard Lincoln refer to, or quote from, the poem. Recognizing it, the general (I forget whom) sent Lincoln the book from which the general knew the poem.

The poem is by William Knox. For three decades, Lincoln didn't know that. Nowadays, a few words from the first line would reveal its author in less than a minute.

[Gene C]

I wouldn't worry to much about Artificial intelligence. If it starts to get out of hand some one will unleash Artificial Stupidity.

There's an interesting science fiction scenario for you.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Huxley and Wells however would find it interesting how much of their fiction has realized or realistic to do.

[David Lockmiller]

(01-30-2016 08:40 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Huxley and Wells however would find it interesting how much of their fiction has realized or realistic to do.

There was also the prophesy of Arificial Intelligence from the first Terminator movie (1984) with Arnold Schwarzenegger.


Reese: “Sarah Connor? . . . I'm Reese, Sergeant Techcom, BN38416...assigned to protect you. You've been targeted for termination.

There was a nuclear war...a few years from now. All this...this whole place, everything...it's gone. Just gone. There were survivors. Here, there.

Nobody even knew who started it.

It was the machines, Sarah.”


Sarah Connor: “I don't understand.”


Reese: “Defense network computers...New... powerful. Hooked into everything. Trusted to run it all.

They say it got smart...a new order of intelligence.

Then it saw all people as a threat...not just the ones on the other side.

Decided our fate in a microsecond....Extermination."

[David Lockmiller]

(01-29-2016 11:06 PM)ELCore Wrote:  I reflect from time to time on the unbelievable power of the Internet as a source of knowledge.

One thing I think of in this regard is "Mortality", Lincoln's favorite poem. He spent, literally, most of his adult life wishing he knew who had written that poem.

He did not find out until he was president, and one of his generals heard Lincoln refer to, or quote from, the poem. Recognizing it, the general (I forget whom) sent Lincoln the book from which the general knew the poem.

General James Grant Wilson informed Lincoln that Scottish poet William Knox was the author.

Mr. Lincoln frequently recited from memory, “Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud!” A poem from William Knox written early in the 19th century. Mr. Lincoln, however, was long unaware of the poem’s author. Union officer James Grant Wilson recalled: “I called at the White House once with Isaac N. Arnold, a member of Congress from Chicago. In the course of conversation the President expressed his admiration for Dr. Holmes’s poem The Last Leaf . . . ."

“His favorite poem, he said, was one entitled Mortality, the author of which he had failed to discover, although he had tried to do so for twenty years. I was pleased to be able to inform him that it was written by William Knox, a young Scottish poet who died in 1825. He was greatly interested, and was still more gratified by the receipt, not long afterwards of a collection of Knox’s poems, containing his favorite, which had appeared in hundreds of newspapers throughout the country, and had been frequently attributed to him (Lincoln).”

-- Rufus Rockwell Wilson, Intimate Memories of Lincoln, pp. 423-424 (James Grant Wilson,Putnam’s Magazine, February-March, 1909).

David James Harkness and R. Gerald McMurtry, Lincoln’s Favorite Poets
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1959)

It took me some time, but I found the answer using Google. I remember reading the story somewhere but forgot where. Searching through indexes of various books in my possession yielded no positive results. So, it was back to a Google search.

The book by Rufus Rockwell Wilson, "Intimate Memories of Lincoln," has one of my favorite Lincoln stories which I posted years ago - a little girl appealed to Lincoln to help her father and Lincoln did so.

[ELCore]

(01-30-2016 11:05 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  General James Grant Wilson informed Lincoln that Scottish poet William Knox was the author.

Thanks. I couldn't remember the general's name (there were O so many generals, weren't there?) and didn't feel like trying to look it up.

---

(01-30-2016 08:26 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  There was also the prophesy of Arificial Intelligence from the first Terminator movie (1984) with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

There is a much older movie (and even older story) about self-aware machines, Colossus: The Forbin Project, from 1970, which I saw on TV many, many years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus%3...in_Project

[David Lockmiller]

(01-29-2016 06:05 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Fascinating post, David - linking Lincoln and Hawkins (another fascinating and exceptional personality) via this fascinating (and a bit scaring) topic. I don't recall the exact year estimated but I think computers will soon be able to process information faster than the human brain.

Today, March 10, 2016, the New York Times, published a story entitled “Master of Go Board Game Is Walloped by Google Computer Program.”

The match — between Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo and the South Korean Go master Lee Se-dol (Mr. Lee, 33, is one of the world’s most accomplished professional Go players, with 18 international titles under his belt.) — was viewed as an important test of how far research into artificial intelligence has come in its quest to create machines smarter than humans.

Mr. Lee acknowledged defeat after three and a half hours of play.

“I am very surprised because I have never thought I would lose,” Mr. Lee said at a news conference in Seoul. “I didn’t know that AlphaGo would play such a perfect Go.”

The match, the first of five scheduled through Tuesday, took place at a Seoul hotel amid intense news media attention. Hundreds of reporters, many of them from China, Japan and South Korea, where Go has been played for centuries, were there to cover it. Tens of thousands of people watched the contest live on YouTube.

I believe that the next ominous step is military aircraft manned by artificial intelligence. Driverless-cars are now almost ubiquitous. The only question is: Which nation will be first to gain this military superiority?

All of this reminds me of the prophetic words of Abraham Lincoln regarding the introduction of ironclads into naval warfare: "The President, somewhat earnestly, observed that “WE MUST NOT LET THE REBELS GET AHEAD OF US IN SUCH AN IMPORTANT MATTER.” (emphasis added)"