Decapitation of the Union

[Eva Elisabeth]

(10-12-2015 05:38 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Thanks, Roger! (I seem to recall Sumner did say something about this?!)

I mistook this for a 1878 account by Egbert Ludoricus Viele (edited by B. Binzel in the January 2015 Surratt Courier) who was ordered to accompany the presidential party, including Secs. Stanton and Chase (not Sumner...), and several others, to Fortress Monroe on board revenue cutter "Miami" in early May 1862.

"Few were aware of the physical strength possessed by Mr Lincoln. In muscular power he was one in a thousand. One morning, while we were sitting on deck, he saw an ax in a socket of the bulwarks, and, taking it up, held it at arm's length at the extremity of the helve with his thumb and his forefinger, continuing to hold it there for a number of minutes. The most powerful sailers on board tried in vain to imitate him. Mr Lincoln said he could do this when he was eighteen years of age, and had never seen a day since that time he could not. It occurred to me that...his abduction...would have determined very disastrously to those who should have the temerity to undertake it."