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Paul Serup · (This post was last modified: 10-29-2015 02:48 PM by Paul Serup.)

(10-28-2015 05:07 AM)RJNorton Wrote: Hi Paul and welcome to the forum. Could you possibly explain why President Lincoln's meetings (as reported by Chiniquy) with Charles Chiniquy are not cited in any other source other than Chiniquy himself? I consider Lincoln Day By Day - A Chronology 1809 - 1865 to be the most authoritative source of Lincoln's everyday activities, and there is no mention of Chiniquy ever meeting Lincoln in the White House.

For example, Chiniquy writes that, "The next day, he (Lincoln) took me with him to visit the 30,000 wounded soldiers picked up on the battlefields of the seven days' battle of the Wilderness, and the thirty days battle around Richmond..." Can you name any other sources besides Chiniquy himself that verify this? Thanks.

Thank you for the pleasant welcome. Chiniquy is mentioned in Lincoln Day By Day - A Chronology 1809 – 1865, albeit briefly in 1856. I am not sure how authoritative Lincoln Day By Day is. Joseph George Jr. was considered an authority on Charles Chiniquy by such people as Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Mark Neely Jr., for instance, and I would assert that George is not an authority on Chiniquy. I did have a quick look at Lincoln Day By Day and some of the entries are pretty bare bones. For example, the entry for August 26, 1864 reads: Cabinet meets. Welles, Diary. Also, the one for August 13, 1864 reads: Gen. Robert Anderson is dinner guest. CW, VIII, 550. The entry for March 19, 1865 is: President approves Gen. Pope's plan of action for Missouri. Ibid., 365-66. I believe it is fairly logical to assume that Lincoln did more on these days than what Lincoln Day By Day reports he did, therefore because something is not mentioned in this source does not mean it did not happen. I see nothing in the June 10th, 1864 entry that would prevent Lincoln from visiting soldiers, he had visited such veterans before.

Regarding the three visits that Charles Chiniquy reported he had with President Lincoln, on August 12, 1864, the Chicago Tribune printed a letter from Chiniquy detailing a visit he had with Lincoln earlier that year. This is a report on his June 8 to June 10 visit with the 16th President. The Tribune, a significant paper of Chicago, the main city of Illinois, Lincoln’s state, put the headlines over the letter, “Letter from Father Chiniquy”, and “His Interview with President Lincoln”. The Tribune reported on or published letters by Chiniquy about a hundred times. When Chiniquy turned 80, in 1889, the Tribune put the news of the large celebration of this personal milestone on its front page. The Tribune, I suggest, had no doubts that Charles Chiniquy had indeed gone to Washington and met with the President, as the editorial staff knew him well, as their reporting on him shows. Chiniquy’s treatment by distinguished contemporaries like the Tribune, like the New York Times, further attests to the fact he was a well known, celebrated clergyman whose statements were not doubted by these distinguished contemporaries.
Regarding visiting wounded soldiers, Chiniquy, in the 1864 letter, spoke of visiting thousands of these men in hospital in Washington, whom he called heroes, although he does not specify that he did so with President Lincoln. This correspondence, by the way, is fascinating reading and details the great admiration Chiniquy had for Lincoln. In the letter, published when Lincoln was in office, Chiniquy stated, “Like the few giants whom the hands of God have placed at long distance from each other, on the top of the high mountains of humanity, Abraham Lincoln will grow greater to the eyes of the generations which will cross the plains below.” With more than a hundred books on average written on the 16th President every year since his death, 150 plus years ago, a thousand books in the last four years, I would say that Chiniquy here also was absolutely correct.

(10-28-2015 01:16 PM)Gene C Wrote: For those interested, here is the Amazon description for Paul Serup's book "Who Killed Abraham Lincoln? (But support the Surratt House and buy it from them)

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-Abraham...am+lincoln

Charles Chiniquy's book "50 Years in the Church at Rome the Conversion of a Priest" is also available from Amazon.
The Internet Archive site has the same book and a few others by Charles Chiniquy, as well as a few others by different authors on similar topics.
https://archive.org/details/texts?and[]=charles chiniquy (you have to enter Charles Chiniquy in the search box)

Paul, are you asserting the Roman Catholic Church was involved in Lincoln's assassination?

I wasn’t there when the conspiracy was made, Charles Chiniquy, whose allegations and life I investigated, wasn’t there either, so there is only circumstantial evidence to present at this point but I would say that there is strong evidence that the Roman Catholic Church was involved in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.