He Served in Place of Abraham Lincoln

[L Verge]

(01-13-2016 10:25 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Dr. Sam Wheeler, research historian for the ALPLM, wrote an article about Staples here. Wikipedia also includes an article here. There's a much more lengthy article here.

Thanks for the link to the Monroe County newsletter. I thoroughly enjoyed the long article on Staples by John H. Abel.

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(01-13-2016 10:48 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Gene, I really do not know other than a guess. This would be that it was done as a symbolic gesture.

I had seen brief mentions of John Summerfield Staples over the years, but had never read anything of substance. One of the articles that Roger linked us to, however, gave Lincoln's reasoning as wanting to get fresh recruits as substitutes for the elderly and those who, for one reason or another, could no longer serve in the military. He needed to swell the ranks in order to keep winning battles and the upcoming election of 1864. The symbolic gesture would be offering himself as the first to have a substitute on this go-round of recruitment, but his thoughts were pure politics and military.

I have ancestors on both sides of the family tree who impoverished themselves by buying substitutes for their sons to avoid having our Marylanders fight against their Confederate brethren after Lincoln had promised our state that such would not be the case.

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(01-13-2016 01:57 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  His tombstone is on Find-A-Grave. A historical marker on the same page indicates that Lincoln procured him as his "representative recruit" to encourage draft-ineligible men to do the same.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi...&GRid=3652

Is it just me, or does Mr. Staples remind you of what Willie Lincoln might have looked like had he survived into his 20s?