He Served in Place of Abraham Lincoln

[maharba]

Roger has furnished here, I see, several links which document much of what I found out, even including the old newspaper clipping with Noble D. Larner being interviewed and then casually slurring the soldier who took the place of Lincoln in the army. I agree with you, Anita, that particularly that portion has the look of a partisan poster (me) slanting the reporting, there. But that really is what Mr.Larner said. When it was reported in the newspapers, as the articles which RJN cites detail, then Summerfield and his friends and family took great exception and apparently wrote the newspapers to set the story straight: Summerfield was both still alive, and very much a decent, working fellow. The authors of the other Summerfield items did not seem to understand who Larner really was, and how highly well-placed.

But now I will add a personal observation which arises in my mind from the actions of Lincoln's crony "the Grand High Priest" Noble Danforth Larner. Can't you just see him sitting in a lavish drawing room enjoying an expensive cigar with some fine cognac, laughing and even amused at the naive young soldiers slaughtered in the fields, the South on fire now with invading foreign troops. The Grand High Priest comfortable by the fire and expostulating that even Lincoln's own substitute he had fetched for him, was just some loser...probably died in the Wilderness. Did Seward, Stanton and company join in these shared good times?