He Served in Place of Abraham Lincoln

[Susan Higginbotham]

Other than being denied a pension (which he may not have been entitled to anyway), what was disgraceful about Staples' treatment? He wasn't exposed to combat during his time as Lincoln's substitute. He was buried with military honors, and his service was noted by a number of newspapers in the days following his death. He didn't die in poverty, and the cause of his death, a heart attack, doesn't appear to have been related to his service. He was commemorated by a plaque on a bridge in 1933 (lost when the bridge was destroyed in a flood in 1955) and by a plaque at the cemetery in which he was buried in 1941, and the DAR arranged to have his weathered tombstone replaced in 1987. He may be an obscure figure today, but he certainly hasn't been erased from history.