Springfield Tour

[davg2000]

I think the stone cutter was careless or ignorant of the actual wording.

Montgomery "moved" the body to Oakford Cemetery in Petersburg in 1890. The poem was published in 1915, and the current stone, with the Masters lines, was erected in 1921. I think that Masters was probably happy to get some measure of fame afforded by the monument.

I wonder what he thought as Ann's significance in the Lincoln story fluctuated over the first half of the Twentieth Century.

Masters went on to live until 1950 and had ample time to correct the mistake.

Interestingly, John Y. Simon's article on Ann Rutledge contains the poem as it appears on the stone, without the words "in life."