Robert Todd Lincoln --The vitals

[ScholarInTraining]

Here are a few varied accounts and retellings of what happened during the incident with the dogs.

1. Newspaper article:

"Chauncey H. Graves, 83 years old, of Mound City, Mo., says Abraham Lincoln was no weakling in applying a barrel stave to the spankable sector of a small boy's anatomy. Graves, Robert Lincoln and many other boys in the neighborhood were putting on an animal show in the Lincoln barn. The 'wild' animals were dogs suspended from the rafters in a fashion to cause them to 'growl' like lions. A neighbor reported the cruelty to Mr. Lincoln, who, stave in hand, unexpectedly visited the show. After loosing the dogs, Mr. Lincoln rounded up the show managers and applied the barrel stave so effectively the show business stopped."


2. From Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1 (Burlingame):
"....Now and then these roles were reversed: Lincoln would use corporal punishment, and his wife would object. Once he found young Robert and his friends putting on a play with dogs. The boys fastened a rope around one canine's neck, tossed the rope over a beam, and tugged hard to make the beast rise up. When the animal-loving Lincoln beheld the scene, he grabbed a barrel stave "and immediately began plying it indiscriminately on the persons of such boys as were within reach". Mary Lincoln reportedly "was very angry, and reproached her husband in language that was not at all adapted to Sunday School." Citation listed: Illinois State Register (Springfield), 13 July 1860.

3. Fictionalized version from Love Is Eternal:

"There was a group of children who played together. Mary cleared out the barn and let it be known that it could be used as headquarters for their club. Robert converted the barn into a theatre.....
"One afternoon there was a howling of dogs from the barn; the noise was maddening; she bit her lip, she did nothing to interfere. A little while later she heard hurried steps in the street, saw Abraham vault the tall fence, run through the yard, pick up a stage of an old ash barrel and speed across the yard to the barn. There were frantic sounds of running and one short cry. In a few moments he came onto the back porch, carrying the barrel stave in his hand, an outraged expression on his face.
"Why didn't you stop them, Mary? Why did a neighbor have to make me come all the way home from the office? How can you be so indifferent as to let them hang dogs in the barn?"
"Hang dogs? Whatever are you talking about?"
At that moment Robert came in....
"Robert protested: "We were putting on a dog act is all, teaching the dogs how to stand up on their hind legs. They didn't want to learn so we had ropes around their necks and we were helping to hold them up. Then Papa came in screaming, 'What do you mean by hanging dogs?'"

4. Fictionalized version from a chapter of a children's book about RTL's life, summarized:

Young Robert and his friends want to put on a patriotic dog show in the barn. Mary says it's okay, and the boys make all sorts of excited preparations. Unfortunately, it all goes awry when the dogs get stuck in the ropes and begin to panic. It doesn't help that the children themselves panic as they shout at the dogs to be still and unsuccessfully try to free them. When a worried neighbor overhears dogs howling in the barn, he goes to report to Mr. Lincoln who hurries home, taking a barrel stave with him to stop the abuser. Once he reaches the barn and takes a look at what's going on, he drops the stave and quickly unties the knots himself, freeing the dogs. A subdued Robert appears and explains to his father what they were doing and says he didn't mean to hurt the dogs. Abraham tells his son that be believes him, but "the way to teach animals is by kindness and patience, not by force and ropes, by love, not fear."

5. From The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln:

"Lincoln occasionally erupted in anger at Robert. In Springfield one day, the boy and his friends put on a dog show in the family barn. To get the canines to rise up, the children slung ropes over a rafter then tied them around the dogs' necks, practically hanging them. Lincoln heard the howls and, after rescuing the poor animals, expressed his indignation to Robert." Citation listed: Quoted in Benjamin P. Thomas, Portrait for Posterity; Lincoln and His Biographers (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1947), 154.

6. Modified version from Lincoln's Springfield Neighborhood:

"Lincoln rarely displayed anger with a child. But one day, Robert and his friends put on a dog show in the family barn. To lift up the canines, the children tossed ropes over a rafter and then fastened them around the poor victims' necks, practically hanging them. Lincoln, hearing the howls, rescued the poor animals and expressed his outrage to Robert." Citation listed: Randall, Lincoln's Animal Friends