Extra Credit Questions

[David Lockmiller]

I regret to inform the readers of the recent portion of this thread on Tad Lincoln and his father’s parental lessons that two of the stories that I have posted and attributed to Thomas Pendel in his book Thirty-Six Years in the White House are not true and not valid. Gene sent me a private message and informed me that Lincoln, Stanton, and Tad water hose incident was not in this work. He checked Internet Archives. I regret the mistakes and I apologize.

The two stories that I typed out from Emanuel Hertz’s book Lincoln Talks and attributed to Thomas Pendel are not valid. Pendel writes in his Preface to the book: “I have endeavored in my Recollections to relate only such events as appear to be worthy of preservation.” Since the two Pendel stories that I have posted on the “Stanton” and the “secret knocking code” incidents are not actually in this book, it is highly unlikely that either story is true.

However, I still believe in President Lincoln’s parenting philosophy as stated in the book Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln by Jason Emerson at page 9: “It is my pleasure that my children are free, happy and unrestrained by parental tyranny. Love is the chain whereby to lock [or bind] a child to his parents.” And, to answer an oft-repeated question on this thread: I do not have any children.