Why Is the G.O.P. Fighting to Preserve Monuments to Traitors in the Capitol?

[David Lockmiller]

Lieutenant-Colonel William McCullough of the 4th Illinois Voluntary Calvary was a longtime friend of attorney Abraham Lincoln. McCullough had served many years as sheriff and clerk of the court for McLean County. When the Illinois Eighth Circuit Court traveled to Bloomington, Lincoln would sometimes stay with the McCullough family.

When the American Civil War came, William McCullough, an excellent horseman, volunteered to serve in the military but was rejected because of his age (48) and physical disabilities (loss of an arm in a farming accident and loss of an eye in a shooting accident). McCullough petitioned President Lincoln directly for permission to serve. Lincoln granted the petition and commissioned McCullough as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fourth Illinois Calvary, which McCullough helped to organize; he was well-respected by his comrades.

Lieutenant-Colonel William McCullough of the Fourth Illinois Voluntary Calvary was killed in night warfare with Confederate forces at Coffeeville, Mississippi on December 5, 1862. After 22 year-old Fanny learned of her father’s death, according to her mother, she “neither ate nor slept since the tidings of his death, but shut herself in her room, in solitude, where she passed her time in pacing the floor in violent grief, or sitting in lethargic silence.” Recently-appointed Supreme Court Justice David Davis, a mutual friend of William McCullough, was informed of the family’s situation; he requested that President Lincoln write a letter of condolence.

Abraham Lincoln had suffered similar losses to that of the young Fanny McCullough. When Lincoln was only nine, his much loved mother called him to her side as she was dying from disease, saying to him: “I am going away from you, Abraham, and I shall not return.” Earlier in the year, on February 20, 1862, Lincoln’s own much loved 11 year-old son, Willie, died of disease at the White House, devastating President Lincoln.


Executive Mansion,
Washington, December 23, 1862.

Dear Fanny

It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You cannot now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before.

Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother.

Your sincere friend
A. Lincoln
________________________________________
Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler et al.

One should read an actual facsimile of President Lincoln's letter to Fanny McCullough.

Subsequent to receiving the letter of condolence, a friend of Fanny reported to Justice Davis that the “beautifully written” letter “had a very good effect in soothing her troubled mind.” (W. W. Orne to David Davis, Bloomington, January 2, 1863 – Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Vol. Two, page 462, Michael Burlingame, (2008))

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Here's an article in the New York Times today that should upset all "liberals/leftists/democrats":

These Companies Gave Their C.E.O.s Millions, Just Before Bankruptcy

The article's subtitle reads: "Corporate boards are handing out millions to top executives before their companies seek bankruptcy protection, and courts can’t do much about it."

And, one of the quotes from the article reads as followsssssssss: "Certain outlays that a company makes just before bankruptcy — for instance, payments to suppliers — are at risk of being clawed back. But the bonus payments typically don’t fall into that category, legal scholars say."