Abraham Lincoln statues

[David Lockmiller]

There is no reference to Vinnie Ream in Professor Burlingame's book Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Vol. 2.

Googling and Wikipedia provided a book source - Vinnie Ream, an American Sculptor by Edward S. Cooper (2004) p. 17-18:

During the summer [of the 1864 election year), President Lincoln and his family stayed at the Soldier's Home, north of the city, and traveled every day on horseback or by carriage to the White House. Vinnie often saw him coming down Pennsylvania Avenue with his cavalry escort, and became fascinated with his rugged appearance. She wanted him to sit for her. He had, after all, allowed Leonard Volk to take his life mask, and Francis Carpenter had set up a studio in the White House to paint the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. If the president sat for her, her reputation would be made. Three of her new political connections agreed to approach the president for her.

Senators James Nesmith and Reverdy Johnson, along with Representative James Moorhead (both Nesmith and Moorhead were to sit for Vinnie) called on Lincoln, who said he did not want to pose, adding that he could "not imagine why anyone would want to make a likeness of such a homely man." As the men rose to leave, Nesmith, a Democrat from Oregon, remarked: "This will be a disappointment to the young artist who selected you as her subject. She is a little Western girl, born in Wisconsin. She's poor and has talent, and we intend to encourage her in this work, in which we feel she will excel, by giving her an order for a bust in marble . . ."

Lincoln cut him off. "She's poor, is she?" he asked. "Oh, well, that's nothing against her. Why don't you bring that girl up here? I'll sit for my bust."

The timing appears, based on additional text, to have been around the time before the creation of the "Blind Memorandum" on the morning of August 23, 1864.