My latest book (8-24): Lincoln's Rise to Eloquence

[David Lockmiller]

(08-17-2024 02:15 PM)D. Leigh Henson Wrote:  I am pleased and humbled that the University of Illinois Press (UIP) is publishing Lincoln’s Rise to Eloquence, with a release date of August 20, 2024.

If you please, what would you say (or, have already written) about the following letter that President Lincoln wrote to General Grant? I made this post two days ago.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, in her book Team of Rivals at pages 683-84, wrote:

After Willie's death, Mary had been determined not to allow her oldest son, Robert, to risk his life in the army. But after his graduation form Harvard, she could no longer detain him.

In January 1865, [President] Lincoln wrote to General Grant:

"Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President, but only a friend. My son, now in his twenty second year, having graduated at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before it ends. I do not wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet to give him a commission, to which those who have already served long, are better entitled, and better qualified to hold. Could he, without embarrassment to you, or detriment to the service, go into your Military family with some nominal rank, I, and not the public, furnishing his necessary means? If no, say so without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious, and as deeply interested, that you shall not be encumbered."

Grant replied two days later. "I will be most happy to have him in my Military family," he wrote. He suggested the rank of captain would be most appropriate.

So, Robert's wish to join the army was granted.