Grovers Theater

[Tom Bogar]

(03-08-2014 03:17 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Hi Anita. Tom is the theater expert so I hope he sees this. But personally I don't believe many of Grover's stories. I think he was really good at creating and embellishing. Not a reliable source IMO. His statements have made it into many Lincoln books. Doris Kearns Goodwin writing in Team of Rivals says, "Leonard Grover had estimated that Lincoln had visited his theater 'more than a hundred times' during his four years as president." This would be about 25% of the total days he was in office. I just don't believe it. If I am counting correctly Lincoln Day By Day lists 22 visits to Grover's.

My favorite capsule summary of Grover's character came from John Hay, who in his diary called Grover "a most amusing blackguard with a queer history." When I was researching American Presidents Attend the Theatre, I took apart Grover's article on "Lincoln's Interest in the Theatre" word by word, and found far more than half its contents did not square with known facts. The drunken coach driver is a good example: the people with Lincoln were elsewhere, Lincoln himself was not at that theatre that night, not a single Washington correspondent reported the event, nor a single bystander/witness, etc. Grover even claimed that upon Lincoln's first arriving in the capital after that harrowing midnight trip through Baltimore, he, Grover, was there to personally welcome him at the Willard Hotel and "Lincoln directed his entire response, by voice and gesture, direct to me." He also claimed to have helped Lincoln select his VP running mate. But the "more than a hundred times" at his theatre (I was only able to fully verify 21) and "none at Ford's" is farcically inaccurate, but typical of the man's career-long self-puffery. Yet, I agree: people take his words and run with them, time after time after time. Arrgghh.