Extra Credit Questions

[David Lockmiller]

(03-07-2019 05:27 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  And although it is not my favorite book, Robert's words on p. 65 show that his opinion on Tad's "promotion" which David brings up above is not as sweet as David's (and I agree with Robert on this one).
Tad went to bed, the and since he had discharged the guards, the White House remained unguarded that night.
https://books.google.at/books?id=3XLTAAA...&f=falseS:

Eva, your hyperlink leads to the following text:

[Robert Lincoln] had a great row with the [P]resident of the United States." That day, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton had commissioned eleven-year-old Tad a lieutenant, upon which the boy promptly had muskets sent to the White House, discharged the guard, and mustered all the gardeners and servants into service. He gave them guns, drilled them, then put them on guard duty.

Eva, do you not think that it is the least bit odd and bizarre that eleven-year-old Tad was able to dismiss the [military] guard at the White House who were charged with the protection of the President of the United States in time of war, that he was able to actually have functioning muskets sent to the White House, that he was able to muster all the gardeners and servants into service, give them guns, and then put them on guard duty? Excuse me, Eva, wasn't there an officer or an adult in the room at any time?

Yet, you put all of the blame for what eleven-year-old Tad was able to accomplish on Tad, as if he were fully responsible as an adult.

Perhaps, President Abraham Lincoln thought all of this humorous, as well. However, as the text notes: "Tad, however, soon went to bed, and the men were discharged." The text does not indicate who discharged the gardeners and servants, but it was the President of the United States who did so.

And, this is not the first time that the White House was unguarded. I remember Robert Dale Owen knocked on the front door of the White House and no one answered when he delivered one Saturday morning his manuscript on the proposed Amnesty Proclamation to the President. The President was alone in the White House and Mr. Owen walked right up to the President's office without meeting anyone to challenge his presence in the White House.

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(03-08-2019 05:38 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  

(03-07-2019 05:27 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  And although it is not my favorite book, Robert's words on p. 65 show that his opinion on Tad's "promotion" which David brings up above is not as sweet as David's (and I agree with Robert on this one).
Tad went to bed, the and since he had discharged the guards, the White House remained unguarded that night.
https://books.google.at/books?id=3XLTAAA...&f=falseS:

Eva, your hyperlink leads to the following text:

[Robert Lincoln] had a great row with the [P]resident of the United States." That day, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton had commissioned eleven-year-old Tad a lieutenant, upon which the boy promptly had muskets sent to the White House, discharged the guard, and mustered all the gardeners and servants into service. He gave them guns, drilled them, then put them on guard duty.

Eva, I also noticed a factual error in the paragraph immediately following the paragraph with the quoted text immediately above. This paragraph references the fire that took place on February 10, 1864 at the White House stables. The sentence in error states: "It was also a bitter loss for little Tad, who was in tears over the deaths of his two ponies."

One of the ponies had actually belonged to his brother, Willie. Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote a very good story in Team of Rivals at page 603 on the White House stables fire and President Lincoln's role in response to the fire. The story contains an observation made by Tad.

On the night of February 10, a fire alarm rang in the White House. Smoke was seen issuing from the president's private stables, which stood between the mansion and the Treasury building, and Lincoln raced to the scene. "When he reached the boxwood hedge that served as an enclosure to the stables," a member of this bodyguard, Robert McBride, recalled, "he sprang over it like a deer." Learning that the horses were still inside, Lincoln, "with his own hand burst open the stable door." It was immediately apparent that the fast-moving fire, the work of an arsonist, prevented any hope of rescue. "Notwithstanding this," McBride observed, "he would apparently have tried to enter the burning building had not those standing near caught and restrained him."

Six horses burned to death that night. When McBride returned to the White House, he found Lincoln in tears. Ten-year old Tad "explained his father's emotions": one of the ponies had belonged to his brother, Willie. A coachman who had been fired by Mary that morning was charged with setting the fire.