I would rather be defeated with the soldier vote behind me than to be...

[David Lockmiller]

(03-09-2020 04:56 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(03-09-2020 12:19 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Before making the above post, I went down to the San Francisco Public Library to check with the Fehrenbacher book to get the credibility rating of this Henry Wing story. Strangely, neither Henry Wing nor Ida Tarbell are referenced in the index to the Fehrenbacher book. Does anyone know why both names are omitted?

David, didn't the Fehrenbachers concentrate on contemporaries of Lincoln? This would explain why Tarbell was left out. I do not know about Wing.

Thanks, Roger.

Ida Tarbell wrote the following forward in 1927 to her book "A Reporter for Lincoln, Story of Henry E. Wing":

The story of the adventures of Henry E. Wing, cub reporter for the New York Tribune in the last year of the Civil War, is based on letters and articles by Wing himself, supplemented by the author's many conversations with him in the last year of his life. The story treatment has altered no fact, stretched no point, added no artificial evidence to Henry Wing's own stirring accounts of his experiences or of his close relations with Abraham Lincoln. So far as possible, the historical facts have been verified.

Before the narrative was ready for publication, Mr. Wing died, at his home near Bethel, Conn.--a man of 85 years--to the last clear in mind and serene and cheerful in spirit.

signed, Ida M. Tarbell

P.S. As previously posted, Doris Kearns Goodwin found Wing's story to be credible although she referred to Wing in the text of her book "Team of Rivals" not by name, but rather as a "visitor." It is only through her footnote reference that the "visitor" is identified by name.

Somewhat strange to my way of thinking.