Decapitation of the Union

[RJNorton]

(10-12-2015 05:44 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  (Did Dr. Soto comment on the ax story?)

Hi Eva. Yes, back in 2011 I also asked Dr. Sotos about that. He replied as follows:

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I have looked mighty hard for the first-hand account of the axe story and cannot find it.

Francis Carpenter is often cited as the primary source, but he is not. He cites a newspaper called "The NY Independent," but I think he is making it up. First, the days of the week he writes in his story don't fit the calendar. Second, I looked at all the issues of the Independent between Lincoln's Virginia visit and the publication of Carpenter's book, and the story is not there. The only substantial Lincoln material in The Independent is the long series of articles that Carpenter himself wrote. Carpenter was known to make stuff up.

I looked at every other eyewitness recollection of the hospital visits. It is pretty disjointed material. But there are at least three eyewitnesses who mention nothing about it: Sen. Sumner, Marquis de Chambrun, and a young soldier named Wilbur Fisk who wrote an effusive, detailed letter home on April 20 that did not mention axe work. It is likely that Sen. Harlan and William Crook were with him, too. Their reminiscences of that trip mention no axe work. By contrast, Keckley says that Lincoln returned to the River Queen that night so weary that he wanted to go to bed immediately.

And, somehow, this 1869 account from Lawrence Gobright has been overlooked: "... a visit to City Point early in April. While there, the President passed through the wards of several hospitals... He looked feeble, and was, for this reason, met with a remonstrance from all the surgeons in charge for attempting the hand-shaking of several thousand of men."