Lincoln Cottage April 9 Event with Don Doyle and Sidney Blumenthal

[RJNorton]

Oh my...Eva, that is a great photo! (But you are 100% correct - it's good Mary was not around.)

[L Verge]

I've never claimed to be a Lincoln scholar, so I am unfamiliar with the "Turkey Story." Someone please fill me in. Was it connected with the wonderful, old Copper Beech Tree that was legendary on the grounds of the Anderson Cottage? I was lucky enough to see it years ago before it was taken down.

[LincolnToddFan]

I don't know the Turkey Story either...would love to hear it !

[Eva Elisabeth]

SHAME ON ME - and this shall teach me not to criticize tour guides and point at misquotations (a German proverb says: "God punishes little sins instantly")...no wonder you don't know the turkey story, the birds were peacocks!!! I'm sorry about that. Here the peacock story goes as recalled by Stanton's son, Lewis Stanton:

“Mr. Lincoln and my father arrived at the cottage. They at once noticed the peacocks who were roosting in a small cluster of cedar trees with the ropes and sticks caught in the many small branches and recognized the dangerous and uncomfortable position when on the morrow they would attempt to fly to earth. The two men immediately went to work, solemnly going to and fro unwinding the ropes and getting them in straight lines and carefully placing the small pieces of wood where without catching they would slide off when in the morning the birds flew down.”

(B.P.Thomas, H.M.Hayman: "Stanton, the Life and Times of Lincoln's Secretary of War," pp.384/385)

Here's is a nice and informative site on the Soldiers' Home:
http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/insi...ubjectID=4

[LincolnToddFan]

Great story, thanks Eva!

[Anita]

Eva, thanks for sharing your visit to the Old Soldiers' Home. I was there several years ago. It was perfect weather, a weekday and my husband and I were the only visitors. It was easy to understand the lure this magical place had on Lincoln and family. We are fortunate that it was preserved for history. Pinsker's book is excellent. Enjoy.

In light of your peacock story I snapped this fellow through my bedroom window a few days ago. He and 22 of his flock are trying to take up residence in our yard!

   

[RJNorton]

Wow, Anita, how beautiful and exotic!

[Eva Elisabeth]

(03-29-2015 04:25 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Wow, Anita, how beautiful and exotic!

Cannot agree more!!!!!

[L Verge]

...Until they "speak" to you...

[Anita]

Oh yes Laurie. It's mating season and oh are they speaking!

[LincolnToddFan]

OMG Anita, where do you live again? The Peninsula sure didn't have beautiful peacocks when I lived there!

[RJNorton]

(03-25-2015 07:56 AM)Don1946 Wrote:  Those in the DC area may be interested in attending a book talk I'm giving on The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War at Lincoln's Cottage the evening of April 9.
Sidney Blumenthal, a Washington political figure and Lincoln scholar, will be interviewing me. A reception and book signing will be part of the event.
I look forward to seeing many old friends in DC, where this book began back in 2010.

Details about the event can be found in the following link:
http://lincolncottage.org/cc-doyle-2015/

President Lincoln's cottage sent out this email about Don's event (some clarity was lost as I transferred the email image to the forum). Best of luck, Don!

[Don1946]

One thing I love about this place is Walt Whitman's recorded notes on seeing the president as he rode by horse or carriage out to the Cottage. They came to recognize one another, and Whitman became fascinated with the enigmatic visage of the president. He wrote about this in Specimen Days, among my favorite of his writings. Here is an excerpt from the National Park Service site: http://www.nps.gov/Nr/twhp/wwwlps/lesson...facts2.htm

I see the President almost every day, as I happen to live where he passes to or from his lodgings out of town. He never sleeps at the White House during the hot season, but has quarters at a healthy location some three miles north of the city, the Soldier's Home, a United States military establishment. I saw him this morning about 8:30, coming in to business, riding on Vermont Avenue, near L Street. He always has a company of twenty-five or thirty cavalry, with sabers drawn and held upright over their shoulders. They say this guard was against his personal wish, but he lets his counselors have their way. The party makes no great show in uniform or horses. Mr. Lincoln on the saddle generally rides a good-sized, easy-going gray horse, is dressed in plain black, somewhat rusty and dusty, wears a black stiff hat, and looks about as ordinary in attire, etc., as the commonest man. A lieutenant, with yellow straps, rides at his left, and following behind, two by two, come the cavalry men, in their yellow-striped jackets. They are generally going at a slow trot, as that is the pace set them by the one they wait upon. The sabers and accoutrements clank, and the entirely unornamental cortège [the group following and attending to some important person] as it trots toward Lafayette Square arouses no sensation, only some curious stranger stops and gazes.

I see very plainly ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S dark brown face, with the deep-cut lines, the eyes, always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression. We have got so that we exchange bows, and very cordial ones. Sometimes the President goes and comes in an open barouche [horse-drawn carriage]. The cavalry always accompany him, with drawn sabers. Often I notice as he goes out evenings - and sometimes in the morning, when he returns early - he turns off and halts at the large and handsome residence of the Secretary of War, on K Street, and holds conference there. If in his barouche, I can see from my window he does not alight, but sits in his vehicle, and Mr. Stanton comes out to attend him. Sometimes one of his sons, a boy of ten or twelve, accompanies him, riding at his right on a pony. Earlier in the summer I occasionally saw the President and his wife, toward the latter part of the afternoon, out in a barouche, on a pleasure ride through the city. Mrs. Lincoln was dressed in complete black, with a long crape veil. The equipage [a carriage and all that attends it, such as horses and servants] is of the plainest kind, only two horses, and they nothing extra. They passed me once very close, and I saw the President fully, as they were moving slowly, and his look, though abstracted, happened to be directed steadily in my eye. He bowed and smiled, but far below his smile I noticed well the expression I have alluded to. None of the artists or pictures has caught the deep, though subtle and indirect, expression of this man's face. There is something else there. One of the great portrait painters of two or three centuries ago is needed.

[LincolnToddFan]

Thanks Don..I think the young boy accompanying the Lincolns must have been Tad. Mary's severe black mourning attire was for Willie and it probably accounted for AL's sad expression as well.