‘Mourning Lincoln’ Wins Book Prize

[David Lockmiller]

By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER New York Times FEB. 14, 2016

“Mourning Lincoln,” the historian Martha Hodes’s account of how ordinary Americans lamented (or celebrated) the assassination of the Great Emancipator, has won the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, which is awarded annually by Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. The prize, for “the finest scholarly work in English on Abraham Lincoln, carries a $50,000 cash award.

In the book, which was published by Yale University Press, Ms. Hodes drew on diaries, letters and other writings by ordinary citizens — black and white, Northern and Southern — from the spring and summer of 1865. The prize jury called it “a stunning and enlightening work that underscores the rage that Lincoln’s assassination fueled, the outpouring of grief that resulted, and how the anger and confusion that boiled across the country that summer influenced the failures of Reconstruction.”

Ms. Hodes is a professor at New York University.

[Thomas Kearney]

Looks like a promising read!

[Gene C]

All the loss that families experienced during the war came to the surface with the tragic death of Lincoln. At least in the north, and especially for the family and those closest to him.

This reminds me of this song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAlNBxlF...B&index=94

[RJNorton]

Back in 2014 Angela posted this moving link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtV-vpzPj5Y

Thanks again, Angela.

[Angela]

(02-15-2016 05:22 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Back in 2014 Angela posted this moving link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtV-vpzPj5Y

Thanks again, Angela.

While I am not very well versed in anything assassination related, that add hit me hard and made me want to understand better how the country felt at the time.

It made me travel to Washington in April 2015 and from there on to Springfield. I attended the Funeral Reenactment in Springfield a couple of weeks later and it was - at times - a very moving experience; at other times it felt odd when I noticed that tourists in shorts and flip-flops posed grinning in front of a coffin.
Nevertheless, it was a most amazing thing to be done and I am very happy that I got to be part of it.
In Springfield, and at the ALPLM, you can since a few days ago, find a DVD of those days. I just mailed a copy to Eva and am curious as to what her thoughts are on this since I find her input so very much enlightening here.

One thing that really struck me as wonderful was the fact that, building the hearse for the reenactment, the people who organized it, reached out to a veteran's hospital that worked with people suffering from severe Ptsd. They explained that it was in the spirit of Lincoln's words from the 2nd inaugural ("to care for him who shall have borne the battle") that had the organization committee wanted those people to be part of it.
It's very much worth watching it!

[RJNorton]

(02-15-2016 02:35 PM)Angela Wrote:  While I am not very well versed in anything assassination related, that add hit me hard and made me want to understand better how the country felt at the time.

Angela, several years ago on his wonderful website Dave Taylor wrote, "...I’m going to recount what could be a factoid that I can’t seem to find a source for. I don’t know where I read it and I’m not sure it’s even true, but it’s something that I find fascinating if it is. I recall reading some source that stated that, before the advent of the television, more people witnessed the passing of Lincoln’s funeral train than any other event in American history. That’s to say that the sight of Lincoln’s funeral train as it passed through and by town and cities, was the most observed object and event in our history. It would not be until images began being transmitted on the television that more people saw one identical thing. To me, this fact, if true, is amazing. It perfectly shows how vital Lincoln was to our country."

http://boothiebarn.com/about/

[David Lockmiller]

We had passed through a thicket of wild plum and crab trees, and stopped to water our horses, when Hardin came up alone. Where is Lincoln? we all inquired. "Oh," replied he, "when I saw him last he had caught two young birds which the wind had blown out of their nest, and he has been hunting for the nest so as to put them back."

In a short time Lincoln came up, having found the nest. The party laughed at him, but he said: "I could not have slept if I had not restored those little birds to their mother."




One day, when his anteroom was crowded with men and women seeking admission to his presence and he was unusually perplexed by official problems, a friend remarked: "Mr. President, you had better send that throng away. You are too tired to see any more people this afternoon. Have them sent away, for you will wear yourself out listening to them."

"They don't want much, and they get very little," he replied. "Each one considers his business of great importance, and I must gratify them. I know how I would feel if I were in their place."