Edwin Stanton

[Gene C]

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(12-19-2015 08:33 PM)maharba Wrote:  If any man ceases to attack me I never remember the past against him." >

I'm not sure Ed Stanton ever did cease to attack Abraham Lincoln. He strikes me as a very dangerous lunatic. From digging up folks and keeping them for years in his parlor, to barricading himself in his office after Pres Johnson canned him, and there is so much we do not know of Stanton or Buchanans correspondence. Some scholars claim he had useful value because Stanton was a good hatchet man. I think he was using a twin-bladed hatchet though.

Who did he dig up and keep in his parlor this time?

[Eva Elisabeth]

Please go here, I think this is what she means:
http://cwbn.blogspot.de/2012/01/madness-...n.html?m=1
Morbid about death perhaps, but not any dangerous to others IMO. Plus Victorian age - IMO - had morbid (to us) habits regarding this topic in general (like photos with deceased, stuffed animals all around, etc.) I bet Stanton's behavior was perceived way less morbid by his contemporaries.

[RJNorton]

(12-19-2015 08:33 PM)maharba Wrote:  I'm not sure Ed Stanton ever did cease to attack Abraham Lincoln.

I don't think Robert Lincoln felt any animosity toward him.

The Stantons were invited to Robert Lincoln's wedding in 1868. Edwin Stanton could not attend due to business arrangements in Ohio, but Mrs. Stanton was present at the wedding as well as son Edwin L. "Ned" Stanton (a close friend of Robert's).

Regarding Stanton here is what Robert Lincoln wrote to David H. Bates (in 1911):

"His gruffness and complete absorption in the great work he had at hand were the most prominent characteristics to the public of course; but like yourself I knew personally of many things which indicated great warmness of his heart. I would not care to have it published, but I will tell you that for more than ten days after my father's death in Washington, he (Edwin Stanton) called every morning on me in my room, and spent the first few minutes of his visits weeping without saying a word."

[Susan Higginbotham]

Mary Lincoln wrote of Stanton to Sally Orme thusly, "What a misfortune his death! How nobly, he served his country in its darkest hours--history can well affirm! In my present weak state, the news, almost overwhelms me. My husband & himself, were very warmly attached to each other & we can well believe, that they are now together--I do--do you not?"

[L Verge]

I checked the online source that backwards Abraham posted in support of his comment and found it interesting that the owner of the blog has a very Russian name -- and also that every statement that is made refers to some "online source" -- not really a very reliable source for castigating a person's reputation, imo.

My intention here is not to malign someone with a Russian background. However, about twenty years ago, I had a very interesting experience corresponding with a 15-year-old student from the Czech Republic who was fascinated with the Lincoln assassination story and was using his background of learning "facts" from a Russian textbook. As you might imagine, some of the textbook's theories on the assassination (and its theses on American history in general) were quite "interesting." His lessons from this American lasted for several years.

About five years after we first started corresponding, a taxi pulled up in front of Surratt House one day, and a foreign gentleman came in and asked for me. It was my student! His visit coincided with a symposium at Ford's Theatre where many of the well-known Lincoln historians were speaking or attending, so off we went to Tenth Street. We also had a chance to travel over the Booth escape route. What a great experience for me.

Jan is now in his thirties and has a very nice job in the Czech Republic. He is still interested in our history and continues to be a member of the Surratt Society. I hear from him at least once a year.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Laurie, I am sorry it was I who posted the link but I fond Benjamin Thomas, whom the blog author refers to in his examination of the truth of online myths, a quite reliable source. (Maharba didn't provide any source.) I do agree, online articles mostly lack sources and reliability and such aren't appropriate to found judgements upon.

[Gene C]

Unfortunately the blogger mentioned takes some information and makes misleading comments.
He makes several odd statements about Stanton, but gives no source other than "on line"
He then half heartedly comments on them with quotes from a credible source, the book this thread mentions, the Thomas/Hyman book about Stanton and other reliable sources.
I agree with Eva, many online articles (like that one) lack sources and reliability.

Backwards Abraham, a friendly word of caution. When you continue to use unnamed and such poor, uncredible sources, your own credibility suffers. No one will believe anything you say.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Gene - didn't you read and recommmend Thomas' Stanton bio? Just remember I wanted to read it...I like his Lincoln bio.

[Gene C]

Yes, a very good book.

[maharba]

No, I can't take dubious credit for being a past or present 'russian student', and whatever link posted was not mine, as another poster said. Ed Stanton appeared to me to have been very cold and more than a little unhinged in his actions. Also that he appeared to make it a point to cozy up to and curry the favor of the younger Lincoln. I wonder if Stanton thought that Robert Lincoln would hold very high office, and within Stanton's lifetime --that goodwill he cultivated would come in handy later? My guess is that Abraham Lincoln would have pursued an even more generous
Reconstruction program with the south, than Pres Johnson did, if Lincoln had lived. Would Stanton then try his grandstanding insanities against Lincoln, as he did with Johnson?

[Eva Elisabeth]

(12-20-2015 07:16 PM)maharba Wrote:  No, I can't take dubious credit for being a past or present 'russian student', and whatever link posted was not mine, as another poster said.

Please call me Eva. No, while you didn't refer to a dubious source this time (as I clarified, you did not provide any instead), you have, I am afraid, done likewise several times before when lashing out.

[RJNorton]

(12-20-2015 07:16 PM)maharba Wrote:  Also that he appeared to make it a point to cozy up to and curry the favor of the younger Lincoln. I wonder if Stanton thought that Robert Lincoln would hold very high office, and within Stanton's lifetime --that goodwill he cultivated would come in handy later?

Robert was 21 at the time of the assassination. He was still 14 years away from legally running for President. Do you really think Stanton was looking that far ahead and being falsely nice to Robert Lincoln in 1865? I see no evidence at all that Stanton was not being sincerely (truthfully) sympathetic to Robert in 1865.

[Gene C]

He was also very kind to Tad too, but according to my unnamed internet blog resources
(which I'm not going to identify to you no matter how many times you ask, but go ahead and try anyway)
that was probably just political posturing for the future.