The American Civil War Museum

[RJNorton]

Thank you to Anita for sending this link:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/c...I4MTQyNQS2

[L Verge]

(05-06-2019 03:21 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Thank you to Anita for sending this link:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/c...I4MTQyNQS2

The museum personnel in our division of the government agency that I work for hope to visit this new/reworked museum this summer and (hopefully) meet with Christy Coleman. She spoke at a Surratt House program several years ago. She is a dynamic personality as well as a good speaker. She spares few words in making her views known, and whether or not you agree with her views, you respect her knowledge and her reasoning.

This article mentions her involvement decades ago with Colonial Williamsburg and interpreting slave history. She created quite a hornet's nest when she introduced a slave auction to the repertoire.

Personally, I loved the old Museum of the Confederacy and the Confederate White House. I hope that the melding of ideals between both sides is effectively and honestly portrayed in this new facility.

[GustD45]

My wife wants to take me there for my birthday. Personally I'd love to see it and the Confederate WH

[L Verge]

(05-07-2019 09:50 AM)GustD45 Wrote:  My wife wants to take me there for my birthday. Personally I'd love to see it and the Confederate WH

Definitely let her take you there. The White House has been nearly swallowed up by parking garages and buildings related to the nearby university, but if it is like it was when I was there years ago, it's lovely. I must admit that seeing the Davis desk and imagining Lincoln at it with his feet up (if the story is true) made me angry -- just like the photos of a former President with his feet up on the historic desk in the Oval Office that JFK resurrected.

I also got a tad emotional upon seeing the outside railing where the Davises' young son fell to his death. If you spend a weekend in Richmond, try to take in the Valentine Museum also. I hope Betty Ownsbey will chime in here. She's our pure-bred Richmond gal and a great historian on the city.

[RJNorton]

(05-07-2019 02:01 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I must admit that seeing the Davis desk and imagining Lincoln at it with his feet up (if the story is true) made me angry

I understand your anger. I feel disappointed in President Lincoln if this is true. I believe I have read that Lincoln sat in Jefferson Davis' chair but not the part about putting his feet on the desk. Do you know if there is an eyewitness account of a person who actually saw this happen? If not, maybe this account of feet on desk is apocryphal?

[L Verge]

This is an excellent piece on Lincoln's arrival in Richmond, but the only mention I see of any furniture related to the Confederate White House is Lincoln sitting down in an easy chair.

http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/civil...-richmond/

[J. Beckert]

(05-07-2019 02:01 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Definitely let her take you there. The White House has been nearly swallowed up by parking garages and buildings related to the nearby university, but if it is like it was when I was there years ago, it's lovely. I must admit that seeing the Davis desk and imagining Lincoln at it with his feet up (if the story is true) made me angry -- just like the photos of a former President with his feet up on the historic desk in the Oval Office that JFK resurrected.

I remember reading that this supposed incident infuriated Booth and he mentioned Lincoln sitting in Davis' chair and "spitting tobacco juice" all over. (In a conversation with one of the Fords?)

I also remember a piece where a reporter met with Lincoln in the White House and was appalled to be greeted by him in only his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, wearing his plug hat, while he spat tobacco juice in circles on the carpet.

While this behavior was not uncommon, (theaters were described as having a river of tobacco juice running through them during performances), these are the only two incidents I've heard of Lincoln using tobacco. Blaine posted something years ago that a later examination of Lincoln's vest that he was wearing at Ford's revealed it had traces of mint candies and a type of snuff in the pockets.

I wonder how much truth is in the Richmond story.

[Steve]

Here's an article that may be of interest:

http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/civil...-richmond/

[L Verge]

(05-09-2019 06:30 PM)Steve Wrote:  Here's an article that may be of interest:

http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/civil...-richmond/

I posted that reference above in #6. Very good article.

[Susan Higginbotham]

Andrew Ferguson has this to say about the chair story:

"Yet no eyewitness account mentions Davis's chair, or Lincoln's sitting in it. The detail was first recorded by someone who wasn't there: the humorist David Locke, who wrote a satirical version of Lincoln's visit in the voice of his character Petroleum V. Nasby. The chronicles of Nasby were published in Republican newspapers throughout the North. They were also, as it happens, Abraham Lincoln's favorite reading. In Locke's columns Nasby is a Southern sympathizer and all-purpose figure of fun; Locke's audience took Nasby's every pronouncement ironically, as a mockery of the rebels.

"After newspapers boomed word of the president's visit to Richmond, Locke wrote an account in which his character was appalled by the news. "Lincoln rides into Richmond!" Nasby sputtered in illiterate outrage. "A Illinois rail-splitter, a buffoon, a ape, a goriller, a smutty-joker, sets himself down in President Davis's cheer!"

"Though the fact was often repeated in subsequent accounts, this is the only contemporaneous mention of Lincoln's sitting in Davis's chair. It was a fancy detail, a bit of comic invention, meant to mock the Lincoln haters. That it's now used by them to buttress their case for Lincoln's arrogance proves that the joke is still on them--but not only on them."

The complete piece is here:

https://www.weeklystandard.com/andrew-fe...nd-part-ii

---

Terry Alford writes, "Lincoln's Richmond tour provoked Booth. For some reason, he believed the president threw a leg ostentatiously over the arm of Davis's chair and fouled his office by spitting tobacco juice, neither true."

[Steve]

(05-09-2019 07:21 PM)L Verge Wrote:  

(05-09-2019 06:30 PM)Steve Wrote:  Here's an article that may be of interest:

http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/civil...-richmond/

I posted that reference above in #6. Very good article.

Sorry about that Laurie, I must've overlooked it.

[LincolnMan]

I’ve never read that A L used tobacco.

[L Verge]

(05-10-2019 04:56 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  I’ve never read that A L used tobacco.

Because of the culture of 19th-century America, I would be surprised if Mr. Lincoln did not try chewing tobacco as a young man, but I can see him not liking it and not continuing with the practice.

[J. Beckert]

(05-09-2019 10:07 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  Terry Alford writes, "Lincoln's Richmond tour provoked Booth. For some reason, he believed the president threw a leg ostentatiously over the arm of Davis's chair and fouled his office by spitting tobacco juice, neither true."

Thank you, Susan!

[LincolnMan]

(05-10-2019 08:41 AM)L Verge Wrote:  

(05-10-2019 04:56 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  I’ve never read that A L used tobacco.

Because of the culture of 19th-century America, I would be surprised if Mr. Lincoln did not try chewing tobacco as a young man, but I can see him not liking it and not continuing with the practice.

Agree!