Abraham Lincoln – Old Magazine Articles

Lincoln’s Truest Mourners
(Harper’s Weekly, 1865)

“[To the liberated slaves] the name Abraham Lincoln meant freedom, justice, home, family, happiness. In his life they knew that they lived. In his perfect benignity and just purpose, inflexible as the laws of seed-time and harvest, they trusted with all their souls, whoever doubted. Their deliverer, their emancipator, their friend, their father, he was known to them as the impersonation of that liberty for which they had wept and watched, hoping against hope, praying in the very extremity of despair and waiting with patience so sublime that fat prosperity beguiled us into the meaness of saying that their long endurance of oppression proved that God had created them to be oppressed.”

The Lincoln Blood Line Ends
(Pageant Magazine, 1963)

Here is an account of the painful life of Robert Todd Lincoln (1843 – 1926), the only son of President Abraham Lincoln:

“He witnessed the death of his father, the untimely deaths of his three brothers, the mental deterioration of his mother and the passing of his own 17-year-old son, who was the last hope for carrying on the Lincoln name.”

Click here to read about General Grant’s son.

The Jokes of Abraham Lincoln
(Pageant Magazine, 1954)

Lincoln could use humor as an explosive weapon as well as employing it as a constructive force… For Abraham Lincoln never told a story except with a purpose. He himself pointed this out often. His anecdotes were the precision tools of a highly skilled and intelligent wit… ‘I laugh because I must not cry: That’s all, that’s all.’

Click here to read another article about Lincoln’s use of humor and story-telling.

Click here to read the back-story concerning the Star-Spangled Banner…

Abe Lincoln: Short Story Writer…
(Gentry Magazine, 1956)

Reagan was the first actor to become president, Buchanan the first tailor, Jefferson the first architect and Abraham Lincoln was the first writer to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:

The world has long known that Lincoln liked an occasional back-room story. Here is the only record – in his own handwriting – of that earthy side of the Great Emancipator.

The Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy
(The Southern Rebellion, 1867)

These words concerning the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln were penned a couple of years after the event took place, for an 1867 history on the American Civil War. The author referred to a popular allegation that was a common among Northerners at the time:

It was alleged, and with some reason, that the plot was known to, and approved by, the Rebel government in Richmond, and that [Jefferson] Davis and some of his cabinet, and their agents in Canada, were accomplices in the crime. Whether this be so or not, certain it is that propositions to assassinate President Lincoln and other prominent members of the government were received and entertained by Davis and his associates, and were not rejected at once, and with the scorn which became civilized and Christian men.

– from Amazon: Day of the Assassins: A History of Political Murder

More on the assassination can be read here…

Abraham Lincoln: The Boy
(National Park Service, 1956)

Following the death of his mother, Nancy Hanks, the future president was but six years old. Lincoln’s father, Thomas Lincoln, then married Sarah Bush and the family moved to Indiana. The Lincoln family was poor and suffered hardships living in the Indiana wilderness but a bond was created between stepmother Sarah and the boy Abraham that was never broken. From the age of nine and throughout the rest of his life Lincoln would call her, Mother.

These are the tender memories of his boyhood that she called to mind just five months after the assassination.

The Age Progression of President Lincoln
(Coronet Magazine, 1945)

Ever since the age of photography began, one of the semi-official pastimes of the American people involves taking note of the rapid facial decay of their assorted presidents while in-office – and as the collected photographic portraits of Abraham Lincoln clearly indicate, no one will be naming a skincare product after him any time soon, however, the aging process that effected his face so dramatically has been the subject of Lincoln admirer’s through the years, and some are collected in the attached article.

General Grant Recalled Meeting Lincoln
(National Park Service, 1956)

A short paragraph from General Grant’s memoir recalling the the first private interview with President Lincoln, on the occasion in the early spring of 1864 when he was given command of all the Federal armies.

In my first interview with Mr. Lincoln alone he stated to me that he had never professed to be a military man or to know how campaigns should be conducted…

Click here to read about a dream that President Lincoln had, a dream that anticipated his violent death.

Myths About Lincoln
(Literary Digest, 1929)

Myths After Lincoln is a book that documented many of the assorted tall tales that have, through the years, evolved in such a way as to have us all believe that Lincoln was a mystic who was blessed with dreams of foreboding.

The myth of Lincoln’s funeral train appearing as an apparition once a year is discussed, as are the legends that John Wilkes Boothe, like Elvis, survived the Virginia barn fire, where he is believed to have died and escaped into the Western territories.

Snapshots of the Assassination
(Saturday Evening Post, 1865)

The pistol ball entered the back of the President’s head and penetrated nearly through the head. The wound is mortal. The President has been insensible ever since it was inflicted and is now dying… A common single-barred pocket pistol was found on the carpet.

The Women Lincoln Loved
(McCall’s Magazine, 1920)

This brief article, The Women Lincoln Loved, illustrates the strong influences that four remarkable women made in the important process of molding the character of young Abraham Lincoln.

All four of these women share in and are a part of Lincoln’s greatness. They were the most powerful influences in the molding and shaping of the man and his career. Their valuation of life and their aspirations were the secret and noble forces that guided his heart and mind… Out of them was born a great and tender spirit with ‘malice toward none, charity for all.’

The Lincoln Memorial
(NY Times, 1923)

– two books from Amazon:Read more …

The Prophetic Dreams of Abraham Lincoln
(Literary Digest, 1929)

There are hundreds of stories concerning the life of President Lincoln. Some of them are true and some are not and we’ll leave it up to other websites to decide; among the stories told are the ones that tell the tale of a Lincoln who had dreams of foreboding, dreams that came to him in the night and told of his own demise:

Gradually she drove him into telling of his dream.

‘About ten days ago I retired late. I soon began to dream. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs…I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse, wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards, and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully…others weeping pitifully. ‘Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded of one of the soldiers. ‘The President,’ was his answer. ‘He was killed by an assassin.’ Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd which awoke me from my from my dream.’

It was argued that slavery in the United States did not end in 1865…

The Depression and Humor of President Lincoln
(National Park Service, 1956)

This 1956 article addressed the issue of Lincoln’s depression:

Lincoln’s story telling proclivities were well known in his own time. On the old eighth circuit in Illinois his humor and fund of anecdotes were proverbial. What was not so well known was that the tall, homely man needed a blanket of humor to suppress the fires of depression, gloom, and sense of tragedy that almost consumed him.

Click here to read about Lincoln, the joke teller.

An Eyewitness Account of Lincoln’s Visit to Richmond
(Atlantic Monthly, 1865)

Abraham Lincoln was walking their streets: and worst of all, that plain, honest-hearted man was recognizing the [slaves] as human beings by returning their salutations!

-so wrote the Atlanta Weekly journalist, C.C. Coffin, in this report to his readers concerning the 1865 tour Abraham Lincoln made to a very humiliated Richmond, Virginia.

The Two Lincoln Inaugurations
(Inaugural Program, 1949)

Callously torn from the binding of the 1949 inaugural program were these pithy paragraphs describing the somber moods of both Lincoln inaugurals. The anonymous author noted that

when Lincoln delivered his Inaugural Address, four future Presidents of the United States stood on the platform near him: Hayes, Garfield, Arthur and Benjamin Harrison.

To read the text of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, click here .

The Dying Lincoln: Could He Have Survived?
(Coronet Magazine, 1941)

In this article, the controversial author and prominent chemist, Otto Eisenschiml (1880 – 1963), recalled the events that unfolded at Ford’s Theater as Lincoln lay dying. A good deal of information is dispensed concerning the physical damage that was wrought by Boothe’s derringer (pictured) – as well as the various life-prolonging measures that were implemented by the 23 year-old doctor who was first on the scene.

Woodrow Wilson on Lincoln
(Collier’s Magazine, 1916)

Here is a paragraph that was pulled from an interview with President Wilson in 1916 in which the bookish president remarked upon the various interesting aspects of President Lincoln:

He was not fit to be president until he was president.