News: Sixth Known Bible Belonging to A.Lincoln Found In San Francisco, CA

 
 
A New Lincoln Bible, From a Mantel to a Presidential Library,  Peter Baker, New York Times, June 19, 2019

In 1864, Abraham Lincoln made a rare wartime trip out of Washington to visit a charity event in Philadelphia raising money to care for wounded soldiers. He donated 48 copies of the Emancipation Proclamation to be sold for fund-raising.

But it turns out he received a gift in return: a Bible whose pages were edged with gilt and decorated with the words “Faith,” “Hope” and “Charity” after I Corinthians 13:13 — a holy book at a time when Lincoln was turning increasingly to Scripture to understand personal tragedy and national trauma.

Now, more than 150 years later, historians have discovered the Bible for the first time, a unique artifact of the 16th president life  that they did not even know existed. Given by his widow to a friend of Lincoln’s after his assassination,  it has remained out of sight for a century and a half, passed along from one generation to another, unknown to the vast array of scholars who have studied his life.

As of Thursday, it will go on display for the first time at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library  and Museum  in Springfield, Ill., a bequest from the family of the Rev. Noyes W. Miner, who lived across the street from the Lincolns in the Illinois capital and spoke at the slain president’s funeral. After preserving the Bible over the decades, Miner’s descendants recently came forward to disclose its existence and donate it to the public. Full text continued at the New York Times.

Full Text and Image Link: New York Times

New and Noteworthy--- Stepping Back To 1856 On The Steamship Arabia

Treasure In  A Cornfield: The Discovery and Excavation Of The Steamship Arabia, Greg Hawley, Paddle Wheel Publishing, 2005, 223 pp., 106 color photographs, 3 b/w photographs, 2 color illustrations, 35 color diagrams, 13 b/w diagrams, 1 color map, glossary, appendix,  $23.95.

The steamship Arabia was built in Brownsville, PA on the Monongahela River. It sank in 1856 during a flood on the Missouri. After sinking the deck was swept clear by the flood. The hold filled with sediment. The contents were excavated in 1998. Here is the story of the finding, excavation and preservation of material goods and one skeleton from 1856. The exhibit is coming to Pittsburgh's Heinz History center during the late spring and early summer of 2014.

 Treasure In  A Cornfield's diagrams, both black/white and color are well drawn and essential for understanding the steamship, its contents and the destruction of its deck. Color photographs of the artifacts are profuse and show the details of steam engines and the porcelain china, color and fibers of the textiles and the weapons.  Those with an interest in the Civil War will find amazing illustrations of material culture of the era. Those with an interest in riverboats on the Potomac, Ohio, Mississippi, Cumberland and Tennessee rivers will easily be able to imagine how mountains of goods were moved by Federal inland navies in support of Federal armies. Those who enjoy prospecting on ground marched and camped on by the armies will be intrigued by the story of the discovery and excavation of the steamship Arabia over 150 years after its sinking. Treasure In  A Cornfield: The Discovery and Excavation Of The Steamship Arabia, is written in a style that is accessible to general readers;there is a glossary of terms  for use by landlubbers. The steamship's museum is in Kansas City and has a website here.

New and Noteworthy---The Civil War In 50 Objects?

Bernard von Bothmer: Review of Harold Holzer's "The Civil War in 50 Objects" (Viking, 2013) published at History News Network, May 19, 2013

From the HNN review: "The task of choosing 50 objects was a difficult one, given the enormous amount of artifacts the Society has from the time period. In The Civil War in 50 Objects, distinguished Civil War scholar Harold Holzer strikes a fine balance between political, social, cultural, military, and economic history, discussing a wide range of paintings, letters, weapons, photographs, woodcuts, uniforms, drums, diaries, petitions, drawings, and documents. There is something here for any student of the Civil War. And by distilling the conflict to a manageable number of objects, described in chronological order, Holzer gives the era a sense of clarity, allowing one to walk through the conflict’s key events and themes.

"The writing is engaging, lively, gripping, and riveting at every turn, with wonderful dramatic pacing. Chapters are filled with countless touching tales that link the objects with the era’s larger history.

"Holzer ends nearly each of the brief 50 chapters with a wonderful story, nugget, or turn of phrase. Among them: a slave that returns to a plantation and, during a brawl, killed his wife’s excessively cruel former master; an artist whose work during the war changed from stereotypical views of blacks towards a sympathetic portrayal of their plight is described as “in the space of just three years … also liberated” (15); the tale of a New Yorker who fought for the Confederacy and died in action -- on April 14, 1865; a painting that was reassembled in time for the New-York Historical Society recent reopening after extensive renovations -- on November 11, 2011, Veteran’s Day; the Georgian who stated that “If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong,” prompting Holzer to write: “By war’s end, the 200,000 or so African American men in arms proved [his] point” (158); though northern newspaper accounts after the Battle of Gettysburg were full of optimism, “In fact, the war was only halfway over” (188); Holzer’s outrage that “none of the rioters who plundered and torched the Colored Orphan Asylum” during the 1863 New York Draft Riots “was ever brought to justice” (214); an amusing list of predictions from the 1864 Metropolitan Fair of New York about life in the city in 1964 that would actually come true. When Lee at his surrender met Grant’s military secretary, Ely S. Parker, a Seneca Indian, Lee reportedly paused, and then said “I am glad to see one real American here,” to which Parker responded, “We are all Americans” (315)."

The author of these remarks is Bernard von Bothmer is an adjunct professor of history at the University of San Francisco and Dominican University of California.

For the complete review go to History News Network

Forthcoming and Noteworthy: Did Blockade Runners Beat the Federal Navy and Prolonge the War?

Entrepot: Government Imports into the Confederate States , Charles L. Webster III, Edinborough Press, 396 pp., $39.95 paperback.

Examining . . . the history of civil war blockade running, this unrivalled compilation reveals the arms, equipment, and clothing brought into the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Detailed and comprehensive, this survey offers month-by-month, cargo-by-cargo descriptions of goods received at multiple locations across the United States. From Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington to Matamoros, Galveston, and Mobile, this reference lists all distribution—the Belgian-made woolen cloth and English rifles that arrived in the farthest reaches of the Trans-Mississippi and the receipt of thousands of British knapsacks, blankets, and cartridge boxes in the winter camps of the struggling Army of Tennessee. A unique depiction of a perilous trade, this record sheds a dramatic light on the surprising pervasiveness of imported war material as well as the effectiveness and sophistication of the Confederate supply system.

Charles L. Webster III is a historian specializing in the American Civil War and a practicing lawyer. He lives in Houston, Texas.

Text: Edinborough Press

CWL: Entrepot: Government Imports into the Confederate States is to be released the fall and Ray Flowers of the Fort Fisher Historic site states that the book is reader-friendly, well written and researched; Webster answers questions too long unanwsered. Stephen Wise, author of Gate of Hell: Campaign for Charleston Harbor, states that it is a book that rewards researchers, historians, and enthusiasts; this study that considers the impact of military supplies and the logistical system of the Confederacy will stand as valuable resource.

Off Topic---Trash Talk, . . . No Really, Trash Talk

Madison's Trash Heap Yields Stuff of History: Renovations Open a Window on Life at Montpelier, Jonathan Mummolo Washington Post Staff, Wednesday, October 17, 2007; Page B01

It was just a broken plate found buried in a trash heap. But to researchers at James Madison's estate, Montpelier, fragments of porcelain unearthed last month from the Virginia piedmont tell a story of a first lady, two U.S. presidents, a king and queen and the revolutions that bind their legacies more than 200 years later.

Discovered amid oyster shells, a chamber pot and shards of glass that filled a midden, or trash pile, near Dolley Madison's kitchen, a fractured dessert plate found by researchers during a $24 million restoration of Montpelier is believed to date to the late 1700s and might have once belonged to Marie Antoinette, the French queen with an infamous penchant for decadent living who perished at the guillotine during the French Revolution.

Pieces of a fractured dessert plate are among the artifacts recovered from a trash heap at Montpelier, the estate of President James Madison. The plate's Parisian origins have been linked to tantalizing possibilities. (The Montpelier Foundation)
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The plate -- manufactured by the Parisian company S¿vres, which supplied the court of Louis XVI -- was part of a trove of artifacts uncovered at the Orange County estate, shedding light on the enigmatic personal life of the former president and sponsor of the Bill of Rights. Matthew Reeves, director of archaeology for the Montpelier Foundation, which is conducting the restoration, said that "100 percent of the items we're finding . . . were being used by James and Dolley Madison in their daily lives."

Michael C. Quinn, executive director of the foundation, said, "We have found the mother lode." Quinn said the fact that Madison rarely wrote about himself, the scattering of his belongings after his death and a dearth of correspondence between him and his wife, who were rarely apart, have left little for historians to work with when attempting to piece together day-to-day life at Montpelier. "He never sought the limelight," said Quinn, who noted that Madison, although hailed as "the father of the Constitution" by his peers, insisted that the document was "the work of many heads and many hands."

Absent a comprehensive record of household objects, the foundation has relied in part on oral histories and objects on loan from Madison family descendants, some of which have been authenticated by recent discoveries, foundation officials said. For example, the jagged S¿vres fragments, with their ornate floral pattern faded by the elements and stripped of its gold leaf, perfectly match a plate on loan to Montpelier from Madison family descendants. They say the plate is part of a set that once belonged to Marie Antoinette and that Madison bought from James Monroe in 1803. Historians believe that Monroe, who went on to become president, probably bought the S¿vres plates in Paris between 1794 and 1796, when he was minister to France. The theory is that the plates were sold to Madison to help finance Monroe's trip to France in 1803, when he went back as part of the delegation that negotiated the Louisiana Purchase for President Thomas Jefferson.

"All of a sudden, that heirloom piece is given an incredible amount of validity," Reeves said, because it is now known that it was in use at the estate during Madison's life. Reeves said that further research is needed to confirm the plate belonged to the French queen but that the consistency of the find with the family's oral tradition bodes well for its prospects. The discovery elaborates on Madison's known interest in French culture, Quinn said. The French aided the United States during the Revolutionary War, and Madison hosted the Marquis de Lafayette -- who fought alongside George Washington -- at Montpelier in 1824.

The placement of the midden, about 200 feet from the kitchen, and its contents help explain the way the household was organized, researchers said. Reeves said some of the plantation's 100 slaves probably collected trash and hauled it to the midden periodically. The Madisons' garbage apparently was disposed of separately from the garbage of slaves, given the exclusively high-end items the midden contained. Researchers are searching for a slave midden and hope to find it before the restoration's expected completion in September 2008, foundation spokeswoman Peggy Vaughn said. Other findings, though not as glamorous, further illuminate Madison's daily existence.

A rib bone shows one cut of meat the Madisons ate. Less expensive dinnerware suggests that they saved their best china for special occasions. Remnants of champagne bottles and engraved glassware suggest that Madison had expensive tastes, which, along with stepson John Payne Todd's gambling habit, could have contributed to the debt the estate was left in after Madison's death. The debt led to the sale of many of Montpelier's items. Charred wood fragments -- probably from a fireplace used for cooking -- have been salvaged and can be screened for seeds, eggshells and fish bones to learn more about the Madisons' diet. The findings "are enormously powerful," Quinn said. "They really go directly to one of our most important missions, which is really presenting Madison's personality, his character.

WWWLink to Archaelogy at Montpelier:http://www.jmu.edu/montpelier/issues/fall02/main/dig.html

CWL--This article caught my eyed because I'm reading:
Huts And History: The Historical Archaeology of Military Encampment During the American Civil War, David Gerald Orr (Editor), Matthew B. Reeves (Editor), Clarence R. Geier (Editor), University Press of Florida, b/w illustrations, maps, index, 279 pages, 2006, $65.00

Soon CWL will reveal what archaeologists don't know but relic hunters do, as seen through the eyes of Bryan L. Corel and Joseph F. Balicki, two archaeologists and contributors to Huts and History.

Other Voices---David Forsmark on Ferguson's Land of Lincoln

David Forsmark on Andrew Furguson's Land of Lincoln,FrontPageMagazine.com, 9/12/2007.

Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America, Andrew Ferguson, Atlantic Press, $24.OO, 279 pp.

Want to start an argument in an online political forum? Say something nice about Abraham Lincoln.

If you buy the media line that our current political climate is the most divisive in American history, you'll get an eye-opener (though the cruel fact that the Cvil War left 600,000 dead Americans should have been enough of a clue). Although beloved by most of his countrymen and universally hailed as one of the nation's greatest presidents, Lincoln remains at the core of an underground controversy. Try to imagine 140 years from now people conducting anti-George W. Bush seminars and claiming that Karl Rove was a dastardly pioneer who crossed new frontiers in the art of dividing the country.

"As Weekly Standard editor Andrew Ferguson points out in Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America: "While he was alive, Abraham Lincoln was one of the most intensely hated figures the country has ever known. The minute he got shot, however, things began looking up for him." But not everyone thinks Abraham Lincoln is No. 1 — with or without a bullet; and the debate rages well into its second century.

Just when you think it's impossible for anyone to say anything new about Lincoln, Ferguson's Land of Lincoln is an invigorating and refreshing addition to the canon.
Equal parts travelogue, history lesson and sociology text (of the P.J. O'Rourke school), Land of Lincoln is relentlessly fascinating, frequently hilarious, and unexpectedly poignant. In short, it is one of the season's best surprises. Born in Illinois, Ferguson grew up a natural-born Abe-ophile. As an editor for The Weekly Standard, he was hardly isolated from arguments among conservatives over history, political correctness and the history of Big Government.

However, he was somewhat taken aback when demonstrations broke out in Richmond, Va., over a planned statue commemorating Lincoln's 1865 visit to the war-torn former capital of the Confederacy. Ferguson decided to investigate. While the media predictably portrayed the anti-Abe forces as racist rednecks, Ferguson decided to actually listen to them. To his dismay, while he disagreed with them, he found Lincoln's foes to be far better informed about history than Lincoln's Richmond defenders. He met with Bragdon Bowling, a spokesman for those protesting the statue, who listed the reasons for his animus against Lincoln:

With his generals he invented the concept of Total War, and waged campaigns of unprecedented savagery against noncombatants and private property in the Shenandoah Valley, Sherman's March through Georgia, and elsewhere. He was the father of Big Government, vastly expanding the reach of imperial Washington in ways unthinkable to the country's founders. The Northern victory was, therefore, the triumph of a cosmopolitan, commercial culture run by Big Business, over a Southern culture of small towns and farms that only asked to be let alone."

Whatever one might think of Bowling's grievances, they are at the least informed by history and worth arguing over. Ferguson was less impressed by the pro-Lincoln forces, a befuddled group of chamber-of-commerce types who were shocked to find anyone still harbored a grudge against St. Abraham. They did nothing to pacify their opponents by inviting only leftist historians to man the panel discussion over Lincoln's greatness. In Ferguson's mind, they made the great war leader sound "like Bill Moyers." Robert Kline, the man who established the dubious United States Historical Society to promote the Richmond statue (and sell knickknacks), gushed to Ferguson that any extra money generated by the project it would go to the Richmond Peace Center -- "a wonderful group" -- where signs are posted that say "Jail Bush, Not Saddam."

"They stand for a lot of the things that Lincoln stood for," Kline enthused to a bemused Ferguson, "Peace. Understanding. Their specialty is conflict resolution."
Somehow, the fact that Lincoln stubbornly presided over the nation's most brutal war in the face of public discontent had become a footnote to a "historical society" in the heart of the Confederacy. Ferguson attends a "Lincoln Reconsidered" seminar featuring Dr. Thomas Dilorenzo, author of The Real Lincoln, which capitalized on the controversy to boost attendance. Ferguson once again is dismayed to learn the people in attendance are closer to him politically than the Lincoln fans.

Skipping the lunch at the seminar, Ferguson wanders around downtown Richmond and happens upon a teachers -- excuse me, "educators" -- conference on "Early Education," where the seminars boast such titles as "Banning Superhero Play." When he tells the educators why he;s in town, their eyes glaze over, and they mouth platitudes like, "History can be a good learning experience." Ferguson looks around the room full of warm fuzzy political correctness and realizes of the anti-Lincoln crowd, "Those guys say they don't like Lincoln, and they don't; but this is what they really hate, this right here. The country turned into something they don't like, and they think Lincoln's responsible, and they will never forgive him for it."

As Ferguson notes, from the moment of his death, Lincoln has been dragooned into causes ranging from national temperance to the Communist Party USA, which named its volunteers unit fighting in the Spanish Civil War the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Churches got in the act, too, despite the fact that while Lincoln liked to quote the Bible, he never joined a church and had a very ambiguous spiritual life. From the barely religious Unitarians to Evangelicals using Lincoln's life and death as a parallel to the story of Jesus to Mary Baker Eddy's claiming the martyred president for Christian Science, Lincoln lived on in American pulpits.

The Richmond experience leaves Ferguson determined to find the real Lincoln. "What threw me…was the vehemence of the people who hated him, and — just as surprising -- the mildness of those of those who would defend him. (The scholars) came up with one of two Lincolns: a racist, warmongering totalitarian, or a sentimental old poop — Mussolini on one hand, or Mr. Rogers on the other." So, Ferguson sets off on a journey to visit sites, seminars and individuals devoted to Lincoln, sometimes (and hilariously) with a reluctant family in tow. He visits collectors of Lincoln memorabilia, who have varied backgrounds and political outlooks but share one thing: a hem-of-his garment depth of reverence for things touched by the great man.

Handwritten copies of the Gettysburg Address top the list, of course, but there also is a huge market for items related with Ford's Theatre and Lincoln's funeral. One man Ferguson meets claims to have a fragment of Lincoln's brain matter scattered by Booth's bullet. The shrines range from an impressive Disney-designed memorial extravaganza in Springfield, Ill., (where one of the designers takes pride in the fact the museum section contains no guns) to a statue build by a Thai immigrant restaurant owner in an Arab neighborhood who thinks Lincoln typifies all he loves about America —and is convinced the president's first name means he was Jewish.

Ferguson finds Lincoln is also an inspirational icon for many folks who would probably buy WWLD bracelets if someone were to market them. He attends a convention of Lincoln impersonators who consider their craft a calling, not a hobby. This culminates with a laugh-out-loud sequence where a few hapless tourists stumble upon the gathering of Abes who are overly eager to perform. Honest Abe also has been the inspiration for many self-help books, including the grandaddy of them all, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. Most people forget Carnegie's first book was a blarney-filled biography of Lincoln, Lincoln the Unknown, and how prominently Abe figures in Carnegie's anecdotes in his most famous work.

Lincoln also figures prominently as a modern business guru, a role that, at first glance, might be an awkward fit at best, Ferguson writes. As he notes, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People "do not include 'Forget to cash your paychecks,' and 'Keep your most important stuff in your hat.'" When Ferguson attends a business seminar that looks for the secret of management success in Lincoln, he finds the business gurus — and the bestselling business management book Lincoln on Leadership — are at least far closer to the reality of Lincoln as a person than those who once celebrated Lincoln/Lenin Day.

While the "War of Northern Aggression" has certainly won the day in academia, no doubt fueling the siege mentality of many at the Lincoln Reconsidered conferences, some balance seems to be returning to popular historical writing. Such historians as Jay Winik and Thomas Fleming, along with father-and-son "novelists" Michael and Jeff Shaara, prove it is possible to love Lincoln and Robert E. Lee. Some 14,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln, but Ferguson's Land of Lincoln is remarkable enough to stand out in the crowd. It's hard to imagine another book will ever explore the love/hate affair of Lincoln and the nation in such an entertaining and insightful way.
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Source's Link: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx

CWL's Thoughts: A personal favorite of mine is Tony Horowitz's Confederates In The Attic in which Horowitz tours and describes Dixie in a manner that reveals the humanity of those who dwell upon differnt aspects of the Confederacy and its culture. Both reverantly and irreverantly, Horowitz draws sharp pictures of, not the past, but of the present and how memory can be manufactured. Every generation uses the past to interpret its present. Hopefully, Ferguson has done for Lincoln what Horowitz did for Dixie.

CWL --- Walking Gettysburg's Battlefield: Civil War Minutes, Volume 3, Parts 1 & 2.

Gettysburg and Stories of Valor: Civil War Minutes Volume 3, Parts 1 & 2, writers: Michael Kraus, David Neville, director Michael Bussler, Inecom Entertainment Company, 90 minutes, 2004.

Inecom Entertainment Company is among the best small, independent producers of history documentaries. In terms of direction, content, writing, and production, I would pick an Inecom product over all others, including the History Channel. This pair of dvds is full of informative, but unpadded, and interesting, but unexaggerated, stories. The writers know the difference between trivia and obscure information. Trivia is humorous and superficial; obscure information is insightful and illustrates a larger truth. Part 1 of the set offers 14 topics on Gettysburg and part 2 sets forth 16 stories of the Civil War. Biographies and material culture, behavior and events are dual themes throughout Volume 3.

Interested in Civil War era medicine? On disk 2, there are short features about caring for the wounded, bullet wounds, and amputees. Looking for background on generals? On both disks there are stories of Winfield S. Hancock, Lewis Aristead, Alexander Hays and Felix Zollicoffer.

Haven't heard from Civil War era civilians recently? Meet John Burns of Gettysburg, and the men, women and children of Pittsburgh's Allegheny Arsenal who died on the afternoon of September 17, 1862. Take a look at one of the farmsteads that became a burial site for hundreds of Confederate dead at Gettysburg, the Forney farm. Explore Gettysburg's historic photographs that are faked. Walk through both the Evergreen and the National Cemteries on Cemetery Hill, Gettysburg. You'll find Confederates buried in the National Cemetery and the actual location of the podium for the Gettysburg Address in the Evergreen Cemetery.

The writers and director tell the stories of the men who carried the weapons by focusing on their material culture . Examine the path of shrapnel through a CSA major's coat sleeve. Carry a drum across the Emmitsburg Road, lose it and have it returned 20 years later. Go through the haverack and knapsack of a soldier. Cross the Dead Line at Andersonville; live in POW camps in the North.

Thankfully, reenactors are not in every shot; they are limited in their appearance to closeups as they handle their guns, bone saws, haversacks, and drums. Don't get me wrong; I am a reenactor and appreciate the 'living history aspect' of the hobby. But to show reenactors running through woods, up hills and across streams, ad nausem like the History Channel or MediaMagic frequently do, usually covers bad writing and unsupported generalizations.

The writers and directors show the actual implements of war as they are preserved in private and public collections throughout the country. The credits that run at the end of each disk will answer the question you will probably ask several times during your viewing of Civil War Minutes; "Where did they find that?" Civil War Minutes, Volume 3, Gettysburg and Stories of Valor, is recommended for all ages and all levels of interest in the Civil War.