say good-bye to Billy Herndon. It wasn’t easy climbing
that stair. It was difficult to say good-bye to my old
partner and friend. I gathered up some books and papers
and laid them on the big table. I stretched out on the
old couch, with the buffalo robe under me.
“How long have we been working together, Billy?”
“Over sixteen years,” he replied.
“We’ve never had a cross word all that time, have we?”
He nodded.
“That’s right.”
I asked him to retain our old shingle, on its rusty
hinges.
“If I live, I’ll be coming back, and then we’ll go on
as if nothing had ever happened.”
At the bottom of the stairs, we shook hands.
In keeping with my philosophy I felt certain that I
would never return to Springfield.
October 21, 1863
White House
Library
The unfinished dome on the White House continues to
trouble me. The incompletion has become a symbol. I peer
through its maw and it seems a war wound. When will it be
finished? And when it has been completed will the union
of the North and South begin? A carpenter tips his hat:
“Good morning, Mr. President.” Throughout the morning I
have heard hammers and saws. Patience, I tell myself. A
wise man invented patience. The emancipation of man will
require great patience.
It is pleasant writing in the library. I will return
again.
Here is a book, on my desk, entitled Sparta. I believe
that the Spartans were often respected for their courage.
What is it men fear most? Death?
Ten men will have ten answers.
From the days of the Spartans men have floundered over
freedom—spelling it a hundred different ways! The
Iroquois had their idea of freedom. The Pilgrim had his.
The blacks. The list can go on and on.
Freedom and death... I see they have an ugly affinity.
Nov 1st – 63
The Library
As far back as I can remember I have always watched
over my dollars. In Springfield I knew what each month’s
expenses amounted to. During my sixteen-year partnership
with Billy Herndon, our agreement was fifty-fifty. There
never were any problems. Though it is miles to
Springfield, I can summon figures. Our last year
together, Billy and I earned $2,300 each. We had 63 cases
at $10.00 each; we had 20 at $15.00 each, etc. Twenty or
twenty-five brought in $5.00. Apart from these combined
earnings I added about $1,200 on my prairie circuits.
This is a singular improvement over 31¢ a day at farm
labor. As farm hand I earned about $100.00 a year,
eliminating thunder and lightning, hail, sore muscles,
broken ax handles, corns, a chronic failure on the part
of farmers to pay their promised payments. City
lamplighters do better.
Few in this capitol have ever enjoyed the intimacy old
Jenny and I shared, buggy-sharing, spelled out with
faithful grunts, special ear signals and soft nuzzlings.
No, it wasn’t always money-concern for me. Another asset
was Billy’s library—his Kant, Locke, Spencer, Volney, and
Emerson.
Another virtue, one that is very difficult to spell
out, Billy kept my inkwell full.
November 12, 1863
Evening
Today has been a day of war problems. Telegrams
contradict telegrams. In my bedroom I opened my
Shakespeare to Julius Caesar:
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Where is there finer counsel for me?
Foremost in my mind is the termination of this war, the
abolishing of black servitude, the welding of our
statehood. A triple goal!
Saturday
I used to wash in an iron keeler, scrubbing hard after
plowing or splitting rails. Saturday was scrub night.
Here, at the Executive Mansion, the pretentious
bathrooms trouble me. There are thousands of neglected,
hungry folk. It is a president’s obligation to assist
those in need.
For all concerned there have been more favored times;
as a people we are trapped between violence and the
mending of that violence; in spite of our bewilderment we
reach out.
I can not say grace any longer. I have tried. I
stumble. I can not express my thanks for food when men
are hungry. When whole communities are hungry, when death
stalks our nation. If I am fortunate I may be fortunate
at another’s expense, another’s disadvantage.
Tomorrow, I will saddle Old Abe. I will shove my new
Wordsworth book into my saddlebag and ride into the
country, along the Potomac. I will eat dry corn bread. I
will lie in deep grass and read, all day.
Nov 20, ’63
Early
I prefer art that pictures a Niagara or a lofty
mountain range at sunset or a tall vase full of flowers.
I don’t go for the painting of faces—portraits. The
painting done by Francis Carpenter troubles me; for one
thing I wish he would remove it from the dining room
where he has excellent chandelier light. Of course I can
not find time to sit for him during the day. And all
those faces on his canvas are so dull, such solemn faces;
seven dull men surround me as I sign the Emancipation
Proclamation. People, looking at those men, will think
ill of us. At dinner, if the painting is still in the
dining room, I face away from it. Carpenter says he will
take the picture on a national tour. I believe that is an
error.
Monday evening
Fireplace fire
Where are sexual malpractices focused?
Let me indicate:
In 1850 there were 405,523 mulattoes. Very few of these
are the offspring of white and free blacks; nearly all
have sprung from black slaves and white masters. In the
same year, there were 56,649 mulattoes in the free
states; but for the most part they were not born there—
they came from the slave states. During this year, the
slave states had 348,847 mulattoes, all of home
production.
The White House
Since no man is born president of his country, he must
cross a difficult bridge between home and capitol.
Crossing it, he is involved in national issues and
problems he could not anticipate. About him is a sea of
new faces; he must remember each; he must remember names;
he must define personalities as quickly and as
intelligently as possible.
Following my inauguration, Fort Sumter, at Charleston,
was bombarded; within six weeks state secession had
begun. “Secession is revolution,” I reminded my
dissatisfied fellow countrymen. Grim cabinet meetings
took place; telegram followed telegram; I soon realized
that months of decision and indecision lay ahead. I saw
it would be months before I could control my own house.
Needing friends, I reached out and found a few; needing
wisdom, I made mistakes. My office window showed me an
alien river; there were more than thirty rooms in the
White House, rooms and sounds. And the sounds were more
often drum beats, slow beats, suggesting caution,
intimating death.
FORT SUMTER FALLEN. Commander Anderson
Surrenders. April 14, 1861, Fort Sumter,
located in the harbor of Charleston, S. C.,
surrendered yesterday, after 34 hours of
Confederate bombardment. The 100 survivors,
without food and ammunition... 75,000 Union
men called up...
I have lost that newspaper clipping but I can repeat
the tragic news word-for-word, words that shocked our
entire country! That left us embattled! Now, I can not,
will not, review in detail the war’s progress. Must each
battle fought on the battlefield be fought again here? I
want this diary more man than history. If that is
possible.
W. H.
November 29, 1863
Last year, on May second, I began the banishment of
international slave trade. Congress appropriated the sum
of $900,000 to aid in its suppression. Five ships have
been captured at sea and the slaves on board those
vessels have been returned to Liberia.
Now, an American ship, the Erie, out of Portland, has
been captured off the West African coast, and 893 slaves
have been liberated. Captain Gordon has been hung for his
crime. To bring even greater pressure and afford greater
success, my Secretary of State has negotiated a
successful Anti-Slave Treaty with England. On April 24th,
1862, this treaty was ratified by the Senate. It was a
distinct pleasure to have the Secretary congratulate me
warmly. Our eradication of slave trade has been a marked
success.
Henceforth, the blackbirders will find slave trade
dangerous and unprosperous, with both the United States
and England patrolling the seas.
If I accomplish nothing more than this, my White House
term will be worthwhile. Although it is 2 a.m. and
chilly—I must celebrate. I have rung the kitchen for a
bowl of soup and some crackers.
November 30
Late
It has been difficult to find a few hours alone. To sit
in my chair by the fireplace...that privilege comes only
now and then. I think I will write an item for the
papers, to increase morale, to lessen the influence of
detractors. I will begin it...
Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that
faith dare to do our duty...
White House
December 5
Tonight I wish I could eat an apple but there does not
seem to be one in the White House. Peaches and apples—
they are my favorites, eaten in front of a fireplace.
What an appetite I used to have. I used to think that the
best food in the world was bread and honey—honey in the
comb on plain bread.
I rang the kitchen for a bowl of popcorn.
Pretty soon that Greek goddess of the Potomac, little
Miss Rosie, who is the perfect mulatto, traipsed in,
holding the green bowl she loves, balancing it on a
silver tray, the tray she thinks belonged to George
Washington.
“Heah you is, Mistaaaa President...popcohnnnn, wid
plenty a fresh-churned buttaaaah.”
Miss Rosie did a curtsy and smiled and that smile of
hers made me happier than the popcorn because it told me
that before long the war would be over and people like
Rosie would be treated like any white woman.
Sunday
1863
A president is not permitted to have smallpox but I
have a mild case, nonetheless. Bed is a poor spot to keep
up a diary. What can I say, this Wednesday? That I have
been reading Shakespeare? I have not. That I have read
the newspapers? I have not. During bouts of fever I let
myself return to other days; I see a woman in a log cabin
bending over an open fire. I smell bacon frying. Deep in
the night I hear a hermit thrush. Its sorrowful sound
assumes great beauty. I have a feeling I am in the
wilderness, that wilderness almost Christ-like, benefi-
cent.
December 12, ’63
Desk
Documents. My pigeonholes are bulging.
In a few days I will feel all right.
I miss our green-shuttered house in Springfield. It
seems much farther than 1700 miles away, and it seems
more than nineteen years since we bought it—back in ’44.
We Lincolns were proud of that home. I liked the
fireplace in the parlor on snowy nights. I liked the
comfortable rockers and the black hair settee. Mary
worked hard to sew and tailor the drapes. Her touches
were everywhere. Yet, when we moved to Washington, she
ruled out everything that was personal.
“Leave things...till we return.” Then we rented our
place. What will it be when we do return?
And she threw away a pair of my old boots.
Willie, Bob and Ted packed their toys, kites, drums,
bats. How Willie stormed when he was told he could not
take every single toy.
When Mary and I married, I had three words engraved on
her wedding rings: Love is Eternal.
I had not reckoned with death.
Evening
I would like to have opportunities for meditation.
Surely the bettering of life has to come from within. I
would like to steal an hour or two every day. The only
time I can steal is at night, when the White House is
wrapped in memories. Then, candle or lamp beside, a fire
in the fireplace, I hunt for inner balance. Perhaps the
candles go out. Perhaps the fire goes out. I wait for
connections, maybe wilderness connections or connections
with the prairie, connections with perceptions that can
become new. I may be able to use those perceptions in my
day-to-day.
Library
This evening I have re-read some Volney, that old
French scholar and traveler; this analysis strikes me
forcibly:
Man in his blindness has riveted his own
chains, and surrendered himself forever,
without defense, to the sport of his
ignorance and passions. To dissolve such
fatal chains, a miraculous concurrence of
happy circumstances would be necessary: a
whole nation, cured of the delirium of super-
stition, must be inaccessible to the impulse
of fanaticism...this people should be cou-
rageous and prudent...
Sound advice for these times! When are we prudent?
What, beside the passage of time, years of peace, will
evolve prudence? Is war a kind of superstition? I have
thought so. Certainly it is a delirium.
I see the Library has a copy of Volney’s Travels in
Syria and Egypt. I have asked for a copy.
Evening
In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to
the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it
takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever
expect it.
The Anns and the boys with their Bibles.
The White House
As I study the office wall map of the war zones I am
afflicted by partial blindness. The name Fredericksburg
blurs. I hear myself saying: I have made a covent to free
the slaves. I hear General McClellan say: “We must
declare a truce to bury our dead.” Alexandria, Fairfax,
Sharpsburg, Harper’s Ferry, Spotsylvania. That peculiar
blindness continues, focuses now on faces I have loved,
her face, the face of a friend in Springfield, the
stairway leading to my law office, my children playing on
the street in front of my home, riding in their little
red wagon...
I am not a cartographer of war; however I surpass some
of my gallant military officers. Their logistics have led
to useless slaughter. Hellish bungling, I call it. But
that blindness intrudes: I am surveying a piece of
property near Salem, it seems.
What if this was a map of the entire world? What if I
were in command? What then?
I hear my mother speak to me:
“Abe, shall we go out now and plant those squash
seeds?”
W.H.
How are we to establish labor relations in the North
and in the South? I am glad to see that a system of labor
prevails under which laborers can strike when they want
to, where they are not obliged to work under all
circumstances, and are not tied down and obliged to labor
whether you pay them or not! I like the system which lets
a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might prevail
everywhere. In mill and cottonfield there has to be a
leveling, hours, pay, conditions. We have to regulate a
work week.
The White House
December 16, 1863
Thomas Jefferson was a great man, but no great American
keeps slaves, and Jefferson had two hundred. Call it
custom, excuse it as custom; yet not every wealthy man
kept slaves.
I admire the Adams family: their racial integrity
stands out, their intelligent diplomacy. The relationship
with foreign nations is often a delicate one; the Adams
succeeded—their statesmanship stands out.
Recently men have asked me to comment about George
Washington. I declined. I sympathize with his problems
but I can not get deeper into the man. History does not
always afford us ample means for fair judgment.
Thirty-three states oppose eleven states in this
conflict. If I were to ask a citizen of Europe which
entity he might support I think the answer would be the
state group with the largest population and greatest
wealth, surmising that these advantages would bring about
a definite resolution. However, in this conflict, the
gamble is also a moral gamble. With this moral issue in
mind we must pursue a sane course of action for everyone
in this country, a course of action that must embody
prolonged patience.
The White House
December 29, ’63
I met Harriet Beecher Stowe the other day, and liked
her. We sat in front of my white fireplace and she said
she loved a fireplace, and I said I liked one too—that we
had a couple of them at home. She said she wrote a lot of
her Uncle Tom in front of her fireplace; then she asked
me friendly questions about Springfield, the people, the
town.
I shared my conviction that writing has a lasting
influence. I tried to make her realize what books have
meant to me. I am afraid I reminisced too much about what
I had read. She nodded very pleasantly and did not say
much; wrapped in a blue shawl she seemed more like a
tired housewife than a person dedicated to writing and
the rights of man.
I told her how I used to do my three r’s before our
cabin fireplace. Silence came between us. In spite of
myself I forgot my guest; I could see a long road in
summertime; I was walking along that road; I had borrowed
Weems and stopped to read; I sat down on a culvert; a
frog appeared; there were trees, fields of grass, yet I
was in the midst of history.
When she rose to say “good-bye” I was startled.
2
January 4th, 1864
T
oday I visited the stables and talked to Old Abe. As
usual, he was pleased to see me. I offered him a handful
of oats, and he bobbed his head. The sun was warm in the
stall. I stood by, as Abe munched. I could believe that
he knew I was thanking him for my escape yesterday.
My hat is lying on my bed—a bullet hole right through
the crown. A good hat. If Abe hadn’t bolted someone might
have shot again. We were lucky it was growing dark, Abe
and I.
I offered him more oats.
Stablemen were arriving. Bill Slade appeared.
“Good mawnin’, Mistah President. How is you this
mawnin’?”
A fine person, Bill Slade—from Kentucky.
I must give away that telltale hat. It cost me eight
dollars. Certainly, Mary must never find it; that would
mean severe hysteria.
I have been considering the purchase of a taller horse.
No, Old Abe will serve me. I must shorten the stirrups. I
appreciate his easy gaits. Gentleness—something hard to
come by these days.
Desk
William Seward—I wanted to call him Will, wanted to
bridge the gap that exists between us, a gap some three
years wide. As my Secretary of State he has assisted the
government through his foreign diplomacy; as an ardent
anti-slave man he has successfully blocked the
Confederacy through foreign influence. As governor of New
York he left an enviable record; as senator he is above
reproach. With his friendly Irish spirit, he has favored
Irish immigration. With his eye on the presidency he has
not spared me.
As friend of Jefferson Davis and his wife, I have had
to work to allay suspicions, suspicions that have proved
ungrounded. Seward’s eye on the presidency will continue
beyond my stay in the White House. He has an intense
desire to improve our nation, to push on; I admire his
faith in tomorrow. Unfortunately, he has not always
manifested political balance. When he suggested an all-
out war with Europe, to force an amalgamation of North
and South, I was utterly nonplussed.
Trainer of Arabian horses, owner of Arabian horses,
breeder of Arabians, Seward is many things. He is sixty,
has white hair, slouches, swears, smokes cigars. When
asked by an hysterical officer, when Washington was
threatened with invasion at the time I took office, “What
shall I fire at?,” Seward responded coolly: “Fire at the
crisis!”
One winter’s afternoon, Louis Agassiz drove up to the
White House, with his brilliant wife, Elizabeth. A Swiss-
American, he speaks English with a marked but dis-
tinguished accent. We three had a long walk through the
December garden and our conservatory, and he emphasized
the value of studying from nature. Bustling to his
carriage, parked on the driveway, he returned with his
four-volume study, Natural History of the United States.
He was pleased to present it to me—and inscribed the
first volume. Elizabeth did her best to enlighten me on
scientific points since I have never studied the
sciences, a brief elementary course, I might call it. I
found the two remarkable. When I can, I dip into his
History.
Later, he sent his Recherches sur les poissons
fossiles, this study in French. I have bequeathed it to
the Library.
The visit of this pair has shown me depths that lie in
Europe—depths I must explore.
Executive Mansion
1/14/64
I reviewed my Emancipation Proclamation to the best of
my ability. Lights were on, the house quiet. Rain
streaked the windows. I wanted to re-test each word,
wholly for myself. In these troubled times I must rescue
something for myself.
Thus:
...I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the
United States, order and declare that all
persons held as slaves are forever free. The
Executive Government, including the military
and naval authority, will recognize and
maintain the freedom of such persons...
I enjoin all people to abstain from
violence. I evoke the considerate judgment of
mankind...
Forever free.
Those words still ring in my mind.
As I signed, I remembered slaves, slaves in a slave
depot, slaves on a barge, slaves on a Kentucky
plantation; I remembered the dead and the dying, brother
against brother; I thought about pillaged homes, families
in rags. I saw. I stared at the Proclamation and saw.
Now, as I sit at my desk, it seems to me that I have
been guided by experience. My presidency has been
justified. It seems to me, in all calmness, in objec-
tivity, I have placed a permanent seal on the ages.
Later
In Boston there have been two mammoth celebrations.
Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson and politicos attended.
Harriet Beecher Stowe came. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
was played.
Throughout the nation, in small towns and hamlets there
were schoolhouse ceremonies, church ceremonies, to honor
the Proclamation. Hymns and prayers.
In Norfolk, two thousand former slaves paraded.
I have gone through many newspapers to read of the
rejoicing.
A black is quoted:
“Freedom are an unbroke filly...but I gwine to mount
her.”
Hundreds of thousands of copies of my Emancipation have
been printed and distributed.
To preserve the union.
Office
Surrounded by war I try to remember what Washington was
like when I first came here about eighteen years ago.
What a bedraggled place it was! I stayed at Brown’s
Hotel. And Washington is again a bedraggled place, in a
different way now, with tents, troops, cavalry, guns,
death.
In ’47, I leased my house in Springfield for $90.00 a
year. This time I have leased it for double. My tenants
were neglectful in ’47; I expect neglect again.
In the wilderness each Christmas was a day for sober
thoughts. Easter was a day of inner conflict. When was
time both gentle and kind? Underneath the stars on a
summer’s night? Perhaps. Even then we might hear a
wildcat scream. Wildcats were more numerous than books.
There was that winter when the cold and the snow killed
many of us, us and our livestock. Drifts hung lean-tos on
our cabin. Papa shot a deer. Wolves used the crust to
raid cattle. We cut wood, lugged frozen water. A fire
burned day and night.
I lived ten years in that cabin.
One day, in town, I met a man who offered to sell me a
barrel for 50¢. I bought it. In the bottom, buried under
straw, I found a book: Blackstone’s Commentaries. 1753.
It was warm at the blacksmith’s and I began to study the
commentaries there.
It is very late, perhaps two or three in the morning. I
forgot to wind my watch. I hear men on the street, men
and horses; this city never rests; there is weather here
but I do not think of weather. The climate of dread has
assumed a reality beyond all else. When you control men
and control armies you lack inner core.
White House
January 15, 1864
In spite of myself, I recall the meals I had as a boy,
the meals when there was nothing to eat but potatoes.
There were better times, when we had perch or catfish,
wild pig, grouse, or venison. But, eating potatoes, here
in the White House, brings to mind that struggle. Memory.
How constant, how untrustworthy, how valuable. Here, my
Shakespearean-aside, will, like a juggler, toss up
thoughts, three or four at a time, potatoes.
In those Illinois days I was lucky when I earned 30
cents a day, working on a farm. Walk to the farm, walk
home. At dark I climbed my peg ladder to the cabin loft
and slept on corn husks, my grizzly bear rug not always
warm enough. Lying among the husks and the squeaky mice I
puzzled, knowing that soon I must leave. I determined I
must get away. Living there I lived like an Indian, an
Illinois Indian, barefooted all summer, moccasined during
the winter. Like an Indian, I knew the meaning of
silence, the dread of silence and its comfort. My father
taught me to work but he never taught me to love
drudgery.
Some of those pioneers used to say:
“Don’t see all you see; don’t hear all you hear.”