The Bucktails, the Pennsylvania regiment that guarded the White House starting in late 1862 and got to know the Lincoln family well, have been pretty extensively covered by historians. However, I think I managed to pull up some new interviews. Because most were so young when they enlisted, many lived well into the twentieth century. Here are the more interesting parts—emphases mine.
William Harrison Hursh briefly was a Bucktail guard in the fall of 1862. One night an overcautious guard had bayoneted an opossum, which he had confused for a human spy. Mary inquired about the noise and later repeated the story to Lincoln, who apparently slept peacefully through it. She told the guardsmen that the president had never laughed more heavily.
“He taunted us about it, and he said he could depend on us to protect them in time off danger ― even from opossums!”
From Union County, Pennsylvania: A Celebration of History, by Charles McCool Snyder, John W. Downie, and Lois Kalp
In 1909, S. H. Birdsall explained that he left the Bucktails after one year to organize the first company of black soldiers in Washington.
It was no picnic I assure you. It costs something to stand for prohibition now but it meant a great deal more then to [support the enlistment of black soldiers] . . . Lieutenant Sanborn, one of my co-workers, undertook to recruit and went with a squad of colored soldiers to Norfolk, Virginia. He was shot down like a dog before he had gone three blocks from the steam-boat landing.
C. M. Derickson, son of D. V. Derickson (the one alleged to have slept in Lincoln’s bed while wearing his nightshirt), served in his father’s regiment. This has been told before, but perhaps not this version—it’s still funny to me every time I read it.
One of the favorite amusements of the soldiers was that of playing elephant. It was accomplished by having four men take a position on hands and feet on the ground in the form of a square, and then placing a fifth on the backs of the four. A blanket was spread over the group, and the procession moved about as a unit with military exactness. The President would sit in his chair and enjoy such sport as much as any member of the company.
From (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania) Public Weekly Opinion, March 11, 1898.
James H. Haskins gave some detailed reminiscences around 1924 that have been largely overlooked, some of them rather disturbing.
The Mrs. Lincoln of the White House was "not the woman her enemies sought to paint her," Mr. Haskins said. "Mrs. Lincoln took a motherly interest in our boys, often inquiring about their health. The first Christmas we were at the White House she sent up a great turkey, ready to slice, and later there were other gifts." Tad Lincoln, though, was the member of the White House family who most endeared himself to the soldiers. He was a constant visitor at the camp in the White House yard, and he went on frequent fishing trips with the men, according to Mr. Haskins. There were frequent threats that Tad would be abducted and elaborate precautions were taken to insure his safety, but there was never any hesitancy on the part of either the President or Mrs. Lincoln in permitting the boy to go with the Bucktails.
His account of the night of April 14, 1865, when he was on duty at the White House just as the news broke:
We soon doubted the guard [was telling the truth that Lincoln had been shot] and waited results and in a short time the carriage came for the housekeeper. Tad, who had been to Grover’s Theatre with the footman, wanted to go to his father but Burke, then coachman, told him that his father was not seriously hurt and persuaded him not to go. When I was on post, between 7 and 9 o’clock the next morning, Tad came out on the porch and began talking as chipper as could be, telling me that he had gone to bed at 12 o’clock and got up at 6 and how well he had slept. While he was talking so happy, the President’s carriage drove up, and as soon as Tad saw the coachman crying, he wrung his hands and cried out, “Oh, my papa is dead, my papa is dead.” He then ran to his mother and covered his face in the folds of her dress and thus entered the house. Mrs. Lincoln entered the house with a son on each side of her. That was the last time that I saw Mrs. Lincoln.
To get that scene out of your mind, here’s a better one:
Early in ’63 there was a new interest about the White House. Tad’s goat had a pair of kids and nothing would do but that Mr. Lincoln must come down among the shrubs to see the kids and then Tad must have his father take them up and show them to his mother. The sight of the great, tall, care-worn President going around to the front door with a little kid under each arm and Tad following at his side (was) something new for a back-country boy to see. A few days later Mrs. Lincoln and Tad went to New York and after they had arrived there, Mrs. Lincoln telegraphed back that they had arrived safely and Tad added, “How are the goats?” Mr. Lincoln replied that they were all right, so the next morning he came down and looked around for them. He told the guard of the telegram of the night before, saying that he thought he would come down and see if the goats were all right.
Tad’s interactions with the Bucktails, and demands they stay instead of going to the front, are well-covered. Way back on May 7, 1863, the Pittsburgh Daily Post posted an account of one of the 450th Pa. Volunteers entitled ‘Tad’ Lincoln, Or, the Power Behind the Throne.” This had been published in the hostile Democratic New York World on April 25.
The writer described how his regiment “acted as a sort of police guard for the city of Washington, Capt. Derickson’s company having in special charge the White House.” They were ordered to join the Army of the Potomac, and were eager for a change of duty. The men had “become quite familiar with a young chap of remarkable original manners and speech who was called ‘Tad.’”
What the euphonic monosyllable indicated I never learned, but that was a small affair, as Tad retained all the freshness and independence of Western training too strongly marked to be affected by the aristocratic and elegant embellishments which gave tone to the private tone of the White House. His indifference to all conventionalisms, civil and military, with an originality of expression very peculiar, made him quite welcome with the soldiers, in whose tends he was a privileged and indulged guest and where, in return for the liberty exercised with pistols, ammunition and small change, he raised many a roar of laughter by his equally unrestrained communications regarding domestic life at the palace, which will doubtless retain many marks of the prince’s energy long after he shall become again identified with the great West. It was during these eventual occurrences as Tad came along with a great Navy revolver sticking his pantaloons, for which he desired box of caps, he observed the men preparing to leave. Tad demanded to know for what they were pulling up tent pegs; and being informed that was to enable them to join the grand army, dropped his pistol and made a straight streak for the White House, within the walls of which he no sooner arrived than there arose a scream of distress so earnest that if it had been less usual it would [have] created general alarm, but its effect was none the less, for Tad’s maternal ancestor declared in unmistakable terms that while the regiment might go to Dixie if it wished, Derrickson’s company should not leave, for if it did they would become [really] ill; and so it was ordered.―Tad proved too strong for Halleck and has thus long had the great influence of keeping out of the service one of the best companies ever furnished by the Keystone State.”
He explained that “The colonel and most of the officers and men were greatly disappointed, and continue to be dissatisfied with the reduced state for the regiment and the manner of its occurrence.”
Possibly this same writer was the Washington correspondent of the Philadelphia Times whose letter was published on June 22, 1879. He had “noticed the references in The Times to the Pennsylvania Bucktails and their war record.”
When I first came to Washington, in 1863, the regiment . . . was stationed here. Company K of the regiment was here for a long time encamped in the White House grounds, for when the regiment was ordered away Tad Lincoln, then a boy of about ten, and the worst-spoiled child imaginable, set up a yell and said ‘they shouldn’t take his dear Bucktails away; he wanted them to play with him and act in his theatre.’ He appealed to his father, when Secretary Stanton gave the order . . . to withdraw Company K, which was then guarding the White House, and Mr. Lincoln, who seems never to have denied Tad anything, gave an order for the company to remain, and it did. I remember hearing one of the officers, who was naturally indignant, say that Tad had ‘more influence than any member of the cabinet.’ The Bucktails and their officers were great favorites in Washington. I have seen Tad Lincoln clinging around his father’s legs and yelling at a public levee and the President was compelled to have him carried away by main force by a servant, and his shrieks were heard in the distance for some time. We have had no such spoiled children in the White House since.”
Most of the Bucktails, however, spoke in uniformly positive terms of the entire Lincoln family, with D. V. Derickson calling her “one of the best rebel-haters that I met during my stay in Washington.”
In 1923, Rev. A. N. See, then a retired Methodist minister in his 80s, gave reminiscences of being a member of the Bucktails.
Yes, I knew Mrs. Lincoln. She was a southern lady and a little uppish but good natured. Some times Mrs. Lincoln would take a notion to go carriage riding, and her long white gloves had to be laundered in a hurry. Then there was trouble below stairs. The laundress was a big, redheaded Irish woman [probably Mrs. Cuthbert] and when she had a little dram she would give Mrs. Lincoln a piece of her mind. Very free spoken she was too. The cook was an old negro mammy [Aunt Mary], and when she and the laundress had a little too much gin there was war and often the guard had to part them with fixed bayonets. There was more drinking then than now and not much thought of it. Ours was a good company in that respect, though. We were largely of old revolutionary Pennsylvania German stock and we had the complete confidence of the president, who never touched anything but water. The town patrol, military police I think you call them now, had it in for us, however, and often fought us pitched battles up and down Pennsylvania avenue. They were jealous of us.
From McCracken (Kansas) Enterprise, April 13, 1923
Sounds exciting! But it only got worse after the 1863 New York City draft riots. Bucktails J. H. Dixon and J. H. Boyles later spoke to Ida Tarbell.
Mr. Dixon opened the conversation by saying, ‘Joe, go on. Tell her about being on guard in the kitchen.’ Joe proceeded to tell . . . about ’63 the anxiety lest the president be poisoned was so great in Washington, that the authorities decided that his food must be supervised, and there were reasons for suspecting Irish hostility. It seems that the laundry department of the White House was run by Irish men and women, the head of the staff being an old Irish woman who had been long in the service of the White House, and who was not herself suspected. The kitchen was run by colored people, Aunt Mary being at the head. The two departments were on posted sides of the hall in the basement. For many months a soldier, sometimes more, was stationed this hall to prevent any intercourse between the laundry and the kitchen, an one was allowed to enter the latter place without proper credentials. Mr. Dixon was often on guard here. In order to prevent the flour being poisoned it was ordered that Lincoln should sue only bread from that made for the soldiers, his rations being selected from the 10,000 loaves turned out every day for the boys.
This fear probably explains another, non-Bucktail, account, that I will close with. Major John S. Dodge later claimed to be a White House messenger after he was wounded in battle in 1864. (He claimed to have enlisted at age 15, and also to have done Secret Service work and to have reported Booth’s plans to authorities). I can’t confirm this, and it sounds pretty out there. It is possible he just wrote himself into the Lincoln legend, but there were a lot of young men who worked informally as servants or messengers at the White House, and he may have simply exaggerated.
One time when they were preparing for a State dinner I was sent to receive, check up and bring in chairs which had been sent out to be upholstered. It led me through a serving kitchen, where a colored maid was fixing mud some cake and lemonade. She gave me some. Just then Mrs. Lincoln looked in from another door. She didn’t say a word but you can just bet that I scampered. A day or so later Secretary Hay reproved me about it and subsequently Mr. Lincoln sent me to help fix up table and chairs in the form of a horseshoe for a State dinner. He wanted me back at 3 o’clock for some errand, and as he told me so he added, ‘Remember, John, I said they want you in the dining room, not the kitchen.’ So I knew that she had carried my dereliction to the President himself, as well as to Mr. Hay.
Boston Globe, November 2, 1930