Fowler Bradnack, formerly Lincoln-era War Department telegrapher, wrote up a long, chatty series of reminiscences for the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser in 1869. Part XIV, published on February 20, opened up with a Longfellow verse:
Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There would be no need of arsenals and forts.
“Very likely not,” Bradnack began. “It is thought by many that the gradual increase of civilization will, ere long, do away with war. Perhaps so; though, judging from the experience of the past twenty centuries—to say nothing of the five years’ struggle just ended on this continent—it certainly does not look much like it yet.”
The print is faded in the copy of the newspaper available online, but Bradnack details some of his adventures, and then mentions that next to the military telegraph office in the War Department, there was a room for the Superintendent of the telegraph.
This room was a favorite lounging place of Mr Lincoln’s. It was generally the first place he visited in the morning and the last at night, he being always very anxious to keep ‘posted’ on the status of affairs. Often he would enter the operating-room and exchange a few pleasant words with the operators, inquiring of them concerning military news. While in the War Department office the following autograph message of Mr. Lincoln’s came into my possession. It is a verbatim copy:
WASHINGTON, D.C., August —, 1862.
Mrs. LINCOLN, West Point, N. Y.:
I am here, and well. How are you?
A. LINCOLN.
It is written in ink, in a plain, clear, regular hand, while its almost laconic brevity is highly characteristic of the man who never used two words where one was enough. In passing through the Superintendent's room, I often saw Mr. Lincoln, stretched at full length on a sofa, talking or listening to conversation. On one occasion, as I passed through, he was engaged in telling one of his famous stories, part of which I heard.
He did not give the story. Telegraphers seemed to make a habit of making off with the originals of exciting telegraphs, which is unsurprising but quite a few seemed to enjoy grabbing the domestic ones, as well.
It appears Bradnack became a doctor, as a Dr. Fowler Bradnack, from the Buffalo area, was listed as practicing in New York City a few years later, and contributing to medical journals. (Buffalo Evening Post, April 30, 1877). He died in Buffalo in 1891, aged 47, after a long illness. He was remembered as a man of “literary tastes.” (Buffalo Evening News, March 30, 1891).
Mary Lincoln’s 1863 trip north does not appear to have been very extensively covered, and I recently found something interesting that was new to me. It’s possible that this has been cited elsewhere and I’ve overlooked it until now. If not, I’m glad I found it, since a lot of effort evidently went into it, and also a decent amount of taxpayer money. In any event, in 1959, New Hampshire’s Styles Bridges spoke to his fellow senators:
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Appendix of the [congressional] RECORD an article entitled “Mrs. Abraham Lincoln's Visit to New England in 1863,” written by James Duane Squires, Ph. D., chairman of the department of social studies at Colby Junior College, in New London, N.H. . . . a distinguished historian and an authority on the life of Abraham Lincoln. His article was recently given at a meeting of the Lincoln Society in Boston, which is composed of men and women from the six New England States who have a deep interest in the life and activities of our 16th President . . . in this year in which we honor the 150th anniversary of the birth of President Lincoln, I am happy to bring to the attention of the general public. Dr. Squires' contribution to the ever-growing body of material covering Lincoln's life.
…I am informed by the Public Printer that the article is estimated to make approximately 2% pages of the RECORD, at a cost of $182.25. There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows: MRS. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S VISIT TO NEW ENGLAND In 1863 (By James Duane Squires, Ph. D.)
From the viewpoint of the historian the problems involved in this study have been numerous, interesting, and to some extent unsolvable. Although materials were examined in more than a dozen libraries and archival collections, including the Congressional Library, it was not possible to locate any written record of the trip by one of the participants. All that can be done, therefore, is to piece together a number of facts from a wide variety of sources, and to explore with diligence certain New England newspapers for the months of August and September 1863. Despite these difficulties, however, the narrative of this journey by Mrs. Abraham Lincoln and her two sons to New England in 1863 is a most interesting one. It is well worth an effort at reconstruction in our day almost a century later. Let me suggest five reasons why.
In the first place, it was the longest trip that Mrs. Lincoln ever took during her years in Washington. Secondly, it was one of those rare occasions when she traveled with her two sons. Thirdly, the communications exchanged between President Lincoln and his wife while she was away testify convincingly to the warm affection and devotion which existed between them. Fourth, Mrs. Lincoln, while in New England, was in a rare and relaxed mood, perhaps the last time during the war that she exhibited her natural charm and happiness. She had emerged from the shroud of gloom which had covered her since Willie's death in 1862, and was not yet plunged into the new sorrows caused by the deaths of her favorite half-brother and her brother-in-law later in 1863. Finally, it was from this trip that Robert T. Lincoln developed his interest in Manchester, Vt., which led to his retirement there many years later.
The origins of the journey, I think, are clear enough. As we all are aware, Abraham Lincoln and his family during the war years spent most of the summer months in the Anderson Building at the Solider's Home in the environs of the capital city. They had moved there on July 1, 1863. The next morning, as Mrs. Lincoln was driving into the city, she was thrown from her carriage. In addition to bruises, she suffered head injuries which, as it turned out, healed slowly. On July 3, the President telegraphed Robert, who was having his final examinations at Harvard, that his mother's accident was not serious. But 8 days later he was disturbed about her, for on July 11 he telegraphed his eldest son, “Come to washington.” Three days later he wired again, “Why do I hear no more of you?” Robert was already nearing Washington, and later on the 14th he saw his parents. This factor of Mrs. Lincoln's injury and slow recovery was the first reason for the trip that summer. Again, July and August in 1863 were excessively warm all along the Atlantic seaboard, and Mrs. Lincoln never thrived in the hot and humid weather of the capital city. In his recent book, Stanley Kimmell comments on the sickening heat and dirt of Washington in the summer of 1863. No wonder the kindly and thoughtful President wished to speed his wife's convalescence by getting her away to a more agreeable climate in northern New England. A third factor involved Robert T. Lincoln. As a freshman at Harvard, in October 1860, Robert had visited the White Mountains and had deeply enjoyed the experience. He had been urging his mother to visit them ever since his own journey there. As Mrs. Elizabeth Grimsley's letters indicate, Mrs. Lincoln had been hoping to do this very thing ever since the spring of 1861. Moreover, Robert had just completed successfully his third year at Harvard College and would be 20 on August 1.
What could be more natural for an affectionate mother like Mary Lincoln than to observe these two anniversaries with a trip with her sons? One other aspect of Robert's relation to the trip was suggested by the astute John Hay in a memorandum to J. G. Nicolay, dated August 7, 1863: “Bob and his mother have gone to the White Mountains. Bob was so shattered by the wedding of the idol of us all, the bright particular Teutonne, that he rushed madly off to sympathize with nature in her sternest aspects. They will be gone some time. The newspapers say the tycoon will join them after awhile. If so, he does not know it.” It is a little surprising that the meticulous Hay failed to mention the fact that Tad Lincoln accompanied his mother and elder brother on this search for nature in her sternest aspects.
(I think it’s safe to say that Hay knew Nicolay would assume that Tad had gone with his mother—no need to be meticulous there.)
Mrs. Lincoln and Tad were in New York by Tuesday, July 28, for the President telegraphed them there that Robert would join them the next day. Presumably the family group went to Boston on Thursday, July 30. This was Mrs. Lincoln's third trip to the capital city of Massachusetts since she had become the First Lady. She had been there on a 2-day visit in May 1861 with Mrs. Grimsley, and again for a longer stay in November 1862. She invariably stayed at the Revere House, a hotel not now in existence, but which then stood in Bowdoin Square on a site now occupied by a municipal fire station. The Boston Daily Journal on the very day that Mrs. Lincoln and her sons arrived in that city, i.e., on July 30, put this headline on a news dispatch: “President Lincoln To Visit New England.” The source for this incorrect statement was an unnamed Washington correspondent. The next day the Journal amplified its original report to read as follows: “Mr. Lincoln contemplates making a short visit to the New England States during August, if his official duties will permit. He is sadly in need of a little relaxation. He will avoid all the fashionable places, and proceed quietly to the White Mountains, where he will meet Mrs. Lincoln and his eldest son." Again, it is to be noted that there is no mention of Tad’s presence in the party.
It was common to ignore the presence of children (and servants.) The general public wouldn’t have known much about “Tad” at this time. The New York Herald closely covered the frolicking of the Lincoln boys in 1861 and denounced by the other papers for its alleged frivolousness, although it is likely the circulation-obsessed Herald knew the public liked to read about those things.
By Saturday, August 1, 1863, the Manchester Daily Mirror in New Hampshire had the story with some further embellishments: “Mr. Lincoln contemplates making a short visit to the New England States during August, if his official duties will permit. He is sadly in need of a little relaxation. He will avoid all the fashionable places and proceed quietly to the White Mountains, and meet Mrs. Lincoln and his eldest son. The President will decline all receptions and ovations, but will go as a quiet citizen on a healthseeking tour.” Supplementing this, the New Hampshire Patriot, a newspaper not in sympathy with the national administration, at Concord rather sourly observed on Wednesday, August 5: “‘Father Abraham Coming.” It is stated that the President is coming to the White Mountains to cool off and rest. The Boston Post says he couldn't do better, and that the country can get along even if he is perched on the top of Mount Washington.”
Gov. Joseph Gilmore, of New Hampshire, was a man well acquainted with what today we would call public relations, and he read his papers carefully. On Tuesday, August 4, he wrote the President: “I see from the public prints that you are intending to spend a few weeks among the mountains of New Hampshire. May we not have the privilege of welcoming you to our State capital? I have no desire to subject you to speeches or parading you over our dusty streets in the boiling sun. But if you were to let me know a day or two before your arrival that you would spend a night at least in my house, the people would give you a spontaneous and informal ovation which would do your soul good.” To this friendly letter the President replied on Friday, August 7, as follows: “MY DEAR GOVERNOR GILMORE: I thank you very heartily for your kind invitation to visit Concord and especially for the exceedingly cordial terms in which you have conveyed it. I very much regret that I cannot at present accept it. I am by no means certain that I can leave Washington at an this summer." The exacting nature of my official duties rendiers it exceedingly improbable. I assure you, however, that I am nonetheless sincerely grateful for your kind intentions and for the expressions of personal good will contained in your letter. I am, “Very truly yours, A. LINCOLN.”
While this high-level correspondence was going forward, Mrs. Lincoln and her two sons left Boston on Saturday, August 1, and journeyed by rail to Alton Bay, N.H. From that point they took a steamer across Lake Winnipesaukee to Center Harbor on the northwest shore. This was the regular tourist entryway to the White Mountains in those years, traveled by thousands each season. Mrs. Lincoln and her sons, according to the Manchester Daily Mirror, spent Sunday, August 2, in Center Harbor. From that point on Monday the 3d they “staged it to Conway, where gentlemen from Boston put their private carriages at her disposal.” In a special dispatch to the Boston Daily Journal, published on August 8, but dated Tuesday, August 4 at the Kearsarge House in North Conway, that paper's New Hampshire correspondent wrote: “Mrs. Abraham Lincoln and her two sons arrived here last evening from Center Harbor. Their party will leave here tomorrow morning for the Glen House and Tip Top House, Mount Washington, in a handsome turnout which has been especially detailed for their accommodation with an old and popular driver in charge. They will visit all points of interest on route. While at North Conway Mrs. Lincoln and family have been very courteously entertained at the Kearsarge House; gentlemen from Boston having their carriages with them have put them at the disposal of the Presidential party. “Mrs. Lincoln has expressed herself more than delighted with the elegant and unobtrusive attention which the guests at North Conway have given her. “The Weather is beautiful and the company unusually large all through the mountains.”
The Mount Washington carriage road, at that time the only method of riding up New Hampshire's loftiest peak, began at a point close to the Glen House, and ran upward along the east face of the mountain. It had been authorized by the State legislature of 1853, but had not been finished and opened for traffic until August 1861. It had proved to be a great tourist attraction and, now in its third season, was heavily patronized. On Thursday, August 6, Mrs. Lincoln and Robert joined the throng of tourists and drove to the Tip Top House. The Boston Daily Journal correspondent in his dispatch dated August 7, which he headed “Thanksgiving Day on Mt. Washington,” wrote as follows: “Yesterday—130 visitors came to Tip Top and in the crowd came Mrs. A. Lincoln and her son Robert. Mrs. Lincoln is a lady of medium size rather round favored and quite fleshy. She was dressed in a dark riding habit, dark bonnet and veil. She has a very fair, cheerful, smiling face, which does one good to look upon. She is quite light complexioned, has blue eyes and dark auburn hair, and on the whole, as might be expected of a President's wife, has a very agreeable way. Her son, Robert, is a dark complexioned lad of some 16 years. “Today Mrs. Lincoln came up again from the Glen.” On this second visit Mrs. Lincoln delighted the Boston journalist by asking him to take down the mountain for immediate mailing to Washington a letter from herself to the President. What a pity that this letter has not survived.
The dispatch to the Boston Daily Journal which has just been quoted is worthy of note for at least three reasons. First, it is one of the few complimentary descriptions of Mrs. Lincoln penned by a newspaper man after her crushing grief in her son, Willie's, death.
(This is false, but the others are rarely highlighted. A topic for another post.)
No doubt its kind words about the First Lady reflected her true feelings that summer day on the top of Mount Washington; certainly at that moment the horror of war and the tensions of the Capital City seemed far away indeed. Second, this dispatch correctly notes that the President's Thanksgiving Day proclamation, dated July 15, 1863, but set for Thursday, August 6, was generally observed throughout the North. Third, the journalist gave a succinct description of Robert T. Lincoln, although he grossly underestimated the young man's age. Actually, Robert was not 16, but had just passed 20.
Finally, much to Bridges’ delight, Tad made an appearance!
Although this particular correspondent failed to mention Tad Lincoln, the Writer for the Manchester (N.H.) Daily Mirror was more explicit. In the issue of that paper for August 8, the following comment appears: “Mrs. Abraham Lincoln and her two sons, Robert and Thomas, the latter about 10 years old, are creating quite a sensation in the mountain region.” Knowing the high spirits of the younger boy, we may surmise that it was he rather than his more dignified older brother who was creating the sensation. It was while his family was in the White Mountains that the President on Saturday, August 8, wrote his charming and oftenquoted letter to his wife, summing up the weekly grist of news from Washington, and containing the famous line: “Tell dear Tad that poor ‘Nanny Goat' is lost, and Mrs. Cuthbert and I are in distress about it.” This delightful letter is reproduced in full in Stefan Lorant's new book, “Lincoln: A Picture Story of His Life.” Just how and when the Presidential family left the White Mountains I have not been able to ascertain. They were still there as late as Tuesday, August 11. But on Thursday they were en route to Boston. The Manchester Daily Mirror in its issue for Friday, the 14th, stated that: “Mrs. Lincoln and her two sons passed through here yesterday afternoon on their way home from the mountains, and stopped at the Revere House in Boston last night.” On the same day, Friday the 14th, the Boston Daily Journal reported that “Mrs. Lincoln and her two Sons are at the Revere House on their return from the White Mountains.” A similar item appeared in the Boston Evening Transcript for the 14th, and on the 15th the Boston Evening Traveller noted that the President's wife and her two sons had spent the morning on a steamboat excursion in Boston Harbor.
Mrs. Lincoln never forget her pleasure in seeing the White Mountains in August 1863. Sixteen years later, in 1879, when she was far removed from her days as First Lady and in much anguish of spirit, she yet found the time and energy to write a long letter to her grandnephew, Lewis Baker. In this missive she urged him to take a vacation in New England, and especially to visit the Tip Top House on Mount Washington. So strongly did she wish him to do this that she offered to pay his vacation expenses for 4 weeks. It is proof of her happy memories of her own trip there in 1863 that Mrs. Lincoln recalled the exact name of the hotel on the mountain summit. There is a little uncertainty about the return of the family group to Washington. The Washington Star, an evening newspaper, reported on Monday, August 17, that Robert Lincoln had reached the Capital City this morning. The dispatch stated that Mrs. Lincoln was staying on in New York. Tad is not mentioned in this story. It seems probable to me that the younger boy returned to Washington with his brother, while Mrs. Lincoln remained in New York. The New York Tribune on Saturday, August 22, gave this news item: “Mrs. Lincoln, who has been in the city a few days, paid a visit on Thursday to the French frigate, La Guerriere, where she was received with the honor due to her position, and with that courtesy characteristic of the French gentleman.” Whether she remained in New York after this appointment on the 20th, or went down to Washington, I am not positive, but the latter alternative seems to me unlikely. At any rate, Mrs. Lincoln and Robert, accompanied by Mrs. Abner Doubleday, wife of the well-known Union general and a close friend of the First Lady, soon went back to New England once more. This time, probably at the suggestion of her hostess, the President's wife and son journeyed to Manchester, Vt. Arriving there on Monday, August 24, they registered in the Equinox House of that town, and remained there for a fortnight. The President's telegram to his wife, found in the “Collected Works.” volume VI, under date of August 29, has been printed with an erroneous address, i.e. Manchester, N.H. The mistake must have been made in the secretariat of the Executive Mansion, for we may assume that the President knew where his wife was. His two subsequent telegrams to Mrs. Lincoln, assuring her that all was well in Washington, dated September 3 and September 6, respectively, are also in the “Collected Works,” and are correctly addressed to Manchester, Vt. Maj. General Doubleday joined his wife and her guests on Thursday, August 28. The Manchester (Vt.) Journal in its issue for Tuesday, September 8, observed: “Mrs. Lincoln and her son, and General Doubleday and lady left town yesterday, after a stay of 2 weeks.” They went back to New York, from which point, no doubt, Robert left to begin his fourth year at Harvard. His mother, who was taying at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York, received in quick sequence three tiegrams from the President, dated respectively September 20, September 21, and September 22, urging her to return. On September 24, the President wrote Mrs. Lincoln telling her of the terrible battle of Chickamauga and the death there of her Confederate brotherin-law, Ben Hardin Helm. It is my understanding that she went home at once after receiving this communication. She had been away almost 2 months.
Bridges’ reading of Dr. Squires’ work to the Senate contains yet another apparently unpublished communication from this time.
There is existing manuscript evidence, however, to indicate how thoroughly Mrs. Lincoln had enjoyed her trip. In the Stone collection of Lincolnia at Boston University, one may read a personal letter from the First Lady to Franklin Orvis at Manchester, vo. Mr. Orvis was the proprietor of the inn at which Mrs. Lincoln's party had stayed. Dated April 14, 1864, this hitherto uncited letter reads as follows:
“Mr. FRANKLIN ORVIS. “MY DEAR SIR: Illness alone has prevented my writing to you, to express my thanks and obligations to you, for the geological books and delightful maple sugar and molasses you so kindly sent. Since my charming visit to Manchester last summer, how frequently and gratefully your kindness has been remembered, and how often I have wished you would visit Washington, so that in a measure I could repay it. The only drawback to my pleasure was that my poor husband was not breathing the same delicious air we were. Our son Robert graduates about the 20th of June, and if his father can leave, consistent with his duties here, he will be present. If so, I shall feel quite tempted, if he can, to make a little flying visit to your Green Mountains. I am sure the pure air would be more refreshing even than it was to me. Please present my kindest regards to Mrs. Orvis, your good mother, and sisters, whilst I remain sincerely and gratefully your friend. Mrs. LINCOLN."
So ended Mary Todd Lincoln's two-phase trip to New England in 1863. It was not her last visit to this area, for the next summer she and Tad again came to Boston and Cambridge, this time to attend Robert's class-day exercises at Harvard on June 24. Later that summer she and her sons were in Vermont once more, first at Rutland, then at Manchester. But this visit of 1864 is a story in itself, and another One.
The trip in 1863 which I have to describe in this paper, for the reasons given in the introduction, will always remain of deep interest to students of the Lincoln family. Aside from the wives of our Presidents who came from New England, Mrs. Lincoln, I believe, was the first First Lady to make an extended visit to this region. For that reason alone, if for no other, we are happy in the memory that hotels in three New England States 95 years ago last August carried on their guest registers the names Mary Todd Lincoln, Robert Todd Lincoln, Thomas Lincoln.
Dr. Squires certainly did excellent research!
To return to telegrapher accounts, another came from Edward Rosewater, then editor of the Omaha Bee. It was titled “He Drank Beer With Lincoln.” (The Philadelphia Times, August 3, 1890).
Of the very few people probably in the United States who ever did drink a glass of beer with Lincoln, I am one. It was on the day of the battle of Fredericksburg. Abraham Lincoln came into the office of the War Department on a Sunday morning in his slippers. The battle was very fierce and raging all the day and Mr. Lincoln remained the office all day, as he was extremely anxious as to the result. Thirteen thousand Union soldiers laid down their lives in that slaughter pen. I happened to be the only man on duty receiving the dispatches from the battlefield and Lincoln stood side by side with Stanton and Captain Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, watching the news. At noon Mr. Stanton sent out and got an ice pitcher full of beer, and he handed us some crackers, and the beer was partaken of by President Lincoln, Stanton, Fox, and, I remember, Mr. Seward was also there.
In 1896, journalist Frank G. Carpenter interviewed Rosewater (Evening Star, June 27, 1896). Carpenter described the staff of the War Department telegraph office during the Civil War, and noted Rosewater was one of the fastest and brightest telegraph operators, eventually trusted with confidential messages. He retold the beer story, with the same details, and gave some interesting insights about Burnside and Halleck.
“I suppose there were many funny things happening even during the darkest days of the war, were there not?” Carpenter asked, after Rosewater told a story about Lincoln and Burnside laughing over a cartoon in which Lincoln was shown decapitating Burnside after Fredericksburg!
Rosewater said this was true, but he had a hard time with Lincoln’s levity at times, even though he knew he needed it to stay sane. He was angry that Lincoln and his cabinet gave up business for an hour to hang out with Tom Thumb, Gen. Nutt, and P. T. Barnum. “I saw Tom Thumb afterward and he told me that he rode to the White House that day in a carriage which was given to him by Queen Victoria.”
Rosewater talked about McClellan being removed because of his delaying and silly excuses, claiming the final telegram said “We are still delayed. Cavalry horses’ tongues are sore.”
He noted he sent many telegraphs written in the hand of Stanton and Lincoln, and also noted “I sent off many telegrams for Mrs. Lincoln. and it was a curious thing to me that Mrs. Lincoln's handwriting was so much like that of the President that you could hardly tell them apart.” As their handwriting was not similar, maybe Lincoln was writing out her telegrams at times (something he did at least once).
Asked to describe Lincoln’s appearance, Rosewater mostly described Lincoln’s eyes, by far his most praised feature. But he added a rather unexpected observation:
He was just like his pictures, only possibly a little more worn. His eyes, you know, were brown. They were very luminous eyes, and a peculiar thing about them was that you could see them in the dark, as you can those of some animals. They were deep-set eyes, and they looked down upon you from under heavy brows. They were different from any eyes I have ever seen, and were at times full of friendliness and good nature.
What?