09 - Story of Abraham Lincoln by Mary Agnes Hamilton

In Story of Abraham Lincoln, Mary A. Hamilton offers a unique British perspective on the life of the 16th President of the United States, presenting a heartfelt tribute to “Honest Abe.” She explores Lincoln’s ancestral roots, his humble beginnings in Kentucky, his formative years in Indiana, and his impactful adult life in Illinois, culminating in his presidency and the trials of the White House. The biography also delves into the American Civil War, providing valuable context on its causes and developments. While Hamilton’s narrative is engaging, it does contain some historical inaccuracies, such as misidentifying Jefferson Davis as the Southern Democratic candidate in the 1860 election instead of John C. Breckinridge. Nevertheless, The Story of Abraham Lincoln remains an intriguing and accessible account of Lincolns life, principles, and political legacy. Please note Chapter 7 includes a single use of an epithet for African-Americans from a British magazine quote, and Chapter 8 features an example of a stereotypical Southern black dialect that may be considered offensive. (Summary by John Lieder.)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nine of the Story of Abraham Lincoln. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings were in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by John Leader. The Story of Abraham Lincoln by
Mary A. Hamilton, Chapter nine, O Captain, My Captain. No

(00:26):
one had suffered more deeply during the war than the President.
His purpose never faltered, even at the moment when success
seemed farthest distant. His resolve stood firm, cost what it might,
the Union must be preserved. When almost every other man
despaired of the Northern cause, Lincoln's invincible faith in the

(00:46):
right and justice of their purpose sustained his country. To
attain that purpose, thousands of lives had to be sacrificed,
but the purpose was worth the loss of thousands of lives.
Yet Lincoln's heart bled for every one of them. All
day long. He received visits from distracted relations, mothers and

(01:07):
wives asking him to pardon their sons or husbands in
prison as deserters or captured from the enemy, asking for
tidings of their beloved ones at the front. His generals
complained that he undermined the discipline of the army by
pardoning what he called his leg cases, cases where men
had run away before the enemy. If Almighty God gives

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a man a cowardly pair of legs, how can he
help their running away with him? Said Lincoln. The story
of William Scott is a case which shows the way
in which Lincoln used to act. William Scott was a
young boy from a northern farm who, after marching for
forty eight hours without sleep, offered to stand on guard

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duty for a sick comrade. Worn out, he fell asleep
and was condemned to be shot for being asleep on
duty in the face of the enemy. Lincoln made it
his custom to visit all the divisions of his army
in turns, and as it happened, two days before the execution,
he was with the division in which Scott was and

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heard of the case. He went to see the boy
and talked to him about him and his mother. As
he was leaving the prison tent, he put hands on
the lad's shoulders and said, my boy, you were not
going to be shot tomorrow. I am going to trust
you and send you back to your regiment. But I
have been put to a great deal of trouble on

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your account. I have come here from Washington, where I
had a great deal to do. Now what I want
to know is how are you going to pay my bill?
Willie did not know what to say. Perhaps he could
get his friends to help him, he said at last, No,
said Lincoln, friends cannot pay it. Only one man in

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the world can pay it, and that is William Scott.
If from this day on William's tiot does his duty,
my bill is paid. William Scott never forgot these words.
Just before his death, in one of the later battles
of the war, he asked his comrades to tell President
Lincoln that he had never forgotten what he had said.

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All the time, people who did not know the president
threw on his shoulders all the blame for the long
continuance of the war. Until the last year of the war,
the newspapers abused him continually. The horrible loss of life
in Grant's last campaign was laid to his charge. Only
those who came to the President to ask his help

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in their own suffering understood what his suffering was. He
suffered with each of them. He suffered with the South
as well as the North. After Antietam, he had said,
I shall not live to see the end. This war
is killing me. The crushing burden he had borne so
long and patiently had bent even his strong shoulders. But

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it had not been born in vain. The time seemed
at last to have come when all America would understand
how much they owed to the patient endurance of the President.
And there was work still to be done which needed
all his wisdom. The South was conquered. It had to
be made one with the North. The pride of the
conquerors had to be curbed, the bitterness of the conquered softened.

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Lincoln returned from Richmond to Washington in his heart the
profound resolve to bind up the nation's wounds as he
and only he could do it. April fourteen was Good Friday,
in a day of deep thankfulness in the North. In
the morning, Lincoln held a cabinet meeting, at which General
Grant was present. The question of reconstruction, of making one

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whole out of the divided halves, was discussed. Some of
the cabinet were anxious to wreak vengeance on the South,
to execute the leaders of the rebellion. Such was Lincoln's view,
enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments
if we expect harmony and union. His noble patriotism could

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still say to the South, we are not enemies but friends.
His life was now even more precious to the South
than to the north. After the cabinet meeting, Lincoln spent
some time in talking with his son Robert, who had
returned from the field with General Grant, under whom he
had served as a captain. In the afternoon, he went

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for a drive with Missus Lincoln. His mood was calm
and happy. For the first time for four years, he
could look forward peacefully to the future and to the
great tasks still before him. In the evening, he went
to the theater with his wife and two young friends.
The play was Our American Cousin. The President was fond

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of the theater. It was one of his few recreations.
His appearance on this night was something of a public ceremony. Therefore,
although he was tired when evening came, he went because
he knew that many people would be disappointed if he
did not. The President had a box to the left
of the stage. Suddenly, about the middle of the last act,

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a man appeared at the back of the box, a
knife in one hand and a pistol in the other.
Put the pistol to the President's head and fired, then
wounding Major Rathbone, the only other man in the box.
With his knife, he vaulted on to the stage. As
he leapt, his spur caught the flag hanging from the box,
and he fell, breaking his leg. Nevertheless, he rose instantly,

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and brandishing his knife and crying sick scalper Tyrannus the
South as avenged, fled across the stage and out of sight.
The horrified audience was thunderstruck. The President lay quite still.
The bullet had passed right through his head. The wound

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was mortal. He was carried to a house across the street,
where he lay quite unconscious till the morning, surrounded by
his friends, their faces as pale and haggard as his own.
About seven, a look of unspeakable peace came upon his
worn features. Stanton, the War Secretary, rose from his knees

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by his side, saying, now he belongs to the ages.
There was profound sorrow through the whole of America, sorrow
that checked all rejoicings over the victory of the North.
Thus indirectly, Lincoln's death helped the reconciliation between North and South,
though nothing could counterbalance the loss of his wise guidance.

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Washington was shrouded in black, even the poorest inhabitants showing
their sorrow in their dress. The body was taken to Springfield, Illinois,
to be buried, and all the towns on the way
showed their deep mourning and respect. Now and not till
now did Americans begin to understand what a man they

(08:10):
had lost. He knew to bide his time, and can
his fame abide? Still, patient in his simple faith, sublime
to the wise years decide. Great captains, with their guns
and drums, disturb our judgment for the hour, But at
last silence comes. These are all gone, and standing like

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a tower. Our children shall behold his fame, the kindly, earnest, brave,
far seeing man, sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame new
birth of our new soil, the first American, so James
Russell Lowell wrote of Lincoln when the celebration of Independence

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Day in the year of his death revived the vivid
sense of loss. The passage of years have only made
clearer how great he was perfectly simple, perfectly sincere. He
thought out for himself an ideal and spent the whole
of his life and all his strength in pursuing it.

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He loved America not because it was powerful and strong,
but because it had been based on a great idea,
the idea of liberty. His work for America was to
realize that idea. He never thought of his own personal success.
He wanted to be president because he saw a great
work to be done and believed that he could do it.

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He never became rich. His own tastes remained entirely simple.
He was said to have worn the same top hat
all his life. The first thing that struck anyone about
Lincoln was his extraordinary appearance. He always dressed in black
with a big black tie, very often untied or in
the wrong place. His clothes looked as if they had

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been made to fit some one else and had never
been new. His feet were enormous, so were his hands,
covered on state occasions with white kid gloves. In cold weather,
he used to wear a large gray shawl instead of
an overcoat. One day before he was made president, some
friends were discussing Lincoln and Douglas and comparing their heights.

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When Lincoln came into the room, some one asked him
how long ought a man's legs to be long enough
to reach from his body to the ground, said Lincoln coolly.
Lincoln might look uncouth or even grotesque, but he did
not look weak. He was the most striking figure wherever

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he went. No one who saw him often, no one
who went to him in trouble or to ask his advice,
thought long of his appearance. Those who had once felt
the sympathy of his wonderful sad eyes thought of that
only those who really knew him knew him to be
the best man they had ever met. Lincoln was often

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profoundly sad and then suddenly boisterously gay. He enjoyed a
joke or a funny story immensely. He often used to
shock thoughtless people by telling some comic story on what
they thought an unsuitable occasion. But he told it so
well that, however much they might disapprove, they were generally

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forced to laugh. Always rather a dreamer, he was fond
of poetry. He knew long passages of Shakespeare by heart,
especially Hamlet, Macbeth, and Richard the Third. The Bible he
had known from his childhood of burns. He was very fond.
Lincoln's rise to power, as even so short an account

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as this will have shown you, was not due to
any extraordinary good fortune or any advantages. It stopf art.
He taught himself all that he knew. He made himself
what he was. It was his character, more than anything else,
that made him great. His early struggles had taught him
that self reliance, which enabled him to persevere in a

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course which he thought right, in spite of opposition, disloyalty,
and abuse. They taught him the toleration which made him
slow to judge others, generous to praise them, little apt
to expect them to understand or praise him. He stood alone.
Not till he had gone did his people realize how

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much he had given them, how much they had lost
in him. He gave them, Indeed, the most priceless gift
of patriot can give his country, the example of sincere,
devoted and unselfish service. End of Chapter nine and end
of the Story of Abraham Lincoln by Mary A. Hamilton,

(13:00):
recording by John Leader, Bloomington, Illinois,