Lincoln in the World Read Free

Abraham Lincoln,”
Harper’s
, pp. 496–97; Bryan,
Great American Myth
, p. 177; Goodwin, p. 733; White,
A. Lincoln
, p. 673; Donald,
Lincoln
, p. 570.
    3 . Mary Lincoln interview with Herndon, [Sept. 1866,] HI, p. 357; Heidler and Heidler,
Henry Clay
, p. xx; French,
Witness to the Young Republic
, p. 497 (“airs of an empress”); John Lothrop Motley to his wife, June 20, 1861, in Curtis, ed.,
The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley
, p. 387 (“sir”); John Bigelow Diary, v. 35, entry for July 9, 1861, John Bigelow Papers, New York Public Library (“Tres poo”). See also Burlingame, “The Lincolns’ Marriage,” p. 270; Baker, pp. 41–42;
ALAL
, v. 2, p. 259.
    4 . Herndon to Jesse Weik, Jan. 12, 1886, HW, LOC (“toothache”). For Lincoln’s desire to travel abroad, see Weik Papers, box 2, memo book 2, ALPLM; Wilson, “Recollections of Lincoln,”
Putnam’s Magazine
, v. 5, no. 5, Feb. 1909, p. 517; Reminiscences of George Hartley,
Chicago Daily News
, Jan. 28, 1909, cited in
ALAL-DC
, ch. 1, pp. 2–3. The quote about “a great empire” is in Lincoln’s “Speech at Kalamazoo, Michigan,” Aug. 27, 1856,
CWL
, v. 2, p. 364. On the conflict’s global importance see Thomas,
Abraham Lincoln
, p. 268; and Hay,
Diary
, p. 20, entry for May 7, 1861.
    5 . Kennedy,
Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
, pp. 179–181; McPherson,
Battle Cry
, p. 816; Jones,
Blue and Gray Diplomacy
, p. 1;
Chicago Tribune
, Apr. 12, 1865, in White,
Lincoln’s Greatest Speech
, p. 196; Van Deusen, p. 360; Adams,
Great Britain and the American Civil War
, v. 2, p. 239n1 (“despotic ferocity”).
    6 . For eyewitness accounts of the assassination, see “Major Rathbone’s Affidavit,” in J. E. Buckingham Sr.,
Reminiscences and Souvenirs of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
, p. 73; Taft, “Abraham Lincoln’s Last Hours,”
Century
, p. 634; Charles A. Leale to Benjamin Butler, July 20, 1867, in Good, ed.,
We Saw Lincoln Shot
, p. 60; Horatio Nelson Taft Diary, entry for Apr. 30, 1865, LOC. See also Brooks, “ ‘The Deep Damnation of His Taking-Off,’ ” in Burlingame, ed.,
Lincoln Observed
, p. 190; Helm,
Mary, Wife of Lincoln
, pp. 257–58; Randall,
Mary Lincoln
, p. 382; Goodwin, p. 738; Donald,
Lincoln
, p. 595–96;
ALAL
, v. 2, p. 809–810,816–819; White,
A. Lincoln
, pp. 673–74; Baker, p. 248; Oates,
With Malice Toward None
, locs. 8490–8502.
    7 . Notable exceptions include the work of Jay Monaghan, whose 1945 classic,
A Diplomat in Carpet Slippers
, emphasizes Lincoln’s command of foreign policy. Though Monaghan’s account exaggerates Lincoln’s role, it is still the best jumping-off point for examining Lincoln’s involvement in Civil War diplomacy. After decades of revisionism de-emphasizing Lincoln’s role as a diplomat, more recent studies by Howard Jones and Dean Mahin treat Lincoln as a diplomat by nature. Mahin’s study finds that “Lincoln set the major foreign policy goals of the Union government, determined U.S. responses to a series of diplomatic developments and crises, and made a number of other presidential decisions designed to reduce the chance of war with England or France.” And yet, as Jones notes, Lincoln the human being tends to get lost in Mahin’s comprehensive survey of Civil War diplomacy. Jones’s own excellent studies argue that Lincoln “personified a diplomat, as shown in his appointments, his realization that international (and domestic) law became flexible in wartime, and his ability to make meaningful public pronouncements.” Jones’s work, however, is not intended to be a holistic portrait of Lincoln. See Mahin, p. 3 and passim; Jones, “Forgotten ‘Near War’: Lincoln’s Civil War Diplomacy,”
American Diplomacy
, v. 6, no. 1, 2001; and Jones,
Blue and Gray Diplomacy
, p. 322. For more on Lincoln’s diplomatic role, see Jones,
Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom
, and Jones’s introduction to the 1997 Bison Books edition of A
Diplomat in Carpet