Just 150 years ago today on Saturday afternoon, February 16, 1861, President-Elect Abraham Lincoln met twelve-year-old Grace Bedell on a train platform in Westfield, New York.  Showing off his new facial hair, he kissed the young girl and reportedly said, ““You see I have let these whiskers grow for you, Grace.”

If you know this story, then you’re either a Civil War buff or a very attentive sixth-grader.  The year before Grace Bedell had written presidential candidate Abe Lincoln (whom she addressed as “Hon. A.B. Lincoln”) in October 1860 from her family’s temporary residence in upstate New York, inquiring whether Lincoln had any daughters before urging him to “let your whisker grow” since “your face is so thin.”  This is a charming story that many elementary school teachers describe in their classrooms because it conveys such an important message about empowerment. Young Grace had an endearing, childlike candor (“answer this letter right off” she wrote in closing) that apparently ignited the bored candidate’s fancy because he responded within days.  “I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughters,” Lincoln replied, adding, “As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now?”  The famous letters, however, have never before been exhibited in public until 2009 when they were brought together by the Library of Congress in an exhibition that is currently traveling around the country.

In Lincoln’s era,  presidential candidates almost always stayed home and avoided making public statements.  It was considered undignified and un-republican to seek the presidential office.  Obviously a few things have changed, but at least one political truth has endured.  Image mattered just as much then as now.

Most school children hear this much of the Lincoln-Bedell story at least once during their academic careers, and every Lincoln scholar knows about it.  But until recently, nobody really believed there was any more to the relationship.  After the war, Grace Bedell married a Union army veteran named George Billings.  The couple moved to Kansas and forged a life on the western prairie.  They had one son and no daughters. Every so often until her death in 1936, Grace Bedell Billings would make an appearance, consent to an interview, or respond to some new correspondent seeking details about her encounter with Lincoln.  Yet the gun-toting homesteader seemed mostly indifferent to her recurring fifteen minutes of fame.  Grandson George Billings wrote to Time magazine shortly after her death, thanking the editors for orchestrating a dramatization about her experience with Lincoln, and claiming credibly that one of her favorite expressions had always been, “I dislike making a fuss.”  Today, Billings descendants are trying to raise funds to preserve her former home in Delphos, Kansas.

This effort received a boost in 2007 when a diligent Lincoln researcher named Karen Needles discovered a new letter from Grace Bedell to President Lincoln that was written in January 1864 and somehow had gotten overlooked in the voluminous files of the National Archives.  “Do you remember before your election receiving a letter from a little girl residing at Westfield in Chautauqua Co. advising the wearing of whiskers as an improvement to your face,” Bedell asked, before informing the president in firm, clear handwriting, “I am that little girl grown to the size of a woman.”  Young Grace had grown but her characteristic brashness remained.  Reminding the president that he had signed his previous letter to her, “Your true friend and well-wisher,” Bedell asked, “Will you not show yourself my friend now?”  It turned out that she wanted a job, but her reason was quite poignant.  “My Father during the last few years lost nearly all his property,” she confided, “and although we have never known want, I feel that I ought and could do something for myself.”  She had heard about “a large number of girls” who were “employed constantly and with good wages at Washington cutting Treasury notes and other things pertaining to that Department.”  She wondered, “Could I not obtain a situation there?”  The appeal closed by noting that her parents were “ignorant of this application” and gently pointing out that she had sent an earlier query to him that had gone unanswered.  “Direct to this place” was the line that closed Grace Bedell’s third letter to Abraham Lincoln.

She never heard back from the president and never once mentioned this application in any of her post-war accounts.  Yet there is some reason to believe that President Lincoln did respond to Grace’s request by writing to her parents directly.  There have been many children’s books written about Grace Bedell, and most are inconsequential, but there has been one serious historical account produced by Fred Trump, a native of Westfield who ended up settling in Salina, Kansas, not far from the Billings farm in Delphos.  That coincidence apparently drove Trump, a retired Department of Agriculture official, to prodigious effort in his research.  He turned up many local accounts that appear nowhere else but in his 1977 book, Lincoln’s Little Girl.

Toward the end of his book, Trump relates how some members of the Bedell family claimed that President Lincoln tried to adopt Grace during the war.  The author quoted from multiple accounts produced by a woman named Jennie Macomber, who had been a little girl herself in Westfield in 1860 and who later befriended members of the Bedell family.  She recalled how they told her that the president had written Grace’s father during the war “and offered to adopt her as his own daughter.”  Trump believed Macomber’s story, and corroborated it as much as he could, but also dutifully quoted several Lincoln experts who coolly dismissed the tale as “embroidery.”  The late Roy P. Basler, editor of Lincoln’s Collected Works, informed Trump, “The Abraham Lincoln papers include no correspondence between Lincoln and the parents of Grace Bedell. The collections in this division are not known to contain any information corroborating this story.”

That was in 1977.  But in 2007, there appeared this newly discovered letter that does offer at least some corroboration of the old family gossip.  After reading the 1864 letter from Grace, it is easy to imagine that Abraham Lincoln responded to the story of the Bedell family’s financial struggles with a direct appeal to Grace’s father.  The president might well have offered to have the young woman live in the White House while she worked as one of the war’s many Treasury Department girls.  Too proud to admit his financial reversals, businessman Norman Bedell either declined or just ignored the unexpected offer. What seemed fanciful to Roy Basler, now appears more reasonable given this new letter.     Of course, the irony is that like so much else in history, with more information, our certainty about the past suddenly seems far less secure.

New York “is one of the most unhealthy cities on the globe” and, as the Lowell (MA) Citizen & News explained in March 1859, “the unhealthiness of the city” had once again “attract[ed] the attention of the legislators at Albany.” Two years later the situation in that city had not improved. After the health officer for New York City released a report in early 1861, James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald examined several of “the secret sources of excessive disease and death.” The Herald believed that while their city was “naturally more healthy than” any other one in North America, they noted that the “excessive mortality” rate did not reflect that fact. While the “filthy conditions” was an obvious “source of mortality,” other important factors included the lack of vaccination. The Herald argued that the city should follow the example of other countries like Sweden and enact “a compulsory law for vaccination.” If “the vaccination [for smallpox] has been perfectly performed,” the Herald explained that “the mortality is found to be uniformly reduced to less than one in every two hundred cases.” Immigrants were also identified as a cause of the “excessive mortality.” “Most of the children who die under one year of age are the offspring of foreigners” who had “recently arrived” in the United States, as the Heraldclaimed. Other factors included abortions through “violent means” and those “killed…by quack medicine.” Yet not all cities faced this kind of health crisis. An editorial in the Cleveland (OH) Herald was optimistic as the city’s mortality rate had declined even as the city’s population increased. “The introduction of pure water in unlimited quantity has doubtless had much to do with the improved sanitary condition of the city,” as the Cleveland Herald explained.

Soldier Studies is a free online database that contains over 1200 Union and Confederate soldiers’ letters between 1860 and 1865. Each soldier has a profile with key biographical information and links to all of their letters in the collection. Some profiles also include photographs and short essays about the soldier. For example, Soldier Studies has four letters by Henry H. Hitchcock, who served in Company A of the 12th New York. In June 1861 Hitchcock’s regiment was in Washington DC. After he saw the “post office, treasury building, White House, Smithsionian Institute, [and] the Washington Monument,” Hitchcock explained that he “never saw too much before in so short a time” and “had no idea of the splendor of the public buildings here.” You can also browse this collection by subject, search by keyword, or see the full list of soldiers’ who have profiles. Check this page for the latest updates to the site. In addition, Soldier Studies has several resources available for teachers, such as the “American Civil War Soldier WebQuest.” The site also has a collection of articles on a number of different topics, including “Caring for the Men: The History of Civil War Medicine” and “Civil War Pensions.” Soldier Studies was created by Chris Wehner, a high school history teacher in Colorado, and Devin Watson.

On July 13, 1865 P. T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York City burned down and the Lost Museum’s interactive online exhibit allows you to figure out who is responsible for the crime. Before you start the investigation, it helps to watch the video introduction or at least read this overview of the exhibit. (You can also just skip the mystery part and explore the 3-D museum). The American Social History Project at the City University of New York Graduate Center launched the site for use in the classroom and teachers can pick from a number of different activities, such as “The Path to War?,” “John Brown, Violence, and Social Change,” and “The Debate Over Women’s Roles in Public.” In addition, the Lost Museum Archive has a number of different types of primary sources available – these include those related to the “Sectional Crisis,” “Amusement Devices,” “Civil War in New York City,” and “Tom Thumb.” The essays are also important since they help put Barnum’s museum in context – see especially “Barnum’s American Museum,” Ann Fabian’s “Women in P. T. Barnum’s New York City,” and Peter G. Buckley’s “Urban Popular Culture in the Age of Barnum.” Each essay includes links to relevant primary sources. This website was produced in collaboration with the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, which created other digital history resources such as “Exploring U. S. History,” “Virginia 400,” and “Historical Thinking Matters.” You can learn more about the city in Ernest A. McKay’s The Civil War and New York City (1990).

One way to keep up with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War is through the Washington Post’s Civil War twitter account. Every day they tweet details on events that occurred 150 years ago. As Mississippi seceded on January 9, 1861, the Washington Post noted “Miss secedes: ‘Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world.’” Unfortunately the tweets with quotes are not linked to any sources. The Washington Post also has created several other features for the 150th anniversary, including a “Timeline: The Road to Civil War” and a photo gallery on “Washington, D.C.: 1860 and today.” In addition, the Washington Post’s “A House Divided” blog includes posts by Civil War historians on a variety of topics as well as announcements on events related to the 150th anniversary. Harold Holzer, Chandra Manning, and Frank Williams have discussed in recent posts the reasons why President-Elect Abraham Lincoln was silent after his election. Other interesting posts include Gary Gallagher and David Blight on “Could the war have been prevented?” All of the Washington Post’s features on the Civil War are available on this page.

James Oakes and Matthew Pinsker will lead a seminar called “Lincoln and Emancipation” at New York University this summer from July 10 to July 16. The seminar will “will explore Lincoln’s evolving views on slavery, from his earliest anti-slavery expressions in the 1830s and 1840s to the development of his presidential emancipation policy during the Civil War.” Other information about this seminar is available here. If you want to attend, check this page for details on applying . The deadline is February 1, 2011. Oakes is a Professor of History at The City University of New York and received the Lincoln Prize for The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics in 2008. Pinsker is the Pohanka Chair for Civil War History at Dickinson College and Director of the House Divided Project. You can watch Oakes discuss Lincoln and Race and Pinsker lead a discussion about Lincoln and the election of 1860 for a class at Dickinson College. The Gilder Lehrman Institute also offers a number of other seminars this summer, including The South in American History (June 26-June 30, 2011), The American Civil War: Origins and Consequences (June 19-25, 2011), and Reconstruction (July 17-23, 2011). A complete list of seminars is available here.

To help honor the start of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and to publicize the launch of a wide-ranging effort to help America’s classrooms learn more about this pivotal conflict, the House Divided Project at Dickinson College will host a weekend of entertaining and educational events, free of charge to participants:

1. Documentary Film Festival – Friday April 15, 2011, 7pm to 9pm

• Watch a fascinating collection of short documentary films about the Civil War and its impact on ordinary Americans and small communities such as Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  Open to the public.

2. Teacher Workshop – Saturday April 16, 2011, 9am to noon

• Learn about the extraordinary range of free resources available online through the House Divided Project and other leading digital content providers.  Advance registration required –open to K-12 educators and home-schooling parents.

3. Civil War Tours – Saturday April 16, 2011, 1pm to 3pm

• Experience Civil War walking tours as never before. Students and staff from House Divided will lead visitors around Carlisle using the latest digital tools to help create a truly unique glimpse into the past.  Reservations encouraged.

4. David Blight Lecture – Saturday April 16, 2011, 7pm to 8:30pm

• Yale historian and author of Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001), David Blight will explore the meaning of the conflict at the beginning of its 150th anniversary.  Book signing to follow.  Open to the public.

All events are free

Questions? Contact Don Sailer at hdivided@dickinson.edu or 717-245-1525

The Gilder Lehrman Institute recently published a new essay by House Divided co-director Matthew Pinsker in their December 2010 issue of History Now. As Pinsker explains in “The Underground Railroad and the Coming of War”:

“The Underground Railroad was a metaphor. Yet many textbooks treat it as an official name for a secret network that once helped escaping slaves. The more literal-minded students end up questioning whether these fixed escape routes were actually under the ground. But the phrase “Underground Railroad” is better understood as a rhetorical device that compared unlike things for the purpose of illustration. In this case, the metaphor described an array of people connected mainly by their intense desire to help other people escape from slavery. Understanding the history of the phrase changes its meaning in profound ways.”

You can read the full essay here. Other essays in this issue include “Lincoln’s Interpretation of the Civil War” by Eric Foner, “The Riddles of ‘Confederate Emancipation’” by Bruce Levine, and “Women and the Home Front: New Civil War Scholarship” by Catherine Clinton. All of the past issues of History Now are available here.

Charles Hammer recently wrote a new novel entitled Of Love And War: 1864: A Civil War Novel For The North. As Hammer describes,

“The typical Civil War novel usually features a Confederate cavalier, often served by a loyal slave sidekick, who battles gallantly—for what? Actually, battling gallantly is all the South requires in such a book. Forget why we fought. “Of Love and War: 1864” strongly counters that view. It sends up the South of that era with, among accurate historical facts, a little-known verse the U. S. Colored Infantry sang in marching to war:

Away down South in the land of traitors,
Rattlesnakes and alligators,
Right away, come away, right away, Dixie land!
Where cotton’s king and men are chattels,
Union boys will win the battles….

In my story a peckerwood Georgia Militia deserter searches for the escaped slave girl he loves. He blunders into a firefight and gets captured by her. Now disguised as a man and enlisted as bluecoat sergeant in the U. S. Colored Infantry, she leads a wildcat black squad on one flank of Sherman’s march from Atlanta to the sea. They aim to emancipate slaves at plantations the army itself will not reach.”

You can learn more about this book on Amazon.com.

The Civil War Letters of the Christie Family at the Minnesota Historical Society offer an interesting perspective from three brothers who served in the Union army. Thomas and William Christie, who were both born in Ireland, enlisted in the First Minnesota Battery in 1861 and participated in the Vicksburg campaign as well as General William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea. Thomas had no difficulty in adjusting to “military life,” but noted that other soldiers in his regiment apparently found the transition to be a difficult one. “A great many of our men — and the Americans especially — cannot leave off those habits of Independence, which are so meritorious in the civilian, but so pernicious in the Soldier,” as Thomas observed. While they described their experiences during the war in detail, they also commented on contemporary political issues. William identified slavery as the cause of the conflict and supported President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. “For lighting the torch of Freedom,” William wrote that “the oppressed thoughout the land are this day Praying God to give us the victory.” Alexander, however, did not enlist until late 1864. After several months of training, his infantry regiment arrived in North Carolina in early April 1865 to participate in what he considered “the last great forward advancement of Sherman’s Army.”

In December 2010 the Minnesota Historical Society published a collection of these  letters — Hampton Smith, Brother of Mine: The Civil War Letters of Thomas and William Christie (2010). “The letters are so engaging that one longs for more,”as a review in the Minneapolis – St. Paul Star Tribune notes. You can read the full review here.