'Increasingly rare' unpublished Lincoln letter goes for $85,000

A recently discovered letter written by President Abraham Lincoln that offers a glimpse into his thinking during the early part of the Civil War sold this week in Pennsylvania for $85,000, according to an autograph dealer. The previously unpublished letter had been in the same private collection for at least a century before it was acquired earlier this year, said Nathan Raab, the principal of the Raab Collection, which buys and sells historical autographs, documents and signed letters. -- Article

Abraham Lincoln statue moved to battlefield in Kentucky

A replica statue of Abraham Lincoln in Kentucky has been moved to a permanent home at a Civil War battlefield. Floyd County Judge-Executive Robert Williams told WYMT-TV that the statue is now at the Middle Creek Battlefield in Prestonsburg. The site is where Union forces halted a Confederate advance into Kentucky in 1862. The statue depicting the president seated is a replica of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. It was removed in 2019 from the law office of Eric Conn. Conn was sentenced to prison for Social Security fraud. -- Article

Lincoln hat, gloves may be auctioned

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, which supports Lincoln’s museum in Springfield, Ill., has found itself $9.7 million in debt on a loan it took out 11 years ago to purchase a collection of rare artifacts. Now, hundreds of Lincoln’s personal possessions, including a beaver-fur stovepipe hat that Lincoln purportedly wore, as well as letters and other artifacts, are at risk of ending up on the auction block. • Article

Live blog: Garrison Keillor gives keynote at Gettysburg Address anniversary

The Civil War Picket today watched a live stream of Dedication Day events marking the 152^nd anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Garrison Keillor (left) of “A Prairie Home Companion” gave the keynote address. The ceremony, which included the naturalization of 16 new American citizens, is usually held at Soldiers’ National Cemetery. It was moved to Gettysburg College because of weather concerns. (NOTE: The Picket was not in Gettysburg).

11 a.m.: Dedication Day event concludes. The colors are retired.

10:55 a.m.: Following the benediction, Taps is played.

10:51 a.m.: Recording of President Barack Obama welcoming new citizens is played, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and "God Bless America."

10:48 a.m.: Sixteen people from 12 countries -- including Ghana, Iraq, China, Vietnam and Russia -- take part in a naturalization ceremony making them U.S. citizens. A video image captures the array of diversity among the new citizens. The crowd gives a standing ovation after they take the oath of allegiance. 

10:41 a.m.: Soloist Wayne Hill sings the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

George Buss recites the Gettysburg Address (USCIS)

10:37 a.m.: Lincoln portrayer George Buss, who is about the same height and weight of the 16th president, recites the Gettysburg Address (full text is at the bottom of this post)

10:34 a.m.: Officials give Keillor the flag that was to have flown at the cemetery during the ceremony. 

10:32 a.m.: The radio variety show host says people are "awestruck" about what happened at Gettysburg and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. "God bless their memory."

10:27 a.m. Keillor, in a dark suit with a red tie and socks, recites a riveting "mashup" of letters that 12 soldiers, two from the South, wrote to loved ones back home about marching and camp life, including details of food, scenery and being homesick. Among the letters he quotes: "The boys are enthusiastic in their admiration of Pennsylvania and the nice girls in particular." Another young man wrote, "We marched a distance of 30 miles and I was pretty much used up ... I slept all unconscious until the first streak of daylight and reveille." One asked his mother to remember him in her prayers. "I hope and pray that I might be spared to see you." All the letter writers died at Gettysburg.

Keillor

10:20 a.m.: Steven Herr, president of the Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania, introduces Garrison Keillor.

10:16 a.m.: Joanne M. Hanley, president of the Gettysburg Foundation, describes the group's role in supporting the park and mentions a Lincoln statue. "It is our duty ... that the powerful stories of Gettysburg .... are told and retold for generations."

10:13 a.m.: Ed Clark, superintendent of Gettysburg National Military Park describes the role of volunteers in preserving the battlefield and establishing Soldiers’ National Cemetery. He said President Lincoln challenged America to remember what the soldiers did there. Americans today should be committed to service, he said.

10:10 a.m.: Gettysburg College's president talks about the battle's impact on the campus. Janet Morgan Riggs says students and faculty went to hear President Lincoln at the new cemetery for the fallen. "We are very proud to have played a part in these historic events."

10:06 a.m.: The Rev. Maria Erling of Gettysburg Seminary gives the invocation, asking people to be inspired by those who gave their lives. 

10:02 a.m.: After a welcome, the National Anthem is played as a color guard in Civil War-era uniforms stands in front of the stage.

9:58 a.m.: Program is about to begin.

9:43 a.m.: A small band of school-age musicians in Union uniforms is performing music at the Gettysburg College Union Ballroom.

The Gettysburg Address (delivered on Nov. 19, 1863)

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Mystery of the Lincoln family cabin

A letter written during the Civil War may shed light on where Abraham Lincoln's parents lived immediately after marrying. History scholars have debated the precise location of the couple's cabin. A Kentucky history museum received transcribed copies of letters written during the Civil War by a Union soldier stationed in Elizabethtown that mentions the cabin's location. • Article

Election Day primer: Start with A. Lincoln

Election Day is upon us. Analyses will be written tonight, new careers will be born, others will fade away.

Monday, on the eve of the voting, I drove down to the Atlanta History Center to see the Library of Congress exhibit, “With Malice Toward None,” honoring the enduring legacy of the 16th president.

The show moves on after Sunday and I figured I’d never have another chance to see such an assembly of Abraham Lincoln writings, photographs, sketches, personal items and, yes, the items found in his coat pockets after he was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre.

Lincoln was a consummate politician and a lawyer. He knew the shrewd game of give and take.

His sole term in the U.S. House of Representatives was a disappointment. But he learned as he went and persevered.

Few Americans knew Lincoln’s name in 1858 when he debated Stephen Douglas seven times during his unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate seat in Illinois.

His speeches lifted him to the national stage, even in defeat, and a familiar line made itself into the American lexicon.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”

“With Malice Toward None” opens with a multimedia presentation that explores the myth and realities of Lincoln. Video commentaries reveal personal connections to the documents the 16th president wrote.

Photos throughout the exhibit depict Lincoln over the years, with the Civil War’s heavy toll evident in an Alexander Gardner portrait taken several weeks before he died.

A cane-bottom chair from an old law office tells you a lot about the man from Springfield, Ill.

“The strength and durability of furniture is said to have interested Lincoln more than its appearance.”

The exhibit has the powerful documents we know so well: Drafts of his second inaugural address, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address.

But the “little” letters speak of Lincoln’s humanity.

In October 1860, Grace Bedell (left, during the 1870s), a young girl from New York, wrote to candidate Lincoln asking him to grow whiskers because his face was so thin.

“All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President,” reads a portion of the letter, which is in the exhibit.

Shortly afterward, Lincoln grew his now-familiar beard.

In December 1862, as the war wore on, the president wrote to Fanny McCullough, the daughter of a friend killed in battle.

“I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time,” Lincoln wrote. “You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again.”

I make no political statement here. It's my hope at the end of today that we appreciate the resiliency of our political process. And that we continue to turn to Lincoln for lessons in statesmanship, discourse and love.

Abraham Lincoln's forgotten fort

Fort Stevens — located in a working-class neighborhood near President Lincoln’s summer cottage at the Soldiers’ Home in Washington — had been neglected in recent decades. Some stimulus money came its way, and the National Park Service cleaned it up in hopes of making it more visitor-friendly. The Civil War Preservation Trust fears that a five-story building planned by the Emory United Methodist Church next door will make it harder for visitors to visualize history. The pastor has defended the expansion. • Column

Lincoln show features Bible, items he carried

Atlanta is celebrating Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday a little late. But details of the exhibition about the 16th president, coming to the Atlanta History Center, make it seem well worth the wait. "With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition," opening here Sept. 4, should appeal to both fans of Lincoln and those interested in the difficult Civil War-era chapters. • Details