Among HSP’s nearly 22 million collections are items related to every US President. Some are published history books, campaign pamphlets, newspapers, prints, and photographs. Others are written in the President’s hand – before, during, or after – his work as Chief Executive is done. Finally, the image of the President looms large in the fascination of many Americans, and his image and often reflection on his death finds its way into dozens of curiosities in HSP’s collections. Here are just a few of the hundreds.
Wartime Actions
The American Revolution and the American Civil War provide close examinations of the quintessential American presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Over a decade before serving as the United States’ first chief executive, General Washington secured the nation’s independence as the Continental army’s Commander in Chief. After a series of defeats in 1776 that led to Washington troops’ withdrawal from New York, General Washington devised the risky scheme to attack Hessian soldiers by crossing the Delaware River on Christmas evening and mounting a surprise attack on Trenton and Princeton. A letter from Washington to General John Cadwalader of Philadelphia tersely shares the general’s frustrations he was facing to his plan. He has hoped to have all the troops assembled and ready to cross the river by sunset, but alas this letter at 6pm demonstrates that the operation was behind schedule. The letter’s recipient John Cadwalader, a key leader of the Third Battalion of the Philadelphia Militia, was to cross the river and march to Trenton from the south. Anticipating the weather conditions that would in fact prevent Cadwalader from making the journey in time for the battle at Trenton, Washington provides the alternative assignment of “creating as great a diversion as possible.” Fortunately for his legacy, John Cadwalader and the Third Battalion rejoined Washington’s troops for the next successful defeat of British forces at the battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777.
Four score and seven years later, another commander in chief – this one writing from the Executive Mansion in Washington - congratulated a future president on his military victories. In the days following the surrender of Confederate leaders at Jackson and then Vicksburg, Mississippi, President Abraham Lincoln wrote to General Ulysses Grant, acknowledging the successful maneuvers of the Union Army that Lincoln had initially opposed, concluding with the humble admission, “I now wish to make the personal acknowledgement that you were right and I was wrong.”
While Commander-in-Chief Lincoln managed the Union generals with hands-on precision, he made his boldest wartime decision in September 1862 to take effect January 1, 1863. This was the Emancipation Proclamation, and it set free all persons held in slavery in the ten rebelling states (parts of Louisiana and Virginia exempted). Tennessee, already under Union control, was exempted, as were states where slavery still existed that were loyal to the Union – Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey. He made that Proclamation “by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion”. This printed copy of the powerful document was created in 1864. Signed by Lincoln and his Secretary of State William Seward, this was one of four dozen souvenir copies sold at the Great Central Fair in June 1864, a civilian-organized fundraising event to support the care of the Union soldiers.
Intimate and Public Mourning
Presidents Washington and Lincoln rendered service to the United States that secured their lasting memory. Successfully prosecuting the Civil War, initiating the Emancipation Proclamation and signing the joint resolution that submitted the Thirteenth Amendment to the states for ratification, Lincoln has been credited with both saving the union and ending slavery. Nonetheless, the political battles that lay ahead of the war-torn nation were not his to fight, as an assassin shot the President five days after the surrender of General Lee. The grief and anxiety of the exhausted nation manifested in mourning displays in towns and cities across parts of the country.
Elaborate funeral demonstrations punctuated the 1700-mile journey Lincoln’s casket made from Washington DC to Springfield, Illinois. Memoirs of this event, in the form of newspapers, diaries, photographs, and sketches, fill the shelves of many archival collections. At HSP, a dozen published sermons pulpits from across the Northeast share the significance religious leaders assigned to the tragedy.
Meanwhile, the intimate diary of Black woman records her impression. In her tiny pocket diaries from 1863, 1864, and 1865, Emilie Davis recorded her daily activities, the weather, and news within her community, but such entries are punctuated by others mentioning significant national events. On January 1, 1863, the day the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, Davis wrote, “To day has bin a memorable day and i thank god i have bin sperd to see it the day was religously observed all the churches were open we had quite a jubilee.” On the day she received the news that President Lincoln had been shot, she wrote, “April 14, 1865 The President Was assasinated by Som Confederate villain at the theatre. die saturday morning the 15 the city is in the Deepest sorrow”. Finally, a week later, as the funeral procession entered Philadelphia, Davis remembered, “to day is the day long to be remembered i have bin very busy all morning the President comes in town this afternoon i went out about 3 in the afternoon it was the gravest funeral i ever saw the coffin and hearse was beutiful.”
A similarly public display of mourning accompanied the death of George Washington in 1799. The former general and president died quietly at Mount Vernon on December 14, 1799, “without a struggle or sigh,” as recorded by his personal secretary and eyewitness to the death scene Tobias Lear. Before passing from a throat infection, Washington had instructed Lear “Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the vault less than three days before I am dead.” His family followed these instructions, interring the body on December 18 in the family vault on the grounds of Mount Vernon. The same day, Congress learned of the passing of the former chief executive and devised a plan for a funeral procession in Philadelphia, then the seat of the national government, with “solemn and august pageantry.” The procession on December 26 involved members of the government and the military, and it processed from Sixth and Chestnut Streets to Zion Lutheran Church, the largest house of worship in the city. There, General Richard Henry Lee, who was a kinsman to George Washington though marriage, delivered a eulogy that included the words "First in War, First in Peace, First in the Hearts of His Countrymen."
Memory and Commemoration
As the nation mourned the passing of its chief citizen, the memory of George Washington took on sacred meaning. Writers, preachers, artists, politicians produced public memorials, while privately Americans hung prints and stitched embroidered scenes of his deification. Even locks of his hair began to circulate as cherished mementos among his friends and family. Over the course of the next century – and especially in the years just prior to and following the Civil War – George Washington, the military commander who returned to civilian life and the chief executive who willingly relinquished power after two terms, became a unifying symbol for a fractured and partisan country. In 1879, Congress declared February 22 a national holiday to commemorate not only Washington’s birthday but his service and example to the nation. Every year since 1896, a US Senator has read aloud Washington’s 1796 farewell speech, in which he warned against political factionalism and interference by foreign powers as threats to the stability of the republic.
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