THE HAND OF LINCOLN
The Saturday after the nomination of Mr. Lincoln for President of the United States, the Committee appointed to inform him of the said nomination arrived in Springfield and performed this duty in the evening at his home.
The cast of his hand was made the next morning by Mr. Leonard W. Volk. While the sculptor was making the cast of his left hand, Lincoln called his attention to a scar on his thumb. "You have heard me called the 'rail-splitter' haven't you?" he said, "Well, I used to split rails when I was a young man, and one day, while sharpening a wedge on a log, the axe glanced and nearly took off my thumb."
Edmund Clarence Stedman was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on the 8th of October, 1833. He entered Yale College at the age of sixteen and distinguished himself in Greek and English Composition. He was the editor of several papers in Connecticut and in 1856 removed to New York City—a larger field for his literary abilities. He was a contributor to Vanity Fair, Putnam's Monthly, Harper's Magazine and other periodicals. His poems: The Diamond Wedding, How Old John Brown Took Harper's Ferry, The Ballad of Lager-Bier, gave him some reputation. He was war-correspondent for the World during the early campaigns of the Army of the Potomac from the Headquarters of General Irwin McDowell and General B. McClellan. He died in 1908.
[THE HAND OF LINCOLN]
| Look on this cast, and know the hand That bore a nation in its hold; From this mute witness understand What Lincoln was—how large of mold. The man who sped the woodman's team, And deepest sunk the plowman's share, And pushed the laden raft astream, Of fate before him unaware. This was the hand that knew to swing The axe—since thus would Freedom train Her son—and made the forest ring, And drove the wedge and toiled amain. Firm hand that loftier office took, A conscious leader's will obeyed, And, when men sought his word and look, With steadfast might the gathering swayed. [top] No courtier's, toying with a sword, Nor minstrel's, laid across a lute; Chiefs, uplifted to the Lord When all the kings of earth are mute! The hand of Anak, sinewed strong, The fingers that on greatness clutch, Yet lo! the marks their lines along Of one who strove and suffered much. For here in mottled cord and vein I trace the varying chart of years, I know the troubled heart, the strain, The weight of Atlas—and the tears. Again I see the patient brow That palm erewhile was wont to press; And now 'tis furrowed deep, and now Made smooth with hope and tenderness. For something of a formless grace This molded outline plays about; A pitying flame, beyond our trace, Breathes like a spirit, in and out— The love that casts an aureole Round one who, longer to endure, Called mirth to cease his ceaseless dole, Yet kept his nobler purpose sure. Lo, as I gaze, the statured man, Built up from yon large hand, appears; A type that nature wills to plan But once in all a people's years. What better than this voiceless cast To tell of such a one as he, Since through its living semblance passed The thought that bade a race be free? |