[47] I have communicated with Mr. Burton and he agrees with me in the opinion that the inscription from Professor Anthon is not genuine. He thinks it may have been added by Dr. English, not with intent to deceive, but as giving his impression of the manner in which Lincoln acquired the book. Whoever wrote it I think was in error.
[48] This book had been written and was in course of revision when I procured Dr. Chapman's Latest Light on Lincoln. It is a book by one who loved Lincoln sincerely, and can discover in him no lack of any desirable quality; even physical beauty and grace of movement are here attributed to Lincoln, as well as the acceptance of all the fundamental articles of the creeds. He accepts the Beecher incident, declaring that Dr. Johnson informed him that "after thorough investigation he fully believed it to be truthful and authentic," and affirming that "upon the scene of this unique event there rests a halo of celestial beauty too sacred to be regarded with indifference or doubt." The halo may be there, but is it true? Was there any period of twenty-four hours while Lincoln was in the White House when this could have occurred, and the fact concealed from the public? It is altogether less improbable that Mrs. Beecher in her extreme old age and failing mentality was mistaken about the identity of one of Mr. Beecher's callers.
[49] Dr. Johnson quotes this in his Abraham Lincoln the Christian, and with it gives a photo reproduction of this page of his manuscript, bearing in the margin the attestation of both Generals Sickles and Rusling:
"I certify that this statement of a conversation between President Lincoln and General Sickles, in my presence, at Washington, D. C., July 5, 1863, relating to Gettysburg, is correct and true. James F. Rusling, Trenton, N. J., Feb. 17, 1910."
"I hereby certify that the foregoing statement by General Rusling is true in substance. I know from my intimate acquaintance with President Lincoln that he was a religious man—God-fearing and God-loving ruler. D. E. Sickles, Major General U. S. Army, Ret'd, New York, Feb. 11, 1911."
[50] The Library of Congress has a scurilous pamphlet entitled Behind the Seams; by a Nigger Woman, who took in work for Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Davis, New York: The National News Company, 21 and 23 Ann Street, 1868. The preface is signed, "Betsy X (her mark) Kickley, a Nigger." It is a coarse parody on the above, but would appear sometimes to have been mistaken for the original work.
[51] This incident must have appeared in print immediately after Lincoln's death, for I find it quoted in memorial addresses of May, 1865. Mr. Oldroyd has endeavored to learn for me in what paper he found it and on whose authority it rests, but without result. He does not remember where he found it. It is inherently improbable, and rests on no adequate testimony. It ought to be wholly disregarded. The earliest reference I have found to the story in which Lincoln is alleged to have said to an unnamed Illinois minister "I do love Jesus" is in a sermon preached in the Baptist Church of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, April 19, 1865, by Rev. W. W. Whitcomb, which was published in the Oshkosh Northwestern, April 21, 1865, and in 1907 issued in pamphlet form, by John E. Burton. The form of quotation is indefinite, but I judge that the incident was current in the papers of that week, as it is quoted as something with which the congregation was assumed to be familiar. I judge, therefore, that this was a story that found currency immediately after Lincoln's death, running the round of the newspapers with no one's name attached.
[52] Lincoln addressed most of his friends by their family name, seldom prefixing "Mr." A few he called by their first name. Herndon he called "Billy." Ward Hill Lamon he addressed as "Hill." Some of his friends called him "Lincoln," but most of them, "Mr. Lincoln." If any habitually addressed him as "Abe," the author has been unable to learn the fact.
"Although I have heard of cheap fellows, professing that they were wont to address him as 'Abe,' I never knew any one who did it in his presence. Lincoln disdained ceremony, but he gave no license for being called 'Abe'." Whitney: Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, p. 53.
[53] Dr. Chapman, who appears to have permitted no improbable story of Lincoln's orthodoxy to escape him, records this incident with complete assurance of its correctness; but it is a story which it is impossible to fit into the life of Lincoln.