Posted on 10/20/2020 5:35:32 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Free Republic University, Department of History presents U.S. History, 1855-1860: Seminar and Discussion Forum
Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, Lincoln-Douglas, Harper’s Ferry, the election of 1860, secession – all the events leading up to the Civil War, as seen through news reports of the time and later historical accounts
First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed.
Posting history, in reverse order
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.
I wonder if His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales made visits to bordellos on his visit through America.
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,
Oct. 20th 1860.—
Private and
Confidential.
Dear Sir: Your success and safety being identified with the great Republican cause, the cause of peace, union and conservatism; must be my apology for addressing you.—
On a recent visit to the east, I met a lady of high character, who had been spending part of the summer among her friends and relatives in Virginia. She informed me that a number of young men in Virginia had bound themselves, by oaths the most solemn, to cause your assassination, should you be elected. Now Sir, you may laugh at this story, and really it does appear too absurd to repeat, but I beg you to recollect, that on “the institution” these good people are most certainly demented, and being crazy, they should be taken care of, to prevent their doing harm to themselves or others.— Judicious, prompt and energetic action on the part of your Secretary of War, will no doubt secure your own safety, and the peace of the country,
I have the honor to be,
David Hunter,
U. S. Army—
Hon. A. Lincoln,
Springfield, Ill.
P. S. I had the pleasure of meeting you in early days at Chicago, and again at the great Whig Convention at Springfield in 1840.
SOURCE: Lincoln, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: David Hunter to Abraham Lincoln, Saturday,Warns of assassination plot. 1860. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/mal0407400/.
He was a guest at the very swanky Fifth Avenue Hotel. He probably ordered from room service.
In reply #3 above, the quote from Mary Lincoln to Hannah Shearer in paragraph 2 of the excerpt is taken from a letter Mary wrote on this date.
This from Wiki: By the 1870s, the Fifth Avenue Hotel had many competitors in the area, and where the hotels were, the prostitutes followed.
It appears NYC was like a lot of cities (including Denver) that only began cracking down on the trade around the turn of the century.
In checking this out I learned a new piece of trivia, the origin of the term "tenderloin" for a bawdy house district. An NYPD Captain who was assigned a precinct in the Tenderloin found that his bribe money greatly increased and remarked: "I've been having chuck steak ever since I've been on the force, and now I'm going to have a bit of tenderloin."
That’s very interesting. I always thought the Tenderloin district was unique to San Francisco. I never knew where the name came from.
Apparently, New York’s was the first!
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
LOWELL, Oct. 22, 1860
MY GOOD GIRL: You know that I am not a constant correspondent, but I am now taking your mother's place. You need not feel alarm about your mother's eyes, as I believe the weakness to be temporary only. At least she was quite well enough last Friday evening to go with me to the Prince's Ball1 at Boston. Aunt Harriet went with us; both were much pleased, as ladies always are, with beautiful dresses, fine music, and a gay throng. I was obliged to go down to the review of the Military.2 I suppose you hardly saw the Prince; as a sight you have not lost much. He looks somewhat like your cousin Hal Read, but is not quite so intelligent in the face.
Pray do not pain me by hearing that you are homesick. A girl of good sense like you to be homesick! Never say it. Never feel it, never think it. The change, the novelty of your situation, will soon wear away, and with your duties well done, as I know they will be, you will be sustained by the pride of a well-earned joy in your return. You say the girls, your associates, seem strange to you. May they not find the same strange appearance in you? You say you think they do not like you much, and you do not like them much. Is not this because of the strangeness, and because you do not understand and know each other. It is one of the objects I desired to gain by sending you to Georgetown that you should see other manners, other customs and ways, than those around you at home. However good these may be, the difficulty is that one used to a single range of thoughts and modes of life soon comes to think all others inferior, while in fact they may be better, and are only different. This is a provincialism, and one of which I am sorry to say that Massachusetts people are most frequently guilty.
By no means give up your own manners simply because others of your associates are different. Try and see which are best, but do not cling to your own simply because they are yours. In the matter of pronunciation of which you wrote, hold fast your own, subject to your teachers. Do not adopt the flat drawl of the South. That is a patois. Avoid it. All educated people speak a language alike. T’is true Mr. Clay, said cheer for chair, but that from a defect of early association. Full, distinct, and clear utterance with a kindly modulated voice, will add a new accomplishment to a young lady, who is as perfect as Blanche in the eye of
FATHER
1 H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, then on a visit to the United States.
2 General Butler was Brigadier General of the Massachusetts militia, having received his commission in 1857.
SOURCE: Jessie Ames Marshall, Editor, Private and Official Correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler During the Period of the Civil War, Volume 1: April 1860 – June 1862, p. 3-4
General Benjamin Butler:
“Spoons” Butler - because of the silverware he stole in New Orleans, sometimes also “Beast” Butler for his edict permitting his troops to rape the women of New Orleans “she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation.”
He also violated international law by stealing from the Dutch cousel and intercepting a diplomatic pouch from the French.
All in all, the lowest of low lifes.
“All educated people speak a language alike.”
How provincial. Had he never met an educated person from England, Scotland, or Ireland?
Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859-1865, edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher
He did say (and write) all that, yet Southern states could reasonably believe he was being disingenuous, because he’s a politician.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Here is a graph of federal revenues during the war which suggests the Union economy was far from destroyed by Southern secession:
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