Replies

rockrr,

I checked the link I posted in post 254. It is no longer a working link. I had posted what was provided by the link I had posted earlier. However, I was able to find Baldwin's testimony online in a huge file at Link to Baldwin 1866 testimony.

After it downloads, you can find on page 104 where Baldwin testified that President Lincoln said the following when Baldwin met with him on April 4, 1861: "Well," said he, "what about the revenue? What would I do about the collection of duties?".

x, if you don't trust what I post (e.g., as you said, "It would have been useful to know if the story actually appeared in the Sun"), I suggest you check it out yourself and quit implying that I didn't quote what the newspaper article said. I think the only error I made in my post of excerpts from that April 23, 1861 Sun article was the word "mercy" which I mistyped as "mercey."

I see this article cited on line as being from the Baltimore Exchange, the Memphis Daily Avalanche, Richmond Times Dispatch, and the Fayetteville Semi-Weekly Observer but never from the Baltimore Sun (where the story allegedly first appeared), so yes, it would have been nice to see a reproduction of the page of the Sun with that story on that day (the same day the Exchange came out citing a Sun article on the conversation). You ought to be able to see where that could have cleared things up a little and established your argument on a firmer foundation. It would have brought the article one (small) step closer to possible sources.

As it is, I don't know what to make of the article:

"The delegation, on leaving 'the presence,' conferred together, and agreed on the hopelessness of their errand and the sad prospect of any good thing from such a source, and the exclamation was actually made, 'God have mercey on us, when the government is placed in the hands of a man like this!'"

It sounds like there's a very clear propagandistic purpose to the article. The story about the Irishman, the talk of "spunk" that appear in some accounts - this is certainly one of the stranger meetings any president ever had.

BroJoeK, you wrote about this last year, so maybe you know more about it and have something to contribute.