The Lincoln-Kennedy Ties, And a Possible Clue

A popular historical urban legend concerns the supposed similarities between the deaths of Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Most people are familiar with them---"Both presidents were succeeded by men named Johnson", "Both presidents were shot in the back of the head", "Both presidents were assassinated on a Friday", "Booth shot Lincoln in a theater, and was finally killed in a warehouse / Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse, and was captured in a theater", etc.---and most serious historians will contend that most of these similarities are either patently untrue or else coincidental (such as the fact that both Lincoln and Kennedy were both elected to Congress in years ending with the digits "46": Lincoln in 1846, Kennedy in 1946).

The urban legend debunking site Snopes has this to say about one of the better known Lincoln-Kennedy similarities:

Lincoln's secretary, Kennedy, warned him not to go to Ford's Theater. Kennedy's secretary, Lincoln, warned him not to go to Dallas.

This is one of those coincidences that isn't a coincidence at all---it's simply wrong. John Kennedy did have a secretary named Evelyn Lincoln (who may or may not have warned him about going to Dallas), but one searches in vain to find a Lincoln secretary named Kennedy. (Lincoln's White House secretaries were John G. Nicolay and John Hay.)

So...no Lincoln secretary named Kennedy, eh? Well...case closed, then.

But...what if another possibility exists?

In the December 2008 issue of Civil War Times Illustrated, an article by Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer, extracted from a full length book about Lincoln's time as president-elect (November 1860-March 1861), addressed Lincoln's incognito passage through pro-secessionist Baltimore, Maryland on the way to his inauguration. Concerned about threats against the life of the president-elect, Lincoln's aides and friends convinced him to "sneak through" Baltimore by night rather than make his scheduled daytime appearance there.

This passage, describing one of three letters of warning that Lincoln received while stopping over in Philadelphia, caught my eye:

"Stone's report completed the package and quoted a New York 'detective officer' who had been on duty in Baltimore for three weeks and now believed 'there is serious danger of violence to and the assassination of Mr. Lincoln in his passage through that city should the time of that passage be
known.'...Unmentioned---it would have meant little at the time, but a great deal just a few months later---was the fact that the 'detective officer' in question, John A. Kennedy, superintendent of the New York Metropolitan Police, had taken his discoveries to Stone...Stone had rushed Kennedy's warning to Scott, an alarmed Scott had shared it with Seward, and Seward had summoned his son and entrusted him to speed it to Lincoln 'wherever he is.' (emphases mine)"

So here we do, in fact, have a Kennedy who, at one point in what was in all probability a life of obscurity, warned Lincoln about a threat to his life, although obviously not the same threat familiar to history. In the end, Lincoln made the journey safely, was sworn into office during the first week of March, 1861, and led the country through four years of civil war before finally falling victim to John Wilkes Booth's bullet in April 1865.

Is it possible that somewhere along the way, someone (an obscure Lincoln scholar perhaps?) might have mentioned Detective Kennedy's name in context with this earlier assassination attempt on Lincoln, perhaps to an equally obscure JFK scholar, who could then have referenced the name of Kennedy's secretary Evelyn Lincoln? Might this "truth" about the crossed paths of two presidential assassinations have arisen from a careless mangling of what were, on the surface, indisputable facts?

The possibility tantalizes, does it not?

Still, we can never know for certain.

Anti-Revisionism, Part 1

...Because we just can't let the new interpretations be the only ones, now can we?


Here's a rejoinder to the frequent argument, made to tear down an established "great person", by saying, "Well, they weren't all that great; after all, their competition was second rate. They were just lucky":


(NOTE: The source is G. F. Henderson's Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War, published sometime in the early 20th century; exact date unknown)

"By the ignorant and the envious success in war is easily explained away. The dead military lion, and, for that matter, even the living, is a fair mark for the heels of a baser animal. The greatest captains have not escaped the critics. The genius of Napoleon has been belittled on the ground that each one of his opponents, except Wellington, was only second-rate. French historians have attributed Wellington's victories to the mutual jealousy of the French marshals; and it has been asserted that Moltke triumphed only because his adversaries blundered. Judged by this rule few reputations would survive. In war, however, it is as impossible to avoid error as it is to avoid loss of life; but it is by no means simple either to detect or to take advtange of mistakes. Before both Napoleon and Wellington an unsound manuever was dangerous in the extreme. None were so quick to see the slip, none more prompt to profit by it. Herein, to a great extent, lay the secret of their success, and herein lies the true measure of military genius. A general is not necessarily incapable because he makes a false move; both Napoleon and Wellington, in the long course of their campaigns, gave many openings to a resolute foe, and both missed opportunities. Under ordinary circumstances mistakes may easily escape notice altogether, or at all events pass unpunished, and the reputation of the leader who commits them will remain untarnished. But if he is pitted against a master of war a single false step may lead to irretrievable ruin; and he will be classed as beneath contempt for a fault which his successful antagonist may have committed with impunity a hundred times over."

Revisionism, Part 1

I have a love-hate relationship with historical revisionism; love because it provokes new thoughts and challenges old assumptions, and keeps my thinking fresh, hate because it tends to tear down my idols and erect in their places tarnished images that I don't particularly care for.

But in the spirit of revisionism, I'd like to present the following excerpt from a series of essays on the Fredericksburg Campaign, entitled (appropriately enough) The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decision on the Rappahannock, edited by Gary Gallagher.

Chew on this for a while:

When Robert E. Lee spends more than five hours hammering the Federal position at Gaines's Mill, assaulting uphill on a constricted front against a strong, entrenched enemy who is well supported by artillery, losing nearly 8,000 men in the process,he is called bold and ferocious. When Ambrose Burnside spends more than five hours hammering [the Rebel position at] Marye's Heights, assaulting uphill on a constricted front against a strong, entrenched enemy who is well supported by artillery,losing nearly 8,000 men in the process, he is called stubborn and stupid. In each case, the army commander operated in anticipation of a left-flank movement that never came. The only real difference is that when John Bell Hood told his Texans to rush at the enemy without firing and get in among them with the bayonet, they succeeded,whereas when Andrew Humphreys gave the same instructions to his division of untried [Pennsylvania] militiamen, they failed (p.23).*

I guess the only way you could reconcile the above two situations
is with that old adage, "Nothing succeeds like success." It covers
over a multitude of errors. Likewise, lack of success will obscure
a multitude of good deeds and best intentions.

* For the ill-informed, here are some
links to the above-mentioned battles:

Gaines's Mill - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaines%27_Mill

Fredericksburg - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fredericksburg

Peachtree Creek - The Park That Wasn't

This past Monday was another one of the summer/fall lectures at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, which I attended. The subject was the attempt to create a National Battlefield Park at Peachtree Creek during the 1890's through the 1920's, at least ten or fifteen years before anyone mentioned Kennesaw itself as a viable park.

In a few days I'll put up my notes about it; in the meantime, I'm toying with a little appropriate Photoshop madness to spruce this particular post up a bit.

Meanwhile, here's a little more Peachtree Creek, for those unfamiliar with the battle there:

http://ngeorgia.com/history/peachtreecreek.html

Hardee at Kennesaw Mountain: Official Records

Even though his corps bore the brunt of the fighting
there, Hardee never covered the operations on the Kennesaw
line in his official report to the Richmond government,
preferring instead to spill much ink in defense of his
actions during the battles around Atlanta. Additionally,
the report itself was not presented until April 5,1865
(just four days before Lee's surrender at Appomattox), which
meant that there was little time for Hardee to add anything
further, even if he had wanted to. Whatever "Old Reliable"
thought about the June 27th fight, he never committed it
to paper.

The only item from Hardee's report pertinent to Kennesaw
is an addendum from his assistant adjutant-general, Colonel
T. B. Roy, made in response to a query from the CS Army's
Inspector General, Samuel Cooper, about losses at Kennesaw.
Roy supplied the following:

I think our loss was 100 and some
few odd. It was almost nothing. Estimates
of enemy's losses in front of Cheatham and
Cleburne's left varied from 2,000 to 5,000.
Captain Buel (captured the other day) says
2,000.

Attached was a table that broke down the loss in
killed, wounded and missing for the divisions of
Cheatham and Cleburne.

Thankfully for the historical record, Hardee's subordinates
would not be so tight-lipped about the Kennesaw fight.

Pickett's Charge (July 3, 1863) - In Memoriam

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once

but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's

still not yet two oclock on that July afternoon in 1863,

the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the

guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags

are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself

with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand

probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill

waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the

balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet,

it not only hasn't begun yet but there is stll time for it not

to begin against that position and those circumstances

which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and

Armstead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin,

we all know that, we have come too far with too much

at stake and that moment doesn't need even a

fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this

time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain:

Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome

of Washington itself to crown with desperate and

unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast

made two years ago....

---from Intruder In the Dust by William Faulkner (1948)

I've never read the book, but I remember the passage from Ken Burns' series.

Georgia's sons: William J. Hardee

Of the 17 men who would rise to the rank of lieutenant general in the Confederate States army, William J. Hardee was the lone Georgian. Born in Camden County in October of 1815, nine months after Andrew Jackon's victory at the Battle of New Orleans, Hardee was the son of John Hardee, a Georgia Congressman. Like many other young men of military bent, Hardee aspired to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point, but was unable to secure an appointment until he was 19 years old, joining the Class of 1838. At his graduation he ranked 26 in a class of 45 cadets.

A respectable military career followed, including service in the Seminole and Mexican Wars, a return to West Point as commandant in the 1850's, and the writing of the seminal instruction book Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics (often simply known as Hardee's Tactics). The latter would be consulted frequently by officers and instructors on both sides during the War, as they sought to master the fine arts of drilling in the School of the Soldier, the Company, and the Battalion.

If there was any doubt where Hardee's main loyalty lay during the Secession crisis, he settled it by his activities: during the winter of 1860-1861, under special commission from Georgia governor Joseph Brown, he and several associates traveled to New York to purchase weapons and equipment from Northern arms manufacturers, for shipment back to Georgia. When the war finally came in the spring of 1861, he found himself in Florida, attempting to capture Federal-held Fort Pickens. It was there that Hardee also ran into the man who would prove to be his bete noir: Braxton Bragg.

After brief service in the southern Missouri/northern Arkansas corridor, Hardee was transferred to Kentucky/Tennessee sector of the Western Theater, where he would spend the rest of his Confederate career. Under the commands of A. S. Johnston, P.G.T. Beauregard, Bragg, Joseph Johnston, and John Bell Hood, Hardee directed anywhere from one-third to one-half of the Army of Tennessee's infantry. His corps inaugurated the battle of Shiloh (April 6-7, 1862), shattered the Federal right wing at Stone's River (December 31, 1862 - January 2, 1863), and vainly held the Missionary Ridge position outside Chattanooga during the battles there (November 23 - 25, 1863).

During the Atlanta Campaign, Hardee stood mainly on the defensive throughout the series of battles from Dalton to the Chattahoochee. Upon Hood's accession to command, Hardee's corps became the primary offensive force in the battles of Peachtree Creek (July 20, 1864) and Atlanta (July 22, 1864). But the cost of these defeats, and the growing strain between Hardee and Hood, with the latter holding Hardee primarily responsible for the losses, disheartened "Old Reliable". After the fall of Atlanta he succeeded in wrangling a transfer from Hood's army to command of the Georgia coastal defenses.

Hardee's post-Atlanta career was anticlimactic; with barely 10,000 men, he could not hope to hold Savannah against Sherman's 60,000-man army, and was compelled to evacuate the city in late December, 1864. During the Carolinas Campaigns, Hardee served again under Joseph Johnston (and, no doubt regrettably, in close proximity to Bragg). As if the defeat of the Confederacy was not enough, Hardee's own son was killed in action during the last few weeks of the war.

Hardee made the best of what he could in the defeated South, working in the insurance and railroad industries in Alabama. During a family vacation in Virginia, he died on November 6, 1873, at age 58.

In his reference work Generals In Gray (1959), Ezra Warner considered Hardee, "Along with Stonewall Jackson and Longstreet...one of the oustanding corps commanders in the Confederate service."Considering that Hardee never achieved any battlefield successes that came even close to matching those of Jackson or Longstreet, this assessment is difficult to understand. However, the caliber of the officers and men of the Federal army that Hardee fought were arguably superior to those in Virginia; Jackson and Longstreet themselves might have been hard-pressed to achieve these same successes in the Western Theater. While Hardee may not have been as great a commander as any of Lee's lieutenants, it can be said without a doubt that he gave his all to the Cause he fought for.