Abraham Lincoln
Presented by Harold Holzer

Harold Holzer is Vice President for External Affairs, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and one of the country's leading authorities on the political culture of the Civil War era and Abraham Lincoln. A prolific writer and lecturer, and frequent guest on television, Mr. Holzer served as co-chair of the United States Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. 

Mr. Holzer has authored, co-authored, or edited over 25 books, including Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861, The President Is Shot!: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln At Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President, Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (Nathan I Huggins Lectures), and Father Abraham: Lincoln and His Sons.  In addition, Mr. Holzer has written more than 350 articles for both popular magazines and scholarly journals, including Life Magazine, American Heritage, Civil War Times, American History Illustrated, North & South, Blue & Gray, The Chicago Tribune and The New York Times, and recently served as a consultant on the Steven Spielberg movie, Lincoln.

Related:

• Harold Holzer Website
• Harold Holzer Wikipedia Article
• Harold Holzer interview on C-SPAN (03/02/13)
• What’s True and False in “Lincoln” Movie @ The Daily Beast
• Ask an Expert: What Did Abraham Lincoln’s Voice Sound Like? @ Smithsonian.com
• Have We Preserved Enough Civil War Sites? @ The Washington Post
• Immortal Image: Harold Holzer reflects on representations of Lincoln an interview @ Civil War Book Review

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One interesting bit of trivia about the Civil War is the identity of the highest ranking officer in the Confederate Army. It was not Robert E. Lee, although that is the answer that many people would give. Nor was it Albert Sidney Johnston; he was number two. At least he was number two until the battle of Shiloh, where he was mortally wounded. It was also not Joseph E. Johnston, even though he famously believed that it should have been. The highest ranking officer in the Confederate Army was Samuel Cooper, which leads to the next questions. Who was Samuel Cooper, and how did he come to be the South's highest ranking officer?

Samuel Cooper was born on June 12, 1798 in New Hackensack, New York. (When we see our pro-Confederate friends, we have to be sure to tell them that the Confederacy's highest ranking officer was a Yankee.) At the age of 15 Cooper entered the U.S. Military Academy and two years later graduated an unimpressive 36th out of a class of 40. He began his military career in artillery and rose to the rank of captain. In 1837, after 12 years in artillery, he was appointed chief clerk in the War Department. He continued to serve at the War Department until 1841, when he left Washington and was a staff officer for two years in the Second Seminole War. After this he returned to the War Department, where he continued to rise through the ranks and where he remained until the Civil War.

It was Cooper's personal life more than his professional life that led him to the Confederacy. In 1829 Cooper married Sarah Maria Mason, a daughter of John Mason and a granddaughter of George Mason, who was a Founding Father and the patriarch of the prominent Mason family of Virginia. This marriage connected Cooper to Virginia aristocracy. Ann Maria Mason, the sister of Cooper's wife, was married to Sidney Smith Lee, the older brother of Robert E. Lee. Samuel Cooper also was a close friend of Jefferson Davis from the time of Davis' term as Secretary of War. When U.S. Army officers were choosing their loyalties just prior to the Civil War, Cooper sided with the Confederacy, and his connections to prominent Southerners factored into his decision. He resigned his commission on March 7, 1861 and went to the Confederate capital in Montgomery, Alabama to offer his services to new president Jefferson Davis. Cooper was commissioned a brigadier general, and about two months later Cooper was promoted to full general, the first to attain that rank in the Confederacy and hence the highest ranking officer in the Confederate Army. The best evidence is that Cooper attained this distinction because he was the first U.S. Army officer to offer his services to Jefferson Davis.

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March Meadness

Camp Pierpont, Va.
March 1, 1862

To Mrs. George G. Meade

Yesterday was a very disagreeable day, extremely cold, with a very high wind, and blustering weather. I was obliged to expose myself, standing in the wind from 9 in the morning till 5 in the afternoon, mustering the several regiments of my brigade.

We are all in the dark as to where or in what direction we march. I surmise (this is entre nous) that a force will be crossed below Alexandria, while Banks threatens Winchester and we advance on Centreville. If we can once get in their rear, I think we will have a comparatively easy victory, and we have so large a force that I do not see any difficulty in effecting this operation.

The morale of the men is superior to that of the rebel army, which remains in positions that are quite untenable in face of our overwhelming resources of men and materiel. Despite the grimness of the elements, our forces retain a cheerful disposition, though with overmuch gambling at cards and rather less thankfulness to our Maker than is appropriate. Your ears would blush to hear some of the language with which they chafe each other.

This very morning a group of cavalry from New York passed nearby, and was treated to the usual disdain with which our infantry regards the beau sabreurs. “Come out from under those hats!” they shouted, “we can see your legs a-dangling down!”, and other less salubrious comments. I had to send Kuhn to prevent fisticuffs, but such was the animosity of the rivals, that it was necessary to divert them into less warlike competition.

Since the men have become fond of a game I invented called “peach basket”, I had each group form teams representing New York and Pennsylvania. The object of the game is to throw a gutta percha ball through a peach basket with the bottom removed, which is nailed high in a tree. In no time, the men largely forgot their hostility and entered into the full spirit of healthful exercise. One cavalryman caused great hilarity when he wrapped a towel around his head, and used some half-burnt sticks from last night’s fires to blacken his face and hands. He solemnly declared that he was a wizard from Araby, by name Kowell Abdul Jabar, which no amount of infantry could overwhelm. Despite this amusing performance, the man played the game most indifferently and retired in the early minutes, claiming injury.

I am proud to tell you that after an hour of exertion, my men outscored the cavalry by 22 peach baskets to 17. Regrettably, after the troopers rode off, some of our soldiers discovered that valuables had dislodged from their jackets, which they had carelessly cast aside during the game. Kuhn and I were puzzled that a diligent search of the ground yielded not so much as a penny piece.

However, I noted that these jackets were much smudged by charcoal, indicating too close a proximity to the campfires in these cold nights. I had Kuhn publish an order for the men to maintain a distance of 6 feet from any blaze, as the expense of replacing burned uniforms is an imposition upon government, to be recouped by subtraction from their pay.

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Editor's Note: In the more than 100 years since his decease, the General has been busy reconstructing from memory his secret, lost letters which shed new light on topics of great interest to the members of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable. He currently is living in Bloemfontein South Africa working on a complimentary biography of General D. E. Sickles (decs'd) and may be contacted at Majgenlmeade @ aol.com.

Each year, the epicenter of scholarship on Abraham Lincoln is in Gettysburg at the annual Lincoln Forum Symposium with its array of Lincoln scholars as speakers and its 300 Lincoln devotees in attendance. There is no better place to meet, hear and mingle with writers on our greatest president. I’ve attended the last 14 of the 17 symposiums and will continue to do so as long the Lord (and my wife) permit. As usual, I was pleased to have the company of Dick Crews, Maynard and Betty Bauer – also long time attendees.

This was the third year of a five year focus by the Forum on the Civil War’s Sesquicentennial (2010-2015). The theme this year was: “1862: Battle Cry of Union / Battle Cry of Freedom.” After registration during the Friday afternoon of the 16th, the Forum was officially opened that evening at dinner by its Chairman, Frank Williams. (As the dates fell this year, this was also “Remembrance Weekend” in Gettysburg, an annual event attracting thousands of visitors – many re enactors – to town for many events including a massive parade on Saturday. Anyone trying to find accommodations in town would have felt like those did in November 1863 with no rooms available in or within miles of town.)

The first evening speaker was James I. (Bud) Robertson. His topic was: “The Centennial vs. the Sesquicentennial: The March of Civil War Memory.” Bud is well known Civil War historian and is an expert on Stonewall Jackson. His many books include Stonewall Jackson : The Man, the Soldier, the Legend, Bud is recently retired after a long career teaching at Virginia Tech. This southerner opened his talk by telling us he thought Lincoln was the greatest man in our history. He then told us about his involvement with the centennial of the war – when after an abortive start by others almost leading to another war – he was named Director of the program in 1961 at age 31 by President Kennedy. He told us how knowledgeable JFK was on history and what a retentive mind he had. The most interesting takeaway from his talk was how, after a debacle by the failed centennial group in the reenactment by thousands at Bull Run (without sufficient Port-A-Potties) which disgraced the grounds, Kennedy, at Bud’s suggestion ordered that there will be no more reenactments on Civil War grounds.

Frank Williams, Founding chairman of the Forum, Lincoln scholar, President of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, and author opened the first session on Saturday morning. Frank’s day job until his retirement two years ago was Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. His topic was appropriate: “(Lincoln’s) Suspension of the Great Writ: Habeas Corpus.” Frank took us through our nation’s great right of Habeas Corpus, Lincoln’s great talents with the law and the circumstances that led to his suspension of the right in certain areas. Lincoln’s actions remain controversial to this day but Frank showed how what Lincoln did, was Lincoln at his best as a lawyer through his interpretations of the law under crisis situations that required the president to act as he did – legally. If Lincoln is ever tried for his actions, he could find no better defense attorney than Judge Williams.

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