The Battle of Fort Fisher, N.C.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Ten Things You Might Not Know About Abraham Lincoln-- Part 4

7.  Lincoln was offered the governorship of the OREGON TERRITORY in 1849, but turned down the job.

8.  The story that Lincoln wrote the farmed GETTYSBURG ADDRESS on a scrap of brown paper on the train to the battlefield is complete bunk.  This story comes from a 1906 article by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews that ran in Scribner's Magazine "The Perfect Tribute."

Lincoln, a gifted speechwriter, by all accounts, started it weeks before.  A Chicago Tribune article in 1877 also debunked the myth.

9.  The "GOLD HOAX" was started in May 1864, when a New York journalist named Joseph Howard invested a lot of money in gold and then forged phony dispatches about how war suspects were forcing Lincoln to draft another 400,000 soldiers.  He figured the bad news would inflate the price of gold.

Two New York papers picked up the story and Lincoln ordered the papers closed and their editors arrested.  Lincoln was especially mad because he was already planning a new draft and had to delay it.

10.  When Lincoln was ten, a HORSE kicked him in the head, and for a short time, young Abe, er, Abraham was feared dead.  He had been trying to get the family mare to work faster in the field, whipping her and yelling, "Git up, you old hussy."  As he said "Git up!" one last time, the horse knocked him senseless.  Supposedly, when he came to, his first words were "You old hussy."

If you go to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield and see the show, be careful when he gets kicked.  It's liable to scare you.  I think they also referred to it as a mule, not a horse.

You Old Hussy!  --Old Secesh

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