About That Everett Gettysburg Address-- Part 3: Education and Political Service

Continued from December 15, 2021.

Edward Everett was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in  1794.  A precocious youth, he graduated from Harvard at age 17, receiving highest honors in spite of being the youngest member of the class.  Three years later, after  earning a Masters of Divinity  degree, he was invited to be the minister of the Brattle Street Church, then Boston's largest and most fashionable congregation and was installed as its minister before reaching his 20th birthday.

After a year in the pulpit, he decided  that he preferred scholarship to the ministry and accepted a faculty appointment in Greek Literature at Harvard.  Since he was only 21 and only had a Master's degree, the university sent him to Europe for two  years of further study.  He completed a Ph.d. in Germany before returning to Harvard in 1819.

Everett was unusual for a 19th century scholar in his having aspirations beyond campus.  He  left teaching to serve five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1825-1835); four (one year) terms as the Massachusetts governor (1836-1839); four years as ambassador to England (1841-1845); Secretary of State  under President Millard Fillmore; one term   in the U.S. Senate (1854-1860)

In the mid 1840s, he took a break from politics to serve as Harvard's  rsident.

A Remarkable Man.  Maj. Charles Winchester Would Be So Proud.  --Old Secesh

More Comments On 'Beast' Butler-- Part 5: About Butler's 'Powder Ship' and the Trent Affair

We had one person there who was very knowledgeable about Benjamin Butler and  said he had at one time been gathering information to write a book about said person.

**  Lincoln did not speak with his first vice president, Hannibal Hamlin.

**  Butler's "powder ship" experiment was worth the shot.  The Navy had a ship it was no longer using, plus lots and lots of gunpowder.  It was worth a shot.

**  Of interest, Admiral Porter was sure a backer of this plan until it didn't work.  Then he said he knew it wouldn't work.

**  Butler defended Sutter at Sutter's Mill in California for ownership of the gold found there that sparked all that 49-er rush.

**  In the Trent Affair, former President Millard Fillmore played a huge role in keeping Britain out of the war.  He wrote a letter to Lincoln and Queen Victoria.  The Union paid $50,000 in gold and released the Confederate commissioners.

**  Butler also defended the people arrested in Chicago's Haymarket Square Riot.

--Old Secesh