Chapter II: Preface: To the Second Edition

In deciding to bring out this book I have had in mind the many letters to my father from men of war times urging him to put in writing his recollections of Lincoln. Among them is one from Mr. Lincoln's friend, confidant, and adviser, A. K. McClure, one of the most eminent of American journalists, founder and late editor of "The Philadelphia Times," of whom Mr. Lincoln said in 1864 that he had more brain power than any man he had ever known. Quoted by Leonard Swett, in the "North American Review," the letter is as follows:--

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 1, 1891.

_Hon. Ward H. Lamon, Carlsbad, Bohemia_:

MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,--....I think it a great misfortune that you
did not write the history of Lincoln's administration. It is much
more needed from your pen than the volume you published some years
ago, giving the history of his life. That straw has been thrashed
over and over again and you were not needed in that work; but
there are so few who had any knowledge of the inner workings of Mr.
Lincoln's administration that I think you owe it to the proof of
history to finish the work you began. ---- and ---- never knew
anything about Mr. Lincoln. They knew the President in his routine
duties and in his official ways, but the man Lincoln and his plans
and methods were all Greek to them. They have made a history that
is quite correct so far as data is concerned, but beyond that it is
full of gross imperfections, especially when they attempt to speak
of Mr. Lincoln's individual qualities and movements. Won't you
consider the matter of writing another volume on Lincoln? I
sincerely hope that you will do so. Herndon covered about
everything that is needed outside of confidential official circles
in Washington. That he could not write as he knew nothing about it,
and there is no one living who can perform that task but
yourself....

Yours truly,
(Signed) A. K. MCCLURE.

I have been influenced also by a friend who is a great Lincoln scholar and who, impressed with the injustice done my father, has urged me for several years to reissue the book of "Recollections," add a sketch of his life and publish letters that show his standing during Lincoln's administration. I hesitated to do this, remembering the following words of Mr. Lincoln at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on his way to Washington: "It is well known that the more a man speaks the less he is understood--the more he says one thing, the more his adversaries contend he meant something else." I am now yielding to these influences with the hope that however much the book may suggest a "patchwork quilt" and be permeated with Lamon as well as Lincoln, it will yet appeal to those readers who care for documentary evidence in matters historical.

DOROTHY LAMON TEILLARD.

WASHINGTON, D. C.,
April, 1911.

CONTENTS.

LETTER FROM EX-SECRETARY USHER.
LETTER FROM A. K. MCCLURE.
MEMOIR OF WARD H. LAMON.