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24 2NEW YORK, SATURDAI;iiiAN AFTERMATHOF LINCOLN BOOKSInterest Aroused by th-; Centenaryof the Martyr-President’s BirthIndicated by NumerousRecent Volumes.THREE months have passed since the day which marked the one hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, and the solemn season has come—and gone— which, in its annual round fifty-six yearS later, saw his assassination. Yet the books inspired by the great American’s life, books of which the centenary has been the immediate occasion, have not ceased coming in. No less than ten volumes of Lincolniana may now be added to those reviewed in Thb New York Times Saturday Review of Books at the time of the centenary and since.The most .interesting of the after-math, perhaps, is’ William S. Walsh’s “ Abraham Lincoln and the London Punch,” (Moffat, Yard Co.) This volume is a collection of the cartoons, comments, and poems published by England’s “chartered jester” during the period of the civil war, and naturally most of these cartoons, comments, and poems—as a rule anything but friendly —deal with Lincoln. It is instructive to observe that the earliest notices of the American family quarrel breathe indignation at the slave-owning South. It was later that Sir John Tenniel began to represent Mr. Lincoln as “ the bearded ruffian, repulsive compound of malice, vulgarity, and cunning,” which was presently the familiar presentment of the man to English readers. However, the South’s representative was no better treated. Punch made the great struggle out a mere vulgar row of lowand evil men. Naturally, Mr. Walshincludes in the volume Tom Taylor’spoem on Lincoln’s assassination, in which the jester made amends to the President at least.James Creelman's “ Why We Love Lincoln ” (Outing Publishing Company) is reprinted from a magazine. It is a biography designed to bring out especially those human sides of the man Lincoln which, as a matter of fact, are so great a part of him that not even the most formal treatment can hide the humorous mouth, the tender heart, the shrewd eye, and the laugh by which, in fact, the great man held (and still holds) the American people as no other man holds them. Mr. Creelman'snarrative is interesting.44In “Our Benny” (Little, Brown Co.) Mary E. Waller, author of “ The Wood Carver of ’Lympus,” has made into a poem the story of the young soldier from Vermont who slept on post, was condemned to be shot, and was pardoned by Lincoln at his mother’s prayer. Mrs. Waller has so arranged the familiar material that the scene of the action is the Vermont farmhouse where the grandfather and the mother dwell, while the local dominie is chorus and conductor. She employs the meter of “ Evangeline,” and her performance falls not, perhaps, unreasonably short of her ambitions. If• l i“ Our Benny ” contains only a little poetry, it is very fair verse and has a ring of earnestness and sincerity.Abraham Lincoln, An Appreciation by One Who Knew Him,” is the work of the late Brevet Brig. Gen. Benjamin Rush Cowen, some time Assistant Secretary of the Interior, and is edited by B. S. Cowen. Gen. Cowen relates many anecdotes of Lincoln, some of which are from his personal recollections, thou i most of them are doubtless familiar enough. Gen. Cowen often saw the President in Washington, and he notes, as so many others have done, how- the man aged as the war dragged on./ “ Abraham Lincoln and the Jews ’ isa pamphlet by Isaac Markens, author of “ The Hebrews of America,” a.id is printed by the author. Mr. Markens is concerned in showing that the Jews, whose numbers in this country in lStio he puts at some 200,000 only, had their part in the civil war—on both sides, but especially on the side of ihe Union.A . -.* He records the attitudes of the con-FTspicuous rabbis of the day—including Isaac M. Wise of Cincinnati—and their activities in anti-slavery and pro-slav-xry directions, and gives an account of the^order of Gen. Grant, in Tennessee In 3802, excluding Jews from his lines,tig his an-and the protest of the Jews against it which resulted in the revocation of the order by Lincoln's command. Mr. Markens deals, too, with the war time legislation permitting the employment of Jewish brigade chaplains in the army,and with much else of interest bearing■ **. •upon an aspect of civil war history of which little is generally known.J. Henry Lea, an American genealogist, and J. R. Hutchinson, an English writer in the same field, have collaborated in the production of a book entitled “ The Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln, (Houghton Miffiin Company.) The volume bears this significant dedication :“ To all Lincoln lovers throughout the length and breadth of the land which he saved this vindication of thejnem-ory of his ancestors is dedicated by theauthors.”The writors have delved into Lincoln lore that was all but forgotten. By chance they found valuable data in the records of the English Chancery Court by means of which they were able to trace the ancestry of President Lincoin four generations further back than it has ever been carried before. They have also brought to light many new and important facts concernin cestors in America.The collaborators have told entertainingly the story of the Lincoln family through ten successive generations. They give a minute analysis of Lincoln’s inherited traits and go into a spirited defense of his father, who hasIcome down to posterity in the garb of a rather dissolute and illiterate carpenter. The volume is well illustrated and contains fac similes of many important documents, seals, and autographs.Two more Lincoln books are How Abraham Lincoln Became President,” (the Illinois Company, Springfield, 111.,) by J.- McCan Davis, and “ Lincoln’s Birthday,” (Moffat,'Yard Co.,) a compilation, edited by Robert Haven Schauffler, in the series “ Our American Holidays.” Mr. Davis’s thin volume is a remarkably clear and concise outline of the life of Lincoln, with mostof its space given up to the important#three or four years preceding his election to the Presidency. Throughout the author has confined himself to the chief events and influences which shaped Lincoln’s career and character for the great burden he was to assume. The book is copiously illustrated, mainly from old prints of scenes connected with Lincoln's life.“ Lincoln’s Birthday ” is a collection of essays, orations, and poems selected and arranged ‘with the aim of giving a composite picture of the man as seenthrough the eyes of many distinguished authors. Among those whose writings have furnished material are Horace Gree’ey, Charles Sumner, John G. Whittier, Ida Tarbell, Walt Whitman, Robert G. Ingersoll, and Frederic Harrison. A collection of Lincoln’s stories, a number of extracts from his speeches, and his brief autobiography are included.A collection of appreciations of Lincoln by statesmen, journalists, and men of letters of America and other countries is “ The Lincoln Tribute Book', (G. P. Putnam’s Sons,) edited by Horatio Sheafe Krans. The book also Contains a new Lincoln centenary medal in silver, reproduced from a design made by Jules Edouard RoinC, a noted French artist. The medal is so framed in thick cardboard that both sides of it are exposed. It has on the obverse a full-face view of Lincoln. On the reverse is the inscription, “ By his courage, his statesmanship, and his su- /- * . . * $preme qualities as a leader, and not less by his charity, his tenderness, and his magnanimity, Abraham Lincoln belongs to the ages and will ever stand among the world’s best and greatest men.” Among the tiibutes to Lincoln’sgreatness and goodness are poems by Bryant, Stoddard, John Nichol, Whittier, an*l Julia Ward Howe.A story of a Southern sympathizer in Pennsylvania—a “ copperhead ’’—drafted to serve in the Union Army, who at first refused to go, was arrested, met Lincoln, and was turned from the error of his ways, is “ A Lincoln Conscript, (Houghton. Mifflin Company,)and the author is Ho ner Greene. The ta’e is intended to show the charity and bigness of the great President^and the real nature of his fueling toward the South. As it assumes all the points in dispute as indisputable, it may fail to appeal to the other side quite so utterly as the author intends. . However, the copperhead has a young son, strong for the Union, who enlists at first to save his f tmily from the reproach which his father has brought upon it. and later fights at that father’s side in the Army of the Potomac, so that the story—aside from its patriotic moral—is sufficiently interesting. It is designed for youthful readers.iift
Newspaper Details
New York Times
New York, New York, US
Sat, Apr 17, 1909
Page 22
Full Page
Clipped by
Michael S.
USA 07 Sep 2022
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