Five books on Lincoln’s assassination you should have

What I originally believed to be a head cold has turned into a serious case of allergies, which is weird because in 44 years, I can’t remember a time when I suffered like I am now. I took some medicine about an hour ago and it’s starting to kick in, so I guess technically I’m writing under the influence (although I doubt it will make either the allergies or my writing any better).

Be that as it may, I wanted to write this week about five books you should have concerning Lincoln’s assassination. These five represent what I believe to be the best currently available. Someday, when I’m in a snarky mood, I’ll tell you which ones to avoid.

These are in alphabetical order.

American Brutus by Michael Kauffman — Mike Kauffman has taken a lifetime of interest in Lincoln’s assassination and an uncanny ability to ferret out the smallest detail and turned it into one of the best books ever written about the crime. No detail is too small to escape Mike’s attention. This man even once burned down a tobacco barn to see how long it would have taken for the type that John Wilkes Booth was cornered in to be destroyed. The most controversial part of Mike’s work concerns his theory that Booth consciously attempted to draw people into his web of conspiracy so that if they ever had to implicate him, they would be implicating themselves. American Brutus will stand for a long time as the go-to book on Lincoln’s murder.

Beware the People Weeping by Thomas Reed Turner — Based on his doctoral dissertation, Beware the People Weeping was written by Turner in 1982 and was one of the first books on Lincoln’s assassination to be written from a scholarly perspective. In this tour de force, Turner studies reaction throughout various sectors of society concerning Lincoln’s assassination, including the south, from the pulpit and the controversies surrounding the trial of the conspirators. This work is far better than Turner’s later attempt to write a small, single-volume history on Lincoln’s assassination.

Blood on the Moon by Edward J. Steers Jr. — Was Dr. Samuel Mudd just an innocent country doctor who was simply following his Hippocratic oath when a stranger knocked on his door after suffering a broken leg? Or did he know the man who came to his house after shooting the 16th president? Steers argues in this magnificent work that Mudd not only knew who Booth was, but that they had met at least twice before Lincoln’s murder. Steers, whose background is in molecular genetics, is a careful and serious researcher and historian. If I had room for just two books on my shelf, they would be Kauffman’s and Steer’s.

The Great American Myth by George S. Bryan – Although written in 1940 (on the flyleaf of my copy, it shows the price at $3.75), this book was one of the first to attempt to counter the type of history written by Otto Eisenschiml, who had published Why Was Lincoln Murdered three years earlier. The books was based on newspaper and primary manuscript sources as well as numerous secondary source materials. It was updated and reissued in 1990 with an introduction by William Hanchett.

The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies by William Hanchett – This was also one of the first books written by a university professor, first published in 1983. Hanchett destroys some cherished myths concerning Lincoln’s assassination but much of his venom is directed toward Eisenschiml, who is mercilessly raked over the literary coals by Hanchett. I’ve often said that anyone who wants to read Eisenschiml should be sure they have Hanchett’s book next to them.

While there are several other books out there, none, in my opinion, match the quality you will find in these works. They are readily available and should find a place in your library as soon as possible.

Spring head cold–1

New blog post this week–0.

Money (that’s what I want!)

The following rant, while having a connection with Everton J. Conger and the Civil War, is concerned with a larger, and in some instances, more important aspect of that picture.

As some of you may know, I am currently researching a biography on Conger. For those of you who have done historical research, you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

Doing research costs money. I’m not talking small change either.

In my last post, I wrote about the hearing transcripts concerning the suspension of Conger from the territorial Supreme Court of Montana. They total just over 1,000 pages and before I can write about this aspect of his life, I have to read each and every page, in addition to other letters and papers which I know exists.
Not being made of money, and not having valuable free time to go to Maryland, I had to hire a researcher to get the papers for me. Luckily, the man I hired came up with an idea that saved me a considerable amount of money. He used a digital camera and took pictures of each and every document, and then sent me the discs.
Even doing that cost me around $500.

Fortunately, a loyal customer where I work took an interest in my project after we discussed it one day. After telling him about the problems I was having in figuring out how to afford getting these documents, he offered to bear the costs on the single condition that I let him look through the papers sometime.
My jaw dropped. Protesting at first that I couldn’t take advantage of his generosity, he assured me that he wanted to do this. As a retired neurosurgeon, he has a habit of helping people in need.
Now I have the documents. The problem is they represent just a scratch on the surface of what I need to be able to do my work properly.

There are two sets of microfilm concerning Lincoln’s assassination. The larger of the two (16 reels) are available to me through a regional university library, but the other set, four reels in all, are hard to find. I decided it would make more sense for me to just own them, so I could use them at my leisure and not have to worry about having to return them.
Cost to me–$260 (does anyone remember when microfilm from the National Archives costs $6 a roll?).
Books aren’t a problem. With the advent of inter-library loan and the proximity of libraries around me, I can get much of the secondary sources, and in the case of some newspapers, primary sources, with little or no effort.

But a work like this has to be based on primary material. In order to get what I need, research trips to Montana, Ohio, West Virginia and Washington, D.C. will be necessary. In some instances I can hire researchers, but as I’ve already pointed out, they still require money.

Here’s where the rant begins.

People like the fine professors over at Civil Warriors are eligible for all kinds of research grants and foundation monies that help them in their work. The independent scholar, with no large institution behind him or her, is dependent on the kindness of patrons, or more likely running up the balances of already groaning credit cards.
It’s not that I begrudge the professoriate their research grants. I just wish those same foundations recognized that not all the research work in history is done by the Ph.D., and that there is a legitimate need for grants for those not affiliated with a university (and no, I’m not interested in turning this into a “who is or isn’t a historian” debate).
There is a website run by Michigan State University which lists various grants and fellowships available to individuals studying history. Most are either too specialized for what I need, or are only open to undergraduate, doctoral or post-doctoral researchers.

My good friend Sam Wheeler and I have talked about this, and Sam gave me some good hints on how to defray the costs of traveling to do research, but with gas fast approaching $4 a gallon, even doing what he suggested will still leave a major hole in my pocket.

Since I first started working on this project, I figure I have spent close to $3,000, only scratching the surface of what I need. Even if I’m fortunate enough to find a publisher willing to take a chance on my book, I will never get back what I’ve put into it.
That’s fine (to a point) because my main purpose in writing this book is to bring to life someone wrongly forgotten by history. While making money is always nice, knowing that I’ve in some way contributed to the literature on Lincoln’s assassination is worthwhile to me.
But unless it starts raining pennies from heaven (fitting when the subject is Lincoln), the work may end even before it gets started.

“A malign Satan in human form”

1883 was not a good year for Everton J. Conger.

He was forced to travel over 3,000 miles to hold 12 terms as an associate justice on the Montana Supreme Court. For a man who had twice been wounded during the Civil War, and who still suffered from the effect of those wounds, that trip had to be pure hell.
Indeed, Conger was forced to consume large amounts of alcohol, and in some cases, morphine, just to make it through the day. The effects of those drugs were soon to become a point of contention in what turned out to be Conger’s greatest challenge since surviving the war.

Just why anyone would want to be a territorial justice is hard to explain. In addition to rough roads and long trips, often in inclement weather, the pay wasn’t that great, even when it arrived. One historian remarked that pay was so bad that a territorial governor had to raise sheep just to make ends meet.

Conger had been appointed to the bench in 1880 by President Rutherford B. Hayes. It was yet another time when Hayes, who knew Conger most likely through Hayes’ uncle, Sardis Birchard, intervened in Conger’s life. The first was in 1861 when Hayes suggested that Conger try to raise a company of soldiers on his own, which he did. The second came in 1865 when Hayes, serving in the House of Representatives, helped hammer out a deal that allowed Conger to receive $15,000 of the $75,000 reward offered by the War Department for the capture of John Wilkes Booth.

When Conger arrived in Montana, he did so alone. It’s unclear if his wife, Emma, refused to go or the couple decided she should stay at home with her family in Ohio. That would also factor into what was facing the jurist. With no family close at hand, Conger returned to an old passion—gambling. Indeed, if his memory is to be believed, Conger said in one newspaper interview that he knew who Booth was because they both frequented the same gambling dens in Washington.

Life on the circuit wasn’t for the faint of heart. In 1943, Llewellyn Callaway painted a picture in an article on territorial judges that is hard to believe. During a case, a juror who attended court did so without a jacket. Asked by the judge to go home and get one, the juror complied. After a half hour, the judge asked the sheriff if he had seen the errant man. He had, the sheriff replied. He told him he was going home to get his coat.
“Where does he live?” the judge asked.
“About 40 miles from here,” was the reply.

When the territorial courts were established in the 1860s, conditions were so raw and unsettled that court was often held in saloons, prompting one newspaper to describe one “courtroom” as “devoted promiscuously to justice, dances, sermons, itinerant shows, and other useful and ornamental institutions.”

In two years on the court, Conger handled cases peculiar to western expansion, ruling on such mundane matters as water rights or violations of laws prohibiting giving alcohol to Indians. But in 1883, Conger was to find out just how rough territorial politics could get.
In 1882, Territorial Governor B.F. Potts discovered that a county commissioner in Custer County was not a legal resident. Residents urged Potts to get rid of the entire commission, but he said he had no legal power to act.
When John Schuyler Crosby was appointed governor in 1883, he rammed a measure through the territorial legislature that vacated the Custer County offices and appointed three interim commissioners before another election could be held.

Democrats were furious at what they felt was the usurping of power by the Republican Crosby. For reasons unknown, the incumbent Custer County Commissioners also had a Republican supporter—Conger. Crosby never saw a problem with fighting anyone who got into his way, Conger included. So Crosby and Wilbur F. Sanders, who themselves fought over political appointments, conspired to remove Conger from office using the one issue they could exploit—his drinking and morphine addiction.
Conger and Sanders crossed paths several times in the three years Conger was in Montana. Seething below the surface of this political feud was a personal one between Conger and Sanders, which erupted after Conger ruled against one of Sanders’ biggest clients, the Northern Pacific Railroad. Indeed after the suspension was approved by President Chester A. Arthur, Conger wrote a letter to an Ohio friend in which he referred to Sanders as “a malign Satan in human form.”

Conger was suspended due to “incompetence, neglect of duty, gambling, drunkenness and keeping companionship of low, vile people.”
Conger’s enemies were elated. “A meeting of citizens here today thank you most heartily for the removal of Judge E.J. Conger…are hunting a cannon to fire a salute,” read a telegram to Arthur.

Conger, however, was not with out his supporters. “Important suits pending…jails of district full of prisoners. If courts are not continued, public interests will suffer. Please have suspension of Judge Conger revoked pending investigation of charges,” read yet another telegram sent to Washington.
A Montana paper, controlled by the Democratic party, said the charges against Conger were “hasty and ill-advised and the agitation which brought it about had its origin with certain parties who have been unable to fashion his course according to their own chart, and could not use him as a stepping-stone to their individual benefit and profit.”
Conger’s supporters were able to persuade the administration to appoint an investigator to look into the charges. When Peter Shannon arrived in Helena on May 30, 1883, he set in motion a hearing which, once done, would take a month and would produce over 1,,000 pages of documents, which today reside in the National Archives in College Park, Md.

In his report, Shannon wrote “Forty witnesses were examined in behalf of Judge Conger.” However, many of those witnesses were not of the best character, several who either had cases pending in criminal court or had been convicted of some crime.
While Conger’s accusers claimed to be concerned with his judicial ability, it is interesting to note that not everyone in his jurisdiction agreed that he was incompetent. While charges were made in Gallatin and Custer counties, none were offered from Madison or Beaverhead counties. This has prompted historian John D.W. Guice to question the political nature of the charges, pointing out that it seems unlikely Conger would act one way in two counties and another in the other two.
After listening to a month’s worth of testimony, Shannon ruled that Conger’s gambling habits were “unbecoming, unseemly, and indecorous; and that they were unsuitable to the office of Justice of the Supreme Court of Montana and Judge of that District…”

While accepting that Conger’s wounds most likely contributed to his alcohol use, which caused him to appear drowsy on the bench, Shannon said that there were too many other occasions when Conger was drinking to be medicinally necessary.
In the end, Shannon wrote that “He was, and still is, respected at his home in Virginia City. His influence in Madison and Beaver Head counties, is, I think, unimpaired. But the bulk of the business of the courts of the District has been done at Bozeman and Miles City, where his reputation is greatly injured.” Saying that if a new district was created in the counties where Conger’s reputation was fine, he “would now fill such Judgeship well, and with satisfaction to the people and attorneys there.”
In closing, Shannon pointed to Conger’s military service as the main reason he should be shown mercy. “His honorable services in the War for the preservation of the Union, his crippled condition, and his physical sufferings, plead strongly for mercy, which I beg may be shown to him.”

Conger was reappointed to the bench, but it was just one day before his term was set to expire. He was out of a job.

It’s too early in my research for any solid conclusions as to the role politics played in Conger’s suspension, but I think it’s easy to see where the feud between Conger and Sanders is a definite factor. That Conger was shown mercy by Shannon, I think, lends some credence to my view that Shannon felt sad for the captor of Booth and Civil War hero, but given the morals of the day, couldn’t just “let him go.”

O.E. and EJC: A Match Not Made in Heaven

Searching for truth in history is a thankless task, make no mistake about it. If your findings run contrary to tradition and public belief, you are a heretic and are treated accordingly. Few people, even intelligent ones, are interested in the truth, although none will admit it. If you, for example, were to disprove the story of Washington and the cherry tree, they would throw bricks at you, not roses. They will call you a debunker, an iconoclast, or something worse. Calling names, you see, is easier than arguing. I know whereof I speak.
–Otto Eisenschiml
From O.E. Historian Without An Armchair

When it came to history, he disliked being called a chemist. Yet, he claimed, in studying Lincoln’s death, he was asking the questions that any scientist would ask in determining just what had happened.

It is doubtful that in the entire Lincoln assassination oeuvre there is a more complex and interesting, yet highly maddening, figure than Otto Eisenschiml. Complex and interesting because from the date of publication of his Why Was Lincoln Murdered? in 1937 to his death at age 83 in 1963, Eisenschiml was the source of information the majority of general readers turned to concerning Lincoln’s murder. Not only that, but Eisenschiml enjoyed a good reputation with some of the field’s more prominent personages, notably Ralph Newman, founder of the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop. He also was a regular contributor and reviewer for the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society.

Maddening, because what Eisenschiml produced was based mainly on innuendo and open-ended questions that, in the end, proved nothing.

Eisenschiml’s thesis was that powerful Northern interests, spearheaded by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, were behind Lincoln’s assassination. Problematically, Eisenschiml never came out and said that. Instead, he asked a series of questions he claimed were only to stimulate discussion and further research. Yet, much of what Eisenschiml wrote about the way he was treated resonates today in the never-ending question of just who is and who isn’t a historian.

His books were taken seriously enough that they were reviewed in all the leading historical journals of the day. While it is true they were mostly disparaged, had book review editors believed them to be completely worthless, one wonders why they would have granted precious page space to such an endeavor?

Eisenschiml developed his theory, according to his account in O.E. Historian Without An Armchair, after wrestling with the idea of why General Ulysses S. Grant decided to forgo going to Ford’s Theater with Lincoln on the night of April 14. Eisenschiml was bothered as to why Grant would have “left town unceremoniously an hour and a half before the curtain rose.” One day, while driving down a street in Chicago, Eisenschiml suddenly had an idea—one so revolutionary (to him) that it caused him to slam the brakes on his car, causing the driver behind him to bump into Eisenschiml.

“Out of it stepped a six-footer with the meanest face in six states,” Eisenschiml recalled. “He lumbered up to my open window. ‘Say, fellow,’ he bellowed, ‘what you been thinking about?’ ‘I’ll tell you, my friend,’ I replied. ‘I’ve been thinking that for the first time I have an inkling why General Grant did not accompany Lincoln to the theater on the night of April 14, 1865.’”

A humorous story, to be sure, but what Eisenschiml thought even staggered his own imagination. If Grant had been with Lincoln at the theater, he reasoned, Booth would have been unable to enter the presidential box because of the number of soldiers Grant would have brought with him to the play. Since Grant begged off, had anyone induced him to do so?

The only person that Eisenschiml knew who outranked Grant would have been Stanton. In a torturous and convoluted path, Eisenschiml decided that the only reason Grant would have for not showing up was due to Stanton’s orders, forgetting (or ignoring) that Julia Grant couldn’t stand Mary Todd Lincoln. I’m not going to go into great detail in this post, simply because it deserves more space than I am willing to give it now. But suffice it to say, this path eventually led directly to Everton J. Conger.

Conger came to the War Department after his second wounding during the attempt to seize the Staunton River Bridge during the Wilson-Kautz Raid in 1864. As the actual commander of the regiment, Lafayette Baker (known as Lafe), was on detached service with the War Department (under whose umbrella the First D.C. had been attached), Lieutenant Colonel Conger served as de facto commander. After Conger was declared unfit for military service, he was suddenly a man without an occupation and a family to feed.

Realizing that the success of the First D.C. was in large part thanks to Conger’s leadership, Baker most likely offered him a post with the National Detective Police so his subordinate wouldn’t become destitute. Once Lincoln was murdered, and the NDP was brought into the investigation, Conger also became part of the chase.

“Was it Colonel Conger who killed the cripple visitor of the Garrett household?” Eisenschiml wrote in Why Was Lincoln Murdered? He quoted Lafe’s cousin, Byron Baker, who was part of the Garrett Farm Patrol and who also was with the NDP. During the impeachment investigation of President Andrew Johnson in 1867, Baker testified before Congress that “I supposed, at the time, that Conger shot him, and I said, “What on earth did you shoot him for?” Said he, “I did not shoot him.” Then the idea flashed on my mind that if he did, it had better not be known.”

By the time Byron Baker said this, he was angered that Conger received $15,000 of the $75,000 reward money offered by Stanton’s War Department, while he only got $3,000. His statement that “it had better not be known” was made in an attempt to show that the posse had orders to bring Booth in alive. Conger, however, squelched that in his initial statement after Booth’s death when he said neither Lafe nor Stanton had issued orders that Booth was to be taken alive, although that certainly would have been preferable to bringing just his lifeless body back.

Throughout his life, Byron did what he could to disparage Conger’s role and to puff up his supposed leadership. He even accused investigators of mysteriously losing his statement which he immediately made aboard the monitor Montauk after Booth’s death in order to cheat him out of what he felt to be his rightful share of the money. As William Hanchett has noted in his book The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies, Baker’s statement hadn’t been lost. It was near Conger’s in the records of the War Department.

Eisenschiml notes that Conger got the lion’s share of the reward, but if this was to be seen as an attempt to show that the money Conger received was literally blood money if he had indeed been ordered to keep Booth from talking, Eisenschiml failed to ask another important question. If Stanton ordered Lafe Baker to kill Booth, and Conger carried out the contract, then wouldn’t it have made more sense for Lafe to get the bulk of the money? After all, given Baker’s salacious reputation (Senator Benjamin Butler said it was doubtful that Lafe had ever told the truth in his entire life “even by accident”), Stanton would have had more to fear from the NDP head than he would have had from Conger.

Isn’t it meaningful to note that Lafe got only $3,750—exactly four times less money than Conger received?

Eisenschiml never makes his case that Conger stood quietly near Richard Garrett’s tobacco barn and fired his pistol into Booth’s neck. Indeed, he rarely made his case on any of his accusations. Yet, the serious student of Lincoln’s assassination ignores his work at his own peril. Highly suspect? Yes. Safe to discount and toss aside? Never.

I’m taking a short break…

Between trying to fight off a head cold and a general sense of the “blahs” I’m not posting anything new this week. In the interim, I am putting together a post on the relationship between Otto Eisenschiml and Everton Conger.

As a preview, I will tell you that Eisenschiml was of the opinion that it was Conger who shot John Wilkes Booth, and not Boston Corbett.

Like watching paint dry…or why I don’t get invited to too many parties

Okay, maybe it’s not that boring. However, I’d bet most people wouldn’t give a hoot about the study of the study of history. As much as I like studying Lincoln and the Civil War, reading about those who have written about them ranks a close second. Truth be told, sometimes I find it more interesting. Trying to get inside the minds of those who interpret the past, and hopefully appropriating some of their skill in relation to my own work, brings me as much joy as just about anything I do (hence the title of this post).

I think it goes back to a time when I was always interested in how things were done or how they worked. An old electrician, who worked on my mother’s house, recalled several years later how I followed him around enthralled at what he was doing. When my paternal grandfather died just a few years after his son–my father–did, during the visitation the funeral home director showed me where he embalmed bodies (the room was empty, of course). While satisfying my curiosity, I now realize he was trying to make death seem less frightening to a 10-year-old boy who had been hit hard by it twice in his short life.

Studying historiography has given me a better perspective of just how historians of all stripes work, what they’re required to do and what they go through in their attempts to make sense of the past. While an undergraduate, it also gave me an inkling of just where I wanted my professional life to go.

After I graduated from college in 1985 I had planned to begin work on my master’s degree and then get my doctorate. I assumed that by the time I was where I am now, I would be teaching history at a small college or university somewhere and writing narrative history while wisps of smoke circled my head from the ever-present pipe I was convinced that real historians had to smoke in order to join the brotherhood.

Watching historians at work only added to Clio’s alluring siren song. Three historians, in ways they would never have imagined, pushed me toward that path, although I later rejected the journey, at least along the academic road.

The first was Robert H. Ferrell, who was teaching at Indiana University and was guest-lecturing at Eastern one evening in 1984. Already well known to me as a scholar of the life of Harry Truman, meeting Ferrell was, to this historical nerd, akin to meeting a rock star. Hanging around Coleman Hall waiting for the lecture to begin, I walked by and saw Ferrell in an empty classroom, doing some last-minute polishing on his talk.

Knocking hesitantly on the door, he waved me in with a broad smile. I nervously introduced myself and said I was planning on attending his lecture that evening. He stopped working and shook my hand. “And what do you plan to do with your life?” he asked.

“I want to be a historian,” I replied. “Do you have any advice?”

“Well Mr. Wick, the first thing I would advise is to sell your television. You’ll never write history as long as you have one of those. Other than that, just read, read, read.”

With that, he went back to his lecture.

After a less-than-auspicious start in my first graduate seminar, I realized that more school wasn’t in the cards. I had to work, earn money, clear my mind and then return to school.

I accomplished one out of the four. I did work but the only thing clear was my bank account since small town journalism rarely resulted in more than little money, long hours and…well let’s say that going back to school died a quick but merciful death.

Three years later I was again thinking about graduate school, or getting a high school teaching certificate. Constantly arguing with myself over what path to take, I chanced upon a wild scheme sure to fail. I had just read James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom, part of the Oxford History of the United States, edited at the time by C. Vann Woodward. I decided I would write both Woodward and McPherson, asking them their opinion.

One day in August, I received a yellow envelope from Yale University with the name “Woodward” typed on top of the return address. My heartbeat quickened as I tore open the envelope (carefully) and took out the letter. On a full page, typed by himself (there were uncorrected typos throughout), came his advice. My hands trembled.

“Dear Mr. Wick:

My standard reply to questions like yours was for a long time: Don’t do it unless you feel you have to. Yet I think I might not have passed that test myself. I did it as a means to an end, in large part, to finish a book I was writing. Still it is not a decision to make lightly. One must reckon the costs, not only in terms of debt, but also the feasible alternatives.”

Admitting that some might not think it too practical to accumulate debt for a degree, Woodward demurred and then added a piquant comment. “[T]he passion for the subject should outweigh jobs as incentive. Motivation has to be reward other than monetary. And in my opinion motives should include desire to write as well as teach.”

Woodward wasn’t that optimistic that the field of southern history, which I had planned to enter, would have a great demand in the future, although he said (in my favorite comment in the letter) that “it is my arrogant opinion that any historian who can’t make southern history create a demand should give up.”

In September I got another envelope. This time, it was from Princeton University. In it was a more formal, although just as personal letter from McPherson.

“You ask about the advisability of pursuing graduate study in history. I think this would be a good time to do so. The job market for historians is in the process of turning around, and by the early 1990s I expect it to be very good. Beginning historians have gone through some lean years for the last 1½ decades, but I am fairly confident that this is coming to an end and the next decade, at least, will see a strong demand for trained historians entering college teaching. Thus I would like to encourage you to apply to graduate schools. “

McPherson believed that the strong fields would be social history and economic history, which he warned would require some mathematical and quantitative skills, which I had never had.

“There are important questions that need pursuing in all fields, and I think that choice of a field of concentration would depend on your own tastes and abilities,” he wrote.

Despite their encouragement, I decided to get my teaching certificate. It was a simple matter of economics, although I never did teach high school history.

But the lessons I learned from those three men helped to deepen the love I already felt for studying the past, and in a way is responsible for my continued interest in historiography. Much of the purpose of historiography, as I see it, is to glean what we can from the work of historians past and present in an attempt to better understand their work, how it originated, and what meaning we can take from it. In some ways, I think there could be no better lesson on how to study the past than to study those who already have. While maybe not a perfect roadmap, it remains just as educational and meaningful as three men’s words of encouragement did to a wet-behind-the-ears kid in the 1980s.

 

Just who is Everton J. Conger…

Everton J. Conger, circa 1862

…and why does he merit study?

It seems for the past 12 years I’ve answered that question. Most people, even those with some knowledge of Lincoln, have never heard of the non-descript dentist from Ohio who assured his place in history for helping capture John Wilkes Booth.
I first became acquainted with Conger when I worked for the Carmi (Ill.) Times newspaper. From 1869 to 1880 Conger lived in this small southern Illinois community where he had a brother and where his parents spent their final years.

At this point in my life, I had pretty much abandoned studying history. To be sure, I read a great deal, but that passivity proved to be less than satisfying. A constant companion in my head in those days was the nagging voice that kept telling me if I was ever to become a historian, I had to do something other than read about it.

But what to write about?

That question was answered when I was interviewing an artistic couple who had bought the home of Everton’s brother, Chauncey. I saw a painting of Chauncey in the upstairs hallway and immediately I wondered to myself, who was this man?
In reading about Chauncey in a local history, I came across the story of his older brother and the fact that he had played a role in the capture of Booth.

Often, I drove past the home which Everton was said to have built with part of the proceeds of the $15,000 reward he received (much of which he lost in a bad investment), but the story never really resonated with me. Looking for information on Everton, I became disenchanted. The only story I could find was written by a local historian which was fine, but very sparsely detailed.

I had found my project.

Two years later I wrote a 15,000 word, five-part series for the newspaper which only scratched the surface of just who Everton J. Conger was. I decided then it was time to write a biography.
The project floundered over the next few years as the daily details of life intruded. It wasn’t until 2006, after being interviewed for the National Geographic Channel’s documentary “The Hunt For Lincoln’s Assassin” that I fully committed myself to finishing the story.

If Conger hadn’t been involved with the capture of Booth, his life, however interesting it may be, probably wouldn’t merit a biography. But that is one of the problems (albeit understandable) with the study of history. A story has to be “big” and it has to have broad appeal before it’s considered worthy of telling.
Given how academic historians have failed in telling the story of Lincoln’s murder, it shouldn’t be surprising that Conger’s story was lost. But in fairness, even with the intense interest with Lincoln’s murder among the general public, most people have no idea who Everton Conger was.

I hope to change that.

Even without the capture of Booth, Conger lived an interesting life. Born in 1834 to a Presbyterian missionary and his wife, Conger served with distinction during the Civil War as a cavalry officer, first with the Third West Virginia Cavalry and then with the First District of Columbia Cavalry, where he had de facto command since the colonel of the regiment, Lafayette Baker, was in Washington on detached service with the War Department.
Wounded twice (and once left for dead overnight in the frigid October cold), Conger persevered both as a soldier and later as a civilian.
After the war, when he moved to southern Illinois, Conger studied law in Chauncey’s law office. In 1880, he was appointed to the territorial supreme court of Montana by an old friend, President Rutherford B. Hayes, whom Conger had known when he was a dentist in Fremont, Ohio.
In 1883 he was suspended from the bench due to a political dispute. His opponents exploited his addiction to alcohol and morphine (which he digested in large quantities because of his war wounds) as well as his affection for gambling.
Although cleared of wrong-doing, Conger wasn’t reappointed to the bench. He spent the rest of his life either as a prosecutor in Montana or trying to work a ranch. He died in 1918 after suffering a massive stroke brought on by the death of his beloved daughter, Daisy.
From time to time, I will present various aspects of Conger’s life here, but in order not to suck the energy out of my book, it will be done so sparingly.

I hope I can prove to you that obscurity isn’t the same as unimportance.

Do we really need another Civil War?

While I voted in Civil War Interactive’s recent poll as to the top 50 Civil War books of all time, I really didn’t pay much attention to the results, other than to see what my fellow voters liked. To think this poll, or any other, truly represents the penultimate in Civil War publishing is like thinking the Miss America pageant represents the penultimate in feminine beauty. It is such a subjective thing that one should take the results with a grain of salt.

Kevin Levin was upset that very few books that approached the war from a social perspective were mentioned. That brought a response from Eric Wittenberg, whose history of Jeb Stuart’s ride at Gettysburg was voted number 50, that those who voted just weren’t interested in social aspects of the war, preferring to read, I assume, only military histories. After Ethan Rafuse commented on the list, Brooks Simpson asked his blog readers to vote on the top five books they felt advanced the study of Civil War history in the past 20 years, since the issuance of Battle Cry of Freedom.

This proves to me that we are in the midst of another Civil War, i.e., the historiographical battle between the militarists and the socio-political crowd. Sadly enough it isn’t new and, like most wars, is unnecessary. The study of history is not a zero-sum game.

Tactical historians like Eric and J.D. Petruzzi, among others, serve an important role in the study of the war. Only someone who is interested in such a detailed study of Stuart’s ride, however, will buy the book. It won’t sell to the general reader interested in the broader topics of the war. I think both men certainly understand that.

To be fair, even a book as widely circulated as Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering will only appeal to a select, though certainly larger, share of the population. I would argue, however, that the reason more people will buy Faust’s book than Eric and J.D’s has nothing to do with the quality of work but that Faust’s topic, death and how soldiers and society handled it, will interest far more people than a specialized tactical study of the retreat from Gettysburg which both men, along with Mike Nugent, will bring out this year. While I look forward to their book, Faust’s will interest more because not only does it cover fighting, it provides an analysis of what could (and did) happen as a result.

But if I was reading a book purporting to be a synthesis of the war, I would expect that the author consulted both before putting pen to paper.

While I don’t like taking sides, it has been my personal experience that most people who are interested in the socio-political aspects of the war will also read books on military matters. However, the opposite rarely seems true. In doing so, I think militarists are only getting (and those who write are only giving) part of the story. A reader can argue that it doesn’t interest them. That’s fine. But an author has a different standard he or she should be held to. An author who wants me to believe their work strives to be comprehensive not only has to tell me what the soldiers did, but give me a deeper understanding of why they did it.

In the biography I’m writing on Everton Conger, the capture of John Wilkes Booth represents obviously the major part of the story. But I plan to give equal time to his life before and after that event. In fact, the reader won’t even meet Conger until the second chapter. The first chapter will deal with his father, Enoch, who I’m finding was one of the major influences on not only Everton but his other siblings as well.

Some might question why I would spend so much time on someone not central to the only reason Conger merits a biography. I would argue that, based on the research I’ve done so far, even though Enoch was not physically near his son on April 26, 1865, he indeed rode with him because of the influence he had on his son as he was growing up. To understand that influence it is necessary to understand what influenced him.

Those expecting only a few pages on Everton’s early life with the expectation that the bulk of the work will talk about capturing Booth will be disappointed. It may even cause some not to be interested in buying the book (assuming, of course, that it finds a publisher). However, I’d rather be true to the story I’m trying to tell rather than fashion the story to fit someone else’s preconceived notion.

Every aspect of Conger’s life will be covered, just as every aspect of the war should be studied.

By everyone.

The historian and the poet

Carl Sandburg, left, with James G. Randall, center and Alan Lomax going over the script for a radio program marking the opening of Abraham Lincoln’s papers.

This is the final installment in a series of posts on James G. Randall.

I was in an office just off the circulation desk of the main library at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. A library staff member had just brought a stack of books I had requested. Included was a small brown volume called The Beleaguered City, Richmond, 1861-1865. In this volume I wanted to see if I could find evidence of a theater which Everton Conger said existed when, in 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
The book itself was nondescript. It had the familiar markings of a library book which had been well-thumbed over the years. After finding no evidence of what I was looking for, I started to put it down. Suddenly, looking at the bookplate, my eyes widened at what was written there.

“From the library of Carl Sandburg”.

It was as if a lightening bolt had struck me. I was holding a book that, at one point, was held by Carl Sandburg. Whether you like Sandburg or not (and many don’t) no fair mind can say that Sandburg wasn’t a player in the field of Lincoln studies. Indeed, given all those who have dedicated their lives to studying the 16th president, Sandburg stands out as the most famous.
The irony of finding a book that had belonged to Sandburg at a university which had been home to the man who had a hearty dislike for amateur historians wasn’t lost on me. It was later that I found out many of Sandburg’s papers are located in the university archives, in the same spot, as it were, with James G. Randall’s.
But a stranger situation would soon demand my attention and would question just what Randall actually thought of the poet from Galesburg, Ill.

While perusing the shelf of Prairie Archives, my favorite bookstore in Springfield, I came across a volume of Lincoln the Liberal Statesman, a collection of essays written by Randall published in 1947. While it was priced at $45, it also bore Randall’s autograph. “For Myron Fox with great respect and cordial regards. J.G. Randall, April 27, 1950”.
When I got home and looked at what I bought, I saw on the dedication page three words that greatly confused me.

“To Carl Sandburg”.

Randall had devoted this book to the one man I had believed he held responsible for much of the misinformation and bad history written about Lincoln. After all, as Richard Nelson Current wrote in the fourth volume of Lincoln the President, when asked about Sandburg, Randall reportedly said that as a historian he made a good poet.

What was going on here?

In this age of shout television when gracious and vigorous debate has been replaced by verbal garbage, it’s hard for us to realize that two people who are so diametrically opposed could actually put that aside at the end of the day and develop a close friendship. I had forgotten that even Ronald Reagan and Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill were able to put political differences aside and enjoy a drink or two together.
In her book I Ruth, Ruth Randall recalled several times when Sandburg and Randall would get together to talk about politics, the world and, of course, their favorite topic—Lincoln. One time, when both men were in Chicago, Sandburg invited Randall to his home in Michigan. “One memorable evening the two took a long moonlight walk along the shore of Lake Michigan,” Ruth writes, “a thing Carl said he liked to do at the end of the day to rest his eyes and relax. Jim recorded what they talked about in considerable detail. They exchanged opinions on many subjects: Lincoln, literary matters, politics, philosophy. They compared notes on the prolonged drudgery of writing a nonfiction biography.”
She reported that Sandburg told Randall he wanted to write a book on Lincoln that he wished was available when he was driving a milk wagon in Galesburg. He profusely praised Randall’s Civil War and Reconstruction and told Randall the biography Randall was writing would be much better because he had allowed his thoughts to mature over time.
When it came time to review Sandburg’s four-volume Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, the American Historical Review assigned the task to Randall. While he praised Sandburg’s “rare feeling for Lincoln, a life absorption in the subject, a burning desire to produce the saga, a Marathon-like endurance over decades of prodigious labor, a poet’s sense of language, a flair for pithy phrasing, a robust personality spiced with the tang of the prairies, and an ability to combine realistic detail with emotional appreciation” Randall sighed that “historianship in the full sense is lacking.”
Pointing out that Sandburg failed to include footnotes and many times only half-mentioned a source, Randall added that sometimes Sandburg was guilty of “an undiscriminating use of material” which he said “relieves the author of the necessity of checking, rechecking, and testing.” He added that “one would hardly turn to Sandburg’s pages for historical analysis, for sifting and evaluation, for conclusions distilled from masses of evidence, or for the settlement of disputed or doubtful points.”
What one takes from the review, however, is not that Randall felt Sandburg’s work was without worth, but that it could have benefited from what Randall preached throughout his professional life. Sandburg needed to visit the archives and sift through primary manuscript material rather than rely on already published reminisce.
But in the end Randall accepted that “Sandburg did not write for historians but for the general reader” and that “there will be thousands who, in thinking of Lincoln, will inevitably think of Sandburg.”
Randall’s review is in most instances a fair evaluation of Sandburg’s material. I think that my own belief that Randall held Sandburg responsible for amateurish attempts to study Lincoln’s life came from the “good poet” quote but also from Edmund Wilson’s characterization of Sandburg’s work as the worst thing to happen to Lincoln since his assassination. In this sense, I put two and two together and came up with 12.
During Randall’s illness, Sandburg was one of the last people to see Randall. Indeed, the last entry in Randall’s diary was “He [Carl] looks well….Kissed Ruth on leaving and took both my hands.” Three days later, James Randall was dead.

So, how to assess Randall? He, more than anyone of his day and age, brought Lincoln into sharper focus from the perspective of an academic historian, yet he never made Lincoln into a cardboard cutout or sucked the life out of his life as many academics do today. While Randall insisted on prodigious scholarship he also was able to turn a phrase that made his work valuable not only to the serious student of Lincoln but to the general reader.

He stumbled on many occasions, failing to realize the moral necessity of a war on slavery. While much of the criticism leveled against him, especially by black historians, may seem harsh, in most instances it was justified. The Civil War was not just a failure of cooler heads prevailing. While someone who lived during not one but two bloody wars might be forgiven for seeing the ultimate folly in the adventure, there are times when for the betterment of society bloodshed is necessary. To refuse to fight a war where human freedom and liberty are at stake is not only short-sighted, but in the long run is far crueler than the admittedly high human cost it brought.

No serious student of Lincoln’s life can be considered knowledgeable without a deep understanding of Randall. While some of his work is obviously outdated (a hazard which afflicts any historian who wrote several years ago) it still gives us a better understanding not only of Lincoln, but of the war which was fought in his name.