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Lincoln's Sanctuary: Abraham Lincoln and the Soldiers' Home

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In each of the years he served as President of the United
States (minus the 11 southern states which seceded launching the Civil War!) President Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary and family would journey to the Soldiers Retirement Home about 4 miles from the White House. Son Robert would visit on his trips home from Harvard. Youngest Lincoln son Tad enjoyed the Soldiers' Home where he had a menagerie of pets; got to know the guard troops from Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio stationed there. Wife Mary was often vacationing in New England or shopping in New York.
In this atmosphere Lincoln enjoyed the camaraderie of soldiers; received visitors and enjoyed the company of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton living in a nearby cottage.
It was in this location that the President agonized over his decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation; decided to fire
George B. McClellan and help plan the 1864 presidential campaign.
Every day Lincoln would ride a horse to the White House surrounded by mounted cavalryman. His wife Mary fell from her carriage in July, 1863 while traveling to the home. She was seriously injured .
Pinsker tells us of plots against Lincoln's life. He may have even been fired upon by an unknown assassin according to a soldier who reported this incident in his postwar memoirs.
Matthew Pinsker has written an outstanding book adding to our knowledge of the heretofore little known Lincoln residence at the Soldiers Home. The Home is now a National Landmark and is being renovated and opened for the public. One can imagine how awed poet Walt Whitman was as he saw Lincoln on his daily ride from the White House to the Soldiers Home.
Pinsker draws on a vast array of first person accounts, letters,memoirs and can be complimented on adding to our knowledge of the Lincoln presidency.
The book is well illustated with maps and is an outstanding addition to anyone interested in the Civil War and the Lincoln presidency. Well recommended!

This is a well written book and very timely as action is being taken to renovate the Lincoln Cottage. I reside on the grounds of the Soldiers' Home where the cottage is located and know the value of the cottage in our history. The facility is now known as the Armed Forces Retirement Home-Washington. The cottage has always been known as the Anderson Cottage.

This is an excellent description of the Soldier's Home and how it provided times for reflection for a President and his family during times of personal and national grief. The times are well presented and explained in this book.

President Abraham Lincoln, during warm weather, preferred sleeping at the Soldier's Home instead of sleeping at the White House. A quarter of his Presidency from 1862 to 1864 was spent there.

The Soldier's Home was created in the 1850s for disabled veterans without sufficient means to live on their own. Its cottages rested in over 300 acres with much shaded hilly areas. President James Buchanan stayed there and reported being better able to sleep there than at the White House. Lincoln also saw Soldier's Home as a place for a family retreat, especially after his 12 year old son William died and First Lady Mary Lincoln found it difficult to mourn in the bustling White House.

There are no official records of Lincoln's staying or of what guest he had to Soldier's Home. He often traveled there with his wife, son Tad, a cook, a housekeeper and maybe a valet. At first, he had no security protecting him. While there, Lincoln would wake early and be at the White House by 8 am. His last visit to Soldier's Home was the day before he was assassinated.

Staying at the Soldier's Home provided Lincoln some sanctuary that provided him a better balance in his life. Prior, the stain of his wartime office had caused him to lose some abilities to make calm and considered decisions.

Lincoln pondered the fate of calling 300,000 more to war while residing at the Soldier's Home. He could hear the sounds of battle at Antietam while at the Soldier's Home.

Mary Lincoln was in a carriage accident near the Soldier's Home and almost died. This probably significantly contributed to accelerating her already deteriorating emotional unbalance. She left for Vermont for two months afterwards.

Lincoln held meetings at the Solder's Home. One in September 1864 with Fernando Wood, a Copperhead New York Member of Congress and former Mayor, may have helped his reelection efforts that year by encouraging some opposition to reduce their efforts against him.

Lincoln left Soldier's Home on a dangerous trip to watch a battle with Confederates at Fort Stevens. Concerns for Lincoln's safety rose and bodyguards of former police detectives were assigned to guard him.

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and his family also resided at Soldier's Home. This helped cement a personal as well as working relationship between them.

Mary Lincoln often clashed with White House aide John Hay over White House activities. She decided it would be better to spend more time away from the White House and Hay. The war ended plans for a summer residence outside the Washington, D.C. area. Mary Lincoln grieved for her departed son, refused to let the Marine Band play White House concerts, and decided Soldier's Home would make a nice place to escape.

Lincoln wanted the rebels attacked quickly and decisively and the Confederate states resumed into the Union. General George McClellan flanked the Confederates in northern Virginia with his best trained soldiers in the Army of the Potomac, doing so over Lincoln's objections. This potentially exposed DC to Confederate troops led by General Stonewall Jackson.

Vice President Hannibal Hamlin recalled a meeting conducted at the Soldier's Home where Lincoln first made the emancipation of slaves a goal of the war.

Lincoln learned the news of battles could be conflicting and biased. His decision to call 300,000 more for the war effort was dramatic. A month earlier he had told Governors he would need 100,000. Lincoln instituted the first compulsory draft to reach this goal.

Private John Nichols claimed someone tried to shoot President Lincoln while horseback riding near Soldier's Home. He claimed to find Lincoln's hat with a bullet hole in it. Nichols said Lincoln asked him to keep quiet about the incident. Presidential security increased after this incident.

Soldier's Home was open to the public. While Andrew Jackson had been physically attacked, the idea of protecting the President's security was not a high concern then. Anyone could walk up to President Lincoln at Soldier's Home. General McClellan ordered Pennsylvania infantrymen fresh from training at Harrisburg to protect Lincoln and his family at Soldier's Home.

Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin ordered bonuses of [...] then plus [...] at the war's end to enlistees of two "Bucktail Brigades" that wore deerskin hats. Company K of the 150th Pennsylvania regiment, which was about 150 men, protected Lincoln and his family for the rest of the war.

Union soldiers intercepted General Robert E. Lee's plan to invade Maryland. Lee learned his orders had been divulged and changed his plans. Lincoln had wanted the Antietam battle to decide the war. He was upset that General McClellan did not follow his orders and pursue the Confederates and destroy their army. McClellan noted the soldiers lacked experience and that pursuit of a fleeing arm was a complicated procedure.

Captain David Derickson from Meadville, Pa. became Lincoln's favorite companion, even sharing beds, a common practice then. Abraham Lincoln, who had left friends behind in Illinois, needed friendship he found in a soldier.

Draft riots occurred in several places, including Meadville where Derickson came from. Lincoln agreed to reduce quotas for military draft recruitment by including 2,400 foreign born Confederate prisoners who agreed to fight for the Union in Western battles against Northern Americans.

Twice as many died from infection during the Civil War than died during battle.

Confederate Colonel Bradley Johnson claimed he developed a plan to kidnap President Lincoln from the Soldier's Home. This idea was dropped when Colonel Johnson was ordered into service in the Shenandoah Valley.

A Confederate sharp shooter fired at what he thought was Lincoln's personal physician while Lincoln was visiting Fort Stevens. The physician who was shot, while standing near to Lincoln, was an assistant surgeon from the 102nd Pennsylvania volunteers.

There were political manipulations to nominate another nominee other than Lincoln as the Union Party nominee in 1864. Lincoln stayed in the race knowing he would force either support for his Administration or for antiwar Democrats to win the Presidency.

Lincoln signed a bill creating Soldier's Homes nationwide just a few weeks before he died. There was Congressional debate over closing the Soldier's Home where Lincoln often stayed, but Lincoln did not enter this debate.

65% of the residents in the Soldier's Home during the Civil War were foreign born. 24% of the Union army was foreign born. Immigrant soldiers were more apt to lack a supportive family that would take them on after their injuries. A third of Soldier's Home residents were Irish and one sixth were German.

Absentee ballots from soldiers were a new innovation for the 1864 elections. Lincoln won almost 80% of the solders' vote. Lincoln received 55% of the total vote.

Presidents Rutherford Hayes and Chester Arthur also stayed at the Soldier's Home. The cottage where the Presidents stayed made the National Trust's list of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2000. President Clinton then declared it a National Monument.

If you enjoy history and are fascinated by Lincoln, this is a great addition to your library

I purchased this book because Amazon offered it at a minor discount - and I'm glad they did! It reads quickly and well, yet also provides decent insight into the Lincoln presidency and the role played by the Soldiers' Home, the presidential retreat. The book operates on many levels at once. It provides insight into the history of the Soldiers' Home, perspectives from the soldiers who guarded the Lincoln family there, and astute analysis of the president's day-to-day life during long summers at the Soldiers Home. The author does an excellent job of weighing and balancing historical information, artfully blending into the text his own assessment of different accounts' accuracy.

The most memorable part of this book is the incident of Fort Stevens, where Lincoln could not resist the temptation to view skirmishing between Union forces and Jubal Early's rebel raiders in July of 1864. The author separates legend from reality in this fascinating account of the only time a sitting American president has witnessed combat. The president's personal security was an ongoing theme vitally linked with his daily journeys between the Soldiers' Home and the White House. Pinsker describes numerous hair-raising incidents that suggested danger long before the fateful evening in Ford's Theater. Not a comprehensive biography of Lincoln, this title uses its limited theme to full advantage: by focusing on a narrow spectrum of the Lincoln story, he is able to bring the reader closer to the real man, his family, and his times than many other full-length biographies have ever done.

A new view of the President's life in Washington, most historians refer to the fact he and his family lived there. This is a well document of history of the place and events.

This book was a wonderful find. I read it in two days on a business trip and found the writing style enjoyable, the research accurate and detailed while not at all overbearing, and the information very interesting. There are still very little details of the Lincoln's day to day activities at the Soldier's Home. None of the Lincoln's kept diaries and official documentation of purchases, visitors, and happenings were very casual compared to the entourage and details which follow a modern day president on vacation. But the author uncovered letters and diaries of the soldiers and visitors who were around the Lincoln's at this time and from these sources has discovered a wealth of information. The book parallels each of the decisive war time decisions made by Lincoln, and shows how his daily commute to the Soldiers Home from the White House and back, and the relaxing time spent with his family during summer nights and weekends, helped to shape some of his actions and achievements.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about Lincoln the person, with an interest in his politics and Civil War presidency. This book is a wonderful addition to the new writings on the Sixteenth President.

This book provides new information about Lincoln and his family, which is highly unusual for someone as researched as Lincoln. Based on letters and recollections of the people who saw him there, this book gives a picture of Lincoln in robe and slippers away from the chaos of the war time White House. A definate addition to what is known about Lincoln.