Oh, that we could say today what Harold Holzer said of Lincoln's first election to the presidency ("Election Day 1860"): that it was a "bitter, raucous, six-month-long campaign." Only six months? For that short a campaign, we might even welcome a cannon salvo at sunrise, like the one that rang out in Springfield, Illinois, in 1860.
Sharon Rogers
Bakersfield, California
Lincoln's Second Victory
"Election Day 1860" provides excellent insight into the mood and circumstances surrounding Abraham Lincoln as the returns came in and he finally realized that he had been elected. But the election of 1864 is of equal fascination and gravity, for Lincoln could have been defeated, leaving the fate of the nation in peril. All the confidence of those opening days of war vanished as weeks turned to months and months turned to years and still the fighting raged. The famous editor of the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley, a fiery hawk as the war began, was now crying for peace with the South along with a growing number of advocates of reconciliation. Recall that in the months before the 1864 election, Grant's army suffered ghastly losses; at Cold Harbor in Virginia alone, 7,000 Union soldiers were shot down in under 30 minutes. In that light, it seems miraculous that Lincoln managed to win (re-election and the war) and change the course of history.
Louis C. Kleber
Las Vegas, Nevada
Missing Soldier
On reaching the end of your informative article about John Rich's color photographs ["One Man's Korean War"], I was disappointed that you didn't include the picture of a "South Korean soldier with pink flowers lashed to his helmet," as author Abigail Tucker described in her last paragraph. "The young man must have wanted to be seen. And now, finally, he is." Although Tucker did a lovely job of communicating the image in words, you left us readers in the lurch.
John L. Aurbakken
Kigali, Rwanda
We're happy to help you (and other readers) out of the lurch. Here's the photograph in question.—Ed.
What a Country
When I visited the National Museum of American History a few years ago, what stopped me dead in my tracks was the Greensboro, North Carolina, Lunch Counter ["From the Castle: History Ahead"], site of the 1960 desegregation sit-in. What kind of country, I asked myself, anchors an exhibit in its national museum with a lunch counter? A special kind of nation, I decided. Thanks to the Smithsonian for all it does to help us remember who we were, and are.
Herb Levine
Lakewood, Washington
Motorcycle Parts
Perhaps in the 1950s, motorcycling meant defiance ["Curious Perspective"], but for America's early black aviators of the 1920s and '30s motorcycles were an affordable means of transportation and even a source of airplane engine parts. My great-uncle, James Herman Banning, rode motorcycles and used automobile and motorcycle engine parts to build and repair airplane engines. On the last leg of his pioneering voyage in 1932—he was the first African-American to fly cross-country—he dropped campaign fliers for the Roosevelt presidential ticket in exchange for funding to get back home.
Philip S. Hart
Los Angeles, California
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Comments (4)
Oh my. I was guessing and got it right. I have one of james banning's motorcycles. It is a seriously modified Indian. The roots of it are 1912 but it has parts from then until 1920. Contact me if you want the Paul Harvey version of this
Posted by Richard Abbott on September 6,2012 | 12:09 AM
An Amber Wave by Jerry Adler
While I enjoyed your recent article on older heritage varieties of wheat in An Amber Wave by Jerry Adler, I believe that he missed one of the most important aspects of this story. If one understands and believes the science behind inflammatory and disease-causing effects of modern hybridized wheat, then the story becomes that much more important to know that a new breed of American farmers have figured out an important option. William Davis, M.D. in Wheat Belly does an excellent job of explaining how hybridized wheat and our food supply system has greatly contributed to the epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and much of our chronic disease. I applaud the movement that includes these farmers, medical practitioners and scientists involved in exposing the myth that modern grains and the myriad of wheat products are healthy, rather than causing our wave of chronic disease that threatens to cripple our society.
Posted by James M. Blum on December 11,2011 | 08:32 AM
The page 57 photograph of the Lee Mansion, in "The Battle of Arlington" article (Nov 2009), jogged my memory to recall a long forgotten experience in August 1962. That summer, with a friend, I took my first trip on a plane, to visit another friend who was living in Washington D.C. On our first evening, without air-conditioning in her small apartment, my friend suggested we walk across the street to a quiet place she often visited on hot evenings to catch whatever cool breeze was available.
At dusk, we walked a short distance to a chain link fence, where our friend pulled back a portion just large enough for each of us to squeeze through. I asked, "Are we supposed to be doing this? To which she replied, "Not really, but no one minds." We then followed her up a hill to a house with huge pillars, where chairs were lined up on the veranda. We peeked in the windows, then sat down and talked, casually looking out at an exceptionally good view of the city. When it grew totally dark, we carefully walked down the hill, through the fence and back to the apartment. The end of a pleasant evening with friends.
The following year, when JFK's funeral procession ended at Arlington National Cemetery, a TV camera slowly moved past JFK's grave and focused on a stately home at the top of the hill. I was totally dumbfounded to realize that, just fifteen months earlier, my friends and I had been lounging on General Robert E. Lee's front porch!
Needless to say, if I slipped through the fence today, I'd be writing this comment from a federal prison.
Posted by T. Marchione on December 4,2009 | 10:03 AM
In reading the article "Mining the Mountains" in the January issue, two things come to mind - First off is the John Prine song of a couple decades ago, "Paradise". Especiallly the verse that begins "Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel..." and ends with, "and they wrote it all down as the progress of man." Secondly, and more so in light of the recent disaster in Tennessee, that the concept of "clean coal technology" is truly a myth.
Posted by Mark Barlow on January 6,2009 | 05:56 PM