Walking the Berkshires

Last Week's Piece in the LJ

My most recent "Nature Notes" piece in the Lakeville Journal can be read here with free registration.

"...Proximity to major metropolitan centers in New York, and to a lesser degree Hartford, has made our land valuable as residential real estate. A renewed interest in locally produced food and concern about the loss of our remaining farmland to nonagricultural uses runs up against the hard fact that the land is worth more in a developed state than as farmland, and is too expensive for new farmers to obtain.  

Meanwhile, Berkshire County is losing population. Connecticut is losing young people at one of the highest rates in the nation.

We have saved many significant lands from development but are unable to maintain them in a condition that will ensure that the very qualities that made them special will persist over time.  Without the resources to care for and steward our fields and forests, they are vulnerable to fresh degradation from invasive species and to loss of ecological productivity..."

In other news, I wrote a magazine story for the latest issue of Massachusetts Main Streets and Back Roads, a free publication and not yet readable on-line, about The Mammoth Cheese of Cheshire.  Big as a millstone and a month in transit from the Berkshires to Thomas Jefferson's innaugeral.  I'll link to it once it makes it to the electronic media stream. 

The Becker Collection of Civil War Sketches

The American Civil War has been a strong historical interest of mine since I was nine, and while my study has broadened to other time periods, it is still the period in our country's history that I know the best.  So many iconic images were produced during that time: particularly photographs, but also engravings of artist scetches published in the newspapers and journals of the day.  It is unusual for me to come across images from the Civil War that I haven't seen before, or which brings a fresh perspective on these well chronicled events, but recently I was alerted to an extraordinary collection in the holdings of Boston College that does both.

Sheila Gallagher, an Associate Professor at BC and a longtime friend from down the beach at Wareham, also has the priviledge of curating a collection of artist sketches made by her great, great grandfather Joseph Becker and his colleagues for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Newspaper.  Sheila is Co-Director of The Becker Collection, which includes 650 largely unpublished drawings by these artist reporters that covers an extraordinary scope of subjects over a broad geographic range and timeframe.  

The Collection's website includes this biography of Becker:

"Becker’s career at Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper spanned the second half of the nineteenth century. Hired by Frank Leslie as an errand boy at the age of eighteen in 1859, he retired in 1900 after supervising the art department for the last quarter of the century. At 22, he was sent as an artist–reporter to cover the Civil War, and he traveled with the Union Army recording scenes of daily military life as well as the preparation and action of battle. After the war, he traveled throughout the West to draw images for the series “Across the Continent.” It included such diverse subjects as the western landscape, Chinese immigrants in San Francisco, and Mormons in Utah. His drawings possess a liveliness and immediacy rarely achieved in contemporary photography and a wealth of information previously unavailable.

However, Becker did not work alone. Frank Leslie sent numerous artists to see and record the facts of the American experience: J.F.E. Hillen, Henri Lovie, Edwin Forbes, Frederic B. Schell, Francis H. Schell, Edward Hall, James E. Taylor, Andrew McCallum, C.E.H. Bonwill, William T. Crane, Arthur Lumley, E.F. Mullen, and others. They all sent drawings back to New York where editors selected images that fit stories, and other artists traced and altered the original work. Most of the drawings never appeared in print. As supervisor of the art department, Becker saved the discarded drawings."

He did a tremendous service by doing so, and Sheila and her colleagues have done us another by conserving and documenting this collection and making it searchable on-line.   There are sketches from seventeen states and the District of Columbia, and notably several among those depicting African Americans that manage to transend caricature and show them as part of the fabric of the events.  An excellent example can be found here in a sketch entitled "Dedication of a Monument to the memory of the New Hampshire Regiment in the battle of Winchester", recording a ceremony that took place the day after Lee's Surrender at Appomatox.  The details in the forground are sharper than the orator standing at the monument, or the hollow shell of the war damaged building in the background.  The onlookers include men and women, soldiers and civilians, and a number of African Americans dressed in their best clothes.  It rings true, right down to the small dog which alone turns its face fully to the viewer.  It also puts those relegated to the back in the forefront.

I highly recommend taking some time to explore The Becker Collection on-line, and look forward to seeing it in exhibition in the near future. 

Caption This! Reconstructionist Edition

This image from a University of Iowa collection of political photos is rather unimaginatively captioned:

"Tableau representing Confederate and Union reconciliation to free Cuba - Spanish American War"

I am confident that you, dear readers, can do far better than that!

 

Damn Yankees and Civil War Art

"Confederate stuff sells", observes Cenantua's Blog in a fascinating discussion of the Civil War military art market today.  It then then goes on to ask;

"Is there any art focused on Union military leaders and their softer side? If so, what? If not, why? Is there anything really wrong with creating military art that shows scenes that feature things other than combat? Would art showing Union leaders in similar situations actually sell?"

Well that is interesting.  There do appear to be disproportionately more Confederate reenactors taking part in living history than those depicting Union soldiers.  The sight of the US flag of 1861 leaves no impression on a modern viewer whatsoever, but the Confederate battle flag is among the most recognized, controversial, and marketable symbols of that, or indeed any era in American history.

But during the war itself, and for a number of decades afterward, there was quite an appetite (in the North, at any rate) for patriotic art steeped in Victorian sentimentality and featuring the northern soldier.  Consider this Kurz and Alison lithograph of a very stylized battle of Antietam, published in Chicago in 1888.  Kurz and Allison churned out reams of this stuff, covering a wide range of events and including those that were fought by colored troops (with their gallant white officers) or were notable Union losses (though depicting the action before the boys in blue had broken).  Little attempt was made at realism - after all, no one wanted to hang one of Alexander Gardner's photographs of battlefield corpses in the front parlour.  The public clearly had an interest in the romantizied artwork, however, and it made Kurz and Allison boththe Currier & Ives and the Mort Künstler of  their era.

In the early 20th century, the Brandywine School of American illustrators tackled Civil War subjects from time to time.  Howard Pyle created the artwork for many stories in Harper's Weekly set during the Civil War.  They featured dramatic clashes of arms of the "brother against brother" variety, as well as some iconic Lost Cause portraits that would be very recognizable in today's Civil War art market.  His protege N.C. Wyeth created illustrations with a signature, dreamlike quality, though  the image of Billy Sherman, at right, is more the stuff of nighmare.

In popular imagination, images of the North are steeped in mechanization, modernity, and, as embodied by Grant, Sherman and their ilk, a ruthless determinination to pay any price to crush the rebellion.  They play the Roundheads to J.E.B. Stuart's Cavaliers.  They are the descendants of the Federalists bringing the fractious parts of the country into line.  It is a decidedly unromantic view of government and unity, and one that is clearly out of synch with the independant streak in the American character.   Unless you like Yankee pinstripes, most of us root for the underdog over the over powerful juggernaut (though as a Red Sox fan in these heady times of successful championships, I may no longer be in that category).

You see the same thing, incidently, in French and Indian war reenactments, with every 2nd unit, it seems, depicting independant companies of rangers rather than the powdered regulars of the Crown.  We like to think of ourselves as rebels, rather than just working for the Man.  Even, I daresay, when the idols of our affection are slave holding aristocrats.  A classic image that juxtoposes lost cause gentility with something that looks very much like northern deference is the 1920 painting "Let Us Have Peace" by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.  One unfamiliar with the historical event of Appomatox might be forgiven after viewing this work if he or she remained uncertain as to just who was surrendering to whom.  The image of Washington on the wall is particularly striking, bookending the shabby Grant with the two most famous Virginians.

We do not venerate Northern leaders, aside from Lincoln, as so many do the vanguished Sons of the South.  Lincoln stands alone, and for all.  He takes on the sins of a guilty nation in martyrdom so that "that nation might live."  N.C. Wyeth manages to capture both extremes of the northern character in popular imagination in his portrait of Lincoln the westerner, with the storm clouds roiling above him, and the three carpetbackers at right.

Among the military artists working today, there is a cadre that prizes historical accuracy in minute detail.  Formost of these are Don Troiani and Keith Rocco, who go to great lengths to place their subjects in scrupulously researched and rendered settings, with kepis creased just so and every uniform button and acoutrement true to the unit in question.  Both artists also have a flair for the dramatic, and at their best manage to capture some of the swirling chaos of 19th century combat.  They do not steep their battlefields in gore, which would not serve their artisitic purposes.  Kevin Levin at Civil War Memory has taken up this subject on a number of occassions, and notes:

"In the end I think these prints are more about us than they are about the subjects they depict. The intention is to engender in us a certain emotion, which may or may not have any connection with history...Our primary interest is to be entertained by the war; in this regard I include myself. The art minimizes the horror of war, including the battlefield scenes painted by Troiani which hang on my office walls. We don’t really want to be reminded of the extent of the suffering that took place on and off the battlefield or the carnage that was left in its wake."

The idea that southern soldiers were somehow more pious and christian than their northern counterparts is a another popular misconception reenforced by some Confederate themed military art.  The 1860s were a time of fervent religious revival, and the North because of its diversity of national origins represented many faiths and denominations.  National days of prayer and Thanksgiving reflected a religious tradition with origins in the fast days of Puritan New England, but this theme of Yankee godliness is seldom expressed in today's Civil War art, with the notable exception of Don Troiani's painting of an Irish Brigade chaplain blessing the advancing Sons of Erin before the Sunken Road at Antietam.  The "Wild Geese", though, are themselves archetypical underdogs and rebels, and Irish nationalism, as Hollywood knows full well, is popular with American audiences.

There are many reasons why someone might wish to purchase and display modern renditions of Civil War subjects.  I collect toy soldiers from this period, for goodness sake, and am in no position to tell collectors what to like.  I do find it interesting, however, that "Confederate stuff sells", and am in agreement with Kevin here that such artwork, produced for modern consumers, has more to say about us and what shapes our memories of the past than about the subjects they depict.  

The 4th Estate Drops the Ball; There are Lots of Examples of Piracy Against US flagged Vessels Since the Barbary Pirates

(image courtesy of ICC Live Piracy Map) Captain Richard Phillips has been freed from captivity, and the Somali pirates who had held him for several days in a lifeboat in the Indian Ocean have now either been been slain or captured themselves.  

Many press reports have claimed that this was the first act of piracy against a U.S. flagged ship in over 200 years, or at least in modern times.  This is far from accurate.   In fact there are more recent incidents of piracy in the historic record: some that are much more recent.

"Don" Pedro Gilbert of the pirate ship "Panda" attacked the US flagged ship "Mexican" in 1832, torturing the captain and crew into revealing where they had concealed a chest containing $20,000 in silver coins.  Surviving crewmembers of the "Mexican" testified against Gilbert, who was hanged in 1835: the last man executed for piracy in the United States.

150 years later, pirates were still attacking American flagged ships.

In 1984, a US Navy chartered vessel the "Falcon Countess" was attacked by six pirates armed with knifes in the Straits of Malacca and robbed of $19,000.  The U.S. flagged Ranger was attacked off Singapore in 1991 and likewise robbed of $23,000. 

In 2000, American Stephen M. Gartmann was killed aboard his yacht Sea Lion off Rio Dulce, Guatemala. 

So these other cases don't count?  Or would it be more accurate to say that fact checking, along with our illusions that pirates no longer sail the seas, is another casualty of our times?

Dark Secrets on Gallows Hill

Gallows Hill lies east of the neighborhood of Lime Rock in the Town of Salisbury Connecticut, overlooking the confluence of Salmon Creek with the Housatonic River and just across the water from Falls Village.  It is a place of high bluffs and twisted stone, a lonely spot with a lonely name.

I have often wondered about how it came by that name, naturally assuming that perhaps it had been a place of execution.  Instead, this eminence seems to have a darker history, for either a suicide or a lynching once took place there, and still remains shrouded in mystery.

An 1883 guide entitled New England: A Handbook for Travellers offers a brief explanation:

"W. of [Falls Village] is the far-viewing Gallows Hill,  where according to the tradition, the corpse of a negro was once found hanging from a tree, and no one ever knew how he came there, or who he was."

Another 1896 text repeats the story, adding that "a strange black man was found hanging, dead, to a tree near its top one morning."   Strange fruit indeed, but by whose hand it came to be there has been left unsolved and the event itself has passed into forgotten local lore.  An 1853 map of the Town of Salisbury contains the name "Gallow's Hill", but an extensive 1898 article in Connecticut Quarterly magazine fails to mention Gallows Hill by this or any other name in its breathless enumeration of the Town's many points of interest. 

The hanging would have taken place sometime in the first century of Salisbury's settlement.  All but the steepest hillsides would have been denuded for charcoal to fuel the iron furnaces that made the region prosper even as they fouled the air.  There would have been trees, though, in the dark hollows and sheer cliffs of Gallow's Hill.  The place lay at the very margin of the community, and like all frontiers held both risks and attractions to those marginalized by society.

In 1756, a Colonial census enumerated just 31 negroes in Litchfield County and none in Salisbury.  Connecticut's slave codes severely restricted the mobility of even free blacks and slavery was not completely abolished until 1848.  The state vigorously prosecuted fugitive slaves.  Even in the first half of the 19th century, a lone black man might have chosen to skirt around a rural Connecticut village rather than pass directly through town. 

Today the place is locally known as Brinton Hill, and indeed Brinton Hill road passes just to the north and about 200' below the summit.  It follows a saddle between the Hill and Falls Mountain, and would have been the logical route for the unknown black man to have taken, either from Falls Village or Lime Rock (in early days simply known as The Hollow), to the spot where he met his end.  Whether by choice or compulsion one can only guess.

Massachusetts Main Streets and Backs Roads Has One of My Stories

Massachusetts Main Streets and Back Roads ,a quarterly publication from the same folks behind Vermont Quarterly hits the newstands this month with its first edition.  The Magazine covers the history and lore, food and entertainment of Western Massachusetts, and I was approached to contribute a story on Berkshire history.  The Spring 2009 edition features a two page article of mine entitled "Berkshire's Big Dig" about the Hoosac Tunnel, an engineering marvel in the northern reaches of the county.  Along the way,  Readers of this Blog will not be surprised to discover, I manage to incorporate a good does of natural history, a reference to the "Great Road" through a "hideous howling wilderness", and a picture of a Civil War General on a one-man pontoon boat.

When there is an on-line link to the piece, I'll be sure to steer you to it.  If you live in the region, keep your eye out for a copy.  I'm on track to write recurring features for this magazine, and am starting to think up an appropriate topic for the summer edition (ideas welcome). 

"By God! They Are Fleeing From a Shadow!"

When an ancestor's blue-colored utterances make it into the history books, the family genealogist owes it to posterity to give the episode its due.  One of my Ogden ancestors - two brothers who were officers in the New Jersey Continentals during the American War of Independence -  is said to have answered a request by one of Washington's staff officers for an explanation of the collapse of the advanced wing at Monmouth Court House with an exasperated oath, followed by the memorable line; "Sir, they are fleeing from a shadow!"  A fine sentiment, and perfectly in the keeping of the character of either Colonel Matthias Ogden of the 1st New Jersey, or Brigade Major Aaron Ogden, his brother and my direct ancestor.  But which of these swore a blue streak for posterity, and how was the incident recorded?

Various 19th century histories relate the episode differently and manage to make almost as great a muddle of things as the confused battle itself.  Joel Tyler Headley's Friendship's Memorial (1853)  appears to be wrong in two points, as it ascribes the question to Washington himself, and credits the reply, prefaced by "a terrible oath", to someone named Osgood instead of Ogden. Henry Beebe Carrington's (1897) Washington, the Soldier reports that two of Washington's aides, Harrison and Fitzgerald, encountered Major (Aaron Ogden) who replied to their question "with an explicative."  Everett Titsworth Tomlinson's The Boys of Old Monmouth (1898) says that it was Colonel (Matthias) Ogden who responded to one of Washington's aides "in a towering passion." 

So which Ogden was it?  Aaron Ogden was himself a staff officer on that day, acting as Assistant A.D.C. to General Alexander "Lord Stirling" who commanded the left wing of the Army, but carrying orders all over the battlefield.  Matthias Ogden was commanding Maxwell's Brigade, which included his own regiment and was part of the advanced wing.  This was the wing of the army that was retreating when Washington sent his aides forward to discover what was happening.

Robert Hanson Harrison was a senior secretary to Washington, and his memory of the events of this day would be in particular demand afterward, for the officer in charge of the advanced wing, Maj. General Charles Lee, was subsequently courtmarshalled and cashiered over his mismanagement of his command.  John Fitzgerald was another secretary and aide-de-camp.   If these were the two sent by Washington as indicated above, they would have been the ones to record what Ogden said, and it is most likely that they met Matthias and not Aaron Ogden.

A number of historians agree.  Stryker's The Battle of Monmouth (2006) says that Matthias Ogden called out "in great anger" to Harrison; "by God, they are fleeing from a shadow."  Wheeler's The Ogden Family in America (1907) quotes the most colorful account of this profane profundity: "with the fierce wrath of the lion disdaining his chains, when interrogated by Colonel Harrison as to the cause of the retreat, answered with great apparent exasperation; 'By G-d, sir, they are fleeing from a shadow!'"

So it seems that Harrison is indeed the source, and Matthias Ogden the cussing colonel. And indeed, in the courtmarshall proceedings, Harrison's testimony provides confirmation:

"I then proceeded down the line, determined to go to the rear of the retreating troops, and met with Colonel Ogden.  I asked him the same question, whether he could assign the cause, or give me any information why the troops retreated.  He appeared exceedingly exasperated, and said; 'By God!  They are fleeing from a shadow!"

With such (quite literally) damning testimony, Charles Lee was finished as a commander.  Harrison went on to be one of Washington's six original appointments to the Supreme Court, though illness prevented him from serving.  He died in 1790, followed just a year later by Matthias Ogden who was stricken by Yellow Fever.

"By God!" is a comparatively mild oath, even in Ogden's day.  Whatever choice words may have salted his speech beyond this were tactfully omitted in the accounts by Washington's staff.  He was not the only one who was "exceedingly exasperated" on that day, and his curses were said to have been eclipsed by those uttered by his Commander in Chief when he rebuked General Lee on the field.  What Washington may have said in a great temper can only be surmised, but there is no record of any phrase leaving his lips quite so memorable as "fleeing from a shadow."

Uncommon Soldiers

Joseph Plumb Martin was the most influential soldier from the American Revolution that most of us know nothing about.  His 1830 memoir - originally published as "Private Yankee Doodle" - is among the most referenced, 1st person accounts of the war.  With the sole exception of Washington's papers, you would be hard pressed to name a more commonly cited source in either the academic or popular histories of the Revolutionary period, especially those of the past few decades.  Martin has become the Patriot everyman, the subject of a PBS documentary, and his narrative is now available under different title in several print editions. 

Martin's account appeals to readers and writers of Revolutionary history for a number of reasons that together contribute to its ubiquity in the literature.  It is widely acclaimed as the most comprehensive account of the war by a common soldier.  Its wry and accessible style is colorful and self aware, and therefore engages the general reader.  It is full of anecdotes that brings the life of a teen-aged soldier in the ragged Continentals vividly to light, and is thus a major source for the impressions of soldier life depicted by period reenactors.   There are even a few fortuitous 1st-hand accounts that seem to verify the stuff of legend, such as the woman who served a cannon at Monmouth.

All these are reason enough to explain the multitude of historians who draw from Martin's observations, but there is also the fact that it is widely available.  One need not delve into the dusty archives of various rare book collections or have access to academic search engines when a quote of Martin's will serve.  I own the Signet Classic edition, and I must agree that it is an engaging account, though not always for the reasons most cited.  Neither is its mere existence as singular as its publishers would suggest, for there are other accounts by common soldiers, though you have to work a littler harder to find them.

There is, for example, the Military Journal of Jeremiah Greenman, published in an annotated edition as Diary of a Common Soldier in the American Revolution, 1775-1783.  Like Martin, Greenman served for virtually the entire length of the conflict, and while Martin ended his military career with the rank of Sergeant, Greenman's last promotion was to regimental adjutant.   One significant different is that Greenman's journal is a primary record kept during the conflict (though there are places that appear to have been revised at a later date).  Martin, on the other hand, wrote his narrative in his old age, and while many historians assume he based his work on a diary, no such account survives.  As a primary source, Greenman's is therefore closer to the events it describes, and remained unpublished until 1978.  Martin wrote with veiled anonymity, but his narrative was published during his lifetime, and the author's agenda must therefore be taken into account when assessing its value as a primary source.

Perhaps other editions of Martin's narrative benefit from comprehensive annotations, but mine certainly lacks such historical context and in my opinion would have benefited from more of it.  There are many obscure references that are left unexplained.  Greenman's diary is published by an academic press and transcribed as literally and faithfully as possible while preserving legibility.  The archaic prose and irregular spelling remains intact, which may result in a more challenging read for a general reader.  To the historian, though, it is a valuable work that deserved more exposure than it has thus far received.

Martin's is undoubtedly a superior work of literature and is truly unique for its period.  It is not really fair to compare the two texts along these lines, as they are entirely different kinds of writing and written many decades apart.  Martin's narrative is actually much more akin to another work of a later war - Sam Watkins' memoir of his Confederate service "Company Aytch" -  and fulfills much the same role as that frequently cited source does in Civil War history writing.    Martin's prose appeals to me particularly for its memorable anecdotes, such as a cat streaking in flames from a burning building, or a drunken lark on the ice of the frozen Hudson.  I am a bit more skeptical about his recollections of Molly Pitcher, which are often cited as evidence of her existence:

"One little incident happened, during the heat of the cannonade, which I was eye-witness to, and which I think would be unpardonable not to mention.  A woman whose husband belonged to the Artillery, and who was then attached to a piece in the engagement, attended with her husband at the piece the whole time; while in the act of reaching a cartridge and having one of her feet as far before the other as she could step, a cannon shot from the enemy passed directly between her legs without doing any other damage than carrying away all the lower part of her petticoat, - looking at it with apparent unconcern, she observed, that it was lucky it did not pas a little higher, for in that case it might have carries away something else, and ended her and her occupation"

Historian and artist Don Troiani depicted Molly Pitcher with the tattered petticoat described by Martin.  It is a wonderful description, and had it been included in a contemporary diary like Greenman's, rather than a memoir written more than half a century later, I should be blackguarded for not taking him at his word.  As Molly Pitcher's story was then known (and the woman most frequently associated with her still living), one has to wonder whether Martin truly saw what he says he remembers.  Many historians take Martin's statements at face value, but what memoir written in old age is free of embellishment?

I am glad that individuals like Joseph Plumb Martin and Jeremiah Greenman took the time to record their experiences, and so in addition to their hard service made valuable contributions to our understand of those times.  I am grateful that their accounts were though worthy of preserving and subsequent publication.  Each has its strengths and limitations, and each offers something different from the other.  Each needs to be taken on its own terms as well, and if Martin should be read with a grain of salt and Greenman should be more widely read and referenced, that in no way diminishes their importance.  Nor are they the only uncommon voices of common soldiers who left an historical record of their service in the Revolution.  A quick search of Google Books reveals Elijah Fisher's Journal, the Memoir of William Burke, the Diary of David Howe and the  Journal of Soloman Nash.    It would be refreshing if some of their observations found their way intothe next round of Revolutionary War histories.  Martin has seen hard service, and deserves a furlough.

What Were You Thinkin', Lincoln?

In the crucial Presidential election of 1864, with the nation at war with itself and his own party deeply divided, Abraham Lincoln decided to split the ticket.  Faced with the disaffection of the Radical Republicans and the anticipated popularity of his Democratic rival, General George McClellan, with the all-important soldier vote, Lincoln ran for reelection not as a Republican but as the National Union Party candidate.  He selected the military governor of Tennessee, "War Democrat" Andrew Johnson, as his Vice President.  Some historians consider this choice of running mate to have been his greatest blunder, and indeed the failed Presidency of Andrew Johnson is generally regarded as one of the very worst in US history.

There has been an animated discussion over at Kevin Levin's Civil War Memory concerning alternative choices that Lincoln could have made, keeping within the political parameters that brought about the National Union Party and were in play at thetime, and whether or not the short-term outcome of a different presidential successor than Johnson would have made much difference.   This sort of counterfactual analysis is mother's milk to me, and having put in my two cents in Kevin's forum I reserve the right to expand and extend my remarks for the record in my own.

One of the many perils of counterfactual conjecture is that every alteration to historical events acts upon all those that follow, with the potential to expand exponentially into an unrecognizable reality.  This is why time travel in science fiction novels presents such hazards to those characters who attempt it and thus provides a reliable plot device.  One of the first rules of counterfactual hypothesis is to make as few changes to the conditions leading up to the alternate version of history as possible.  It is all about the "want of a nail", rather than in this case the lack of an industrial economy in the southern states, or the absence of a confederate air force.

There is also the possibility that 2nd order counterfactuals stemming from the first might well bring about the same historic outcome from a different direction.  This lies at the very heart of the question of whether Lincoln could have made a better choice than Johnson, and if that would have lead to a meaningfully different outcome during his successor's presidency than what actually occurred.  Sometimes, no matter where they begin, all roads must inexorably lead to Rome.

Lincoln could not run as the National Union Party candidate - a party made up of moderate Republicans and hawkish Democrats - without a running mate who would appeal to key voting blocks.  Then, as now, the electoral votes were the critical factor.  Lincoln needed to win a number of large states with many electors to secure reelection, as well as secure the support of the war Democrats. 

The top five states with the most electors were New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana, and several of these states were peace Democrat strongholds. To counter Little Mac and secure more of the soldier vote, Lincoln might have turned to a War Democrat from the Midwest, such as any of several of the Fighting McCooks .

A McCook presidency has too many variables to project with any confidence what the course of Reconstruction might have been. Assuming any of the “Tribe of Dan” or “Tribe of John” agreed to run on the national Union Party ticket, they would have faced tremendous challenges from the Radical Republicans. Even if this split ticket won the election, Lincoln’s assassination might have lead to a very weak McCook presidency with a hostile congress and pressure from northern Democrats to go easy on Reconstruction and light on the rights of freedmen. Perhaps a President McCook would become even more of a hardliner (in for a penny, in for a pound). Or perhaps he would have reshuffled the cabinet, pushing some of the radicals out. There might have been no Seward’s Folly: no Alaska.  Although several of the McCooks when to to political careers after the war, as a successor to Lincoln they would certainly be no better than Johnson.

The other option for Lincoln would have been to choose a moderate Republican from the Midwest, risking Democratic support but shoring up his base.  It would have to be someone with a military background but who the army could spare.  One dark horse candidate that comes to mind is Rutherford B Hayes, who could have been plucked from the field (depriving the army of his services at Ceder Creek and Winchester), making him the 17th President as Lincoln’s successor of the 19th.

A Rutherford B Hayes presidency on the heels of Lincoln’s assassination and not a decade later would have put a politician newcomer in office with something to prove. Instead of ending Reconstruction, he would have implemented it, and probably with more civil rights enforcement given his actual record as president. He had a longstanding political connection with Chief Justice Chase. Instead of cracking down on striking railroad workers, the golden spike would have been driven on his watch.

Hayes offers an intriguing, though unlikely alternative to Johnson. Basically, though, whoever succeeded Lincoln got a raw deal.

Significantly, with the single exception of Abraham Lincoln, there wasan unbroken string of mediocre and failed presents in the 19th century between Polk and McKinley.  That is a dozen presidents in over half a century and only one whole egg in the carton.  It is quite possible that there was no choice that Lincoln could have made that would come near to approaching the impact he might have made had he lived out his term.  The executive branch would not flower again until Roosevelt swaggered onto the stage.