An Entirely Public Man

Curated by: Lancy Downs ‘12, Curatorial Fellow for Archives & Special Collections

“He is the true history of the American people in his time,” proclaimed Ralph Waldo Emerson. “An entirely public man, father of his country, the pulse of twenty millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their minds articulated by his tongue.” Abraham Lincoln remained an entirely public man even in death, lingering in American memory, the subject of countless memorials and biographies, statues and paintings. In the decades after the close of the Civil War, two distinct images of Lincoln emerged: Lincoln the elite, distinguished leader and Lincoln the pioneer man, folksy and common. At Hotchkiss, it was the former image of Lincoln that the men and boys championed and accepted; this was a Lincoln that they could identify with as educated members of the upper echelon of society. Yet, the image of Lincoln as the common man prevailed in other arenas of American society; midwestern writers Carl Sandburg and Vachel Lindsay perpetuated the folksy, frontier Lincoln. These contrasting images of Lincoln appeared at a time when a national discussion of race was still impossible, and thus the general public shied away from the image of Lincoln as the Emancipator and disregarded the racial issues behind the Civil War. They focused instead on what was familiar and comfortable: the Lincoln who was most like themselves and the detailed study of Civil War battles. Yet as we approach the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, it is Lincoln the Great Emancipator, however simplified an image that may be, that we honor today.


Huber G. Buhler

Huber G. Buehler

Hotchkiss's second headmaster, Huber G. Buehler, was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1864.  He went on to Pennsylvania College (now known as Gettysburg College) in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and later taught at the College of St. James in Hagerstown, Maryland before moving back to Gettysburg to attend the Lutheran Theological Seminary.  He returned to Pennsylvania College and became head of the Latin and Greek departments, but left to become an English master at Hotchkiss.  He began his tenure at Hotchkiss in 1892 and remained at the school until his death in 1924.  He served as headmaster for 20 of those years, from 1904-1924.

Buehler had a lifelong interest in Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War due in large part to his strong ties to Gettysburg.  He brought this interest to Hotchkiss; many of the items featured in this exhibit were bought by Buehler.  He also became somewhat of a scholar on the Civil War, writing and frequently delivering two lectures: one on the Battle of Gettysburg, the other on the Gettysburg Address.  In February 1909, when Lakeville celebrated the centennial of Lincoln's birth, Buehler gave his lecture on the Gettysburg Address for locals and Civil war veterans.  He gave this lecture more infrequently at Hotchkiss, but he did lecture on the Battle of Gettysburg regularly for almost 20 years.  He was often invited to outside venues to deliver his speeches.

Buehler's opinions of Lincoln and the Civil War were fairly characteristic for his time.  He rarely discusses race or describes Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.  His editorializing comes in the form of praise of Lincoln-- of his mind, his oratory skills, his morality, his stateliness, his leadership.  Buehler, like his contemporaries, felt that Lincoln was underappreciated during his lifetime and made great efforts to show due respect in his own writing.  Like much of the Civil War published in Buehler's era, his lecture on the Battle of Gettysburg is filled with technical military jargon and detailed accounts of the fighting.


Map of Gettysburg, 1916

Map of Gettysburg, 1916
S.A. Hammond, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Printed by John T. Palmer Co.

In the decades following the Civil War, it was the battles, not the social issues of the war, that fascinated much of the general public, including Hotchkiss students and faculty, who poured over these battles in often excruciating detail. The Battle of Gettysburg was important enough to have this map commissioned by the government, specifically under the authority of Newton Baker, Secretary of War under Woodrow Wilson, and the Gettysburg National Park Commission. The map, visual representation of the military fascination, finds its literary counterparts in Huber Buehler’s lecture on the Battle of Gettysburg and Michael Jacobs’s The Rebel Invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania and the Battle of Gettysburg, both of which examine with precision the military movements of Battle of Gettysburg.


Gettysburg Address

Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Typeface designed by W.A. Dwiggins, 1908
From Hotchkiss Archives & Special Collections

The Gettysburg Address was a hallmark of the Lower Mid curriculum from 1907 to 1919.  In 1909, two years before the centennial of Lincoln's birth, Hotchkiss began to incorporate Lincoln readings into its curriculum.  During Huber Buehler's tenure as headmaster, Hotchkiss students also read Lincoln's first inaugural address and various biographies or essays on Lincoln, including works by Carl Schurz, John Torrey Morse, Ida Tarbell, and Lord Godfrey Charnwood.  

Buehler also lectured on the Gettysburg Address, chronicling in great detail the events  leading up to and following Lincoln's three and a half minute speech.  He notes the general lack of enthusiasm for the Address when it was given and explains why "All the world now calls Lincoln's Gettysburg Address a masterpiece of oratory and a literary classic."


Reduction of Standing Lincoln Statue, 1887, cast c. 1910

Reduction of Standing Lincoln Statue, 1887,
cast c. 1910

Bronze with a wooden base, designed by architect
Stanford White (1863-1906)
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Cornish, New Hampshire
Gift of Homer Sawyer ’09

At twelve feet tall, the original Standing Lincoln looms large in Lincoln Park, Chicago. This reduction-- one of only twelve-- stands at 40 inches tall, is perhaps less imposing but it still captures the Lincoln Augustus Saint-Gaudens rendered in the original work. Lincoln stands with one foot forward, hand grasping his lapel, a figure of authority, an august statesman about to address his audience, his head bowed in a solemn, mournful dignity. A bald eagle spreads its wings on the chair behind Lincoln. There are small reminders of Lincoln’s common origins-- his rumpled vest, for instance-- but the statue, with all its stateliness and gravitas, remains a tribute to Lincoln the president.


Lincoln Seated, c. 1900, Frank Courter, Michigan

Lincoln Seated, c. 1900
Frank Courter, Michigan
Gift of Mr. & Mrs. John J. Lincoln, Given in honor
of their sons Jack Lincoln ’20 and Pem Lincoln ’31

 

Frank Courter painted this portrait of Abraham Lincoln around 1900, but it did not make its way to Hotchkiss until 1933 when George Van Santvoord was headmaster. Almost 70 years after Lincoln’s death, Lincoln remained a figure whose morality and

In 1861, Lincoln penned a letter to the parents of his close friend Elmer Ellsworth, a colonel in the Union army, after Ellsworth’s death in 1861. This booklet, published in 1916, contains a facsimile of that letter as well as an editorial comment and photographs of both Lincoln and Ellsworth. Lincoln memorabilia-- or Lincolniana-- like this booklet was highly coveted-- a reflection of great public interest in the president.

The editorial comments chronicles Lincoln’s friendship with Ellsworth and lavishly-- excessively-- praises the letter, saying, “This beautiful tribute is perhaps the most touching of all the letters written by Lincoln...few letters have ever been written that may compare with it.” The letter itself is little more than a simple paragraph in contrast to the description, yet this type of unrestrained reverence of Lincoln was commonplace. There is no mention of race, but the worship of Lincoln becomes almost religious; Buehler’s attitude towards Lincoln is markedly similar to this one.

dignity Van Santvoord felt would be beneficial to the boys and men of Hotchkiss. In a his June 1933 letter to John Lincoln thanking him for the gift, Van Santvoord wrote, “We would propose to hang it in the reception room where it will be visible to guests of the school and the masters will see it day by day as they go in there for coffee. In many respects I should like to have a place where it would be more definitely available for the boys to see, but at the present moment there does not seem to be any place where it can be adequately displayed...However, the place we have chosen is not far off their daily beat and I am sure the boys will be aware of its presence and appreciate very much having it.”


Hotchkiss Archives, Lincoln’s Ellsworth Letter, Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1965

Lincoln’s Ellsworth Letter
Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1965
First edition, printed privately by the Quill Club
of New York, 1916

In 1861, Lincoln penned a letter to the parents of his close friend Elmer Ellsworth, a colonel in the Union army, after Ellsworth’s death in 1861. This booklet, published in 1916, contains a facsimile of that letter as well as an editorial comment and photographs of both Lincoln and Ellsworth. Lincoln memorabilia-- or Lincolniana-- like this booklet was highly coveted-- a reflection of great public interest in the president.

The editorial comments chronicles Lincoln’s friendship with Ellsworth and lavishly-- excessively-- praises the letter, saying, “This beautiful tribute is perhaps the most touching of all the letters written by Lincoln...few letters have ever been written that may compare with it.” The letter itself is little more than a simple paragraph in contrast to the description, yet this type of unrestrained reverence of Lincoln was commonplace. There is no mention of race, but the worship of Lincoln becomes almost religious; Buehler’s attitude towards Lincoln is markedly similar to this one.


Huber G. Buhler

The American Songbag
Carl Sandburg, 1878-1967
First edition, published by Harcourt,
Brace & Company, Inc., 1927

Like Abraham Lincoln, Carl Sandburg grew up in the backwoods of the midwest. Although best known for his poetry, Sandburg spent 13 years-- from 1926 to 1939-- writing two biographies of Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. Lincoln does not appear as the elite, dignified statesman of the east. Sandburg instead explored the “vulgar, folksy, frontier side of Lincoln’s character,” the Lincoln of folklore, of the prairie, qualities which he found mirrored in himself.

In The American Songbag, a collection of American folksongs, Sandburg includes a section of songs, titled “Lincoln and the Hankses,” Lincoln presumably would have heard and sung during his early years in the midwest. Here Sandburg here perpetuates his vision of Lincoln-- the common man, the kind who sang along to folksongs-- a vision that also rang true for countless Americans.


Hotchkiss Archives, The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, 1866 Steel engraving, engraved by A.H. Ritchie

The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, 1866
Steel engraving, engraved by A.H. Ritchie after the painting by Frank Carpenter From Hotchkiss Archives and Special Collections

A certain duality to Lincoln’s image existed in the decades following the Civil War. The common, folksy Lincoln of Carl Sandburg and Vachel Lindsay was a Lincoln very different from the august, elite statesman Huber Buehler revered and Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculpted. As different as those versions of Lincoln are, neither of them, strikingly, allude to race. Never do we see Lincoln the Emancipator, not from Sandburg, not from Tarbell, not from Courter, defined by race or defined by the Emancipation Proclamation. Yet it is his role as the Great Emancipator for which Lincoln is most honored and remembered. It is the role that has defined him, his presidency, his legacy. While this version of Lincoln is, like the others, an over-simplification, it is the one that remains as America approaches the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln fought to preserve the Union, not to free the slaves. He was no great civil rights leader, but the Emancipation Proclamation, regardless of the motivation or intent behind it, undoubtedly altered the course of American history.


Hotchkiss Archives, Poem by Archibald MacLeish, 1892-1982

At the Lincoln Memorial
Poem by Archibald MacLeish, 1892-1982 Published in Collected Poems, 1917-1982, by Houghton Mifflin Co., 1985

Archibald MacLeish ’11 was asked to write a poem for the celebration commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. He read this poem at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC in September 1962. Written during the Civil Rights movement, “At the Lincoln Memorial” addresses race fairly directly, equating the stain of slavery to the “tarnished water” of the Potomac. About Lincoln he writes:

“Emancipates— but not the slaves,
The Union— not from servitude but shame:
Whose infamy dishonored Even the great Founders in their graves...

He saves the Union and the dream goes on.”


While a student at Hotchkiss, MacLeish entered and won an essay contest for the best composition on Abraham Lincoln. He read his essay aloud in the chapel in February 1909 during Hotchkiss’s “Lincoln Exercises,” commemorating the centennial of Lincoln’s birth, alongside Buehler, Joseph Estill, a math teacher, and Thomas Lot Norton, treasurer to the Board of Trustees and a Salisbury native who served in the Connecticut 7th during the Civil War.