He Died Again this Morning: and No One Noticed.
I recently listed my top 25 books about all things Civil War and included one on the list that I had just discovered, but hadn't yet finished. I read the last few pages of Reveille in Washington (by Margaret Leech) this morning and report it is still on the list and is now firmly entrenched among my favorites. It is an engaging book.
The last several chapters describe the Capital during the final days of the war, Lincoln's death, the fear felt in Washington and the Stanton-inspired Federal conspiracy that followed Lincoln's martyrdom—a conspiracy to catch and punish conspirators.
Leech captured and conveyed to me the commotion, fear, sorrow and confusion that followed the president's death. Reading about the end of Lincoln's life is always a sad, emotional process; especially when it's prefaced by all he did and all he suffered from at least the moment he approached Washington as president-elect. He sneaked into Washington unexpectedly early and virtually disguised. But by the end, Lincoln didn't seem overly concerned about his personal safety. He had that now-famous dream of his own demise and held a personal conviction that he would be assassinated, but it doesn't appear that he let concern for his death rule or distract him. His open ride through Richmond just after the Federals took the town and just days before his death is witness enough to his lack of (or control of) personal fear.
The book described him as old at 56, weighed down by sorrow and the stress of four years of unrelenting war. I always find it's almost a relief (if it's ever in good taste to admit) when he dies, after so much difficulty. He has given everything, worn himself prematurely old; doesn't he deserve a respite of peace. He certainly wouldn't have had peace had he stayed on the job trying to manage the radical Republicans in their triumph. But he was so skilled at accomplishing good among self-interested politicians that I'm always left wondering how much better it would have been if he had lingered to help us just a little longer. Cliched, yes, but true: he was the man for the hour. He grew to see the Divine hand in the war. I can't help but see and be grateful for the Divine hand placing him in unique circumstances that enabled him to be the president just when a divided and suffering country needed his perfectly suited singular capacities.
But I was saddened by something else as I finished the book. The physical book I was reading was an old, withdrawn circulating library copy. The only publication date I could find in it was 1941, and it had been in a university library for at least the last couple of decades. As I read the book, I imagined thousands of hands flipping voraciously page after page; hundreds of minds enthralled by it stories; a wide-variety of expressions on countless faces as readers discovered its treasures. The thick, luxurious-feeling, ragged-cut pages were browned with age; the back was nearly broken. Surely it had enriched many lives. But, apparently, not so.
As I approached the end of the book last night, I discovered several pages that had not been fully cut in the binding process—they were still attached to one another and could not be read until cut apart. How could this be? The obvious answer? No one ever read this copy. In my mind's eye, I can see it on the bookshelf surrounded by other books on similar topics, and many on the dissimilar. People approach, choosing other books or take no book at all and are simply passing on their way to some urgent appointment. An elevating treasure is left unclaimed.
Contemporary culture discourages us from elevating our lives (other than getting rich–if that is in any way life elevation). Current culture often encourages us to seek for the base in ourselves and others. With such a powerful force around us, how many uplifting treasures are there out there that we pass by without noticing because we're told not to look for or at them?
With such little time given to us in life, I'm convinced we'd find more happiness bucking the downward pressure of popular culture and spending our lives searching for the uplifting and the enlivening because . . . we'd find them.
