How Lincoln Received the Nomination
How Lincoln Received the Nomination—When the news of Lincoln’s nomination reached Springfield, his friends were greatly excited, and hastened to inform “Old Abe” of it. He could not be found at his office or at home, but after some minutes the messenger discovered him out in a field with a parcel of boys, having a pleasant game of town ball. All his comrades immediately threw up their hats and commenced to hurrah. Abe grinned considerably, scratched his head and said, “Go on boys; don’t let such nonsense spoil a good game.” The boys did go on with their bawling, but not with the game of ball.
The above account was widely printed in newspaper in June of 1860. Here is a later version of the same story, this time from America’s National Game, Albert Spalding’s book from 1911:
It is recorded that in the year 1860, when the Committee of the Chicago Convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency visited his home at Springfield, Illinois, to notify him formally of the event, the messenger sent to apprise him of the coming of the visitors found the great leader out on the commons, engaged in a game of Base Ball. Information of the arrival of the party was imparted to Mr. Lincoln on the ball field.
“Tell the gentlemen,” he said, “that I am glad to know of their coming; but they’ll have to wait a few minutes till I make another base hit.”
complete with illustration:
I am enchanted by this story: not only because it involves baseball, but because it is a beautiful example of Political Bullshit–from Honest Abe’s campaign, no less!.
First, we have to look at what was “town ball,” which Spalding later improved to “Base Ball.” It simply was a regional term for baseball. “Town ball” was the normal name for the game in Pennsylvania and the Ohio River Valley and the South. “Base ball” was the normal name in New York state and the Great Lakes region, and shared linguistic space with “round ball” in New England. Today we call the game “baseball” because the modern form is the direct descendant of the version played in New York City in the 1840s. Had the version played in Philadelphia prevailed we would call it “townball” and I would be writing essays explaining what the obscure term “base ball” meant.
The New York version had begun spreading across the country by 1860, but outside of its home region it was mostly played in the large cities. Out in the sticks in places like Springfield, Illinois, the traditional local versions still prevailed. So when the newspaper piece from 1860 has Lincoln playing “town ball” this is not the bullshit element. Spalding spread that around because by 1911 “town ball” was an obscure term, and because he wanted to link Organized Baseball in its glory to The Great Emancipator.
The idea of Lincoln playing town ball is not implausible. After Lincoln’s assassination, William Herndon, his law partner, gathered accounts of his life from the people who had known him. This was in turn used as source material for Herndon’s biography of Lincoln. These accounts were saved, and have been published in a modern scholarly edition. They include reports of Lincoln’s athleticism and enjoyment of sport. So if someone makes an otherwise credible claim that Lincoln played town ball, the claim in not implausible on its face. There is an account from 1900 by Frank Blair, grandson of Lincoln’s Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, 1 recounting how Lincoln would visit Blair’s country estate in Silver Spring:
We boys, for hours at a time, played “town ball” on the vast lawn, and Mr. Lincoln would join ardently in the sport. I remember vividly how he ran with the children; how long were his strides, and how far his coat-tails stuck out behind, and how we tried to hit him with the ball, as he ran the bases. He entered into the spirit of the play as completely as any of us, and we invariably hailed his coming with delight.
This smells of having been improved some, but I don’t reject the notion that Lincoln would unwind by playing ball with kids.
The reason I write that the nomination story was Political Bullshit is that we know how Lincoln spent that day. There are several accounts recorded in Herndon’s notes. Lincoln was doing pretty much what you would expect under the circumstances: hanging around the telegraph office pestering the clerk for news.
I can’t prove it, but everything abut this screams that the story was planted by his campaign. It presents Lincoln not as anxiously awaiting word of his nomination, much less as having any vulgar lust for political office. He is, rather, a man of the people, spending his spare time in innocent boyish diversion. You know, just like Hillary and The Donald.
I love how this example of 1860 Political Bullshit was repurposed by Spalding a half century later as Patriotic Baseball Bullshit. This was just a few years after Spalding had “discovered,” to his delight, that baseball had been invented by a future Civil War general. In both cases the lesson is clear: spending money going to a baseball game was a patriotic act. (The modern equivalent is the air force flyover and the special forces guys parachuting into center field before the game.) You can still find both stories repeated as true: gifts that keep on giving.
Montgomery Clift was gay. I suppose he could have still had sex with Elizabeth Taylor though.
Great piece thoughReport
I’m straight, but if I ever get a shot at Rosemary Clooney’s nephew, I’m taking it.Report
Excellent post. Lincoln loved the telegraph, definitely, and he genuinely liked the mechanics of politics. So I can’t imagine he played much ball during the day. (I think I’ve read that he might have in the morning…)Report
Regarding that morning, I don’t believe it. This smacks of someone trying to salvage the story by finding a gap in his known schedule, and assigning the ball game to it. There is a thriving tradition of trying to associate Lincoln with baseball. The sad fact is that the first president known to have attended a baseball game was Andrew Johnson. This is clearly unacceptable, hence the push back to Lincoln. These attempts include taking an actual game account, filing off the date, and assigning it to the Lincoln administration. Who is going to go back and check? (Answer: Me.)Report
There’s also Lincoln’s reputation (which some people embellish on) that he far preferred socialization with all male groupings of people.Report
Which is not fair. He had deep care and affection for his wife and given the presence of children from the marriage there is good reason to believe he “performed his husbandly duties.”
A compromise is possible and again, baseball shows the way. Some players bat left-handed. Some bat right-handed. This is not the universe of available options.Report
I deeply loved this cocktail of history, Baseball Bullshit, Political Bullshit, and dry wit. An unalloyed delight.
Keep ’em coming, @richard-hershberger .Report
Totally in agreement!Report
I enjoyed reading this and having read a lot of Lincoln books have never come across any discussion of him playing ball, but your judgments seem sound.
“Out in the sticks in places like Springfield, Illinois, the traditional local versions still prevailed.”
Springfield was largely settled from the Upper South, particularly from Northern Kentucky, so if the sport was called “town ball” in the Ohio River valley, that’s most likely what it would be called in Springfield.
It was a rapidly urbanizing city when Lincoln arrived, but the gender ratios were heavily skewed to the male-side as one would expect in a frontier area. As a result, it was dominated by male youth culture where men remained single into their mid 30s. The young men hung-out together, arguing politics, telling stories and playing games, including sports and contests of strength and skill. Lincoln certainly enjoyed the comradery, and if ball was played at that time, its hard to imagine he didn’t, unless there was alcohol involved.Report
Abe also had to work around his busy vampire hunting schedule.Report
I also note there are two different events being described. The first is when Lincoln first learned of the nomination, which as noted above, we know Lincoln learned of the nomination personally by telegraph. He was getting telegraphed after each round of voting, surrounded by friends, after which he went home.
A few days later, formal notification came by an official delegation, which was an organized meeting, which was itself preceded by an advance party to make arrangements. There are a number of accounts of these events, including whether Mary should be permitted to be present, and the anxious neighbors stocking the Lincoln household with alcohol for the notable guests, which upset Mary.
If there is some truth to the story, it is more likely that it happened when any number of politicians, and newspaper reporters came to Springfield to check-out Lincoln.Report
Except that the contemporary account is clear that this was breaking news. The delegation story is in the half-century-later version. I suppose that it is possible that Spalding changed the story to make it more plausible, but I doubt it. I think it is simply a garbled version.Report
OK, I see your point. What newspaper reported this? The standard account has him waiting at the Illinois State Journal (the Springfield Republican paper), waiting and commenting to others as developments at the convention arrive by telegraph. This is the standard account from Michael Burlingame’s Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Chapter 15):
There is certainly a feigned disinterest by this account similar in attitude to the ball story. But looking at the supporting footnote, I found this comment:
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Many, but none that I have seen that would have any plausible claim on original reporting of this. It was widely copied, as was typical at the time.Report
OK, I was just curious if was also traced to the Illinois Journal.
There is a posthumous interview conducted by Herndon of Lincoln’s neighbor James Gourley who said: “We played the old fashioned town ball — jumped — ran — fought & danced. Lincoln played town ball — he hopped well — in 3 hops he would go 40.2 on a dead level.”
He’s not making this comment in reference to any specific event; he was simply a next-door neighbor of 19 years reminiscing. It would be hard to imagine why he would simply make this up as opposed to sharing things he remembered.
I’ll stop my obsessing now. I had never heard of “town ball,” and was unaware that Lincoln would have played baseball, my favorite sport.Report
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I’ve found out till now. However, what concerning the bottom line?
Are you certain in regards to the source?Report
The source for the campaign squib is San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin of June 16, 1860. That is just the one I happened to pull it from. The item appeared widely.
The Spalding version of the story is from his book “America’s National Game” 1911 edition (1992 facsimile reprint) p. 361.
For what Lincoln was actually doing that day, see Douglas Wilson and Rodney Davis eds., “Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln”
The bit about Mongtomery Blair is from the 1900 bood by.Ida M. Tarbell, “The Life of Abraham Lincoln”
As for the interpretations, these are my own fevered imaginings. Take them for what they are worth.Report