All Things Lincoln

After enjoying our time at the FamCamp at Scott AFB, it was on to Springfield to visit “All Things Lincoln”. What a great couple of days we had, despite the rain (we’re becoming accustomed to rain in the mid-west). Once we settled into our campground outside the city, we headed into Springfield to visit the Old State Capitol (and the new). It was inspiring to stand outside the one-time Illinois Supreme Court room, imagining a younger Abe Lincoln arguing a case; he appeared as council 175 times before the Illinois Supreme Court! He also served briefly in the Illinois legislature – there was a stove-pipe hat sitting at his former desk. Later, after his assassination, his body laid in state in that very same chamber, under the picture of George Washington that still remains. The new Capitol, built in the late 1800s, was so much more elaborate and spacious, but its halls were still haunted by the presence of Abraham Lincoln.

Friday was our long day. We drove up to Bloomington, about an hour away. En route, we stopped at Funk’s Grove to sample (and buy) some maple sirup.

Next up was Lew’s Alma Mater, Illinois Wesleyan University. I had never been there, in all our years together, so it was great for me to get a look at where he hung out for the five years before I knew him! The rain held off and we were able to walk around the campus, see how much it had changed in 50-some years, and enjoy a relaxing, somewhat nostalgic (for Lew) time together.

On our way back we took a slight detour to New Salem. This town, restored to its original appearance, is where Lincoln lived for six years before moving to Springfield. This was Lew’s favorite part of the “Lincoln Experience”. We could walk around this 18^th century village and feel what it must have been like for this 20-year old, trying to find his way in the world. His neighbors (re-enactors) were impressed that he spent all his free time reading, an indication of his prodigious curiosity. They explained to us that he basically taught himself to read, having had less than one year of formal schooling when he was 6. We saw the general store he tried and failed to maintain and learned how the years in New Salem were formative years for Abe Lincoln, affecting the man he was to become. One example – he witnessed a slave market in New Orleans shortly before settling in New Salem and the experience had a profound affect on his ideas about slavery and Negro rights.

Back in Springfield, we stopped at the Lincoln Tomb. In life he had been vilified, but in death he was deified. The tomb is a superb memorial to one of the greatest presidents the country has known (some say the greatest). Visiting inside the tomb was a meaningful experience. I was filled with such a sense of loss, of what his death meant to this country and how history may have been different if he had lived.

On Saturday, in the rain, we finally visited the Lincoln Library/Museum. This was my favorite part of the experience. This museum was very different than those we’ve seen for the more modern Presidents. In two separate “journeys” you walked through life-size dioramas depicting different stages of his life – his pre-presidential years and the White House years. This was not just an intellectual experience, it was visceral: you look into the log cabin in which Lincoln was born (in Kentucky) and later homesteads in Indiana and Illinois. You read about his life, of course, but you also feel what it was like to read by fire light or work hard splitting rails or to lose your mother at age 7.  

You see the horrors of slavery at the Slave auction and you watch the 1860 election play out on TV like a modern election. The entire museum, I believe, was designed to immerse the visitor in HIS life, how he might have experienced it.

  

In The White House Journey, one section had a particularly significant impact on me; Lincoln was explaining his decision to make the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. You walk through the cabinet room and you hear the life size Secretaries arguing for and against, a mind-boggling chorus, knowing that Lincoln, too, listened to the arguments, weighed them, fought with them. And then through the Whispering Gallery with hologram faces you experience a cacophony of sound, gossiping Washingtonians saying brutally unkind words about the President, complaining about and/or praising just about any decision he had to make about the war, about slavery, about everything. I could understand why he aged so much during those 5 long years.

Speaking of aging, in a theater performance entitled “Lincoln’s Eyes” the visitor is introduced to the artist who struggled over the years to capture the sorrow, hope, vision, resolve, and forgiveness one can see just by looking at Lincoln’s eyes. Very powerful.

But the part that fascinated me the most was a performance called “Ghosts of the Library”. Basically it asks, why save all this old stuff, anyway? Why have a library? None of the other presidential libraries we visited actually addressed the “library” part of the building, other than to say it was there for researchers and historians. But here, through a dramatic special-effects presentation – using holographic technology – everyone learns about the archival mission of the library to preserve not just the history of Lincoln, but all the people, places, and things of that time. Very unique, very fun, very educational. We thoroughly enjoyed All Things Lincoln .