You're welcome, NKP Guy, and Wanswheel thanks for the Straus Memorial Park posting!
Just a thought on the Civil War...
There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the Civil War, but to me the paramount lessonis this:
All societies everywhere are going to be faced with difficult problems, problems that ARE going to be solved one way or another. The problems can and should be recognized early, and then through give and take and compromise solutions acceptable to all can be reached. Or, the solutions can be put off year after year until the problems HAVE to be solved with solutions acceptable to no one because there's no other choice.
The US had it's problems in the mid 19th Century. Slavery was certainly one of them, so was the "States Rights" question, (just WHO is the ultimate authority here in the US as far a domestic issues are concerned, the Federal government or the state governments?), the tariff issues, even the route of the proposed transcontinental railroad.
Well, all these problems were certainly solved by the Civil War, but was it worth the cost? Somehow I don't think so. There just HAD to be another way.
"Poor, poor silly people!" as Gulliver said.
Thank you, Firelock76 for your posting. I was moved, as you were, by Rabbi Schulman's comments about Abraham Lincoln. It does seem that with 620,000 deaths during the Civil War, (a monthly average of 12,917 lives!), it was only fitting that the Commander-in-Chief be numbered among that host of men. Even the Lincoln family, like nearly every other household in the country, was called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice for their, and our, nation.
My God! What a price our country paid for slavery and the politicians' unwillingness to confront it. Too bad the United States government was (and would be today in a similar situation) unable to take Ralph Waldo Emerson's advice and simply purchase the freedom of all the slaves in the country. When Emerson proposed this the estimated cost of freeing the slaves was $4 billion, and no one could imagine spending that much money to solve a national problem and approaching crisis, nor was there the will to do so.
Now, just think: besides those 620,000 lives, what did the Civil War finally wind up costing? And don't forget the pensions. It turned out that Emerson was right by a long shot (as he nearly always was).
The Strausses: I first learned about them in 1957 or so by reading Walter Lord's book. Even then they struck me as a model of mature adult behavior and deep marital love. I always look at the plaque to them when I walk past Macy's on 34th Street.
Thanks again for mentioning Abraham Lincoln the the Strausses.
This discussion of the Lincoln funeral commemorations reminded me of something...
On April 20 1912, speaking at a memorial service for Isador and Ida Straus, both lost on the "Titanic", Rabbi Samuel Schulman tried to address the old question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" The Straus' were VERY good people, well known and beloved for their philanthropic work in New York City. Rabbi Schulman referenced Abraham Lincoln, and recall in 1912 there were quite a few people still living who remembered Lincoln and the Civil War years.
Rabbi Schulman said this...
"God's ways are not our ways. Therefore we should not attempt to define His motive in the tragic end of a great person. God sometimes, in His infinite wisdom. selects a man to designate that his life may be remembered by all mankind. At the conclusion of the Civil War it seemed to everyone that the life of Abraham Lincoln was complete. His work, a great work, had been accomplished. Yet God saw one thing lacking. To perpetuate through the annals of time itself, one thing was essential. And God designated him and made a martyr of him."
Isn't that something?
And by the way, all us "Titanic" junkies remember Isador (NO! I will NOT go before the other men!) and Ida (Whither Thou goest, I will go!) Straus.
It's incredible to me that 150 years after the death of the greatest US President, that we Americans should have it flung in our face that some unrepentant, unreconstructed rebel-types have an "attitude toward President Lincoln." Why? Because he saved the Union and therefore the country? Because he managed to set the stage to abolish slavery? Because he was a greater person and President than we deserved? Shame on them and their ilk.
Let those who would flaunt rebel flags and hide behind that hoary "states rights" theory, those who have "an attitude toward President Lincoln," remember the words of a great Civil War song, "...down with the traitor, up with the star."
Thank goodness for patriots and railfans like Mr. Kloke.
The previous writer apparently is not aware of the attitude toward Abraham Lincoln in parts of the country south of the Ohio River.
Wanswheel,
Thank you for giving us the funeral poem of Walt Whitman written for Lincoln's death. The Lilacs commemorate the nation as it mourned, that people brought them everywhere Lincoln's body was taken from the funeral coach and "Laid In State" as it traveled across the country.
Trains Magazine should have included some of this history as well as the lines of the poem in their June 2015 article on the Lincoln Funeral Car revival. Also, I guess Promentary Point and the Golden Spike deserve a more heroic recognition by our Federal Govenment!
The Lincoln Funeral was one of the heart breaking conclusions to the American Civil War and the grief, along with the deaths of so many soldiers on the battlefield and the loss of so much property colored the heart of the nation for generations. How many years did mothers set an empty chair at the table in rememberance of their lost sons.
"The muffled drum's sad roll has beat - the soldiers last tatoo; no more on life's parade shall meet that brave and falled few. On fames eternal camping-ground their silent tents are spread and glory guards, with solemn round, the bivouac of the dead.
Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! Dear as the blood ye gave; no impious footstep here shall tread the heritage of your grave; nor shall your glory be forgot while fame her record keeps. Or honor points the hallowed spot where valor proudly sleeps."
Save for committed patriot, David Kloke I think the nation would have forgotten the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's Death. Lets hope Trains Magazine gives us some coverage besides the detailed story on the recreation of the funeral car. How un-heroic to put this funeral car on a truck and haul it around the country - it should be pulled by vintage steam engine on the same track route it originally traveled. CSX and Norfolk and Southern could loose a "buck" doing this in rememberance of the nation they serve.
The greatness of President Abraham Lincoln needs recognition as does his tragic death and his guiding hand across an age of tragedy that beset America. This was the price he paid for the work of re-uniting the nation and it was a monumental life accomplishment.
We owe him more than just being on the five buck bill!
Doc
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, And thought of him I love.
O powerful western fallen star! O shades of night—O moody, tearful night! O great star disappear'd—O the black murk that hides the star! O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me! O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.
In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd palings, Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard, With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig with its flower I break.
In the swamp in secluded recesses, A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song.
Solitary the thrush, The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, Sings by himself a song.
Song of the bleeding throat, Death's outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know, If thou wast not granted to sing thou wouldst surely die.)
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep'd from the ground, spotting the gray debris, Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the endless grass, Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprisen, Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards, Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, Night and day journeys a coffin.
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inloop'd flags with the cities draped in black, With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil'd women standing, With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the night, With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and the unbared heads, With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces, With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn, With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour'd around the coffin, The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—where amid these you journey, With the tolling tolling bells' perpetual clang, Here, coffin that slowly passes, I give you my sprig of lilac.
(Nor for you, for one alone, Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring, For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O sane and sacred death.
All over bouquets of roses, O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies, But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first, Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes, With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, For you and the coffins all of you O death.)
O western orb sailing the heaven, Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walk'd, As I walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night, As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night after night, As you droop'd from the sky low down as if to my side, (while the other stars all look'd on,) As we wander'd together the solemn night, (for something I know not what kept me from sleep,) As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how full you were of woe, As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool transparent night, As I watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in the netherward black of the night, As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb, Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.
Sing on there in the swamp, O singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call, I hear, I come presently, I understand you, But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detain'd me, The star my departing comrade holds and detains me.
O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved? And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone? And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?
Sea-winds blown from east and west, Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till there on the prairies meeting, These and with these and the breath of my chant, I'll perfume the grave of him I love.
O what shall I hang on the chamber walls? And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls, To adorn the burial-house of him I love? Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes, With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright, With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air, With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific, In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there, With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows, And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys, And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.
Lo, body and soul—this land, My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships, The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the light, Ohio's shores and flashing Missouri, And ever the far-spreading prairies cover'd with grass and corn.
Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty, The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes, The gentle soft-born measureless light, The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon, The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars, Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.
Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird, Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the bushes, Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.
Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song, Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.
O liquid and free and tender! O wild and loose to my soul—O wondrous singer! You only I hear—yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,) Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me.
Now while I sat in the day and look'd forth, In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and the farmers preparing their crops, In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and forests, In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb'd winds and the storms,) Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of children and women, The many-moving sea-tides, and I saw the ships how they sail'd, And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor, And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages, And the streets how their throbbings throbb'd, and the cities pent— lo, then and there, Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with the rest, Appear'd the cloud, appear'd the long black trail, And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of death.
Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me, And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me, And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the hands of companions, I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not, Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness, To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.
And the singer so shy to the rest receiv'd me, The gray-brown bird I know receiv'd us comrades three, And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love.
From deep secluded recesses, From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still, Came the carol of the bird.
And the charm of the carol rapt me, As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night, And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird.
Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death.
Prais'd be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.
Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.
Approach strong deliveress, When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead, Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.
From me to thee glad serenades, Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee, And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread shy are fitting, And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.
The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.
Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide, Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.
To the tally of my soul, Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird, With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night.
Loud in the pines and cedars dim, Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume, And I with my comrades there in the night.
While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, As to long panoramas of visions.
And I saw askant the armies, I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc'd with missiles I saw them, And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and bloody, And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,) And the staffs all splinter'd and broken.
I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, But I saw they were not as was thought, They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer'd not, The living remain'd and suffer'd, the mother suffer'd, And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer'd, And the armies that remain'd suffer'd.
wanswheel Sunday afternoon on C-SPAN 3 Live coverage at 2:30 pm ET of a procession with more than 1,000 reenactors arriving at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. Richard E. Hart, author of "Lincoln's Springfield: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln May 3rd and 4th, 1865" will describe the eight divisions of the procession as it passes by. Live coverage from 4 pm to 5:30 pm ET of the funeral re-creation near Lincoln's receiving vault, including the eulogy, speeches, musical performances, and 36-cannon salute from the 1865 service. http://www.c-span.org/video/?325631-1/discussion-president-lincoln
Sunday afternoon on C-SPAN 3
Live coverage at 2:30 pm ET of a procession with more than 1,000 reenactors arriving at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. Richard E. Hart, author of "Lincoln's Springfield: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln May 3rd and 4th, 1865" will describe the eight divisions of the procession as it passes by.
Live coverage from 4 pm to 5:30 pm ET of the funeral re-creation near Lincoln's receiving vault, including the eulogy, speeches, musical performances, and 36-cannon salute from the 1865 service.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?325631-1/discussion-president-lincoln
I remember several years ago when CSPAN broadcast the recreation of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The verbage used in those days wasn't politically correct from the viewpoint of the 21st century.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I hope they give credit to Tombstone, Arizona, where the carriage was constructed by the Tombstone Hearse and Carriage Company.
The Lincoln Funeral Car is headed to Springfield Illinois for this weekends Lincoln Funeral reenactment. Lincoln Funeral Car
Don't miss our Live Broadcast from The Lincoln Funeral Reenactment this weekend. 9:00AM Saturday May 2 Watch as Mr. Lincolns coffin is unloaded from The Lincoln Funeral car and placed on the horse drawn hearse. The Hearse will transport the coffin to The Old State House for an all night candlelight vigil. Saturday after noon (5:30PM) Railyard Production will again broadcast as we walk through The Lincoln Funeral car. Sunday morning we will broadcast several time's throughout the day starting at 9:00AM as the funeral proceeds to Oak Ridge Cemetery. Around 4:30 there will be a 36 cannon salute to end the ceremony. Follow us
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