After the Session... 

Following the performance, Mike Kiernan conducts an informal workshop in which students may ask questions. He encourages discussion, especially about the following: 

The Dred Scott decision and Lincoln's response to it. This event, as with all historical events, must be viewed in the context of the time. Public perception of the decision became a reality. 

Scope of slavery. What if Kansas had become a slave state? 

Emancipation Proclamation as part of the war strategy. Repatriation of prisoners.  

Significance of the presidential campaign of 1864. 

How did W. T. Sherman justify taking the war to civilians?   

If drama students are involved, the discussion might center on the writing and acting techniques used. Literature students get an in-depth look at Benet passages. 

A sample of audience comments and questions after my performances: 

QUESTION: Did Ulysses S. Grant own slaves? 

ANSWER: Grant's family never owned slaves. He himself did not have any until he married Julia Dent. Her family lived an antebellum life style and considered themselves "plantation owners," even though their farm was in the St. Louis area.   Mrs. Grant owned four slaves whom she kept as house servants. It is not clear that she held title to them or if her father retained title.  There is evidence that they were freed in 1863. For a brief period in 1858-9  General Grant owned a field hand, mulatto named William Jones, who came from the Dent family.  General Grant gave the slave his papers of manumission on March 29, 1859. In his memoirs, Grant said, "It became patent to my mind early in the rebellion that the North and the South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and without slavery." 

(Bruce Starkey of Newton, MA sent me scurrying to William S.McFeely's Grant for this information. Thanks, Bruce.) 

QUESTION: Since you said that Dred Scott was the property of Mrs. Emerson, why was the Supreme Court case named "Scott v Sandford?" 

ANSWER: Dr. John Emerson of St. Louis purchased Dred Scott from the Peter Blow family around December 1833. Dr. Emerson was appointed assistant surgeon for the army of the United States in 1833. When Dr. Emerson died, his widow Mrs. Emerson inherited Scott. John F.A. Sanford (not Sandford) who was the brother of Mrs. Emerson was the executor of Dr. Emerson's estate. He handled Mrs. Emerson's financial affairs. As executor of the estate, Sanford had a relationship to the slave that was not too unlike that of an actual owner. 

For a comprehensive account of the Dred Scott case, read "Walter Ehrlich, They Have No Rights: Dred Scott's Struggle for Freedom" (1979)  

QUESTION: Where was the telegraph office that Lincoln regularly visited? Were the wires and telegrams similar to what we have today? 

ANSWER: The telegraph office was at the War Department next door to the White House at what is now the Old Executive Office Building. Ticker tape was not used then. Messages were hand scribed on to a form for distribution.  Lincoln did visit the War Department telegraph office routinely at night, but the story about the library paste is not true, nor does the author know if Lincoln had a pin knife.. It was created by this writer for dramatic effect. 

(Thanks to Don Markle, a Civil War communications researcher from Gettysburg for this information. He recommends reading "Lincoln in the Telegraph Office" by David Homer Bates.)  

QUESTION: Stephen Vincent Benet seems to have insights into the Civil War. Where did this come from? 

ANSWER: Benet did not live during the Civil War era. He was born July 22, 1898. He wrote John Brown's Body in 1927. His literary model was Walt Whitman. Benet was the son and grandson of career army officers. His grandfather, Brigadier General Stephen Vincent Benet, the first Floridian to graduate from West Point, remained with the Union and became the Army Chief of Ordinance. All of his young life, Benet wanted to serve in the army, but was extremely disappointed that his poor eyesight disqualified him for service in the First World War. He said, "the army had been bred in my very bones." He worked for the State Department in 1918 after graduating from Yale. 

Bruce Catton: "If he were forced to choose just one book about the Civil War, what would it be? Was there such a book? Yes, he said, there was; it was called John Brown's Body."; Richard Snow about Bruce Catton, American Heritage, October 1998. 

EDITOR'S QUESTION: In 1863, Congress voted a tenth seat on the Supreme Court. Who did Lincoln appoint to that seat? How many other appointments to the Supreme Court did Lincoln make during his administration? What were the names of the appointees? 

ANSWER: In 1863, Congress voted a tenth seat to the Supreme Court. Lincoln appointed Stephen Johnson Field to that seat. Other  Lincoln appointees were Noah Haynes, Samuel Miller, David Davis, and Samuel Porter Chase.

COMMENTS ON HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  The lizard story is found in Carl Sandburg's Lincoln - The Prairie Years.  Although,  the writer has substituted a Biblical scripture for the one used by Sandburg. Since Sandburg is known to have been inaccurate with many of his notations and references, the playwriter felt comfortable with the substitution, especially since he was unable to find in the Bible the scripture which Sandburg alleges was used by Lincoln.

Robert Lincoln's appointment to Grant's staff occurred sometime after that period which is depicted in the play.