The Joys of Research: by Warren Bull

 

Image by Caleb Fisher on Unsplash

Hello, old friend, AKA The Joys of Research by Warren Bull

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a geek. Anyone who is not of the opinion that I am a geek should be fully convinced that I am after reading this blog.

I purchased a book on Abraham Lincoln addressing an aspect of the man I knew little about. To Address You as My Friend: African Americans’ Letters to Abraham Lincoln was edited by Jonathan W. White and published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2011.  As the title suggests it is a collection of letters to Lincoln by Black Americans selected by the editor to reflect the range of issues in their lives they decided to write the President about.  Most of the more than 120 letters have never been published and it is far from comprehensive. 

It's impossible to know which letters reached Lincoln and how or if he responded to the letters that did. I intend to read them at my leisure and think about the lives of enslaved and free Blacks around the time of the Civil War. 

What struck me shortly after I opened the book was the sensation of familiarity. In the letter described in the Prologue, William De Florville [spelling of this name varies widely] wrote his old friend in the White House. In the missive dated December 27th, 1863 De Florville offered sympathy for the death of Willie Lincoln, news of Springfield, including how Fido, the dog, was getting along, praise for the Emancipation Proclamation, and encouragement for his friend to run for re-election to the presidency.  

That letter has been published. I read it and referred to it in my Abraham Lincoln: Seldom Told Stories. My feeling was like seeing an old friend. I knew about the long friendship between the self-described “Billy the Barber” and his attorney. I also knew, from my research about other people mentioned in the prologue. I was acquainted with William H. Herndon. Lincoln’s law partner and his long feud with Mary Todd Lincoln. I also knew the history of Elizabeth Keckly [another name spelled variously] a former slave who wrote about Lincoln’s grief at the loss of his son with such clarity that racists later insisted she could not possibly have written so well on her own — no former slave could. Dr. Merriman was mentioned. He testified in the trial of the Trailor brothers who Lincoln defended on a murder charge before Merriman helped De Florville open his barbershop. He’s in my Abraham Lincoln for the Defense.

At other times I have happened by chance upon mention of people I wrote about based on the historical records I could find. I was happy to see that my best guesses about them proved to be correct. 

It is no doubt a geeky sort of pleasure, perhaps reserved for those of us who research.