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The Grand Peace Overture to “Our Wayward Sisters”
...their editorial drums. Greeley wrote Lincoln, beseeching the President to authorize him to enter peace negotiations at Niagara Falls. Lincoln complied, provided that the Confederates committed up front to restoration...
The Union Christmas Dinner
...right completed the allegorical imagery. If the Confederacy would lay down its arms, surrender unconditionally and be contrite, the Union — with Lincoln as its dominant forgiving father — would...
President Lincoln Entering Richmond, April 4, 1865
Harper’s Weekly – February 24, 1866 April 2, 1865 saw the successful end of the ten-month siege of Petersburg, the gateway to Richmond, as General Ulysses Grant completed his encirclement...
Civil Service Reform
...of jobs and political offices in return for votes and money. The complementary necessity was political assessments on the patronage recipients, essential for funding the electoral machinery that kept their...
In Memoriam — Our Civil Service as It Was
...a Commission to recommend changes. Grant included them in his December 1871 message to Congress but Congress didn’t act. In 1877, Curtis was close to President Rutherford Hayes and expected...
The Prospect in New York
...bribe state officials, who would determine election counts and winners. The only factual inaccuracy was that the bribe money would not come from Tilden but from his Democratic associates. The...
Barnum’s New “What Is It”
...his fulcrum, “What is It?” referred to an 1859 humbug exhibit at Barnum’s American Museum. The candidate’s white coat served as a billboard for his coalition’s conflicting views on trade,...
Apollo Amusing the Gods (extract)
...a man. At a Yale commencement dinner earlier that summer, Brown reportedly got so drunk that he buttered his watermelon. In a post-election cartoon with 25 recognizable characters in it,...
“We Are on the Home Stretch.” — New York Tribune, October 9, 1872
...foreseen, and its cleverness made it among the most controversial images of the campaign. Responding to Reid’s bravado statement about the home stretch, the Times commented: “True. H.G. is going...
Benjamin Butler
...in the Weekly). His cock-eye, unethical if never-quite-proved dealings, autocratic and sometimes chameleon-like behavior, and frequent failures, made him a caricaturist’s dream come true. He led the charge in the...