INTRODUCTION
For one who thought so little of his own looks and was so often mocked for his appearance by others, Abraham Lincoln loved the camera. Lincoln sat for his first portrait in 1846 or 1847, a few short years after the invention of photographic portraiture, and repeated the experience over one hundred more times between then and 1865, the year he died.
Lincoln was not, by anyone’s account, a foolish or vain man but rather a shrewd and deeply purposeful one. He had had next to no formal schooling but was born with a hungry mind, read voraciously, and understood sooner than most the shape- changing import of the mechanical marvels with which the inventors of his day were expanding people’s horizons: the railroad, by dramatically shrinking travel times, redefining fast and far, and knitting the nation together in a strong and ultimately unbreakable web; the telegraph, by making the news of any given locale knowable everywhere in a matter of seconds or at most of minutes or hours; photography, by harnessing light and arresting time itself to capture strangely lifelike images of people and places.
Lincoln made brilliant use of all these new technologies in his climb from backwoods politician to the summit of the US presidency. Once there, he used them again to direct a far-flung war and begin the healing process for a divided Union. Although a spellbinding speaker, he let the photographs he posed for do much of his talking by showing himself to the world as a man of strength, conviction, humility, and compassion—and not the devil his enemies claimed.
In this detail of what is thought to be the first photo he ever posed for, from 1846 or 1847, Lincoln looks frozen stiff and perhaps ready to stretch his long legs.
But did photographs never lie? As Lincoln himself learned by patient trial and error, every photograph has a point of view, revealing some facets of its subject and missing or glossing over others. The strongest photographs possess the power to crowd out competing perspectives and become the version of reality that people remember.
As it happens, six of the photographic portraits of Abraham Lincoln that the world remembers best were made by the same photographer, Anthony Berger, on the same day, February 9, 1864.
This is the story of that day and one of those pictures.
1RIDER IN THE WOODS
Abraham Lincoln had his audience right where he wanted them: in the palm of his hand. A lone rider, he had told the roomful of newspaper editors, was picking his way along a narrow path in the Illinois woods. Poor fellow, Lincoln chuckled. He was “not possessed of features the ladies would call handsome.”
Just then, a woman approached on horseback from the opposite direction and the man reined back his horse to let her pass. He supposed a simple thank-you might be in order, but instead the woman spoke up sharply in complaint. “Well, for land sake,” she growled, “you are the homeliest man I ever saw.”
“Yes, madam,” replied the sorry fellow, “but I cannot help it.”
“No, I suppose not,” said the woman before riding on, “but you might stay at home.”
The year was 1856, and Lincoln, a well-regarded trial lawyer and former congressman, was speaking to a convention of Illinois newspaper editors, a powerful group whose support he would need should he run for office again one day. The editors roared with laughter at the oddball tale but were left wondering afterward: Had Lincoln himself been the man in the story? He might as well have been. Friends and foes alike never tired of making schoolyard fun of his strangely elongated, bony face and gangly, six foot four frame.
“Mr. Lincoln [is] the homeliest man I ever saw,” declared a lawyer and journalist who counted himself among Lincoln’s admirers. “His body,” Donn Piatt could not help adding, “[is like] … a huge skeleton in clothes.”
Poet Walt Whitman rarely lacked for words, and worshipped Lincoln, but found himself sputtering when confronted with the daunting task of writing an honest description of the man: “He has a face…,” Whitman ventured, “so awful ugly it becomes beautiful, with its strange mouth, its deep cut, crisscross lines, and its doughnut complexion.”
Lincoln’s enemies had far worse things to say, professing their outright disgust at the sight of him, calling Lincoln “altogether repulsive,” and likening the general impression he made to that of a “great baboon,” as much as to say that Lincoln might not even be fully human.
A Lincoln Timeline, 1809–1858
1809 Born February 12 at Sinking Spring Farm, LaRue County, Kentucky, the second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Sister Sarah is two years older.
1811–1816 The Lincolns move twice, resettling in rural Indiana.
1818 Mother dies of “milk sickness,” a kind of food poisoning.
1819 Father marries Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow with three children.
1824 Now in his teens, takes odd jobs to help support the family, attends school when possible, becomes an avid reader.
1827–1828 Works on and off as a ferryman and, during a trip down the Mississippi, is deeply disturbed on witnessing a New Orleans slave auction.
1830 The Lincolns move to Illinois. Makes first political speech on the topic of improvements needed for efficient river navigation.
1831 Works as a shop clerk. Falls in love with Ann Rutledge, who dies of typhus four years later.
1832 Runs for Illinois State assemblyman but loses the election. Joins the Illinois Militia, is voted regiment captain, but sees no action in the Black Hawk War.
1834 At age 24, becomes a member of the Illinois General Assembly, an office held through 1842. Takes up the study of law.
1837 Admitted to the Illinois Bar and begins twice-yearly rounds of state circuit courts. Moves to Springfield, the new Illinois state capital, and co-founds a law firm as his career as a trial lawyer flourishes.
Copyright © 2023 by Leonard S. Marcus