Events of Tuesday, August 24, 2010

          Today, we explored the Land of Lincoln at its best: Springfield, Illinois. We first went to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, where we kids became History Detectives for the day. We explored different exhibits on Lincoln’s youth in the legendary log cabin, then all the elements of his courting experiences and early political career. We learned that he was our country’s first bearded president. Also, near the end of this exhibit was a creative and imaginative reenactment of what the political campaign of 1860 might have looked like if they had television back then. Next, we took in one of the museum’s two movies, in which there were three large screens, giving us a panoramic view of the movie, which involved many different screens and separate projections. It was very complex, but it was also very well done. The program was called “Lincoln’s Eyes”, and it was narrated by an artist, commissioned to paint a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. He told us of the sorrows and joys that one could read in Lincoln’s face, of all the things that passed in his life and especially in his presidency. When a battle scene showed on the screens, holes in the sides of the walls released steam, while cannons boomed and our chairs vibrated. It was so very surreal!

          After that wonderful experience, we toured the exhibits about Lincoln’s White House years, the challenges Mary Todd Lincoln faced in society and the criticisms Lincoln received for every single thing he did – or didn’t do. This particular part of the museum, called The Whispering Gallery, featured all the political cartoons of the era regarding Lincoln, placed in oddly shaped and angled frames on walls which were also convoluted. Meanwhile, all around, we heard the voices of people criticizing Lincoln, his wife, his children, his actions, his appearance. Abby was afraid to walk through it alone, because it was so disorienting and intense. Then we toured the kitchen, the Cabinet meeting room (in which a live man stood dressed similar to his six or seven mannequin companions and scared the wits out of Lindsey), and an overwhelming hallway of people shouting their opinions of Lincoln at us as we walked past. Then there were the stories of the soldiers, the statistics of the Civil War, the battles, the heroes, the legends. Everything was so well-organized and presented in a manner which made sense and which was intriguing and interesting to discover. There was a four-minute visual presentation of the Civil War where each second represented a week in the war. Here, we watched as the line between North and South weaved back and forth across the map as the casualty numbers for each side went up and up and up and the timeline slowly progressed from 1861 to 1865. I never knew that the North managed to divide the South into three sections until I watched that movie, and it never could have been explained to me so clearly. After that was Victory Hall, in which a series of paintings highlighted the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, the end of the Civil War, the last speech Lincoln gave out of his second-story window of the White House as celebrating people swarmed the streets. The next room was a replica of Ford’s Theatre, and then there was a room with a replica of Lincoln’s royally decorated coffin in the center, with sentimental music playing all around.

          Then came the Treasury Room, in which we saw Lincoln’s actual beaver skin hat, size 7 1/8, with two fingerprints on the rim and a thumbprint on the underside, left from where he touched it when he tipped his hat to ladies on the streets, and the pair of white leather gloves (used for handshaking) that were in his left pocket when he was shot at Ford’s Theatre. Among other significant artifacts there, we saw the original Gettysburg Address, written in Lincoln’s own hand. It was the copy President Lincoln made for the man who gave the two-hour long speech (which no one can remember) before Lincoln’s world-famous speech and later asked Lincoln to give him a copy. It was in this draft that Lincoln added the two words “under God,” which were not in the first draft, the one he read at Gettysburg. (Later, the lady at the desk informed us that we were lucky to have seen that artifact, as it was only on display from July to November and would then go back into the vault for another year. It needs to be kept in darkness for so many months out of the year to extend its preservation. The Traveling Taylors had perfect timing again!)

          Next, we watched the museum’s second movie, “Ghosts of the Library”, an eerie presentation which involved holograms and people and objects appearing and disappearing. After next spending some time in Mrs. Lincoln’s Attic and trying out the children’s games of the time period, we headed out to Harvey to have lunch. Once adequately nourished, we ventured out into Springfield once more, to visit the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once served in the House of Representatives, the First Presbyterian Church, where Lincoln and his family owned a pew and sporadically attended church, the bank where Lincoln once stored his money, and the post office above which he studied and practiced law as an attorney. My favorite was the church, because of the beautiful stained glass windows there. These special windows were called Tiffany windows, because of the company that manufactured the glass and the windows themselves. The glass artists used a technique unique to Tiffany windows, called folding glass, which creates a realistic-looking draped robe or cape. Also we learned that the glass was only stained, not painted as some of the other stained glass windows in the church were. These stained glass windows really were a work of art. They had not been in place while the Lincoln family was attending the church, but they were so gorgeous and well-done that we gaped at them for a good half-hour before heading back to Harvey. 

          On the way back we read a few signs and danced through the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, which really didn’t have much of interest. We next drove to the Lincoln Tomb and prepared and relished a delicious dinner of pan-fried catfish, white rice, sweet corn, and fudge, peanut brittle, and molasses sticks for dessert. After we cleaned up, we went outside and walked around the tomb, and then found our seats to watch the 114th Regiment of Illinois reenact the flag retreat. There were a few ladies in old-fashioned garb passing out raffle tickets for a drawing, the winner of which would receive the flag that had flown over the tomb for the past week. We didn’t win the prize, but the gun salute was pretty cool, as were the musicians. After the ceremony, we passed through the tomb and then got back into Harvey and drove through the rest of the cemetery and then back to our campsite for the night, where we kids saw fireflies for the first time ever. They were beautiful.