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CHAPTER XXVIII.

Soon after the National Lincoln Monument Association was organized, it announced its intention to raise two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the purpose of building a monument to the memory of Abraham Lincoln. There was but one contribution made, the payment of which was dependent on the amount named being raised. The Legislature of the State of New York, at its first or second session, after the Association was organized, appropriated ten thousand dollars, to be paid to the National Lincoln Monument Association at Springfield, Illinois, when two hundred and forty thousand dollars were raised from other sources. As that amount was never collected, the appropriation lapsed, but another law was enacted in February, 1872, appropriating the same amount, to be paid when a sworn statement of the amount expended by the Association was placed in the hands of the Comptroller of the State of New York. That statement was duly forwarded, and a draft for the amount was received by the Treasurer of the National Lincoln Monument Association, November 15, 1872.

A single incident will illustrate how easy it would have been to raise money in many other places, with the proper exciting cause. An aged colored woman, Charlotte Scott, who had received her freedom in Virginia by the Emancipation Proclamation, was living at Marietta, Ohio, when President Lincoln was assassinated. She at once said: "The colored people have lost their best friend on earth; Mr. Lincoln was our best friend, and I will give five dollars of my wages towards building a monument to his memory." This circumstance being related in the Missouri Democrat,

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of May 2, 1865, caused more than sixteen thousand dollars to be raised by the colored people. The fund was held in St. Louis by Hon. James E. Yeatman for several years, but was pledged to the National Lincoln Monument Association at Washington City.

From the time ground was broken in the autumn of 1869, until the spring of 1871, the structure arose steadily and quietly, and the work, both on the Monument and statue, was so far advanced that the Association began to prepare for some public demonstration connected with the enterprise, without waiting for the four groups of statuary. On the eleventh day of May, at the sixth annual meeting of the Association, a committee was raised consisting of President Oglesby, D. L. Phillips, J. C. Conkling, Newton Bateman and S. H. Treat, to make the necessary preparations. They were expected to visit Chicopee, Massachusetts, and "examine the Statue of Lincoln and the Coat of Arms, suggest to the Association the name of a suitable person to deliver the oration upon the occasion of the unveiling of the Statue when placed upon the Monument, and to select and suggest a day upon which the ceremonies should take place."

On the nineteenth of July, four days after the death of Thomas Lincoln, at a meeting of the Association, that committee reported progress. A few days after that, Governor Oglesby and Mr. Phillips, of the before mentioned committee, started East.

A meeting of the Association was called on the twenty-second of August, to hear the report of the committee, of which the following is the substance:

Messrs. Oglesby and Phillips went by the way of Chicago, for the purpose of availing themselves of the counsels particularly in the selection of an orator— of some of the prominent gentlemen of that city, who had been the personal and political friends of President Lincoln. Upon making their business known to the Hon. J. Young Scammon, Col. James H. Bowen,

Chauncey T. Bowen, Esq. and others, they learned that several of these gentlemen, on their visit to Springfield with the remains of Thomas Lincoln, became deeply interested in seeing the monument completed. When the subject was more fully discussed, the committee received what they regarded as ample assurances that Chicago would furnish the means to purchase one of the groups of statuary. They went so far as to select the Infantry Group as the one they would prefer to have placed to the credit of their city. The whole question was left open, with the understanding that whenever the Association desired it, the money would be forthcoming.

The committee next visited New York city and called on ex-Governor E. D. Morgan, Hon. Russell Sage, Hon. George Opdyke, Winthrop S. Gilman, Esq. Geo. T. M. Davis, Esq. A. D. Shepherd, Esq. and others, and received assurances that New York would furnish the Naval Group. They left the matter of raising the money there open also, for the reason that it was in the heat of summer, and they were assured that many gentlemen who would cheerfully contribute to the fund were then absent.

On visiting Boston they called on Governor Claflin, and after a long consultation with him, were gratified to find that he entered heartily into the spirit of the enterprise, and although he declined, alone, to make a positive promise, he assured the committee of his sympathy with the movement, and gave it as his opinion that Boston would furnish the means to pay for one of the groups.

The committee would have visited Philadelphia but did not think it advisable to go while the weather was so hot, and that it would be better to defer it until winter.

On visiting Chicopee the committee found the Coat of Arms finished, and the work on the Statue of Lincoln in a good state of progress. They took ample time

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to study it, and unhesitatingly pronounce it as perfect a reproduction of Abraham Lincoln as it is possible to transfer from life to inert matter. In their opinion Mr. Mead has proven himself a true artist, in the fact that he has made no effort to improve on nature. Mr. Lincoln stooped in the shoulders, just enough to spoil the fit of a coat about the breast, and the Statue shows this to perfection. The peculiar contour of the features, the full lower lip, the mole on the cheek, the wrinkles on the forehead, and the nose, unlike any other except Lincoln's, are all faithfully reproduced. His long, bony fingers, as they grasped the Emancipation Proclamation, and all his other angularities, are brought out with great accuracy. They regard the work a signal success, and think it a fortunate circumstance that the casting and finishing was placed in the hands of the Ames Manufacturing Company. Mr. James T. Ames, as President of that Company, became intimately acquainted with Mr. Lincoln during the four years of the rebellion. His business relations in manufacturing cannon and other arms for the government, led to many personal interviews with the President. His recollection of these events was of great value when he came to finish up the statue, which he seemed to regard more as a labor of love and patriotism, than a mere matter of business.

It appeared to them as if the work was almost done, but Mr. Ames declined to name a time when it would be completed. Being satisfied that it could not be done and put in position on the Monument in time to be unveiled during 1871, the committee did not make a selection of an orator, neither did they name any day for the ceremony of unveiling to take place.

Although the committee found it inexpedient at that time to do all they were appointed for, they did that which was much more important. They developed the fact that the movement on the part of the people to build a monument to the memory of Abraham Lin

coln was not a mere impulse, to be abandoned when the novelty wore away, but that the people are firmly resolved to complete it in all its parts. Thus matters connected with the Monument stood when the great tornado of fire swept over Chicago on the eighth and ninth of October. Hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of property, belonging to the men who had united in pledging the money to purchase the Infantry Group of statuary, were reduced to ashes in a day.

When this great calamity befel the commercial metropolis of the Northwest, it was about the close of the building season for 1871. The Monument proper was then nearly completed. The Association had the means to pay all bills for this part of the work, also for the United States Coat of Arms and the Statute of Lincoln. But the Monument would still lack what was necessary to give vital force to the design of the artist. It would be an apt emblem of our government at the beginning of the great rebellion. The constitution was there as a pedestal, and Abraham Lincoln took his position upon it. The States were there, but threatening dissolution, and he had neither Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery or a Navy, without which he would have been compelled to look on and see them crumble away beneath his feet. At this juncture the loyal people of America rallied to his support, and placed at his disposal the means necessary to organize all the forces required for the preservation of the government. The members of the Association, when assembled on the twenty-ninth of November, felt that the time had arrived for an earnest appeal to be made to the American people, to again furnish the means to organize the Infantry, the Cavalry, the Artillery and the Navy-in bronze-to be marshaled around his Statue, in imitation of the support the loyal people of the nation gave him in its hour of greatest peril.

The feeling was unanimous among the members that the magnanimity which always characterized

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