Recent Headlines: No to DNA Test; Looking for Mary; Michael Burlingame

Museum Decides No DNA Testing on Lincoln's Blood (for now)

Three weeks ago I posted a brief note about John Sotos' request to run DNA tests on a piece of the pillowcase with Lincoln's blood, taken from the room in which he died.  This week, the museum board voted not to allow testing at this time.

This is not a surprising development, for a host of reasons.  Any testing of the artifact will lead to some destruction of the artifact.  Considering the relatively small size of the strip of the pillowcase, any museum would be understandably squeamish about approving such testing.

I was going to write an extensive post about this, but then I discovered that Ann Tracy Mueller, at her blog Lincoln Buff 2, has already published an outstanding article about this issue.  Her take is much more detailed than anything I would write, includes comments from several key Lincoln scholars -- including Harold Holzer wisely questioning the provenance of DNA on the pillowcase.  (Interestingly, when this story came out, it was called "Lincoln's Shroud of Turin."  Given the controversy of the physical testing of the real Shroud of Turin, some of these issues, such as possible contamination of the artifact over the years, make it highly unlikely that any results of such testing would be indisputable.)  All I can say is: Go read it.

The only thing I would add to Tracy's excellent article is the humorous observation given to me by a teacher a few years ago.  (I paraphrase): Archaeology is the systematic destruction of that which is studied.  In order to study a square of ground, working through the layers of history, one much destroy recent layers to reach older layers.  So often, science is like this.   The History Channel convinced the National Park Service to take core samples of the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Cabin in order to run carbon-dating tests (the wood tested dated to the 1850s and 1860s).  The NPS knew that the wood would be destroyed in the testing, but the cabin has a large amount of wood (even though it is slowly deteriorating).  There are some strands of Lincoln's hair around, but they'd be destroyed in any testing, so testing is very unlikely.

Looking for Lincoln -- Mary Lincoln, That Is

In all of the hoopla around the Lincoln Bicentennial, most of the attention has been focused on Abraham Lincoln.  But Janis Cooke Newman, author of the recent historical novel Mary (which I recently purchased but haven't read yet), offers a fine article in The LA Times focusing on the often unfairly maligned Mary Lincoln.

Michael Burlingame at Illinois College (courtesty of YouTube)

Noted Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame spoke in April at this year's Illinois History Symposium, hosted at Illinois College.  He considers the question of whether there is anything new to write about Lincoln -- an interesting thing for him given his recent 2000+ page, two-volume biography on Lincoln.  Someone has thoughtfully posted his lecture (in four parts) on YouTube, each linked below.    (A tip of the hat to Kevin Levin at the very fine blog Civil War Memory for writing about this video previously.)

Michael Burlingame lecture, part 1.

Michael Burlingame lecture, part 2.

Michael Burlingame lecture, part 3.

Michael Burlingame lecture, part 4.

Additionally, Wayne Temple, longtime Deputy Director of the Illinois State Archives and author of many books on Lincoln -- and like Burlingame, a legendary source of support to other Lincoln scholars -- spoke at the symposium.  Temple told the fascinating history of the unused Lincoln tomb in downtown Springfield, where certain movers and shakers had wanted to bury the martyred president (close to the railroad station, as a tourist attraction).  His lecture is posted on YouTube in three parts, each linked below.

Wayne Temple lecture, part 1.

Wayne Temple lecture, part 2.

Wayne Temple lecture, part 3.

TV Review: "Stealing Lincoln's Body" (History Channel)

"Stealing Lincoln's Body," a new 2-hour documentary by The History Channel, tells the almost unbelievable story of the over 35 year odyssey of Lincoln's body following his assassination. Following the story most clearly laid out in the 2007 book of the same name by Thomas Craughwell, the film by Trey Nelson precisely narrates the bizarre tale of how Lincoln's body was first prepared for burial following his death and how it was moved ten times after reaching its final resting place in Oak Ridge Cemetery.

The most dramatic event during these years, and the source of the title, is an improbable attempt in 1876 to steal Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom. However, this story only accounts for the middle third of the documentary; it took nearly eight years for Lincoln's body finally be permanently buried after his death and then a quarter-century to permanently rebury the body after the failed attempt to steal the body. Certainly the entire story is stranger than fiction.

The film does a strong job clearly telling this story, with a strong guiding narrative and interviews from several experts, including Craughwell, noted Lincoln scholars Michael Burlingame and Harold Holzer, as well as up-and-coming Lincoln scholar Jason Emerson, Jon Austin, Director of the Museum of Funeral Customs (located just outside Oak Ridge Cemetery), James Cornelius, curator of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, and Nan Wynn, the current manager of the Lincoln Tomb.

Perhaps the oddest thing about the film is the decision to show a "virtual Abraham Lincoln." In addition to some standard modern recreations of events for the film, there are also scenes of Abraham Lincoln that are graphically created from Lincoln images and life masks -- including, most notably, the assassination itself. The effect is odd, to say the least; the rendering, by a production company called Studio Macbeth, looks more like Lincoln than any actor could. At times it was charming; frankly, though, the moment of assassination was eerie. (The company has a blog about the development of this technology.) Odder still, though, is the fact that this technology seems wasted on a documentary that focuses exclusively on Lincoln's body after he was dead.

Regardless, the story itself demands attention. Perhaps it starts of slow, with a description of Lincoln's autopsy, and then a more detailed description of the embalming of Lincoln's body -- a relatively new procedure that had flourished during the Civil War. After tracing the long funeral train journey, featuring ceremonies in a dozen cities, the documentary tells of the various stops for Lincoln's body (and his son Willie's body) while the memorial tomb was being constructed.

Then the action really begins, as a Chicago counterfeiter hatches a plan to grave-rob the Lincoln tomb in hopes of gaining a pardon for his jailed accomplice and $200,000 cash. The plan has notable problems -- none of the criminals involved has experience with this type of crime, and they plan to hide the coffin in the Indiana Dunes, roughly a two-week journey. Still, they might have succeeded if the plan hadn't been discovered by the US Secret Service -- then an agency solely focused on fighting counterfeiting. While the planned theft is bizarre, without this discovery the terrifying thought is that the criminals likely would have stolen the body.

After the break-in, the custodian was fearful of the potential for the body to be stolen in the future. In order to prevent this, he hid the body in the tomb's basement, where it was eventually buried. Indeed, Robert Lincoln, who was aware of these security tactics, privately shed his staunch Victorian image when he instructed that his mother, following her death, was to be buried in the basement beside her husband's temporary shallow grave. A more permanent solution was possible only when it became clear that the entire memorial needed to be rebuilt. This was done and Lincoln was finally buried in a deep, cement vault beneath the tomb in 1901 -- following Robert's instructions, likely cribbed from the burial of Robert's previous (and publicly vilified) employer George Pullman.

The story is fascinating, and this film tells it well. Perhaps the buildups to each commercial break are a little overly dramatic, but aside from this, the documentary is both accurate and accessible. The subject matter is a bit macabre, but otherwise the film is highly recommended.

"Stealing Lincoln's Body" premiered on Monday, February 16, 2009.