Large Collection of Union Telegrams

According to The Los Angeles Times, the Huntington Library in California has announced that it has acquired a large collection of materials relating to Union telegraphy during the Civil War.  Reportedly preserved by Thomas Eckert, who ran the War Department Telegraph Office during the last part of the Lincoln presidency (and beyond), it includes 40 large albums of handwritten telegrams in chronological order.  There also are several codebooks that reveal more about the Union telegraph code words used during the war.

This resource, once made available to scholars, has the potential to significantly alter our understanding of the war effort, particularly related to military logistics.  There is also the distinct possibility that previously unknown Lincoln telegrams may be discovered.  James McPherson, award-winning Civil War historian, notes in an interview that "it would have enriched my work" on Lincoln as commander in chief.  It likely means that the recent book by Tom Wheeler, "Mr. Lincoln's T-Mail's," reviewed in November, is already outdated.

Even if no new Lincoln-dictated telegrams are discovered, the collection should impact our knowledge of Lincoln as a war-time leader.  It is well-documented that Lincoln generally read through all recent telegraphic traffic during frequent visits to the War Department Telegraph Office.  At the very least, this should allow great insight into what Lincoln "knew" as he made decisions from 1863-1865.  Of course, it will take some dedicated research, meaning time, before the full value and impact of this material is known.

Lincoln Exhibit and Conference at The Huntington Library

The Huntington Library, a large research library in San Marino, California, is currently hosting a special exhibit celebrating the Lincoln bicentennial.  "The Last Full Measure of Devotion: Collecting Abraham Lincoln" runs from February 7 through April 27.  It draws on Hunington's well-regarded Lincoln collection, which was begin by the namesake Henry Hunington himself in the early 1900s.  (Huntington was one of the first deep-pocketed southern California Lincolniana collectors, the beginning of a line that continues with Louise Taper today.)

The heart of Huntington's holdings lies in several turn of the century Lincolniana collections that were acquired in the 1910s and 1920s, including the personal papers of Ward Hill Lamon.  These resources were most extensively consulted by Lincoln biographers before 1947, when the Abraham Lincoln Papers became publicly accessible at the Library of Congress.  (Lincoln's son Robert stipulated when he made his bequest that the papers would not become public until 21 years after his own death.)

The Library's guide to the exhibition is available here.

In conjunction with this exhibit, Huntington is also holding a two-day conference, "A Lincoln for the Twenty-First Century" on April 3-4.  The conference boasts a well-known list of Lincoln scholars, including Harold Holzer (probably giving the same lecture he gave at the Library of Congress this month), Richard Carwardine, and James McPherson.  The topics look particularly interesting, ranging from Lincoln and the Mexican War (Daniel Walker Howe) to Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson (Stephen Cushman) to Lincoln and the West (McPherson).  The full program is available here.