LINCOLN EDITOR
The Quarterly Newsletter of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln
A Project of
ISSN 1537-226X
(09-08)
Project Staff:
Daniel W. Stowell, Director/Editor; John A. Lupton, Associate Director/
Associate Editor; Ed Bradley, Assistant Editor; Stacy Pratt McDermott,
Assistant Editor; Christopher A. Schnell, Assistant Editor; A J Aiséirithe,
Research Associate; Kelley B. Clausing, Research Associate; David
Gerleman, Research Associate; Erika Holst, Research Associate; Marilyn
Mueller, Research Assistant; Carmen Morgan, Secretary; Robert Crosby,
Graduate Assistant.
Please address inquiries and gifts to:
The Papers of Abraham Lincoln
#1 Old State Capitol Plaza, Springfield, IL 62701-1512
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Website: http://www.papersofabrahamlincoln.org
Cosponsored by
Center for State Policy and Leadership
at University of Illinois at Springfield
Abraham Lincoln Association
(a Founding Sponsor of the Lincoln Legal Papers)
How You Can Help:
• By advising project staff of known or reported Lincoln
documents in your locality. We are seeking copies of any
document, letter, or contemporary printed account that relates
to Abraham Lincoln’s entire life, 1809-1865.
• By making a tax-deductible donation to the Papers of
Abraham Lincoln in support of the project. Such gifts provide
crucial support in furtherance of the project’s objectives.
This project has been supported by grants from the National
Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, and the
National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Voorhees, then an aspiring Democratic politician, later
became one of the Lincoln administration’s leading critics in
Congress, and Republicans labeled him a Copperhead. In
addition to serving as a U.S. District Attorney, Voorhees
represented Indiana in both houses of Congress for a total
of thirty-two years. His staunch defense of agrarian economy
and ideals earned him the sobriquet “Tall Sycamore of the
Wabash.”4
Lew Wallace was an aspiring Democratic politician
in 1851, when he saw Lincoln in Danville, and he actively
supported Stephen A. Douglas’s 1860 presidential bid. Over
time, however, he was less successful in politics than
Voorhees. Wallace rapidly joined the war effort in Indiana at
the beginning of the Civil War, and he achieved the rank of
Notes:
1 Lew Wallace, Lew Wallace: An Autobiography, 2 vols. (New York: Harper
& Brothers, 1906), 1:219-23.
2 Ibid., 222-23.
3 Fithian v. Casseday, Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis, et al., eds., The
Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
2000) (LPAL); David Davis to Sarah Davis, October 20, 1851; David Davis
to Sarah Davis, October 27, 1851, both in folder B-8, David Davis Family
Papers, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, IL; Usher F.
Linder, Reminiscences of the Early Bench and Bar of Illinois (Chicago:
Chicago Legal New Company, 1879), 138-39.
4 Motion, October 23, 1851, LPAL; Jennifer L. Weber, Copperheads: The
Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2006), 48, 114, 29; Leonard S. Kenworthy, The Tall
Sycamore of the Wabash: Daniel Wolsey Voorhees (Boston: Bruce
Humphries, Inc., 1936).
5 Wallace, Autobiography; Irving McKee, “Ben-Hur” Wallace: The Life of
General Lew Wallace (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1947).
*Images on previous page from Lew Wallace, Lew Wallace: An
Autobiography, 2 vols. (NY: Harper & Brothers, 1906), 1, opp. 208);
Daniel Voorhees, Forty Years of Oratory, 2 vols. (Indianapolis: Bowen-
Merrill, 1898), opposite title page.
major general in the U.S. Army in 1862 after participating in
the battles at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. Two years
later, at the battle of Monocacy, his undermanned corps
successfully delayed Confederate general Jubal Early’s
planned raid on Washington, until veteran troops could
reinforce the capital’s earthwork forts. While Wallace’s post-war
life is best remembered for his success in letters, especially
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, he also served as governor
of the New Mexico Territory and as U.S. ambassador to
the Ottoman Empire.5
Christopher A. Schnell, Assistant Editor
