Lincoln & Churchill: Statesmen at War

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Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, Volume VI, Finest Hour, 1939–1941 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983), p. 861. In WWII Churchill saved the world for freedom and democracy from the tyranny of Nazism. When other top British leaders wanted to surrender to Hitler, Churchill on his own refused and stood alone for two years until he could finally bring America into the fight to actually do the saving. Roy P. Basler, editor, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (CWAL), Volume V, p. 436 (September 22, 1862) Churchill participated in wars on four continents. By the time he became prime minister in 1940, he had served as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, and twice as First Lord of the Admiralty. The former president's footsteps are also said to be heard in the hall outside the Lincoln Bedroom. [2]

The book is organized first by subject area, such as the unlikely emergence of each as leaders of their countries; “Virtues of Great War Leaders”; “Managing Ministers and Legislators”; and “Finding and Managing Generals.” This is followed by chronological details for each year of the war: 1862/1942, 1863/1943, 1864/1944, and 1865/1945. Throughout, several themes predominate: Nigel Nicolson, editor, Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters, 1939-1945, p. 408 (October 27, 1944). President Lincoln also liked a particular southern song. Early in the evening of Monday, April 10, 1865, serenaders gathered at the White House expecting a speech from President Lincoln about the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. Journalist Noah Brooks wrote: “The President soon after made his appearance, and for a moment the scene was of the wildest confusion; men fairly yelled with delight, tossed up their hats and screamed like mad. Seen from the windows, the surface of the crowd looked like an agitated sea of hats, faces and men’s arms. Quiet restored, the President briefly congratulated the people on the occasion which had called out such unrestrained enthusiasm, and said that as arrangements were being made for a more formal celebration, he would defer his remarks until then; for, said he, ‘I shall have nothing to say then if it is all dribbled out of me now,’ whereat the crowd good humoredly laughed. He alluded to the presence of the band, and said that our adversary had always claimed one old good tune — Dixie — but that he held that on the 8th of April we fairly captured it — in fact, he said, he had submitted the question to the Attorney General, who had decided that the tune was our lawful property; and he asked that the band play ‘Dixie,’ which they did with a will, following with ‘Yankee Doodle.’ The President then proposed three cheers for General Grant and the officers and men under him, then three for the navy, all of which were given heartily, and the crowd dispersed.” 11

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Both Lincoln and Churchill urged action. Lincoln wrote General George B. McClellan in April 1862: “And, once more let me tell you, it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow.” 8 A few weeks later, Lincoln wrote McClellan: “Your call for Parrott guns from Washington alarms me—chiefly because it argues indefinite procrastination.” 9 Churchill prided himself on being a “prod.” On 3 June 1940, only three weeks after becoming Prime Minister, Churchill minuted the British chiefs of Staff: “The completely defensive habit of mind, which has ruined the French, must not be allowed to ruin our initiative.” 10 Craig L. Symonds, “Lincoln at Sea,” in Harold Holzer and Sara Vaughn Gabbard, eds., 1863: Lincoln’s Pivotal Year (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013), p. 43.

Peterson, Merrill D. Lincoln in American Memory. Reprint ed. New York: Oxford University Press US, 1995. ISBN 0-19-509645-2Lewis E. Lehrman was presented the National Humanities Medal at the White House in 2005 for his work in American history. He has been a member of the Advisory Committee of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and the Lincoln Forum. In 2013, Lehrman was named a Distinguished Director of the Abraham Lincoln Association. Reagan, Maureen. First Father, First Daughter: A Memoir. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2001. ISBN 0-316-73636-8 Churchill had spent years contemplating the military implications of a major conflict. Lincoln never studied the subject before his presidency. Nor did he have grand planning staffs in Washington. “The fundamental problem for the historian attempting to understand and describe the grand strategy for the American Civil War is that it was nowhere written down at the time,” noted historian Mark E. Neely, Jr. “In an era without military war ‘colleges’ and a peacetime general staff, there were no contingency plans or white papers laying out strategic doctrine. There were only ad hoc responses to pressing military problems of war as it raged.” 6 Lincoln had to respond to events as they happened and take advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves. It is in Lincoln’s letters to his Generals that we discover his military tactics and strategy. When the others were gone, my father alluded to their conversation of the day before. ‘You thought you might frame an argument for the other side?’ Mr. Lincoln smiled and shook his head. ‘I found I could not make an argument that would satisfy my own mind,’ he said, ‘and that proved to me your ground was the right one.’

Several unnamed eyewitnesses have claimed to have seen the shade of Abraham Lincoln actually lying down on the bed in the Lincoln Bedroom (which was used as a meeting room at the time of his administration), and while others have seen Lincoln sit on the edge of the bed and put his boots on. [2] The most famous eyewitness to the latter was Mary Eben, Eleanor Roosevelt's secretary, who saw Lincoln pulling on his boots (after which she ran screaming from the room). [11] [14]Was Churchill, on one of his vis­its to the White House, spooked by the ghost of Abra­ham Lin­coln? Ever afan of Things That Go Bump in the Night, Iwas intrigued to receive this question. The Paranormal Presidency of Abraham Lincoln by Christopher Kiernan Coleman (Schiffer Publishing, 2012) With the world watching, Lincoln and Churchill would prevail, each in his own way, in their great wars of national survival. John Keegan, “Churchill’s Strategy,” in Robert Blake and William Roger Louis, eds., Churchill: A Major New Assessment of His Life in Peace and War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 330–31. The presidency of Abraham Lincoln began and ended in a civil war of national survival. The first prime ministership of Winston S. Churchill began and ended in a global war of national survival. Churchill had inherited his war. Lincoln’s war had not yet begun when he took office. Many generals in America and Britain scoffed at the military strategy and tactics of Lincoln and Churchill. Both proved essentially sound in their strategy of deploying an anaconda-like armed embrace of the enemy to squeeze the life from it. Subordinates would chafe at their suggestions. Developing a Strategy