He Had a Secret

Yesterday, February 12, would have been the birthday of President Abraham Lincoln.  Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, and our country's President during the United States Civil War.  He was assassinated in April of 1865, several days after the official conclusion of the war.

I blogged about our Civil War during its 150th anniversary, from 2011 to 2015.  Here are several older posts about Abraham Lincoln.

Dining with Abraham Lincoln 

The Handwriting of Abraham Lincoln 

Moments that Changed History 

Something I Saw in the Capitol of South Carolina, the first state that seceded

In the last post above, I had a discussion with a fellow blogger about my belief that this Civil War never ended. If you've listened to news recently, you may be thinking along the same lines, or a different line - that we are on our way to a second Civil War.

When I was born, survivors of that era were still alive and it may be interesting to see a man who claimed to have witnessed Lincoln's assassination. He appeared on a game show in 1956 at the age of 96, months before his death. (He was born in 1860.)

The man's name was Samuel Seymour, the son of a Maryland man who owned enslaved people. (Another little detail of history - states that allowed slavery but did not leave the union were permitted to keep slavery going through out the war.   Maryland was one of four such states.)

His story (his memory mainly is seeing John Wilkes Booth "falling out of the balcony") may or may not be true but it is interesting reading some of the details of Mr. Seymour's life.

Let us remember, today, that history isn't a boring story of dates and battles.  It is the story of real people and real suffering.

History moves on.  What story will we write for the history books?