F W Chesson                                                      LINCOLN.HTM
 
 
 
 
                            LINCOLN, IF... 
 
                                      by
                                Fred W. Chesson 
 
 
     Having escaped Booth's assassination plot, Abraham Lincoln's recent 
post-victory popularity is now under assault from more overt if just as 
vicious sources. Critics range from powerful Radical Republicans down to 
bitter Southerners and even the new class of Freedmen, disappointed with 
their denignated place in Post Civil War society. 
 
     Now during his 1865 summer vacation at the Equinox House in Manchester,
Vermont, the President has barely endured one of Mary's more-hysterical out-
bursts. This time it is over a gracious invitation to his former general and 
political rival, George B. McClellan.  
     With great forbearance, he beats a strategic retreat to a quiet corner 
of the porch. And there, looking out over the lush New England greenery, 
Abraham Lincoln broods over the fickleness of Fame, and wonders What If.... 
 
     What if...Major Thomas T. Eckert had not insisted on being in the 
Presidential Box that recent April Night? The massively-built manager of 
the United States Military Telegraph had virtually snapped Booth in half, 
flinging him over the box's railing. In the course of his death plunge, the 
demolished actor's spur dragged down the ornamental bunting, covering his 
crumpled form on the stage for a most fitting "Final Farewell Appearance" 
at Ford's Theatre.

     Or, suppose Mary, in arising to adjust her corset, had, deliberately, 
or by chance, taken a fatal pistol shot or dagger thrust, instead...? 
 
     His gloomy ruminations are terminated by the arrival of a chastened 
and almost serene Mary Todd, bearing a silver tray with sherry decanter 
and three glasses. The spare crystal is for their arriving visitor, now
Colonel Eckert, who has just completed a new telegraph line for what seems 
to be a permanent Summer White House. One of the first official messages to 
be sent will be an enciphered telegram to a grumpy but compliant Secretary 
of War Stanton, directing his formal pardon to the Widow Suratt for any 
alleged complicity in the late John Wilkes Booth's almost successful 
assassination scheme.... 

     Thus, Abraham Lincoln raises his glass to Mary's and with a rare 
smile announces: "To the summer of our lives, my dear...."

                        *		*		*