Lincoln's White House Secretary: The Adventurous Life of William O. Stoddard

Edited by Harold Holzer
Illustrated, endnotes, 360 pp., 2007. Southern Illinois University Press, 1915 University Press Dr., Carbondale, IL 62901, $44.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Walt Albro
Walt Albro is a magazine writer and editor who lives in Rockville, Md.

Review:
It is a well-known fact that during his White House years, Abraham Lincoln was served by two secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John M. Hay. It is lesser known that Lincoln also periodically employed several other men as assistant secretaries. One of them, William O. Stoddard, previously editor of the Illinois State Gazette in Champaign, Ill., was a prolific book author who eventually published two volumes about his Washington experience.

Stoddard also wrote a 767-page autobiography intended as a family keepsake (and not for publication). A truncated version of this book was published in 1955, but this new edition, edited by popular Lincoln historian Harold Holzer, is a more complete version.

One fascinating story in the volume is Stoddard's account of his responsibilities for opening Lincoln's mail from ordinary citizens (official correspondence from other government departments was opened by someone else). Stoddard estimates that Lincoln received an average of 250 letters daily. That comes to more than 1,000 letters a week, 50,000 letters a year.

Many of these communications had to do with business before one of the government departments. Some involved legal matters or claims while many related to appointments to office.

The majority of these letters were hate mail, threats or the ravings from lunatics. Stoddard kept two large wastebaskets on either side of his desk and immediately discarded any letter that fell into one of these three categories.

One dignified White House visitor complained when he spotted Stoddard tossing out bushels of letters addressed to Lincoln. The visitor changed his mind, however, after Stoddard allowed him to examine what he was trashing. "You are quite right, sir," he gasped. "He ought not to see a line of that stuff! Burn it, sir! Burn it!"

While the book relates interesting stories like the above, its chief defect is that it was intended only for the private consumption of Stoddard's family - and thus it centers more on Stoddard and less on the historic Civil War figures. (The president doesn't even make his first appearance until halfway through the book.)

Born in 1835 in central New York, Stoddard evokes life in small-town America in that era with considerable color. Ambitious and with an entrepreneurial spirit, Stoddard briefly attended the University of Rochester, but dropped out for lack of funds. Like many men of his generation, he headed off to the frontier to seek his fortune, eventually ending up in central Illinois.

In 1859 Stoddard claims he was the first editor to endorse Lincoln for the presidency. Editor Harold Holzer doubts this claim, although he concedes that Stoddard was among the first. After Lincoln won election, Stoddard received a job as a clerk in the Interior department. Later, he was transferred on loan to the White House.

In addition to opening and sorting Lincoln's mail, Stoddard worked as Mrs. Lincoln's unofficial secretary. He served in these capacities until September 1864 when he accepted a patronage job as marshal of the Eastern District of Arkansas.

Stoddard seems to have participated in a lot of historical events, although he may have exaggerated the degree of his contribution. While waiting for his Washington job, he joined the volunteers from the District of Columbia and was one of the first volunteers to be inducted for federal duty.

He claims to have played a role in the creation of the first national system of paper money. He says that he made the first public statement endorsing the use of black army troops. He makes the controversial claim that Lincoln personally asked him to engineer the dumping of Vice President Hannibal Hamlin and his replacement by Andrew Johnson of Tennessee (a claim that most scholars have discounted).

All in all, Stoddard's account is illuminating, expanding on information we already know and occasionally providing new perspective on events. While this book has value as a historical curiosity, don't expect to find any striking new "insider" revelations about the Lincoln White House.