By Richard Cunningham McCormick

(Edited by Parker Anderson)

(Richard McCormick was the second Territorial Governor of Arizona who lived in the Governor’s Mansion in Prescott with his wife Margaret. Previously, he had been a prominent politician on the East Coast and, in 1866, wrote a series of articles for the New York Evening Post. One detailed his own personal memories of President Abraham Lincoln, who had been assassinated the year before. On March 14, 1866, the Arizona Miner printed a few excerpts from this lengthy article. These are reprinted below; probably the first widely circulated reprinting of Governor McCormick’s comments since 1866. – ed)

I did not see Mr. Lincoln again until late in January 1861, when, at the instance (note: he probably meant ‘insistence’. – ed) of various friends in New York, who wished a position in the cabinet for a prominent Kentuckian, I went to Springfield, armed with documents for his consideration. I remained there a week or more, and I was at the Lincoln cottage daily. I felt more at home there than at the barren hotel, and was the more free in my visits from the kind consideration of Mrs. Lincoln, who joined her husband in the suggestion that hotel life was at best comfortless, and that while at Springfield, I should escape it as much as possible by tarrying with them, at the same time regretting that their house was not large enough for the entertainment of all their friends.

The house at Springfield has often been described. In a letter published in the Evening Post of February 1st, 1861, I referred to it in detail, and to the President’s daily life and manners, which were little changed from that time to the hour of Booth’s great crime. I asserted that ‘his purity of character and indomitable integrity of purpose added respect to admiration for his public and private career,’ that upon his word, you might ‘believe and pawn your soul’; and thus I prophesied his future success: ‘It is his sterling honesty, with utter fearlessness, even beyond his vast ability and political sagacity, that is to command confidence in his administration. He will refresh the polluted atmosphere of Washington with the aroma of virtue, integrity, and unbending patriotism.’ Happy for the country that this was the time; that through years of temptation and contraction, amid unparalleled tumult and peril, he lived true to his pure and unselfish nature.

Of the numerous formal and informal interviews had at Springfield, I remember all with the sincerest pleasure. I never found the man upon whom the great responsibilities of a nation – upon the verge of civil commotion – had been placed, impatient or ill-humored. The roughest and most tedious visitors were made welcome and happy in his presence; the poor commanded as much of his time as the rich. His recognition of old friends and companions in rough life, whom many, elevated as he had been, would have found it convenient to forget, was especially hearty. His correspondence was already immense, and the town was alive with Cabinet makers and office seekers, but he met all with a calm temper.

I fell into conversation with him upon the photographs of his face then before the public, and expressed a regret that I had found none that did him justice. He laughingly suggested that it might not be desirable to have justice done to such forbidden features as his, but added that a likeness taken in Springfield a few days before was, in his judgement and that of his friends, the best ever had. Of that I procured four copies, and on the following day asked him to append to each his autograph and the date, which he did with apparent pleasure, calling for a pen and ink, and writing upon his knee. From one of these pictures, which were the first taken after he had allowed his beard to grow, and the first to give those who had not seen him a belief that he was not ‘horrid ugly,’ the head of Mr. Lincoln upon the ten dollar currency note was engraved, and that may, I think, be called the official likeness of our murdered chieftain.

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Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(PD 1861 inauguration) Reuse only by permission.

Lincoln’s first inauguration on March 4, 1861, at the capitol building in Washington, D.C. Richard McCormick worked hard to help elect Lincoln and attended the inauguration. (Public domain photo from americaslibrary.gov)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(PD Richard C. McCormick) Reuse only by permission.

Richard McCormick, photo date unknown, between 1860-1875, served as Arizona Territory’s second governor from March 1866 to December 1868. (Public domain photo from Library of Congress)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Lincoln currency) Reuse only bypermission.

Lincoln’s image on the front of this 1861 $10 ‘Demand Note’. The photo used on the currency note was one of several photos seen by Richard McCormick when he visited Lincoln at his home in Springfield, Illinois in early 1861. Also shown is a cropped out close-up of the 2003 series of the Lincoln $5 bill with a photo of Lincoln taken at the same sitting c.January 1861. These photos "were the first taken after he had allowed his beard to grow" according to Mr. McCormick, and represent "the official likeness of our murdered chieftain."