Foto Friday -- Lincoln's birthday photos

Blessmag

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Minnesota
After several weeks off, thought I would add a couple of photos in celebration
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I don't know whether they try or not, but the statue is in the middle of a green and not near a walkway, hence my photo's slightly distant POV. The Soldier's Home is still operated by the Federal Government as a retirement home for veterans and is both surrounded by an iron fence and guarded by a manned gate, at which visitors are required to stop and state their destinations. Fortunately, the Lincoln Cottage is both visible from and relatively near the entrance gate and is approved for visitation. However, one must park in the designated lot and first enter the separate ca. WWI-era building that serves as the Visitor Center where visitors register then wait amid the informative exhibits for the next scheduled walking tour to the Cottage itself. Under the circumstances, I really can't imagine anyone - or their children - DARING to act in any less-than-decorous manner! For additional photos:

"Lincoln Cottage" at the Soldiers' Home | Abraham Lincoln (civilwartalk.com)
 
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Nice. How do they keep people from mounting up? I confess, I’d be tempted!
They've got a few Berdan's Sharpshooters hidden in trees and window.....aw go on that's funny. It's probably like the statue of Will Rogers at his home. People are going to polish his boots for luck. Now I'd like to slip some habanero hot sauce on the Blarney Stone and if you'll come with me here's what we'll do. I've already got a bottle of the stuff and.......😝
 
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This statue of Lincoln with his horse is located on the grounds of what was then the wartime Soldiers' Home in D.C. where he spent the summers away from the White House and where he supposedly penned the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862:

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I have read that this was were he went to be away from Mary ? Did he come here just for solitude ? No press, no crowds and to be able to able to do this without any concern of danger, just an ordinary citizen out for a ride. This truly was a different time!
 
I noticed the Lincoln impersonator. What sight or performer did the best at portraying Lincoln? I remember seeing the PBS Special MR. LINCOLN: A PLAY IN TWO ACTS. The actor was a bit short and he didn't have the Kentucky "twang". His voice didn't get higher pitched when the character was excited. But it was still entertaining.
 
I have read that this was were he went to be away from Mary ? Did he come here just for solitude ? No press, no crowds and to be able to able to do this without any concern of danger, just an ordinary citizen out for a ride. This truly was a different time!
Scarcely - he brought both Mary and Tad with him and commuted daily back to the White House. Once while enroute someone took a potshot at him and actually put a hole through his stovepipe hat! After that he was always accompanied by a detail of cavalrymen.
 
I noticed the Lincoln impersonator. What sight or performer did the best at portraying Lincoln? I remember seeing the PBS Special MR. LINCOLN: A PLAY IN TWO ACTS. The actor was a bit short and he didn't have the Kentucky "twang". His voice didn't get higher pitched when the character was excited. But it was still entertaining.
The best semi-professional I know is (or at least was, since this was a number of years ago) James Getty who for many years had his own one-man show in a small theater at Gettysburg on Steinwehr Avenue near all the other attractions like the Lincoln Train. His knowledge of Lincoln was truly amazing - after talking for an hour or hour and a half as Lincoln he opened the program up for questions from the audience and had no trouble at all answering them "off the cuff." He also portrayed Lincoln in the Turner made-for-TV potboiler Ironclads. Getty's performance, which I attended ca. 1987 following the Antietam 125th anniversary reenactment, was very much in the style of Daniel Day-Lewis's folksy interpretation in the Spielberg movie.
 
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