actual birthday of a President, February 12, 1809

because not all Presidents were born on the same day!
People of a certain age were schooled on the actual birthdays of at least two Presidents, a lesson made easier because (if memory serves) both were holidays then. Holidays nowadays are moved to more efficient Mondays. Kids today? Don’t get me started….

I tend to think about the dying days on the birthdays of dead people, which seems unfair but such it is. Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865. You know that story.

You may be familiar with Whitman’s poem (apparently the only one of his poems that was anthologized during his lifetime), written that year:

O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

a book recommendation
For history buffs, I highly recommend Jay Winik’s April 1865, which deals with three momentous things that happened that month: the fall of Richmond, Lee’s surrender  at Appomattox, followed by Lincoln’s assassination. Winik makes a compelling case that things might well have turned out differently (not that the South could have won, but that the two other Confederate armies in the field could have dissolved into a widespread guerrilla resistance). This UNC – Greensboro prof wasn’t as impressed as I was, but I think he overstates his case, at least on my recollection of the book.

© Sandy Mattingly 2010