We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry, a Documentary History

2. “The Most Favored Family Visitor at the White House”: The Enigmatic Relationship between Lincoln and Isachar Zacharie, M.D.

44 2 “The Most Favored Family Visitor at the White House”: The Enigmatic Relationship between Lincoln and Isachar Zacharie, M.D. One of the most celebrated and intriguing of President Lincoln’s many contacts with Jews during his years in the White House was the extraordinary relationship he had with a fascinating chiropodist named Isachar Zacharie (1827–1900).1 Writing in 1951, Bertram W. Korn, the pioneering scholar of American Jewry and the Civil War, described Zacharie as one of Abraham Lincoln’s “most enigmatic intimates.”2 Who was Isachar Zacharie? Was Lincoln’s chiropodist simply a “patriotic corn doctor,” or was he, as some have suggested, a mendacious “rebel spy”?3 Zacharie was born in Kent, England, in 1827. There exists evidence that Zacharie was already working as an apprentice to a distinguished medical scholar in 1837. Though he Isachar Zacharie was Lincoln ’s chiropodist and covert envoy for the administration. Courtesy American Jewish Historical Society, New York, N.Y., and Newton Centre, Mass. 45 “The Most Favored Family Visitor” would have been only ten or eleven years old at that time, such things often happened in Victorian England. In this capacity, he may have been introduced to chiropody—a burgeoning profession and potentially a lucrative calling.4 Zacharie was seventeen or eighteen years old when he, his parents, and his siblings immigrated to the United States in the mid-1840s. Within a few years of his arrival, he was receiving kudos for his exceptional abilities to relieve his patients’ discomforts by treating their corns, bunions, and ingrown toenails without inflicting pain or provoking subsequent infection.5 Zacharie seems to have traveled extensively during his first decade in the United States,6 and he cared for the feet of some of the most prominent Americans of the antebellum era, including U.S. senators Henry Clay of Kentucky, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Lewis Cass of Michigan, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, and James A. Bayard of Delaware. At the conclusion of his treatment, Zacharie solicited and received flattering letters of commendation.7 Edwin M. Stanton appears to have been the man who first introduced Zacharie to prominent members of the Lincoln administration. Armed with a fistful of highly complimentary professional endorsements, the young foot doctor came to Stanton in 1862 and urged him to create an army corps of chiropodists who would tend to the podiatric needs of battlefield soldiers. Zacharie’s proposal did not interest Stanton, but the “doctor’s” skill impressed him. Within months, Zacharie’s clientele included men like Secretary of State William H. Seward, General Nathaniel P. Banks (1816–94), General Ambrose E. Burnside (1824–81), General George B. McClellan, and many others. By the summer of 1862, Zacharie was trimming the toenails of the nation’s first citizen—Abraham Lincoln.8 Lincoln, like many other contemporaries, was impressed by Zacharie’s skill. He and Seward actually composed a joint letter of endorsement. Whether Lincoln actually came to think of Zacharie as a friend or whether he was merely being courteous to a helpful pedal servant is difficult to determine. We do know that the two men enjoyed a personal association that was neither superficial nor fleeting. Contemporaries have left conflicting impressions of Zacharie’s personality. A correspondent writing for the New York Herald described him as a “man of charm and grace”: “Dr. Zacharie is distinguished by a splendid Roman nose, fashionable whiskers and eloquent tongue, a dazzling diamond breastpin, great skill in his profession and an ingratiating address, a perfect knowledge of his business, and a plentiful supply of social and moral courage.”9 In stark contrast, George S. Denison (1833–66), a twenty-seven-year-old treasury agent in New Orleans (and cousin of Salmon P. Chase [1808‒73], treasury secretary under Lincoln and later chief justice), characterized the Jewish foot doctor as a fop and a name-dropper: “His vest is flowered velvet—his hair beautifully oiled—and his presence distills continual perfume sweeter than the winds that blow from Araby the blest. In season and out of season, he fails not to announce himself as the Confidential Agent or Correspondent of the President.”10 Zacharie’s copious correspondence with men like Lincoln, Seward, and Banks testifies to the fact that this man was a colorful personality. He could be obsequious, “The Most Favored Family Visitor” 46 oleaginous, and painfully solicitous. At other times, he could be self...