Lincoln and Davis: Three Visions of Public Commemoration in Kentucky

Lincoln and Davis Ibree Visions of Public Commemoration in Kentucky Keith A. Erekson 0 n February 9, 1937, Indianapolis insurance agent George Wilson addressed a meeting of a local Kiwanis Club. In commemoration of Lincoln' s birthday,he delivered one of his favorite speeches on a subject close to his heart. Wilson had spent his early life in Dubois County in southern Indiana,a distinctive part of the Hoosier state that was then,as now,partly northern · and partly southern. Like Abraham Lincoln, Wilson had worked as a surveyor before settling into another profession ;like Jefferson Davis, he had written a history ( of his county,not the Confederacy). ' Ihe details of Wilson's speech flowed extemporaneously in relation to his passion for the subject and the audience' s response,but the notes for his introductory hook read: " No book knowledge used. 4000 volumes on Lincoln. On the Spot. You do not have to read historygo and see it. Jeff Davis monument. War is the force of ideas." 1 Packed into Wilson' s outline are at least four significant observations about popular interest the commemoration of Lincoln,Davis,and the Civil War. First, he established a contrast between reading · and experiential learning,and then emphasized his preference for visiting the places where events occurred. He juxtaposed Lincoln and Davis to conclude, finally,that the contrasts between the two reflected broader wars about forceful ideas. In anticipation of the present bicentennial celebration, Ohio Haney History sent me to visit on the spot" the places in Kentucky that commemorate Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln. Born within eight months and one hundred miles of e·ach other,the commandersin chief of the two sides of America' s Civil War seemed destined to share a place in popular memory. But aside from a proposal floated in the mid18905 for Kentucky to place statues of both men in the U.S. Capitol' s Statuary Hall,2 commemoration of Lincoln and Davis unfolded along largely separate paths. This essay focuses primarily on three sites maintained now or in the past by the Commonwealth of Kentuckythe birthplace of Jefferson Davis near Fairview,the site of Abraham Lincoln' s birth near Hodgenville, and the homestead of the Lincoln ancestral family near Springfield. Following Wilson' s lead,I visited the sites,took the tours,asked questions,and reflected RIGHT: Dedication ceremony of Kentucky Lincoln Trail at the Abraham Lincoln Memorial, Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site,Hodgenville, Kentucky, 1942. THEFILSONHISTORICAL SOCIETY 48 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY KEITH A. EREKSON SUMMER 2008 49 LINCOLN AND DAVIS alone. What I experienced blended with " book knowledge," and while historians have made much of the contrasts between Lincoln and D·avis,3 this essay engages recent literature on the memory of the Civil ar to explore the ways in which both men have been memorialized. By the end of this journey I will show that public commemoration of Lincoln and Davis in Kentucky has always participated in the forceful expression of competing ideasin wars both civil and cultural. For now,we best begin by simply going and seeing. Well before arriving at the Jefferson Davis State Historic Site, the traveler sees the enormous concrete obelisk rising in the distance:On the day of my visit,the sky was overcast, but the clouds actually parted as I pulled into the parking lot and within five minutes I was on my way up the elevator to the top of the obelisk. ' Ilie ride takes three minutes but as we neared the top a brief power outage stalled our progress. Though we were not hit, I learned that lightning does strike the monument three or four times a year. Power was quickly restored, but the car returned to the bottom to reset before trying again to take us to the top. During those nine minutes, my tour guide explained that the obelisk had been constructed between 1917 and 1924 at an original cost of nearly two hundred thousand dollars. ' Ihere are many ways to measure the height of this monument. It is the fifth tallest monument in the United St· ates and the third tallest obelisk in Jefferson Davis Monumentatthe Jefferson Davis State Historic Site, Fairview, Kentucky,c...