Wayne C Temple - Lincoln’s Confidant: The Life of Noah Brooks

Acknowledgments

THE LATE PROFESSOR J. G. Randall suggested the subject of Noah Brooks to me in 1949 and greatly aided me in my study and research. Since his death in 1953, Professors A. E. Bestor and Richard N. Current have guided my study and given me the benefits of their seasoned learning and scholarship. To these men I owe a deep debt of gratitude.

WAYNE C. TEMPLE worked at the Illinois State Archives from 1964 to 2016. The latest in his long list of Lincoln publications is Lincoln's Surgeons at His Assassination.

DOUGLAS L. WILSON and RODNEY O. DAVIS are codirectors of the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and the coeditors of Herndon's Informants, Herndon on Lincoln: Letters, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, and Herndon's Lincoln.

The University of Illinois Press
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University of Illinois Press
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The Knox College Lincoln Studies Center Series

Herndon's Lincoln
William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik;
edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
The Lincoln Studies Center Edition
Edited by Rodney O. Davis and Douglas L. Wilson

The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy
The Original Manuscript Edition
Edited by William E. Gienapp and Erica L. Gienapp

Herndon on Lincoln: Letters
William H. Herndon; edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis

Lincoln's Confidant: The Life of Noah Brooks
Wayne C. Temple; edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis

CHAPTER I

From Maine's Aristocracy of the Sea

IN HIS OWN DAY Noah Brooks, indefatigable journalist and litterateur, had more acquaintances than any man of his years not in what is called public life,

Lincoln's Springfield law partner, Billy Herndon, scoffed at this statement and called Brooks a would-be keeper of Lincoln's conscience while in Washington.

Brooks would have made a good private secretary for Lincoln. He was quiet, could keep confidential matters to himself, and understood the peculiar quirks of Mrs. Lincoln. He was kind to her and she liked him very much. In fact, he was one of the three people she remembered and talked about even in her period of mental instability in 1875. A correspondent obtained an interview with her at Dr. R. J. Patterson's Bellevue Insane Retreat at Batavia, Illinois, and she talked of only three persons: her husband, Noah Brooks, and Judge James B. Bradwell.

Lincoln and Brooks had met several times during the Fremont campaign in Illinois, and their friendship was renewed when Brooks went to Washington in 1862 as the correspondent of the Sacramento Daily Union. There, Brooks saw him almost daily until his tragical death.

But Brook's claim to fame does not rest only upon the fact that he was an intimate friend of Lincoln. Brooks won world-wide fame as a journalist and a man of letters.

Personal Description

Brooks was somewhat below average height, being about five feet five inches. He walked with a short, quick step, wore size eight shoes, and in his later years weighed in the vicinity of 180 pounds. His complexion was fair, like his father's, and his nose was aquiline. He had a marked New England accent, which he never lost despite his many travels. Needless to say, he was an extrovert, a fluent conversationalist, and a facile writer. Brooks was generally to be found wherever the company was the most interesting, the food supreme, and the camaraderie light and gay.

With such a personality he was the perfect club man. During his years of unattached literary and journalistic life in New York he knew everybody.

If there was a noticeable flaw in Brooks's nature, it was his total disregard for money. He never had a care for the morrow. Saving money was not one of his attributes; he spent his wages freely and never worried when he did not have money. His friends always came to his rescue with loans or gifts. From

One of the best keys to his personality is the set of answers which he penned into Edmund Clarence Stedman's album. These self-appraisals were written about 1878; although obviously some of the answers were written in jest, many of them ring true.

Colour? Greenback.

Flower? Heliotrope.

Tree? The brave old oak.

Object in Nature? The Sea.

Hour in the Day? Dinner-hour.

Season in the Year? A California Spring.

Perfume? Heliotrope.

Gem? Opal.

Style of Beauty? I like em all.

Names? CharlieMabel.

Painters? Helios, Rubens, Hans Makart, Diaz.

Musicians? All but Wagner.

Piece of Sculpture? The California Butter Woman.

Poets? The Divine Williams, Tennyson, Whittier.

Poetesses? Mrs. Browning, Jean Ingelow.

Prose Authors? Addison, Goldsmith, Dickens, Irving.

Character in Romance? J.S.C. Abbott's Napoleon.

In History? Abraham Lincoln.

Book to take up for an hour? Never have so much time.

What book (not religious) would you part with last? Richardson's Dictionary.

What epoch would you choose to have lived in? The present.

Where would you like to live? Where SHE is.

Favorite amusement? Building castles in Spain.

Occupation? Loafing.

What trait of character do you most admire in man? Cheeriness.

In woman? Sweetness.

What do you most detest in each? Insincerity.

If not yourself, who would you rather be? Tupper.

Idea of happiness? Lots of money and nothing to do.

Of misery? Work and poverty.

Bete noire? Work.

Dream? To find HER.

Dread? That I shall not find HER.

Your distinguishing characteristics? Laziness and good nature.

Of your better half? Patience under tribulations.

The sublimest passion? Give it up.

The Sweetest words? I love you.

Saddest words? She's not at home.

Aim in life? To have a good time and help others.

Motto? Dum vivimus, vivimus.

When he represented himself as lazy he told something of a truth. Indolence was part of his temperament, and yet he was industrious in that he wrote many articles and books in addition to his newspaper work. But since he had to earn a living, writing was the easiest way because it cost him little effort. Just as he talked fluently, he also wrote easily. Like Lincoln, he tried his hand at many jobs and failed for lack of interest. Journalism was the niche into which he best fitted.

Ancestry

Brooks was descended from pure New England stock which time became members of Maine's aristocracy of the sea. The pride of the family was Brooks's great-nephew, Frank Brooks Upham (18721939), an Annapolis graduate who in 1933 rose to the rank of full admiral in the United States Navy and was the commander of the whole Asiatic Fleet. Today the Uphams still follow the sea or serve in the army.

The earliest American ancestor of Noah Brooks arrived in Plymouth Colony in 1635 on board the Blessing. She was a thirty-ton ship, built of locust and launched by John Winthrop on July 4, 1631 (O.S.), and had the honor of being one of the first ships built in the Colonies.

Among the thirty-four names which follow this caption is that of William Brooke, twenty years of age. Immediately following the entry is that of his brother, Gilbert, who was fourteen. Quite naturally these brothers stayed close during their initial years in Plymouth Colony. William Brooke and his brother left England, no doubt, in order to better their lot. The year 1635 fell in that memorable decade of heavy English migration to the American Colonies. In this period, roughly 16301640, many thousands of Englishmen left their homeland to live in America or the West Indies. These emigrants felt that economic conditions could be no worse in the colonies than in depression-riddled England.