A Nation Divided, Cannot Stand....Visiting Springfield, Illinois

"A nation divided cannot stand!"  How true were Lincolns words then and how true those words still are, especially in these divisive times.

We have toured many of the great battlefields of the Civil War, but we had never gone to Lincolns Tomb or the Lincoln Museum. Gary suggested we might want to travel to Springfield, Illinois and that would also allow us to visit with our nephew Danny and his wife, Janelle. It was a great suggestion!

So, we left Grand Isle and drove north. We had wanted to take the Natchez Trace, we had already done that, but because of our crowded schedule we instead drove to Canton Mississippi and then on to Sikeston, Missouri.

After resting there for a couple of nights, we continued to Springfield, Illinois. There we set up camp at the Illinois State Fairgrounds. Janelle, Danny’s wife suggested we should tour Lincoln House, The Lincoln Museum, and then Lincolns Tomb.

The next morning, we drove to the visitor center where we got free tickets to tour his house. It was really a nice house, with a garden space and stable and it was obvious that he had come a long way from the one room cabin he grew up in.

The National Park Service has done an excellent job, restoring the inside and outside so that the house is exactly the way it was when the Lincolns lived there.

Much of the furniture is the original furniture and the parlor has chairs and a sofa, what we would call a sofa, that has been upholstered with a black horsehair and rayon material the same color as the original.

As we toured the house our guide, an extremely knowledgeable park service interpreter, (they are no longer called park rangers), took us room by room. The kitchen had a beautiful wood stove, quite elaborate for the time, and each room was filled with the latest technology of the time.

One of my favorites was the stereo viewer used to view three dimensional photos, which are still used today! We had to laugh when we viewed the privy, as the seats where constructed from barrels allowing the females to use the bathroom while wearing a hoop skirt.

After walking around and viewing the neighborhood we next walked the short distance to the Lincoln Museum. The museum was divided into three principal areas, theaters, a log house, and the White house. Each area contained many original materials. One of the placards talked of how Lincoln grew up in a one room cabin and we had to laugh as we live full time n a fifth wheel trailer that is about the same square footage.

The Theaters had two distinctly different movies and both where excellent and moving. The first gave a view of the discord that tore our nation apart, and discussed the slavery issue, (it was really a war about saving rich people’s money/slaves, the only state rights that couldn’t have been settled peacefully were the slaves). It further gave a litany of the battles and the numbers of casualties, over one million two hundred thousand. I wish all the fools that today talk of succession would watch this movie.

The second movie used holograms to talk of the material contained and the work being done in the presidential library, again I wish everyone could see it. Finally, we walked through the White House where two of our favorite rooms were a display showing the discord of Lincoln’s Cabinet, while discussing the Emancipation Proclamation, and a display of his wife, Mary and others original ballroom gowns and jewelry.

After lunch we drove to the Lincoln Tomb. He had been interred in a temporary tomb first, while his final resting place was constructed.  The outside of the actual tomb is one of the largest obelisks we have seen and the bedsides a statue of Lincoln with additional statures of soldiers and sailors cast from actual civil war cannons.

Inside, lies the final resting place of both Lincoln and his family. Lincolns remains are in tomb ten feet behind the huge marble monument.

Back outside is a small bronze bust of Lincoln. We were surprised to see people rubbing the nose, which was shiny, and we were told it was for luck. It is a smart way to keep peoples hands off the other exhibits.

We enjoyed our visit to Springfield and highly recommend it to all, thank you Gary (during our visit one of the park interpreters told us that over two thousand students were visiting, and we had to laugh as each teacher had their students wearing colored coded tee shirts, a wonderful way to keep an eye on the little cherubs)! Clear skies