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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Aurora” Down in the Dirt, v168 (the Feb. 2020 Issue)  Order the paperback book: 
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Order this Janet Kuypers writing from her poetry book Every Event of the Year (Volume One: January-June) Order this 200+ page 7½" x 9¼" ISBN# book today of select poetry for holidays and events spanning the first half of the calendar year
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Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology Foundations the Down in the Dirt Feb.-April 2020 issues collection book
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get the 322 page Feb.-April 2020 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:
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| Underscore for the Battles
Janet Kuypers 2/10/19 Dateline, November, 1860. Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th President of the United States of America. Among Democrats, Lincoln won over other democrats, including Stephen Douglas, who first fought Lincoln in the Lincoln-Douglas debates which was, guess what, all about slavery, which, of course, Lincoln was against. But over the course of Lincoln’s run as President, you might be vaguely aware that he was assassinated, but what you might not know is that the attempts on his life started before be even became the President of the United States. Because the southern states (the ones that wanted to secede) weren’t fond of Lincoln, and Lincoln knew this, so he thought it would be smart to go on a whistle-stop train tour to Washington, D.C.. But fearing his safety early on, he hired Allan Pinkerton as his private security, and his security teams finds out that a lot of people want Lincoln dead. The security team then went to Baltimore, one of the stops on Lincoln’s whistle stop tour, and they stayed at the Barnum Hotel, and tried to act “southern”, to infiltrate southerners there. They then found Cipriano Ferrandini, a beady-eyed Corsican barber who planned to kill Lincoln. So, as Lincoln is taking the train in his tour, they stop in Harrisburg, PA, and Pinkerton told him that they have to speed their trip and skip a stop to the can escape the plan of the assassins in Maryland. So what do they do? They remove that hat that Lincoln is so well known for, wrap him in a shawl and claim he’s their invalid brother that needs to get on the train. This way they thought they’d pass Baltimore before noon the next day, or before the scheduled assassination. But in the middle of the night, while in Baltimore, the train stops. ‘Why is the train stopped?’ they wonder, and the found out that Baltimore has a sound ordinance, so they train couldn’t run for hours. Lincoln’s a sitting suck in this train, whose engines aren’t allowed to run at this hour, so they did the only thing they could think: The got horses, and literally hooked the train car up to the horses, and they snuck out of town, quiet as a mouse. Or, quiet as horses, which is more quiet than a locomotive train. And yeah, they get through Baltimore and stop at Baltimore’s Camden Street Station to join the train to Washington, D.C. — which was nowhere to be found. At this point, they could hear the people all around, talking about how terrible Lincoln was, and the South will rise... and Pinkerton is stunned that Lincoln is sitting her, hiding near people that want him killed. But thank goodness, the Washington train eventually showed up, and at 6:00 A.M., February 23rd, Abraham Lincoln arrives in Washington D.C., averting the 1st assassination attempt on his life. This was a perfect underscore for the battles Abraham Lincoln had to endure: he shouldered a century’s burden, the burden for first declaring some human beings are anything but human beings. We may look now and find it impossible to believe humans were bought and sold, tortured in a hot box for days. We hear the speech of having a dream for unity — and on some levels it may still be a dream, but after blacks have run companies in the U.S. and run the Presidency, we all must think that there’s nothing any of us can do. So, this fear founded from servitude and slavery is no longer a part our vocabulary. But when it was the norm, imagine the uphill battle one man had to face: to try to convince an entire nation that their property isn’t property at all, but living, breathing human beings. What an uphill battle. And oh, how he paid for his beliefs. |
