Lincoln and the prolonged personal snub. 3

It transpired, however, that the venue for the trial was changed from Chicago to Cincinnati and as Harding put it, that “removed the one object we had in employing Lincoln.”

Lincoln didn’t know about the change of venue, and when he arrived at the Cincinnati train depot he was met by his soon-to-be colleagues, the other members of the Manny legal team. Harding’s description of how Lincoln appeared upon his arrival in Cincinnati in September 1855 has to be quoted: He looked like ‘a tall, rawly boned, ungainly backwoodsman, with coarse, ill-fitting clothing, his trousers hardly reaching his ankles, holding in his hands a blue cotton umbrella with a ball on the end of the handle. ‘When introduced, we barely exchanged salutations with him, and I proposed to Stanton that he and I go up to the court. ‘“Let’s go up in a gang,” remarked Lincoln.

Stanton was having none of this country bumpkin. ‘“Let that fellow go up with his gang. We’ll walk up together,”‘ said Stanton, aside, to Harding. And ‘we did,’ Harding relates.