James Mann Body Guard to Lincoln
I am not related.Just thought I would post this interesting piece.
Published in the Herald News, Joliet, IL
01/08/04 By John Whiteside
Ron Schaller of Plainfield is mighty proud of his great-grandfather. Of course, the old-timer died long before Schaller was ever born.
But Schaller has read the old newspaper clippings about Capt. James Mann, which have been passed down in the family.
Mann was written about several times after his death in 1928 in Cincinnati. He had a very prominent claim to fame.
After he recovered from a serious wound in a Washington, D.C., military hospital during the Civil War, Mann's loyalty to the Union, for some unknown reason, had made an impression upon Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Mann had been assigned to Stanton's staff.
And Stanton assigned the young soldier as a personal bodyguard to President Abraham Lincoln.
After the war, Mann worked for many years as a musician and a writer. He was even a reporter for a Cincinnati newspaper.
As an old soldier with war memories, he was a well-known storyteller, whose favorite stories involved walking behind the long legs of Lincoln.
"The president had such long legs that a bodyguard seemed a useless person," Mann said. "The lantern I carried to light his way was always behind him because one of his steps was at least twice the length of my longest span. Had some dangerous emergency arisen he would surely have outstripped all the guards in advancing upon the seat of the trouble. He regarded the measures for his personal safety as a piece of fine humor."
Mann, who had been a teacher before the war, had a fine tenor voice, which helped him earn a living after the war. At the Grand Army of the Republic Post, he was known for "his light-heartedness and his readiness to sing or dance a jigg."
The other old soldiers at the GAR post called him "Captain." That had been his rank while serving in the famous Iron Brigade, where he had been seriously wounded at Gettysburg in 1863.
As a storyteller, he often told the tale of his own grandfather, who had served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Mann's grandfather had been given 400 acres in Ohio for his service to the new nation. There on the frontier, Mann's grandmother had been kidnapped by Indians.
But as this story went, she had been returned by an Indian chief, who said, "Red man no forget." It seems that Mann's granddad had saved that chief's life when he found him wounded on a riverbank.
"Grandmother had not been harmed, and she had been returned to the clearing dressed in the height of Indian fashion — buckskin garments and gay-colored beads and feathers, a compliment from the chief," the old news clipping about Mann said.
As he talked about his year with Lincoln, Mann said: "He was a kindly faced, tall fellow who always had a pleasant word for one. When I accompanied him on walks in the capital, I was forced to run because of the great strides taken by his long legs. As for needing a body guard, Lincoln did not know what fear meant, and if there had been any real trouble, it would have been impossible to keep him away from the scene."
Unfortunately, the old newspaper clippings don't say anything about Mann and the night that Lincoln was assassinated in Ford's Theater. Perhaps Mann wrote about it at one time and his words have been lost.
The old newspaper clips note that he was still writing about memories up until the day he died.
"His cheerfulness did not desert him even at the last day in the hospital," one clipping said. "Nurses and attendants and physicians delighted to talk with their charge, and despite his 91 years he discussed whatever was on the visitor's mind. The end came yesterday after he had finished writing some anecdotes of his life which he wished given to his only granddaughter ..."
I bet the old soldier had some dandy yarns to tell about Honest Abe, if Schaller can ever find his great-grandfather's written stories.
Those writings are a real family treasure worthy of seeking out in this new year.
You can contact John Whiteside by writing to 300 Caterpillar Drive, Joliet, IL 60436, or sending e-mail to [email protected].
01/08/04