Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

*Not the name he went by at the time. For the sake of consistency, I refer to him by his actual name throughout the book, including here.

*It was common for early settlers to build their homes around forts, or “stations.” In the event of an Indian attack, these forts offered a place to retreat. They were kept manned by a small detachment of volunteers.

*A sixteenth-century song by Richard Edwards, referenced in Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, Scene 5.

*Many farmers ran distilleries as a way to make extra money off their crop. Here, Abe is referring to the fact that Thomas often traded his carpentry for corn whiskey—much to the consternation of his new wife.

*It’s not known how Barts killed Nancy Lincoln and the Sparrows, but based on information elsewhere in the journals, he likely administered a “fool’s dose” of his own blood. Pricking a finger and squeezing a few drops into a sleeping victim’s mouth is the most common method. Such an amount is merely enough to produce the side effects of transformation (sickness, death) without any of its lasting benefits.

*It’s interesting to note the repeated use of the words “kill” and “killing” in these early entries. Abe would later use the more accurate verbs “destroy” and “slaughter.”

*Macbeth, Act I, Scene 3.

*Abe was amazed that passengers were willing to fork over a dollar apiece to have themselves ferried a distance of (in some cases) thirty feet. As in his days on the Old Cumberland Trail in Kentucky, he also reveled in meeting travelers and hearing their stories, many of which he would retell for the rest of his life.

*A tarlike resin.

**A rudder with a long handle so it could be controlled from the roof of the shelter.

*Abe is referring to what is today called St. Louis Cemetery #1.

*An understanding Poe seemed to have forgotten by 1843, when de Vere was used as a character in Poe’s “Lenore.”

*A healthy man in his prime could fetch as much as $1,100 (an impossible amount for a slave to bank), while an older woman or those with any sort of impediment might net $100 or less.

*The town would be renamed Springfield the following year.

*John Walker’s matches (which he called congreves) were made with a mixture of stibnite, potassium chlorate, gum, and starch. They were incredibly unstable, odiferous items.

*The name given to a group of some five hundred warriors and one thousand women and children from five different tribes, all under the command of Black Hawk. It was so named because Black Hawk had been told he would receive assistance from the British in any conflict with the Americans (it never materialized).

*William F. Berry, son of a local minister, and a former corporal in Lincoln’s outfit.

*Vandalia was the state capital until 1839, when it was moved to Springfield.

*Abe is either misquoting or paraphrasing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, Scene 2.

*Long, rectangular strips of leather used to sharpen shaving razors.

*On August 25th, 1838, the three-year anniversary of Ann’s death, The Sangamon Journal carried this poem on its front page. The author chose to remain anonymous.

*A boardinghouse on the next block of Hoffman’s Row.

**A small, three-barreled pistol capable of firing three shots (one from each barrel) without reloading.

*Abe had by now taken to calling Sarah Bush Lincoln “mother.” It’s worth noting that he doesn’t mention his father.

*Jack Armstrong had decided to remain in Clary’s Grove when Abe moved to Springfield, effectively ending their brief partnership.

**A four-room house on the Farmington estate, roughly a half mile from the main residence.

*This brush would only deepen McDowell’s paranoia. He left Kemper and founded his own college of medicine at Ninth and Gratiot Streets, outfitting the building with rooftop cannons and keeping a store of muskets on hand to ward off attack. He would go on to serve in the Confederate Army before disappearing from history altogether. The St. Louis building that housed his school is said to be haunted by his ghost, though no record of his death has ever surfaced.

*A modest two-story home that stood on the present-day site of the Library of Congress.

*The seventy-year-old founder of the Whig Party, elder statesman, and idol of Lincoln’s.

*In present-day western Slovakia.

*Mary had no idea who Henry Sturges was, or that such a thing as vampires existed.

*In 1852, Abe started a law practice with Ward Hill Lamon, an imposing figure of a man who would later serve as his presidential bodyguard. As he had with his former partner, Abe kept Lamon in the dark about vampires.

*A witness claimed that he saw Duff commit the murder from a distance of 150 feet “by the light of a full moon.” Abe produced an almanac, which proved that the night in question had been a moonless one.

*Brooks died eight months after the attack.

*As big as New York City was, it was still only a quarter of London’s size in 1857.

**Likely the Fifth Avenue Hotel, completed in 1859.

*Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.

*There is no evidence that Douglas knew about these plans, only that he was in league with several of its vampire architects.

*Abe is referring to Douglas here.

*The line is “Beware the Ides of March” (March 15th). Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2.

*Angelina Lamon actually did die two months after Abe’s dream. Her cause of death remains unknown. It’s doubtful that vampires were involved.

*A reference to Shakespeare’s Henry V. In Act III, Scene 1, King Henry delivers a rousing speech to his troops, beginning with the famous “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!”

*It’s widely believed that Abe got the idea to grow a beard from eleven-year-old Grace Bedell. While it’s true that Bedell wrote with the suggestion (insisting that “ladies like whiskers” and would therefore urge their husbands to vote for him), he’d already begun to grow it by the time her famous letter arrived.

**There was no cause for the Union to intervene—Abe comfortably won the election on his own merits.

*Mary suffered from debilitating headaches (possibly migraines) throughout her adult life. Many historians suggest they were related to her famous bouts of depression. Some even suggest that she was schizophrenic, though it is impossible to know.

*The report was thought lost in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, until it was discovered during a renovation of Mercy Hospital in 1967. On the day the news went public, Mercy received an anonymous donation of a million dollars. The day after that, the report was declared a hoax by hospital officials.

*For fear of spies, all of Henry’s wartime messages to Abe were coded in one way or another.

**Spoken by the character Richmond in Richard III, Act V, Scene 2.

*Merrow’s letter, housed in the Harvard University Archives, has long been mistaken for a work of epistolary fiction.

*Horatio “Bud” Nelson Taft Jr. and Halsey “Holly” Cook Taft were Willie and Tad’s best friends. They were often accompanied by their teenage sister, Julia, whom Abe affectionately called a “flibbertigibbet.” Fifty-nine years later, she would write about her memories of Abe and his boys in Tad Lincoln’s Father.

*A small soldier doll that had been given to Tad as a gift. He and his brother enjoyed putting the doll through mock court-martials for treason or dereliction of duty, sentencing him to death, burying him—and then repeating the whole process. Abe was once implored by his boys to write a pardon for their toy, which he did happily: “The Doll Jack is pardoned by order of the President. A. Lincoln.”

*A circular fifty-two-acre park often used as campgrounds for Union troops.

*Activated charcoal has long been used a treatment for poisoning. It works by absorbing toxins in the intestines before they can reach the bloodstream.

*The Battle of Fort Stevens marks the only occasion in American history a sitting president was under fire in combat.

*Civil War Misc. Collection, USAMHI.

*Grapeshot is a type of cannon ammunition similar to a shotgun shell. Small metal balls are packed tightly together in a projectile. When fired, the balls spread out to cause a greater damage. Grapeshot was packed into canisters and used for close-range engagement.

**Duncan Papers, New Jersey Historical Society.

*Alexander Gardner, the Washington, D.C., photographer who would also take Abe’s last portrait.

*Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5.

*From Abe’s favorite poem by Scotsman William Knox.

*Julius Caesar, Act V, Scene 4.

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Copyright

Copyright © 2010 by Seth Grahame-Smith

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First eBook Edition: March 2010

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ISBN: 978-0-446-57185-2