Lincoln, Stowe, and the "Little Woman/Great War" Story: The Making, and Breaking, of a Great American Anecdote

In her introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Harriet Beecher Stowe, Cindy Weinstein begins, as so many others have, with one of the most popular anecdotes in American literary history: 'Harriet Beecher Stowe's most famous introduction took place on or around Thanksgiving Day, 1862, when she was introduced to President Abraham Lincoln, who allegedly greeted her with these memorable words, 'So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war!''1 Weinstein's evocation of Lincoln is not surprising; of all the biographical details currently in circulation about Stowe, this anecdote certainly ranks among the most well known, and one finds some version of Lincoln's greeting employed in hundreds of articles, books, reviews, and Web summaries. Despite its popularity, however, the quotation is entirely apocryphal, emerging from within Stowe family tradition without any textual support or verification from the author herself. Most of Stowe's biographers have included some version of the quote, almost always scrupulously attributing it to its apocryphal origins.2 Many twentieth-century literary scholars, critics, and historians who reference the incident were not as careful as Weinstein to qualify the quotation with phrases like 'allegedly said' or 'is reported to have said.'3 The quote is a rarity in Lincoln biographies, however, and many of the Lincoln biographers and historians who have used it have been sloppy about noting its apocryphal origins.

On the Internet, where historical summaries are often disconnected from their sources entirely, Lincoln's alleged words are rapidly hardening into unqualified historical fact.How did an apocryphal story emerge as the main evidence for Stowe's cultural legacy before the Civil War? That question is seldom asked by scholars, who treat the quotation more as a treasured Stowe family heirloom than a problem text, footnoting it and then moving on. But despite its popularity, Lincoln's greeting drifts in the same strata of pseudo-historical flotsam that increasingly defines that which is considered 'historical' in the digital age.

The story persists not because of its historicity, but because it resonates with the dominant frequency of Lincoln-as-cultural-icon in American society and because it confirms American cultural expectations of nineteenth-century literature as generally sympathetic to the goals of abolitionism. The Lincoln-Stowe 'relationship' in the twentieth century is a mutually beneficial negotiation between two cultural icons: the linkage to Stowe extends Lincoln's influence further into the culture, into the realm of the literary; Stowe, by her association with Lincoln, is elevated to the pantheon of abolitionist writers that includes such writers as Frederick Douglass, Lydia Maria Child, and Henry David Thoreau.What are the origins of this apocryphal anecdote? If there was no historically significant meeting between these two abolitionist icons, why, despite its questionable origins, did this anecdote gain such purchase in the American imagination?

The answer lies in the literary, historical, and biographical discourse on both Stowe and Lincoln. Literary scholarship and Stowe biography have paved the widest path for this quote in American culture, so many of the sources I reference here come from this area of study. For reasons that should be obvious, Stowe scholars have been more consistently interested in the Lincoln-Stowe connection than Lincoln scholars.Lincoln's famous greeting was reportedly uttered to Stowe during a meeting on December 2, 1862.4 But the quotation did not begin to appear in print until thirty-four years later, in 1896, the year Stowe died.5 That year, the Atlantic Monthly published a piece by Annie Fields, wife of the popular magazine's publisher James Fields and a biographer of Stowe, who wrote, 'It was left for others to speak of her interview with President Lincoln.

Her daughter was told that when the President heard her name he seized her hand saying, 'Is this the little woman who made the great war?''6 Fields's attribution of the quotation to its secondhand source is prudent, as the details of Stowe's trip to Washington have always been difficult to reconstruct, even when eyewitnesses to the event were still living. Stowe wrote almost nothing about her visit with Lincoln, though she shared one possible reminiscence of their dialogue in an article she wrote for The Watchman and Reflector, recalling that Lincoln had told her, 'Whichever way it ends, I have the impression that I sha'n't last long after it's over.'7 Otherwise, Stowe's writing offers no insights into what transpired between them. Lincoln made no known record of the encounter either, which left Stowe's relatives to reconstruct the historic meeting in their writings, and they left a deeply conflicted portrait of the event.

Three of Stowe's relatives claimed to have been present at the meeting with Lincoln, but only one—Harriet's son Charles—recorded some version of the president's famous words to Stowe, and his status as an eyewitness is questionable. The quotation also now exists in several versions, which raises questions about its original form.Stowe and several members of her family apparently did travel to the capital in late November 1862, but the impetus for the visit remains unclear. Annie Fields reports that Stowe sent her a 'hurried note' announcing that she was going to 'see the heads of departments myself, and to satisfy myself that I may refer to the Emancipation Proclamation as a reality and a substance not to fizzle out at the little end of the horn.'8 In the first of two biographies he published about his mother, son Charles recalled that Harriet had been 'invited to visit Washington, to be present at a great thanksgiving dinner provided for the thousands of fugitive slaves'9; in a revised version published twenty-two years later, he added a political justification to the trip that seems to echo Fields's explanation of her reasons.10 Stowe biographer Joan Hedrick suggests that Mrs.

Lincoln had invited Stowe to tea at the White House.11 The letter that Harriet wrote to her husband Calvin while in Washington is entirely devoted to her reunion with their son Fred, an army lieutenant stationed near the capital. It mentions no details of the meeting with Lincoln.Three Stowe family members wrote accounts of the meeting—Harriet's daughter Hattie, her son Charles, and her sister-in-law Isabella Beecher Hooker—but their accounts differ substantially. The list of Stowe's relatives who accompanied Harriet on the trip to Washington, for example, is a matter for debate.

Biographer Barbara White summarizes this uncertainty when she writes, 'Most twentieth-century accounts of the Lincoln visit mention the presence of Charles Stowe, Harriet's youngest son. However, Harriet, Hatty, and Isabella do not refer to him in any of their letters from Washington.'12 White strongly suggests that twelve-year-old Charles did not accompany the three women to the capital.13 Charles's potential absence is significant because his 1911 biography, written with his son Lyman, is clearly the source for the most commonplace version of the quotation currently in circulation: 'Mrs. Stowe, in telling of her interview with Lincoln at this time, dwelt particularly on the rustic pleasantry with which that great man received her.

She was introduced into a cozy room where the President had been seated before an open fire, for the day was damp and chilly. It was Mr. Seward who introduced her, and Mr.

Lincoln rose awkwardly from his chair saying, 'Why, Mrs. Stowe, right glad to see you!' Then with a humorous twinkle in his eye, he said, 'So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war! Sit down please,' he added, as he seated himself once more before the fire, meditatively warming his immense hands over the smouldering embers by first extending his palms and then turning his wrists so that the grateful warmth reached the backs of his hands.

The first thing he said was, 'I do love an open fire. I always had one to home.''14Charles's treatment of this incident illuminates how 'family tradition' was perhaps moved by ideological forces. Charles published his first biography, The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, in 1889 with his mother's assistance.

Composed almost entirely of Stowe's letters and journal entries with brief introductions written by Charles, that biography contains no details of the encounter with Lincoln, though Stowe's above-mentioned letter to husband Calvin is reprinted in the book. The introduction to this same letter was revised for the later 1911 biography. The revisions, printed in bold, are instructive: 'In November, 1862, Mrs.

Stowe, with many others, was invited to visit Washington, and attend a great Thanksgiving dinner which was to be provided for the thousands of fugitive slaves who had flocked to that city. This invitation she accepted the more gladly because her son's regiment was then encamped near the city. She wished also to have a talk with Mr.

Lincoln. By a proclamation issued September 22, 1862, he had warned the states still in rebellion that unless they should return to their allegiance by January 1, 1863, he would, purely as a matter of military necessity, declare the slaves within their borders free. Mrs.

Stowe was anxious to learn from his own lips what was to be his policy in this matter.'15The 1889 biography casts the visit as entirely a family affair—an opportunity for Harriet to see her son—while the revised 1911 account introduces the political motivation for the trip. This politicization of Stowe's trip is reinforced in the section that immediately follows the description of the meeting between his mother and the president: ''I want to ask you about your views on emancipation.' It was on that subject that the conversation turned. Mrs.

Stowe, like so many others at this time, had failed to grasp Lincoln's far-sighted statesmanship. 'Mr. Lincoln has been too slow,' she said, speaking of what she called his 'Confiscation Bill.' 'He should have done something sooner, and with an impulse....' Bismarck has said something to the effect that a statesman who should permit himself to be guided exclusively by abstract moral considerations in his public acts would be like a man taking a long pole in his mouth and trying to run through a thick woods on a dark night. Would it have been for the best interests of humanity to have had a John Brown or a Garrison in Lincoln's place in those critical moments of the Civil War?'16For Charles and Lyman, it is important to situate Harriet Beecher Stowe's legacy within Lincoln's; Lincoln becomes the standard by which Stowe's abolitionism is measured, and Lincoln—a reluctant emancipator by any standard17—is shown to possess the superior prescience and wisdom regarding the abolition of slavery.

Lincoln's brand of realpolitik abolitionism is privileged over the 'abstract moral considerations' of such committed abolitionists as William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown,18 while Stowe is gently reprimanded for not immediately apprehending the grand purpose behind Lincoln's pragmatism.In many ways, Charles's revision of his mother's abolitionism is consistent with the spirit of the age. The revision's first appearance in print parallels an important era in Lincoln's cultural legacy. The post-war generation was dominated by a powerful Republican political machine that kept Lincoln's name in the foreground of American life, and the 'Nationalist School' of American historians that included Hermann von Holst, James Schouler, and John Fiske helped turn Lincoln into a national hero.19 By the turn of the century, Lincoln's reputation was undergoing a cultural makeover that would culminate in the opening of the Lincoln in as a of national that to all of the within American was emerging as a or within the American of the the of and his as was also in of the of national interests who the took in the national culture, the by abolitionism were like Garrison and Brown were increasingly for their and wrote that in while with his wife on in he at the of Garrison and that he not man who the of by the of society than he not have his in of to be but his John Brown would a cultural but a century of in American that he would be more as a and than a committed abolitionist are of was a of in a of he was for his to and had to the of an American but his over slavery. had the of man helped to the of and political that the the of the of he had the of by and for he had helped to the moral that a between and he the of and on which the generation the Lincoln as a in American and the abolitionists were him as or Garrison had once the at a of to its of and Brown had of that had the were for the of national that Lincoln as the and of the abstract also explanation after the and Stowe's of a after the the for such as and William when the to the of an and that only such were to their to the abstract in the in to the of what they considered to be a by the many Stowe those abstract when the to she moved from an to a because like many to Lincoln as a In with Lincoln emerging as the for abolitionism in American culture, Charles and Stowe were certainly of the to situate Harriet's abolitionism within or not Charles was present on the Washington trip to his in to In her Henry not of William Henry introduces the Stowe to The do not end Isabella Lincoln as as to you no of the immediately so in of the was no conversation to be from that I in on of the open at last Mr. of a man out then I myself all is a from Fields's and Charles's Isabella her that to Mr. of that had no who Mrs.

Stowe not have Mrs. Lincoln him on the subject in her own Hattie, who was years at the time, accompanied her mother on the trip and wrote a letter to her the incident as so with after the Stowe had to their these potential eyewitnesses to the Charles some version of Lincoln's and his status as an as I have said, is Lincoln greeted Stowe that introduced him to did he The Stowe family is a source to answer any of those and his many biographers are sources of on the It is in of Lincoln's known writings, and many important Lincoln biographies the quotation the quotation appear in accounts of Lincoln's life, the incident seldom more than a or and Lincoln biographies are more to mention the cultural and political influence of than the meeting between Stowe and Lincoln. John and John Abraham Life Stowe but the quotation to appear in Lincoln biographies after the turn of the the Lincoln biographers were and the quotation and it as historical The of Lincoln and Lincoln and of the its apocryphal origins. and treat the quotation as a from more versions, 'So this is the little woman who on this Civil offers a version of the most commonplace version of the 'Is this the little woman who made this to their from the Stowe source and biographical about the Lincoln's twentieth-century biographers have been generally in the apocryphal of Lincoln's alleged and the a and Life of Abraham Lincoln, are of taking Lincoln's words as in Lincoln biographers and scholars appear to the apocryphal of Lincoln's in Life of Abraham Lincoln the to Lincoln's David to family in Lincoln in The of the quotation famous to be a of on the of Lincoln scholars that Lincoln's words to Stowe are scholars like and have the are in many as three Stowe biographers also this version of the greeting in a 'So this is the little who made this The may on the but they to the perhaps of that any of the quotation have the twentieth century, the most with This as as in biography of this is the little woman who wrote the book that made this for example, because as an for in a perhaps because of its to Lincoln's words more the twentieth century, one what were at before 1896, their original into a more and words are but about the famous its origins, took so after Stowe's Lincoln's greeting a about Stowe that was in circulation during her In the of Monthly for example, of original in was an important political event.

It was one of the most powerful in the Republican in Abraham Lincoln to the and in for the great In Stowe was introduced by the American in this 'It is that the American should the of this to you who have done more than any one now to the of to the of and to the of that among which this has its of In of those Stowe's abolitionism is to and the to end The Lincoln-Stowe quotation is so because it this through Lincoln who out from the to to the reputation as an important abolitionist anecdote is certainly apocryphal, but that its the twentieth century, scholars, and historians have Lincoln's greeting of Stowe as a for the that Stowe's was a for and political but the that Stowe helped the Civil has always been difficult to who were to on Stowe's in the to have received a In his of the of on American culture, suggests that the of by abolition the of their 'Most of these the said little or nothing about and what they did was in most after its is in their about the he that they may have the of an The many among critics, many by its to the it would influence about In the years between the of and the of the Civil political on the his in the by is that the had a effect on public with to in the in the but his in one is of the support so often to support that the to was all and the of but most did and their in many made on the with a long and a long which she of the that were like and of its of like and The and the present of the who their slaves because such is and By these abolitionists as but or as and even is perhaps to this as more added to the of that would at but the of left by a evidence for such a than the in because of of the Weinstein has that evidence of in the is to the of than to the of the the The over also did not the has that despite its over the to Stowe and about two years after its the for Stowe's as to on the of and Weinstein The are but only the most would the in the by a the be the of the of about are commonplace in abolitionist of the is to from its and to the of the William Lloyd Garrison in his to the in Lydia Maria wrote in that a and the subject is so seldom into that are how the influence of society is made to this of the that the of not of to who are more with of and and and than the of the this it is too to of the among the most while the to abolitionism. The of were still the of slaves when the and in the three to the many took to the to their about abolitionists with and abolitionists was commonplace in the were abolitionists in the states before the Civil and though about of those between and the right to the Civil was by in out in in and there were in the between and out in and in and out in between the of and the on those were generally not they a well of in the to the Civil is the as a for for the more in question than in where William a to Frederick at the on the in by with a of that the same who had or were to these through the of years after the book the of however, the would into one of the in the by of a that to their way out of by through the for between and 1863, and of and abolitionists were out for some were even for was to the hundreds of to the If Stowe's had a of for the abolitionist among the evidence was to be on the in a society that so on the ideological of the national be as in a over but this be greeted with Cindy Weinstein is when she that what Stowe's own words of and the Civil is an the main cultural legacy is its to a discourse on and in the century and a after its remains a of literature because many of the cultural through it still like in American The to a that remains by and the of do the quotation in the should do with Lincoln's greeting of Stowe is not because no one for that it was but its as historical is its apocryphal origins. For Lincoln scholars, the famous quotation as to Lincoln's legacy.

For Stowe biographers and literary on the Lincoln's is more seems to be in by a of its For this it to in some as long as to about Lincoln or of Lincoln's greeting as an anecdote in literary and Stowe scholarship perhaps be in by the among many to literature a of or political The made the politicization of literature popular among an generation of literary scholars and in this Stowe's seems like the of a literary influence on American The be to the of literature as an of Lincoln's quotation also a powerful justification for to and in an that is to literary or is with James called it in its in with and that Stowe's for the was by her own of have the with a of to and in such an the main to cultural and historical on questions about the cultural legacy after its place in is by who to and of its cultural Lincoln's apocryphal greeting is a that the is rapidly the of is a in the print with the of with the and over into the of as a way to that a or quotation textual in an of that Lincoln's greeting is that it be to the of writing left behind by Lincoln or Stowe, and a of to be used with and always with a 'is reported to have to family and so on. This between a of writing and the of critical and that between a and be clearly in a where the of an author or historical words still have The of the and the that this is still But on the Internet, the because is through the same any between an and its many versions, and is on the Internet, even the of a letter or journal from an historical the becomes the for all sources have been as and biographers may not be to to the apocryphal