and he shared a room with robert todd lincoln in the family quarters upstairs. so his death in alexandria across the river when he was shot down, taking the flag down from the hotel, was a horrible personal tragedy for the family, as well as the loss of the first soldier of note of the union army in the civil war. his body was brought back to the white house, and the funeral was held in the east room with a garland of flowers on the coffin made by mrs. lincoln. so he was one of the early characters of the white house story who was gone very soon. mrs. lincoln, always controversial, mrs. lincoln. this picture was taken of her by brady, 1861. she theoretically managed the house. one of the great problems mrs. lincoln had was she was not a young woman anymore and she was

following probably the woman considered the most brilliant hostess of the 19th century at the white house, harriet lane. harriet lane had been in england with her uncle, james buchanan, at st. james. she knew how to do it all. she -- mrs. grimsley claims that mrs. lincoln introduced fresh flowers. she didn't. harriet lane did. and there were fresh flowers. they had dances. one of the kind of dances they held, they used to put crash down in the east room and have an artist come in with colored pencils and do pictures of it and then they would dance the picture off. jefferson davis claimed at one time that he had the u.s. flag on his floor and danced it off. but that was always denied. so mrs. lincoln had a hard row to hoe. but in addition, she wasn't very good at it. she couldn't get along with the white house staff at all. the white house staff is unlike any other staff on earth.

they're like a family. you know, when you see a memoir by a member of a white house staff, you'd better look twice because those people don't write memoirs. they have an utter loyalty to the house. well, because of the racial -- the north-south problems, buchanan dismissed all of the african-american servants because they all had been african-american servants except for the steward since way back. mrs. lincoln had a lot of irish immigrant women and people like that. within months, they were all gone. they didn't like her. she didn't get along with the steward at all. and began appointing the most unlikely people you could ever imagine to run the white house. they had no experience in it. they flattered her. and they had access to her in an interesting way. that greenhouse. she went there a lot. and, of course, the public wasn't allowed to go in there. so mrs. lincoln was there, and staff members went in there. and this appears to me the way they all got to her.

otherwise, i can't imagine how. the house was not really convenient. it had three water closets. jefferson had put the first two in. they were upstairs at the two ends of the house. one was in the office in a little enclosure and the other one was in the dressing room adjoining the master bedroom on the far end. and mrs. polk had built one under the famous stair that lincoln used that threaded all up through the house. and he used that stair to get out on the lawn and go to the war department. and it was there. that's all they had, was those. they operated -- there was running water in all the rooms upstairs. in the pantry. and it was potomac water. there was no hot water. and the faucet faced you when you looked at the sink. and you turned it one way and the cold water came out of it. and the water came from springs and from the river that ran in wooden pipes. in fact, where they're having

the wall street camp in washington today is where the main springs were, franklin square, that fed the white house. there was a heating system. it was a gravity system. so you had a sore throat all winter. but it was of course a luxury at that time. so it was comfortable in that way. but you can see in many ways why lincoln called it that damned old house, because it was a bit like a hotel but, again, still a house. you know the story of the stables burning. these pictures just turned up within the year at the library of congress of that stable, you looked forever for the picture of what it looked like and here it is. much more of a stable than i thought it would be. it was built by andrew jackson for his race horses that he kept there. and here's the south front of the house in the distance. and the little temporary fences. and this is where the horses were. this is where it caught fire.

the reason it burned so fast was that lantern on the roof was open all through for smells and to air out the thing and it acted as a chimney and burned the house -- the building down. and the new one was put on the other side. another relatively new picture is this one, which most people think is tad lincoln out on the north driveway. they really can't tell, but he was a little boy and he was out there all the time. the railing you see up against the house. beyond that is a 14-foot drop into an area way that served the basement. i think i mentioned it earlier. all of these railings and things were put in in the 1830s. the lamps on the front of the house were put there in the 1850s by franklin pierce when he did a major remodeling of the house. all of what you see is stone. that whole top of the portico.

what you usually find is wood. but it's not. it's all stone. and the attic was used for nothing in lincoln's time. i mean, it was a barn of a house. the only known picture of the east room as lincoln knew it is this one. this came from a flea market in ellicott city, maryland. but you had to piece it together. the ceiling was painted in franklin pierce's time. the chandeliers came in under andrew jackson and were made into gas by polk in 1847. and the furniture is all from various times. the mantelpiece is from franklin pierce. but it was changed very quickly by andrew johnson because it was so worn out. and this is the lincoln east room. this is where it was as -- more or less as finished by andrew jackson in 1829-30. it was completely remodeled by general grant.

and all the parts in '73 for his daughter's wedding. and all the ports vanished. nobody knows where those light fixtures and things were. but some of the furniture has surfaced and is back at the white house. when lincoln dined in the state dining room, they used the plateau which james monroe had bought in the era of good feelings in france, had his agents buy. it's rarely ever been assembled the whole way since lincoln's time. it's 13 1/2 feet long. and it's -- they had candles on it that reflected. and, of course, the dining room in lincoln's time didn't go this direction. it went the other direction. the long direction toward the fireplace. there's a fireplace at each end. but this plateau was all decorated with wax flowers in the early days and then finally flowers. and a part of it is still in use today. as are those compotes with the fruit in them on the table. the dining room was enlarged by theodore roosevelt.

the north lawn, again. the statue of jefferson had been placed there by james k. polk. grant removed it when he did the landscape over in 1873. but polk wanted some symbol to identify himself with the expansion, so he put jefferson on the front lawn. and mrs. polk, who was a shrewd gal, she got a picture of cortez and hung it in the blue room. so she saw little jimmy polk as cortez and not jefferson then. this is the lawn over which the people -- they leapt over the fence that last speech lincoln made, and there were several thousand people there. the greenhouse was a very popular feature of the white house for about 40 years. it was torn down in 1902 -- or moved. part of it was moved.

it was not the same one. 24 one was wooden, and this one burned about five years after lincoln's time. but here you see nicolet greeting plains indians and some ladies there and probably the agents, indian agents. these are the contents of the earlier orangery. and those are sasanquas which were very popular in the white house. and they used to take them out and put them in the halls during parties. the lincolns did that. everybody did that. and this was the best place to take pictures because of the overhead light. all winter long in cold, cold weather, this greenhouse was a retreat for the family. the lawn in the back, all around the white house, was not mowed, although there were mowing machines invented in the 1830s. what they did was they brought sheep in and it was one of the perks of the gardener to take little money from the sheep herders or shepherds and they went in and a little fire engine was brought out and they greened

it all up and then they took these rollers and rolled it. and they had two also -- two mule-drawn rollers and they'd flatten it out, green. that's how the carpet of lawn was like in those days. lincoln used to go into the blue room, which is behind that bow. see the columns, the half round. and he'd close the shutters. and he'd lie on the sofa and listen to the marine band that entertained out on the lawn once a week. and the public was allowed to come in. the famous picture at the western reserve historical of lincoln's office a year before he died shows all the details of what is now the lincoln bedroom. and this was a document used in the restoration of the room, which i will show later. but the descriptions bear all of this out. the maps plastered all over the walls. it just must have been the same way 20 years before. that table had belonged to jefferson and had drawers all around it.

and jefferson, who was very much a loner, would put his -- anything that was to be dispatched to the departments in the department's draw. and then their messenger would come empty and take it over to the department and tend to it. the -- i don't know why the desk is over the door. and i imagine some of you are wondering down there on the right. that's andrew jackson's stand-up desk. and actually, if you open that door, there was a low partition built. the room next door, which later became a cabinet room, was -- the next room and then the next room was the oval room upstairs and the family quarters. lincoln had a partition built just inside that door that crossed the next room so he could go from there into the family oval library, they called the yellow oval room, in privacy. that was torn out immediately after his time. but i don't know why they have

the desk over it, because he used it regularly and created a reception room next door and then those who wait went in the hall outside this room, which must have been a nasty place with spittoons and a linoleum floors and pretty dim and lots of noise. across the hall, nicolet's office was to the left through that door and hayes' office was across the hall, and nicolet and hay slept in the bedroom across the hall from this. today called the queen's bedroom. lincoln's death, at the time of lincoln's death the body was taken to the white house. and there was a viewing, i guess you'd call it, april the 18th, and then the funeral, the 19th. thousands and thousands of people came to see the open coffin. and that evening after that was closed, b.b. french supervised the treasury carpenters, building the addition to the

treasury building and building this catafalque part of which still exists in the u.s. capitol. it was in the center of the room. they also built bleachers that -- all around the walls. and the 600 invited guests came the next day, not including the press and others. it was a press box beyond this catafalque. waud was allowed to come in and sketch this early in the morning. and general grant was to be presented in one end of it one morning and ms. lincoln was to be at the other end. she didn't attend. she was in a hysterical state upstairs and people took their shoes off to walk up and down the halls. they were scared to death of her. but she was horribly upset. and, of course. so this, though, is what the funeral was like. there were people passed out. the crowd was so thick on these shallow bleachers that went up all around the walls that two people would hold up one and the

smell of flowers was pretty sickening. and the reverend phinneas gurley gave a very emotional funeral oration calling for revenge. i don't think lincoln probably would have liked that very much. the mourning stayed up for 30 days, which was a custom in those days. the white house had been draped. here you see an unusual picture that's turned up in the curator's office of the white house. they bought this somewhere. and they appear to be taking -- correct me if i'm wrong. but they appear to be taking the mourning down. the columns have been totally wrapped. and the house was heavily draped. well, you got in trouble in washington if you didn't show some mourning. and you can see -- you see the carriage. between that and the window. you would not believe what that is. that is a platform that went out over that deep area way and had steps on it. and they started using it in the

1850s when the public, huge crowds came. and they would not serve anything anymore. they used to give ice water, but they didn't. they had 6,000 people on new year's day. they felt people would get so sick -- and also the fourth of july. that they would start going out if they had that opportunity to get out. and that must be how they -- it's up there for some reason. i don't know why. but it was put up for all public receptions and people would just -- a certain number just couldn't take it anymore and left. at the time. one of the mourning badges from the funeral period in washington showing lincoln. this is the lincoln bedroom as restored by mrs. george w. bush. with the idea of using as many facts about lincoln as possible in the room. now, the still wagon picture is not in color.

and, of course, the photographs taken by carpenter are not in color. so they guessed on the colors. but they had that corona made for the top of the bed. that's the way the bed was. now, the problem with this is the bed was used in the other end of the house in what was called the prince of wales room. this was lincoln's office. and the ceilings, because the east room ceilings are 22 feet high and the rest of the ceilings are 18 feet, you have a four-foot difference between the level of the floor in most of the house and the east end. so this is shorter. but that's the crown, and the idea was a state bedroom. some of this furniture, the sofas came from england. a family had bought them at a white house sale and had it -- and when president truman was doing the white house and created this room, they gave them back to the white house. the rest of it, most of it was there, you know, the lamps and things i don't know, but the

other things were, the carpet patterns after one in an old drawing. that table in the middle, which is almost unimaginably weird, with cranes carved all over it, that was the roosevelts -- the theodore roosevelts thought that was the most beautiful table they'd ever seen. so it was being hauled out to send to the trash and they stopped the cart and made them bring it back in and put it in the house because they loved victorian furniture. so this is now the lincoln bedroom, and adjacent to it is the lincoln sitting room and to the right would be the treaty room, which is where the little passage was in lincoln's time. so this is a popular state bedroom created by truman. president hoover actually started the idea because he had the treaty room fixed up for his lincoln collection, and then someone on the staff said, well, mr. lincoln's office was right next door. and hoover said, let's change it. had all the cabinet work moved

into this room and it was called the lincoln study before truman got a hold of it. churchill stayed here often. and it was a very popular thing. well, lincoln's house survives. somehow through all the density of law and circumstance, of secrets and public statements and the rest of the conditions that come along with the white house, the private lives and influences of the presidents drift slowly to the surface. there seems no end to it, as evidenced by some of the photographs i've shown you, several of which have appeared recently. thousands of documents on this subject are housed in the national archives, record group 42. fun to go through. and just see what little things are recorded. forming pieces of the lincoln puzzle. from the first presidents who kept good records of the white house lest their successors accuse them of domestic extravagance. the lincoln materials are very full, giving facts and clues to what life in the setting must have been in his day.

the french call such information little history. not in the big stream, but the little shells along the shore. it comes from recollections of doormen and maids. it comes from notes on scraps of paper somehow preserved. it comes from invoices and inventories. it comes from the sweepings of records. as well as the official documentation that accompanied lincoln through his four years and some days in the presidency. the small corners, the bits and details that i've brought up today, compose a little history of the lincoln white house. thank you. >> thank you, dr. seale. we have a few minutes for questions, so if you had a question, would you make your way up to the mike?

>> i certainly enjoyed your comments this morning. >> thank you. compliment to yor talk, there's an exhibition now at the renwick gallery, smithsonian, kitty-corner from the white house, of things that were tossed out from the white house during the various renovations. you mentioned grant and teddy roosevelt restorations. and lastly, the fireplace in front of which lincoln sat is now here in gettysburg at the eisenhower farm. tossed out during the grant administration. and given to the ieisenhowers. >> private property given to the white house. well, the eisenhowers were interested in the history of the white house. and that exhibit celebrates the 50th anniversary of the white house historical association founded during the kennedy administration. mrs. kennedy began her renovation to make the white

house look like something, look historical, and in so doing found that the historical society has gone on and has a tremendous educational program. and i might say, a journal which i added, which you can sign up for anytime you want to. it's the only subscription the association has. thank you for bringing that up. that's a very important, very select exhibit there at the renwing. >> thank you for your presentation. my question is, since the white house is made out of a sandstone, permeable sandstone, i don't understand how that could burn? >> well, very good question. because i can tell you, it was -- what burned was the very thing that president -- the corps of engineers warned president truman of. the wooden lath -- see, there's wooden framing inside, timber framing between the floors and acres of wooden lath behind the

plaster. it was just a tinder box. and that's what burned. but the white house stone is only about that thick. it's like a veneer on the outside. like cathedrals were built and everything and country houses in europe. there was just four feet of brick behind it never supposed to be exposed to the weather, and it was soft. that was all removed by truman. but what happened in the fire was that the fire burped -- it got it all hot and then rainstorms began about 12:30 or 1:00 in the morning, and it just began to pop everything. it wasn't that it didn't survive standing up, it couldn't hold anything. for safety, it had to be taken down. so they tore it down really. the british didn't burn it down, they gutted it. but that's why it had to come down. it was no longer structurally sound. and a lot more wood was used in

it, and everything has to be done quickly at the white house, because it's a business house. charles mccann, when he did the work for theodore roosevelt, they wanted to expand the sitting room. he put a -- when he put the supporting partition down, he put tie rods and screwed up into the wooden structure of the attic, like those stars you see on the outside of buildings here, that's how he supported the thing. well, it was by truman's time a big sandwich being squashed. so structurally, you know, they would cut through timber and all sorts of stuff, truman's objective was to keep the president in the white house. it was the symbol. anything else? >> thank you for a wonderfully educational and enjoyable

presentation. >> thank you. >> very nicely presented. i have a question about the earthquake in the city of washington. i know some public buildings were damaged. did anything happen to the white house? >> i have to tell you, not that i know of. it was a shake. it really was. but it was -- i don't know what happened. most of the attention has been given to the cathedral, which the washington cathedral had some terrible damage. i don't know, i haven't heard. the white house, the original stone walls are on new footings from 1948, 1952, and a cage outside out of steel beams. it's a beautiful engineering story. every room is -- the idea was it was to be bomb proof, which is a joke now, but every room is a steel cage. and president lyndon johnson was very sensitive to sound. and he used to try to take a nap while tourists were going through the house, and the structure would hum. and he used to say, they were

driving him crazy the way it was humming. but i can't imagine there would be much trouble with the foundation that place has. but i don't know. but i'll ask. that makes me curious. >> the washington monument is closed, is that correct, due to damage? >> yes. they're still working on that one. it had some damage. that's chilling, isn't it. yes, there was real damage around washington. i mean, i was there, sitting at my computer. and it was violent. for the short time it happened. it made me appreciate san francisco. and not want to go there anymore. >> we often read that buchanan pretty much treated the white house as he did the country, that is, he didn't do anything with it. leaving the lincolns to put some semblance of order. was it really in that bad of shape? >> no. jefferson davis wrote at the end of his life of all the times he had been seen in the white

house, the most brilliant was the time of harriet blaine and james buchanan. and after all, lincoln did thank buchanan for holding the union together until he got there. but buchanan, you know, they got the tremor, the crack of the whip on all of the sectional business. but it was actual ly a very splendid white house. they sent a lot of stuff to auction, that people would like to have today, and some has come back. they refurnished rooms. they had parties. it was like the diplomatic community that they had been part of, he and his daughter had been part of. it was a very -- almost to cover up what was going on. but they had -- he split with his cabinet, of course, over sectionalism. he was a unionist. and they had to make dinner lists, to be careful who they had, because they had had a fight over the dinner table. and in fact, nikkolai was sent

by lincoln to washington early, to meet with the secretary of state. everything social passed through the secretary of state. one reason mrs. lincoln hated the secretary of state. because he had authority over here, and lincoln never interfered with that. social authority. and they discussed how they used to do the social stuff. and there's a wonderful drawing in the national archives of nikkolai and the secretary of state made as to how you see people by the setting at table. the president and first lady were across from each other. and then in descending order, rank of ambassadors, and the ambassadors' wives -- they weren't ambassadors, they were ministers then, but the ambassadors' wives had the same rank they did. so they were very conscious of that. and but can a had had -- buchanan had had a stunning court.

anything else? thanks very much. [ applause ] a generation before president john f. kennedy acting on behalf of a grateful nation, designated him an honorary american citizen to winston churchi churchill, and paid his own tribute of transatlantic origins. appearing before a joint session of congress on the day after christmas, 1941, he observed i cannot help reflect that if my father had been american and my mother british, instead of the other way around, i might have got here on my own. today outside the british embassy on massachusetts avenue, churchill literally describes two nations with one bronze foot planted on british soil and the other on american. this pleased the old man himself no no end.

with the statue announced on his 89th birthday, the honorary american said, i feel i will rest happily and securely on both feet. controversy arose over the depiction of the wartime prime minister not because of his characteristically defiant stance with right hand raised in a trademark "v" for victory salute, no, it was another churchill icon, the cigar in his left hand, that offended some members of the english-speaking union. the organization responsible for the sculpture. in the end, the "v" and the cigar won out. unveiled a year after his death in 1965, the figure seems even larger than its 9-foot dimensions would indicate. almost half a century on, winston churchill still manages to dominate his surroundings. >> by the way, i cannot help but reflecting that ifmy