Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

  *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

  *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.

  *, Act V, Scene 5.

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

  *, Act V, Scene 4.