And it’s the type of quandary that keeps folks up at night… Lincoln’s whiskers a real chin scratcher.
Why, we ask, would a prospective US President fur up his chin and leave the rest of his face shaven?
We know the answer, of course, being the wise counsel of an 11-year-old girl.
Grace Bedell, for it was she, sent a letter to Abe (well, this was pre-Twitter (0r X) and Love Island was some way off too) advising him to whisker up.
Although she put it rather more lyrically than that… they were taught better then too it seems.
Dear Mr President
Grace wrote: ‘If you will let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you, you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin.
‘All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husband’s to vote for you and then you would be President.’
Now politics being as much about profile then as it is now Lincoln answered the Westfield, New York State girl.
‘As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now?’
His male ego flattered, Lincoln, though, acted upon Grace’s advice and grew out the whiskers.
Not a beard you understand but whiskers as was then defined by facial hair holding up the chin.
Briscoe bust
All of which came to our attention at the Briscoe Western Art Museum by the River Walk in San Antonio, Texas.
Where among its many artefacts it houses a bust of a clean-shaven Lincoln with the letter underneath.
And not any old bust but one sculpted by Gutzon Borglum, the principle sculptor behind the presidential faces on Mount Rushmore.
It was a thing of sophistication then and without the Amish overtones it has now.
While rough beards were considered rough, agricultural and radical and more akin to a John Brown.
As in the revolutionary who led the raid on Harper’s Ferry which was the trigger for the American Civil War.
A battle of beardies
America’s bloodiest war was for those of who have studied it and followed Ken Burns’s leading documentary series a conflict of hirsute hombres.
As worrying too is that we are not the only ones to make this link with the Smithsonian mag helping us identify the most luscious commanders in the field.
Major General Alpheus Williams may have been largely forgotten other than by Civil War enthusiasts.
But for his moustache with wings.
He was heavily engaged in the Battle of Antietam, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg and joined General Sherman in his March to the Sea.
The Land of Cotton (Wool)
Nor was the love of a bushy beard just a battle hymn of the Republic.
Because the South wasn’t called the Land of Cotton (Wool) for nothing.
Major General JEB Brown was there at Harper’s Ferry to grab John Brown.
And he was there too during the Peninsular Campaign and Gettysburg.
Before he curled up his toes and his beard and died at the Battle of Yellow Tavern.
The long and short of it
When it comes to length (and we’re sure Freud would have something to say about all of this) then Lt. General John McAllister Schofield is the hair apparent.
Schofield crippled the Confederate Army at the Battles of Franklin and Nashville and joined General Sherman’s army in North Carolina.
Before serving in the Andrew Johnson administration as Secretary of War.
As a postscript to this all, of course Ulysses Grant and Robert Lee both had conservative beards.
And Confederate leader Jefferson Davis’s face was as smooth as a baby’s behind, although much good it did him.
So that’s one of life’s great mysteries cleared up..,
Lincoln’s whiskers a real chin scratcher.
