When John Short looks at the bronze, he sees an
interpretation of poet Walt Whitman’s description of
Lincoln’s “deep latent sadness in the expression.”
october 2019
30
WBM
H
OLZER, one of America’s foremost Lincoln
scholars, was fascinated with the Gage
mask. “Harold Holzer said he was familiar with
almost all of the Lincoln statues — he in fact
sent us a book from the ’30s listing all of the Lincoln
statues,” Short says. “Gage was in the book for his statue
at the Kansas statehouse. But this was not.”
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of the
2005 book “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of
Abraham Lincoln,” saw the bronze in Chapel Hill.
“Doris Kearns Goodwin went crazy over the fact
he didn’t have his beard,” Short says. “This is the pre-
White House Lincoln. These are the images of Lincoln
that are so rare.”
Hamm admits he doesn’t have the depth of knowl-edge
as the historians, or even Short. But as he’s done
the research, he’s gained a fresh appreciation of Lincoln
and the Gage mask.
“I’m just a student of history. I love our country,”
he says. “I was probably just as drawn to Jefferson
or Washington as Lincoln. I understood his sig-nificance.
But this path we’re on has brought me
closer to Lincoln. I have a new appreciation for
him as a leader. Coming from a business per-spective,
an entrepreneur, the thing I take
away is the significant weight of keeping
the country together. The Christ-like side
of Lincoln. The selflessness of him. This
mask makes me appreciate that. Then delving
more deeply into his history and what he’s done
just reinforces that.”
The bronze will receive an even wider audience
when Short and Hamm present it to a room full of
historians and scholars at the annual Lincoln Forum
Symposium at Gettysburg, P.A., Nov. 18.
“This journey that Clell and I are on, we call it the
long and winding road because it started in the ’70s
with me as a young man having that put in my hand
and then later in life being able to actually see this
particular rendition of Lincoln,” Short says. “It spoke
to me so deeply. I was able to keep it for myself. And
now, at the end of my life, we’ve realized by accident
almost what we’ve really uncovered. This lost face of
Lincoln.”
ALLISON POTTER