Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Vampire Hunter
“Starve the Devils”
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue… until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
—Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
March 4th, 1865

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
I
Washington, D.C., was under attack, and Abe wasn’t about to miss his chance to see the fighting up close.
On July 11th, 1864, ignoring the pleas of his personal guard, he rode alone on horseback to Fort Stevens, * where Confederate General Jubal A. Early was leading 17,000 rebels in a brazen assault on Washington’s northern defenses. The president was greeted by Union officers and whisked directly into the fort, where he would be able to relax and enjoy a cool drink behind the safety of its thick stone walls.
I hadn’t come to be coddled or hear the battle described to me—I’d come to see the horrors of war for myself. To see what others had suffered these three long years, while I had remained behind the walls of warmth and plenty. Try as they might, the officers couldn’t discourage me from peeking over the parapet to watch boys line up and ceremoniously shoot one another—to see them blown apart by [cannon fire] and run through by bayonets.
The sight of Abraham Lincoln towering over the battlefield in his stovepipe hat must have seemed a godsend for the rebel sharpshooters at Fort Stevens that day. Abe had three bullets zip past him in as many minutes, each one giving his minders terrible fits of anxiety. Finally, when a Union officer standing next to him was struck in the head and killed, the president felt a tug at the bottom of his coat, and heard First Lieutenant (and future Supreme Court Justice) Oliver Wendell Holmes yell: “Get down, you damned fool!”
But he didn’t.
He’d completely lost his fear of death.
There were no more vampires at the White House. Abe had banished them in the wake of Willie’s death and his confrontation with Henry. Even the trinity—his most capable and ferocious protectors—had been sent back to New York.
I shall save this Union because it merits saving. I shall save it to honor the men who built it with their blood and genius, and the future generations who deserve its liberty. I shall give every miserable hour to the cause of victory and peace—but I shall be damned if I lay eyes on another vampire.
The first family was now guarded exclusively by living men, and the president guarded less and less at his own insistence. Each day brought new restrictions on his guards; each day fewer rooms he welcomed them in. Over Ward Hill Lamon’s objections, Abe insisted on riding out in an open carriage when the weather was agreeable, and on walking between the mansion and the War Department alone after dark. As Lamon recalled in his memoirs years later: “I believe that it was more than an absence of fear. I believe that it was an invitation of death.”
A journal entry from April 20th, 1862, sums up Abe’s growing fatalism.
In the course of a week, I greet a thousand strange faces in the White House. Should I treat each as the face of my assassin? Indeed, any man willing to give his life to take mine would have little trouble doing it. Am I therefore to lock myself in an iron box and wait for this war to end? If God wants my soul, He knows where He may collect it—and He may do so at the hour and in the manner of His choosing.
In time, through sheer force of will, he would pull himself out of this depression, just as he had all the ones before it. Not long after Willie’s death, when his longtime friend William McCullough was killed fighting for the Union, Abe sent a letter to the grieving daughter McCullough had left behind. The comfort and advice he offered was meant as much for himself as for the girl.
Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You cannot now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier