Lincoln’s Folding Dividers Used to Plot Troop Movements on Civil War Maps

As with George Washington, Lincoln’s surveying experience taught him the central importance of geography to any military campaign. William H. Crook, the president’s bodyguard, later recalled Lincoln and Grant “poring over maps together.” The president may well have had these dividers in hand as he plotted strategy with his top general. He may also have used them during his early career as a surveyor.

In 1833, the Sangamon County Surveyor offered Lincoln a job as his assistant. Lincoln borrowed two text books - A System Of Geometry And Trigonometry With A Treatise On Surveying by Abel Flint (1804) and The Theory And Practice Of Surveying by Robert Gibson (1814), and learned with the assistance of Mentor Graham, a schoolmaster. In a few years, he started his own practice which included government work, roads, town lots, and private property. [gave up.,..

Lincoln’s family was besieged with requests for souvenirs after his death. Here, Robert Todd Lincoln sends a very meaningful relic to one of his father’s closest wartime associates, Thomas T. Eckert, chief of the War Department Telegraph Office.

“Major [John] Hay told me this morning that you were desirous of some relic of my Father, and

I take pleasure in complying, for I know how high you stood in his esteem. Nearly all of our effects have already been sent away, but I have found the pair of dividers, which he was accustomed to use, & with which you have doubtless often seen him trace distances on maps.

With great regards, I am / Very truly yours / R.T. Lincoln”

Eckert’s work was of such vital importance that his office was directly adjacent to that of Secretary Edwin M. Stanton, and Lincoln was often there to communicate with field officers, to read the latest war news, or simply to take refuge from constant interruptions. Lincoln even drafted the Emancipation Proclamation there, borrowing paper from Major Eckert.

Eckert unfortunately declined Lincoln’s invite to Ford’s Theatre on the fatal night. When Eckert requested a keepsake of the fallen president, Robert Lincoln thought of the tool his father had often used at the telegraph office.

In the spring of 1862, Thomas Eckert was given charge of the War Department Telegraph Office. The Executive Mansion had no telegraph line, so the president frequently visited Eckert to obtain the latest war news or secure a respite from the crush of visitors at the White House. Lincoln even used Eckert’s desk to write out the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.

★ Abraham Lincoln. Folding Metal Dividers (Calipers). Approximately 5” long. With: Robert Todd Lincoln. Autograph Letter Signed, May 21, 1865. 2 pp., on black-bordered mourning stationery. With original autograph envelope, again signed “R.T. Lincoln,” with his black wax seal on verso. With a substantial provenance file. #21925