Page 10 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • February 15, 2012 ‘Abraham Lincoln’ (continued from page 8) slid into mental instability due to her own emotionally deprived childhood, including the early loss of her mother, the loss of two of her sons and of other relatives. Mrs. Lincoln was fluent in French, fond of elegance, and a foot shorter than her husband. She fled Washington during Lincoln’s first term in the House of Representatives because she had to live in one room of the Griggs boarding house and was not invited to many parties. Lincoln missed his wife and their two sons so much that he declined to run for a second term, but it was Mary who suggested the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, because, having been courted both by Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, Mary knew her husband was the better debater. “She said to me, ‘Challenge him to a debate. That is your strong suit,” Lincoln remembered. Mrs. Lincoln’s father was a slave owner and her four brothers fought for the Confederacy, but President Lincoln refused to dignify the Southern cause with the term “Confederate.” He said he always referred to the Southerners as “the rebels.” He saw Robert E. Lee, not as the noble hero of The Lost Cause, but as a traitor. “He threw aside the oath he took on the plains of West Point, where he said he would defend the Constitution of the United States,” Lincoln said of Lee. Still in character, Lincoln described being assassinated at Ford’s Theater while his police bodyguard slipped off for a drink during the performance. He left many with moist eyes when he described Lincoln’s last words. Mary asked him what their guests in the theater box would say if they saw the Lincolns holding hands in public. “They would have to believe we were in love,” he replied. The applause at the end of the program was prolonged and questions had to be interrupted for lack of time. Sheila Brogan, president of the Ridgewood Historical Society which cosponsored Lincoln’s appearance, was delighted with the program and the large audience. Ridgewood’s Joe Truglio, an official of the North Jersey Civil War Roundtable – and Lincoln’s driver for the event – found the performance excellent. Former Councilman John Clark, who has a doctorate from Princeton with a concentration in the Civil War era, approved of the impersonation and especially liked the way Lincoln reached out to the children and encouraged them to read history. “I enjoyed it,” Clark said. “He really got into the role.” Clark admitted he had minor quibbles about the description of the initial failure of the Gettysburg Address, which has become part of the Lincoln Myth. The president exposed some of the myth, saying he did not write the notes on an envelope in a railroad station waiting room. ‘President Lincoln’ with Ridgewood’s Joe Truglio from the North Jersey Civil War Roundtable. Still in character, Lincoln, escorted by Truglio, arrived at the Ridgewood Schoolhouse Museum to take in the current exhibit of Civil War artifacts and speak one-on-one to dozens of people. Costello, briefly out of character, said he started working in the title insurance business in 1863 with a high school edu- cation, and that he had been a Civil War re-enactor for two decades when his hair turned white and friends told him he was too old to take the field as a junior officer. “You sort of look like Lincoln,” one friend told him. The rest is history.