I recently received a very thoughtful letter from Kerry P., who wrote after reading The Real Lincoln.

"What drew my very personal attention in your book were your comments about General Sherman and Grenville Dodge [chief engineer of the government-subsidized transcontinental railroads). I know both very well . . . because my grandfather was the General Counsel for the Union Pacific from the 1950s-1971."

"My grandfather was a very good man, and we loved him. He was a Swedish-American and quite aware of he fact and behaved very much like Scandanavians still behave -- I mean older gentlemen -- mild-mannered and wore a suit to breakfast. His grandfather had come from Sweden in 1852, and only 8 years later, in 1861 at the age of 18, joined the Union Army . . . . He along with the whole regiment [the 3rd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, all Swedish immigrants] was captured by Nathan Bedford Forrest. They were fortunately parolled, and unfortunately for the Sioux, sent to fight the Sioux uprising with Gen. Pope."

"As to how a foreign 18 year old knew enough about American government and its institutions to go and join the army, is something to wonder about . . . . But I have to say that [my grandfather and great grandfather]both profited very much from this new Lincolnian subsidized industry and the land grants.""That Union volunteer became a politician himself, a Republican one, and so did his grandson. That guaranteed Republican votes in my family for 135 years! Should we forget that an entire state [Nebraska], and undoubtedly numerous of its monied people, politicians, lawyers, etc., felt so indebted to him as to name the capital city of the state, "Lincoln"? If that is not a propagandizing vote-getter then I don't know what is."

"Would either of them have gone into politics, or worked for the Union Pacific RR if not for Lincoln? . . . . My great-great Grandfather went on to make numerous claims for pensions -- the U.S. government has the records and I have read them. He was not seriously injured in the war and one cannot help but feel that the claims that he made . . . were superfluous . . . . The feeling I get looking at those records is the same feeling I have when I hear about the 100-300,000 Gulf War vets who claim Gulf War syndrom and who must be getting something or else they would not be making the claims. It is tempting, because I myself m a Gulf War vet, and undoubtedly the same pension granting also got a lot of those Union soldiers. It is there, why not take . . . there being in many cases no real moral claim to the money."