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Born: January 6, 1828
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Died: May 7, 1893
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Complete HarpWeek Biography:
Ward Lamon, law partner and sometimes bodyguard
of Abraham Lincoln, was born in Frederick County, Virginia, to Elizabeth Ward
Lamon and George Lamon. At the age of 19 young Lamon moved to Danville,
Illinois, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar a few years later. In
1852 he formed a law partnership with Abraham Lincoln, and the two developed a
close, lifelong friendship. A colorful character, Lamon was known for his bawdy
humor and heavy drinking. When Lincoln reentered electoral politics, Lamon
worked in Honest Abe’s unsuccessful 1858 senatorial campaign against incumbent
Stephen Douglas and in his victorious presidential campaign in 1860. Lamon
journeyed with the president-elect to Washington, D.C., serving as his
bodyguard.
The new president named Lamon to the post of
marshal for the District of Columbia. He delighted in the job but quarreled
frequently with other officials, particularly the district’s military
governor. Opposed to both abolition and the expansion of slavery, Lamon
generated controversy by enforcing the fugitive slave act while it remained the
law of the land. On April 14, 1865, he was on assignment in Richmond so, to his
later regret, did not accompany Lincoln to Ford’s Theater, where the president
was assassinated.
Lamon ended his tenure as marshal and formed a
law partnership with Jeremiah Black, the former U.S. attorney general and
secretary of state under President James Buchanan. He also began collecting
Lincoln documents and in 1872 published the first volume of a Lincoln biography.
It was ghost-written by his law partner’s son, Chauncey Black, and, apparently
unknown to Lamon, manifested an anti-Lincoln bias. The projected second volume
was not produced. In 1879 he and Black dissolved their partnership, and Lamon
then traveled and occasionally practiced law on his own.
Source consulted: American National Biography. |
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