Becoming Mr. Lincoln

I became involved in portraying Mister Lincoln in 1990 or so, when I was teaching German at the University of Michigan and living very much in what I have come to call my “professorial phase” of life: full beard with moustache, wearing a corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows. My wife commented one day that if I shaved off my moustache, I’d look just like Abraham Lincoln. I shaved it off, and lo-and-behold, there he was! 

Shortly thereafter, I attended my first reenactment as a “walk-on,” just showing up, and found to my amazement and great pleasure just how delightful and what an honor it was to be treated like President Lincoln—acknowledged by civilians with a hearty “Howdy, Abe,” or a sincerely respectful “Good afternoon, Mister President,” and saluted by soldiers of all ranks who came to attention when I approached. I spoke at that event, attended the Ball, and met hundreds of reenactors and visitors over the course of the weekend. The organizers invited me back for the next year, and I got paid.

That’s how it all started.

My presentations are all in Mister Lincoln’s own words, which I have selected from his collected works, and assembled into thirty-seven pages of presentation material. Always awed at the President’s command of English, I have made only minimal editorial changes to his words, those necessary to make transitions possible or to update some of his vocabulary (like replacing “salubrity”—a word I had to look up in an unabridged dictionary—with “wholesomeness”). Despite my graduate degree in Literature, I know that I cannot match his eloquence, so I don’t dare even to try.

Since then, I have performed at hundreds of events, including more reenactment weekends and school visits than I can count, political functions, and on patriotic holidays like Independence Day, Presidents Day, Veterans Day and Memorial Day.

Along the way, I’ve had a wide range of wonderful experiences when fully in character and when as “out-of-character” as I ever am. Even when I’m wearing something as un-Lincolnlike as shorts and a T-shirt, people I pass whisper comments about me among themselves.