In late 1864, London Telegraph reporter George Augustus Sala, that paper’s Washington correspondent, interview the Lincolns in the Blue Parlor of the White House. In his article about that interview, Mr. Sala described his impressions of the president in great detail. More on that soon.
Here is a key section that stood out in light of certain commentators criticizing President Obama for appearing on a humor show, “Between Two Ferns”:
“The melancholy look struck me most forcibly when I remembered that I was in the presence of the great joker or jokes–the Sancho Panza made Governor of this Transatlantic Barataria …”
More to come on this …
(source: Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 1, 1864).
– Fred Dews
Public Historian 