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Show TOOK LINCOLN'S PLACE IN ARMY Young Pennsylvanian Sent to Do Duty From Which President Presi-dent Was Debarred. GRAVE AT STROUDSBURG, PA J. Sumerfield Staples the Name of the Substitute Who Was In Person at the Front While Great Statesman Ruled at Washington. Abraham Lincoln had a substitute who served as a defender of the Union through ;fte bloody and epoch-making epoch-making period of the Civil war. This assertion has been made many times before. It has aroused bitter controversy contro-versy in various quarters; it has given birth to columns of print, both in support and denial of its truth. The exemption of the president of the United States from the taking up of arms, or serving on an. actual field of battle, is provided for by a special spe-cial statute drawn up to meet such a contingency. But there is nothing to prevent the nation's chief executive execu-tive from sending forth a substitute to fight in his place, although Lincoln Lin-coln was the only occupant of the White House who ever took advan- tage of this fact, writes Prof. Bernard J. Cigrand. The man who represented represent-ed In his person that of the martyred president was John Summerfield Staples, Sta-ples, whose body lies at rest in a little cemetery at Stroudsburg, Pa. The tombstone above his grave, photograph pho-tograph of which is here reproduced, testifies not only to Staples' war record, rec-ord, but states in granite letters the fact of his having served as Abraham Lincoln's substitute. The inscription inscrip-tion in question reads as follows: "J. Summerfield Staples, a Private of Co. C, 176 Regt., P. V. Also a Member of 'the Reg. D. C. Vols., as a Substitute for ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Died Jan. 11, 1888. Aged 43 Tears, 4 Mos., 25 Days." His grave also bears the G. A. R. marker, a metallic star upon which the words "Post 150" appears. A small American flag flatters in the breeze, but the outside world seems little In- fcr. , K SI ".J, V frr; w ! -O' Si- ii5i;?: ;i5iA' J v ;V - .'N - j J. Summerfield Staples. formed as to the career of this patriotic patri-otic and distinguished soldier boy. There are several people still living liv-ing in Stroudsburg who knew Staples Sta-ples and remember that to him belonged be-longed the unique distinction of representing rep-resenting Lincoln on the field of battle. bat-tle. Among their number are J. T. Palmer, postmaster and principal of the public school; C. L. Drake, editor of the Stroudsburg Times, and Representative Rep-resentative A. Mitchell Palmer of Pennsylvania. It was characteristic of Lincoln that he kept the matter from the public pTess, and a like modesty mod-esty seems to have imposed silence on the young soldier. One does not have to make a very exhaustive study of Lincoln's charac-) ter in order to understand the motive which led him to send a substitute to represent him in the scenes of the bloody drama then being enacted throughout the land. His conscience was not of that easily-satisfied variety which contents itself with allowing things to remain as they are, without indulging in exertion for the common good. His was the hand which was steering the Ship of State through tempest and crush of hostile guns, yet great as was the task assigned him, he perceived with the eagle eye that watched the course of action, a post still unfilled, an unoccupied niche where a combatant could be placed to strike in behalf of the Union. To that post he resolved to appoint a representative, repre-sentative, that he might be practically practical-ly in person as he was already in spirit on the red field of carnage. It was done quietly, in that Blmple, unostentatious manner that distinguished distin-guished all of Lincoln's acts, whether In olllclal or private life. He never played to the gallery, and the verdict of his own conscience was all he cared about (Copyright, by W. Q. Chapman |