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annual report. It was the department’s Additionally, Lincoln took an interest
goal, he wrote, “to make two blades in any weapon that he thought might
of grass grow where one grew before.” bring an earlier end to the war. In 1861,
It appears that the inspiration for those for example, Thaddeus Lowe secured
words came from Lincoln himself, who an appointment with the president to
in an 1859 address to the Wisconsin present his idea to use hot air balloons
Agricultural Society, said: “Every blade for reconnaissance. Lincoln was present
of grass is a study; and to produce two as Lowe brought his balloon down
where there was but one, is both a Pennsylvania Avenue and tethered it
profit and a pleasure.” in back of the White House overnight.
Lincoln’s intervention also led to the
In July 1862, Lincoln signed the Morrill
Land Grant Act into law thus support- Union army’s largest order of breach-
ing colleges that gave instruction in loading rifles, and also resulted in tests
agriculture and engineering. Originally of many unconventional weapons,
passed in 1859, this measure had been including incendiary devices and body
vetoed by President James Buchanan. armor. By 1864, as a Union victory
Under the terms of the act, each state became more apparent, Lincoln’s atten-
received 30,000 acres of federal land for tion was demanded elsewhere and his
each member of Congress in 1860. The Dr. Joseph Henry, first Secretary of the active efforts to promote new weapons
Smithsonian Institution. (Photo credit:
land could be sold by the states with the Henry Ulke, courtesy of the Smithsonian and ordnance substantially decreased.
proceeds going to fund the colleges. Institution Archives). Twelve weeks after securing a tempo-
Engineering courses had been almost rary roof for the Smithsonian Castle,
exclusively taught at the U.S. Military The most extensive study of Lincoln’s Lincoln was dead, and unburdened of
Academy at West Point, but the new interest in science and technology has the “pressure of necessity.” Not only
law made it possible for other institu- been in his advocacy of certain weap- had it made this boy who had gone
tions to train engineers. ons of war, and in this the bar was to school “by littles” one of the most
again set by Robert V. Bruce, whose eloquent proponents of human rights,
In March 1863, eight months after the 1956 book, Lincoln and the Tools of War,
passage of the Morrill Act, Lincoln remains the standard. Bruce states that it had also driven his enduring interest
signed an Act of Incorporation creating during the first three years of the Civil in science. “He wanted something solid
to rest upon,” said his friend Joseph
Gillespie, and he pursued it in the
…to this day [Abraham Lincoln] mysteries of the physical universe. In a
world that often seemed random and
remains the only president ever to capricious, Lincoln found comfort and
a degree of certainty in the empirical,
hold a patent. disciplined domain of science.

the National Academy of Sciences. War, Lincoln, because of his natu-
The president’s support came in spite of ral curiosity and the obstinacy of the
opposition from his friend Dr. Henry, army’s bureaucracy, sometimes found
who feared that the organization himself involved in the development
would become elitist and undemo- of weapons and ordnance. Inventors
cratic. Henry eventually overcame his hoping to skirt regular army channels
objections and served as the Academy’s often appealed directly to Lincoln for
second president. help, and this sometimes resulted in a
request from the president to the War William F. Hanna is an Adjunct
Department asking that a man be given Professor in the Department
a hearing. of History.

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