Here's another from "Lincoln and his Boys".
The speech I quoted from in the previous post was spoken at the Great Western Railroad Depot in Springfield, Illinois. The depot is still there, preserved as it was on the day that Lincoln left.
When I visited Springfield with Rosemary Wells, we sought it out, and I took hundreds of photos from every angle, knowing that I would be illustrating this scene of Lincoln and Willie returning from Chicago. However there was no way I could make the composition work and also show the depot in the background.
This was a case where it was important to jettison the great research I had done for the sake of a better picture.
That kind of background research is never wasted though. It meant a lot to me to stand where Lincoln had been, and to see some of the things he and his family had seen.
Here is a shot of the depot as it is to-day.
