Erected by a proud father nearly ninety years ago, a tombstone whose lettering has grown dim after years of exposure to the elements marks in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania the final resting place of the young soldier who served as Abraham Lincoln's representative in the Union army during the closing months of the Civil War. The simple stone slab in Stroudsburg's Lower Main Street Cemetery reads:

J. Summerfield Staples

a private of

Co. C 176 Reg. P. V.

Also a member of

2 Reg. D. C. Vols. as a

Substitute for Abraham Lincoln

Died

Jan. 11, 1888

Aged 43 yrs. 4 mos. &

27 Days

Grave stone of J. Summerfield Staples. Stroudsburg, PA.

Chance made John Summerfield Staples - known throughout his life as "Summerfield" to distinguish him from his father, John Long Staples - Mr. Lincoln's "substitute," although that designation was technically incorrect.

In a circular issued on June 26, 1864, James B. Fry, Provost Marshal General, announced:

Persons not required by law to perform military duty have expressed a desire to be personally represented in the Army. In addition to the contributions they have made in the way of bounties, they propose to secure recruits at their own expense and present them for enrollment in the service.

This patriotism is worthy of commendation and encouragement. Provost Marshals, and all others acting under this Bureau, are ordered to furnish all facilities in their power to enlist and muster promptly the acceptable recruits presented in accordance with the design herein set forth.

The name of the person whom each recruit represents will be noted on the enlistment and descriptive rolls of the recruit and will be carried forward from these papers to the other official records which form this military history.

Enlistment paper for "John S. Staples" as Abraham Lincoln's "Representative Recruit."

In September, 1864, President Lincoln decided that he would place in the Army a substitute to the credit of the District of Columbia, and requested General Fry to select his representative. General Fry then asked Noble D. Larner, a well-known politician and President of The Third Ward Draft Club (organized to secure substitutes for citizens who might be drafted), to make the selection. Walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, Larner spotted young Staples and his father.

"I am," he said to the former, "looking for a young man to represent the President in the Army as a recruit. Will you accept?"

"If my father consents," replied the young Staples, at twenty still a minor. The elder Staples consented and the three men then went to the Provost Marshal's office where Summerfield was accepted and sworn in.

Seeing an opportunity to publicize the representative recruit program, which had been devised in part as a method for relieving the unpopular draft, the Provost Marshal arranged for an official ceremony in President Lincoln's office. There on October 1, 1864, Staples, wearing his new blue uniform, General Fry, Mr. Larner, and Jon L. Staples met with the President.

As Mr. Lincoln shook hands with his representative recruit he remarked that the latter was a fine, stout, healthy-looking young man who undoubtedly would do his duty. General Fry, Mr. Larner, and the elder Staples then made brief speeches, and Mr. Larner presented to the President a certificate of thanks on parchment paper, framed and glazed. In addition to bearing General Fry's circular order of June 26, the certificate read:

Whereas, Abraham Lincoln, a citizen of the District of Columbia, a citizen of the United States, not being required by law to perform any military service, has voluntarily and at his own expense furnished John S. Staples, in the District of Columbia, as a representative recruit to serve in his stead in the military forces of the Union, he is in accordance with the foregoing order, entitled to this official acknowledgement of his disinterested patriotism and public spirit.

The little ceremony ended with handshaking all around and Mr. Lincoln expressing the hope that young Staples would be "one of the fortunate ones" among the soldiers.It can be imagined that the President and his "substitute" made quite a picture inasmuch as the former towered nearly a foot over the latter. Indeed, Staples presented such a contrast to his principal that the sargeant to whom he reported for duty as Mr. Lincoln's "ssubstitue" is reported to have remarked, "Aren't you just the first installment?"

During the eleven months he served before being discharged on September 12, 1865, Staples was indeed "one of the fortunate ones." He was for the entire time a private with Company D, Second District of Columbia Infantry, stationed at Alexandria, Virginia, in the defenses of Washington, at Camp Sedgwick and Briggs Barracks. On one occasion he did accompany some Confederate prisoners to Columbus, Ohio.

President Lincoln provided a check on the Riggs Bank of Washington to cover the $500 bounty he paid his recruit. Inasmuch as Staples was a minor, and his father was legally entitled to the money, it supposedly went into the family exchequer. The young recruit also received $66.67 for his services, this amount representing two installments on the $100 bounty provided for men enlisting for one year under the Act of July 4, 1864 (Staples served for less than a year)The representative recruit program supported by President Lincoln was not particularly successful even though it was publicized throughout the nation. Only 1,296 recruits were placed in service through its appeal. Massachusetts furnished 586 of these, and Pennsylvani, New york, and Ohio were the only other states providing more than 100 each, with 125, 119, and 115 respectively. Some of the nation's leading names appeared among the principals, the list including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Joshua F. Speed, Edward Everett, and Davis Wilmott. A few married women, widows, boys, and girls also furnished recruits.

When Staples enlisted as President Lincoln's representative it marked the second time he had served as a substitute in the Army. Joining the Army in November 1862, as a substitute for Sergeant Barry of Monroe County, Pennsylvania, he served as a private in Company C of the 176th Pennsylvania Drafted Militia Infantry until discharged at New Bern, North Carolina, on May 5, 1863 for "great disability and a broken down constitution, result of typhoid fever of nearly four months continuance."

Staples father met him in Philadelphia and transported him by carriage to Stroudsburg where he took several more months to recover fully. In April, 1864, he went to Washington to join his father and there they worked together as carpenters at Arlington and at the government vessel repair yard at Georgetown. After being discharged from his second stint in the Army, Staples returned to Stroudsburg with his father where they worked as wheelrights.

In 1870, Staples moved to Waterloo, New York, where he worked in the railroad car shops. He was working in the car shops at Dover, New Jersey, when at the end of the day's work on January 11, 1888, he dropped dead from heart disease believed to have been induced by illness suffered during his first service in the Army.

Despite illnesses which struck him periodically after his Army service in 1862-63, Staples was never able to get the pension which he first sought in July 1882 with a declaration indicating that he was suffering "with disease of the head, catarrh, disease in one eye producing partial blindness, and partial paralysis of the whole system." At that time he declared himself as "one-half disabled from obtaining subsistence by manual labor by reasoning of injuries, ... received in the service if the United States."

A Congressman from Stroudsburg in 1910 introduced a bill calling for an appropriation of $20,000 to erect "a suitable monument to the memory of John Summerfield Staples ... who served through the Civil War as the representative recruit for Abraham Lincoln, ..." but no action was taken. Not until 1933 - forty-six years after Staples death - did recognition come. On Armistice Day that year, St. John's Commandery No. 186, Knights of Malta, place a bronze plaque in his memory on the new John Summerfield Staples Bridge which spanned Pocono Creek on Stroudsburg's West Main Street. Two years later the bridge was destroyed by a flood and its plaque lost. The Lehigh Valley Association of Sons of Veterans and Sons of Auxiliary has since placed a tablet honoring Staples on a gatepost at the entrance to the Stroudsburg Cemetery. And annually for many years citizens of Stroudsburg have revived memories of Mr. Lincoln's "substitute" on the birthday of the martyred President.

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