Our Own Hall of Fame
ROBERT CUMMING SCHENCK
LOST PRESIDENTIAL BID?
Diplomat-Hero Schenck Played Too Well at Poker
DAYTON DAILY NEWS, MARCH 8, 1961
BY MARY ELLEN LYNCH
Daily News Staff Writer
If Gen. Robert Cumming Schenck hadn’t been such a good poker player, he might have been president of the United States.
That, at least, was one of the legends that sprang up during the lifetime of the Daytonian who was diplomat congressman-lawyer-Civil War hero-Lincoln confidante.
Schenck was 22, slim, pale and blonde when he rode into Dayton in 1831 on horseback with a saddle bag full of college degrees from Miami university (BA, MA) and letters of recommendation designed to get him a job in a law firm.
He got the job and became one of Ohio’s top attorneys.
FORTY years later, portly bearded, Schenck was minister to Great Britain and a popular favorite at the Court of St. James—not only for his diplomatic skills, but for his poker-playing prowess.
At the request of his English friends, Schenck wrote a booklet dealing with the fundamentals of the game. After that, though, his opponents started describing him as a gambler and, at home, it damaged his political career.
IT WAS a career closely interwoven with Abraham Lincoln’s. Both were born in the same year (1809), were first Whigs, then Republicans; both served in the 30th Congress in 1847.
After a stint in the Ohio Assembly, Schenck first went to Washington as Ohio Third district representative in 1843. (Present Third district Rep. Paul F. Schenck is a distant relative.)
He applied a logical and original mind to his legislative tasks and was re-elected three times before President Millard Fillmore named Schenck U. S. minister to Brazil. The Daytonian served four years in Latin America.
(A BOOK-loving intellectual, he had a gentle sense of humor, too. On the boat returning from Brazil he was introduced as “Minister Schenck” and at dinner the first night an elderly lady, misunderstanding the title, asked him to say grace. Responded Schenck: “I regret that I am not a minister to THAT court.”)
Schenck wanted Abraham Lincoln to be President. He was the first man outside Illinois to boom Lincoln for the office and he campaigned vigorously for him in 1860. After the election, many thought the Daytonian would be named to the cabinet.
Instead, Lincoln made Schenck a brigadier general and he turned out to be one of the most able of the politically-appointed officers in the Civil War.
After the first Battle of Bull Run he was commended for “gallantry in action and coolness and discretion in retreat.”
In the second battle Schenck’s right wrist was shattered and his arm remained useless for the rest of his life. (From his hospital bed he wrote to his family with a shaky but proud left hand.)
Schenck ended his military service as a major general, was one of a select group of officers who accompanied Lincoln to Gettysburg for his immortal address.
HE SERVED four more terms in congress and, as chairman of the military affairs and ways and means committees, became one of the top leaders of his party.
Returning from England in 1876, the battle-scarred general started a law practice in Washington and played an important role in codifying international law for the State department.
He died in 1890 at the age of 81 and is buried in Woodland cemetery.
Return to "Our Own Hall of Fame" Main Page
