The third son, Elihu, added a final “e” to the Washburn name. He became the best known of the brothers, largely because of his personal as well as political friendship with Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant. The lad who had worked out his father’s debt on Isaac Lovewell’s farm grew up to become a statesman and a diplomat. He had tried many occupations in his youth, farming, teaching school, working in the post office in Hallowell, and as a printer’s apprentice in the Kennebec Journal office in Augusta.
When he was twenty he was determined to become a lawyer, beginning his studies in the office of John Otis. A year later he borrowed money from his brother Sid to attend Cambridge Law School (Harvard).
In 1840, armed with his license to practice law, he set out for the Northwest. Cadwallader had advised him that Illinois was the best place to settle and Galena, where lead mines had recently been opened, was the most promising locality. There Elihu began his career, and there he married Adele Gratiot, the first white child born in Galena. Law and politics engrossed his life until politics crowded out the law.
He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois from 1852 to 1869 earning the title, “Father of the House.” His major reputation was made as the zealous guardian of the public’s money, the foe of government waste and extravagance. Ignatius Donnelly, no friend of the Washburns, said that if Elihu ever reached heaven “he would harangue the assembled hosts, cherubim and seraphim, angels and archangels, with insinuations of dishonesty, would plead for the economy, and would have the wheels of the universe stopped because they consumed too much grease.”
Elihu’s influence with Lincoln and Grant was partly good luck; all three were from Illinois, but most credit goes to Elihu’s political instincts—his ability to spot a winner. He had known Lincoln well since the winter of 1843 and was thereafter his fervent supporter. In 1860 he wrote Lincoln’s campaign biography which one scholar believes did much to assure his presidential victory.
Grant was a clerk in his father’s Galena leather store when Elihu first met him. It was Congressman Washburne who got Grant an appointment as a colonel in the 21st Illinois Volunteers, who lobbied him through the grades of brigadier general, major general, and lieutenant general, and who was his defender after Shiloh. These obligations were gratefully recorded in the General’s letters to Washburne, and later as President of the United States, Grant made Elihu first Secretary of State, then U.S. Minister to France, from 1869 to 1877.
Elihu’s years in France coincided with the Franco-Prussian War, the siege of Paris, and the Commune. He was the only diplomat to remain in Paris through the hostilities, thus establishing a precedent for American ambassadors in 1916 and 1940. Even his strongest supporters were amazed by his skill and courage, and his numerous detractors were flabbergasted. By the time he returned home he was considered a potential presidential nominee. However, Grant wanted a third term and Elihu would not announce his candidacy in opposition to his old friend. When the nomination went to James Garfield, Grant held that Washburne’s support of him had been half-hearted and had cost him the nomination. Grant never spoke to Elihu again.
Elihu retired to his home in Chicago to write his recollections of eight and a half years in France. Like his brothers, he made frequent trips to the home of his childhood and delighted in the beauty of the place. In September 1881 he wrote in the family journal, “I never saw it look more beautiful than it does at this time.” Another time he wrote, “It is a perfect fall day – le ciel est bleu, l’air est pure and never was the whole aspect of the country more beautiful.”
