Lincoln Letter to John Stuart

[RJNorton]

Great question, Craig. I am no doctor either, but I have felt that Lincoln developed an opinion that depression was a temporary, not permanent, condition. I agree with Joe and Gloria.

Lincoln wrote this beautiful letter of condolence to Fanny McCullough, the daughter of William McCullough who was the former clerk of the McClean County Circuit Court in Bloomington, Illinois. William McCullough knew Abraham Lincoln well. Fanny could remember when she was a child Lincoln would hold her and her sister Nanny on his knees. During the Civil War McCullough, a Black Hawk War veteran, enlisted in the Fourth Illinois Cavalry, and he was killed in a battle near Coffeeville, Mississippi, on December 5, 1862. Mutual friends of Lincoln and McCullough informed the president of Fanny's depression over her father's death. With the help of Lincoln's letter, Fanny eventually recovered, married, and lived until 1920.

Dear Fanny

It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before.

Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother.

Your sincere friend
A. Lincoln

Not only did Lincoln himself suffer from serious bouts of depression (especially in 1835 and 1841), but he also tried to give advice to others he knew were suffering. Lincoln's melancholy, whether it lasted for hours, days, weeks, or months always came to an end. Knowing this, he could encourage others. It would seem his own experience led him to believe that depression was not a permanent condition. I do not know if Lincoln's depression ever met the definition of "clinical depression."

I know that Shenk feels Lincoln once authored a "suicide poem." We discussed that possibility in another thread last summer.