Did Lincoln Regret Marrying Mary?

[Mike B.]

(12-14-2013 08:31 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(12-13-2013 06:56 PM)Mike B. Wrote:  On the point of the Lincolns regretting the marriage? Nothing can be said on that. For all we know both may have regretted it at times, but we don't have any real evidence that this is so.

One thing I would point out, and I think it can't be waved away. Mary did hit Lincoln in the face with a log hard, and was bruised enough that he had to go and buy bandages. He went to court all bandaged up the next day.

Allow me to provokingly ask "And?" If you argue that way as "what evidence do we have", you could argue the same way in the latter case. Do the bandages tell what Abraham Lincoln thought about the incident? He was often forgiving and showed empathy, and who knows how things really happened.

AFAIK, all the stories that Mary stuck her husband with firewood or broomsticks were told by Herndon (please correct me if I'm wrong!) - just to remark...and time expands memory, too, regarding the "bandaged all up". (Wasn't it a bandaged nose, BTW?)

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(12-14-2013 08:59 AM)Mike B. Wrote:  I do answer many your points including the idea that she spurred his ambition (It was already there). in the "Mary Lincoln Enigma." co-edited by me and Frank Williams. Remember Mary at the time in one of her letters belittle "female politicians." Also, the "Mary we are elected." is much more likely to simply mean the family or just a throwaway line. It is too little a reed to put that much interpretative significance. Again, I ask for real hard evidence where she helped make him President. It is simply not there.

Yes, you are right, the quote is no evidence. I personally took it as a hint, but admit it probably can't even be regarded as such.
I have your book on the pile as one of the next to be read, I'm really looking forward to it.

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(12-14-2013 08:49 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  "On my arrival I went to my bedroom and found my wife sound asleep. I gently touched her shoulder and said, ' Mary '; she made no answer. I spoke again, a little louder, saying, ' Mary, Mary! we are elected!"

Thanks, Roger, what a "romantic" version!

I am confused with your response "and." The evidence firewood incident did not come from Herndon alone, and if it did that does not make it ipso facto false. Daniel Epstein has found other sources and the records of the buying of the bandages by Lincoln in a local store. So it happened.

I don't think smacking a spouse in the face with firewood is an "and?" moment. It is a little more serious than that.
Herndon does talk of witnessing Lincoln hiding out in the Law Office trying to escape his wife and being quite upset.

Ruth Painter Randall's "Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage" has a good quote from Lincoln, that Lincoln still loved his wife in the White House. So yes Lincoln was forgiving and was physically attracted to Mary. One can tell from his letters to her from Congress. So as I said, there is not an iota of evidence that they regretted the marriage. The only thing I can think of is that Lincoln told his best man, when asked where he was going, "to hell I suppose." But that seems more like marriage jitters.