Lincoln's White House Secretary

[Steve]

In the copy by Holzer, it is around page 210 before Lincoln is mentioned. Stoddard is a talented writer, but I wasn't that interested in his school days. I had to keep in mind the book was intended for Stoddard's children, not the general public. And he wrote to tell them about his life, not Lincoln's.

Gene, I'm sure Stoddard's descendants might feel differently...

The White House years were the best part of the book. A large part of Stoddard's job was to open the mail. He somehow managed to get into the good graces of Mrs. Lincoln, where Hay and Nicolay did not.
Stoddard seems to have genuinely liked Mrs. Lincoln. He tells how she requested that he open all her mail, and he indicates she received a lot of very vicious mail which he threw out.

Really interesting bit about Mrs. Lincoln's vicious hate mail. It just shows how little has changed in human behavior in a century in a half...