Mary Todd Lincoln by Jean Baker

[Gene C]

In this book, author Jean Baker disagrees with the stories that Mary attempted suicide the day before she was committed to the Bellevue Place Sanatorium. She states several reason (page 326-327) on why the Chicago newspapers reporting her attempted suicide, got it wrong.

Among Ms. Baker's reasons, Mary was to closely watched to get away to purchase the poison and drugs unnoticed,
and the news first appeared in a newspaper owned by Robert Lincoln's former law partner.
She states this, "was more a son's exculpation of filial treachery than a mother's demonstration of suicidal tendencies".