Mary Lincoln funeral

[RJNorton]

(06-22-2014 12:02 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Was Billy Herndon still alive, and did he attend the funeral?

Yes, he was alive, and he didn't attend the funeral. Neither did Mary Harlan Lincoln. Dr. Wayne C. Temple writes, "she (Mary Harlan Lincoln) decided to take to her room because of "ill health").

Regarding Herndon, in Lincoln's Herndon, David Herbert Donald writes, "Mrs. Lincoln died in July 1882 but Herndon's hatred for the woman lived on. In 1866 he had spoken of her as a poor woman, for whom 'the world has no charity.' But since 1874 there had been in Herndon's mind no question of charity; he believed anything about Lincoln's wife that was bad. Some of his comments were unprintable. Mary was the 'she wolf of this section,' 'soured...gross...material, avaricious, insolent,' 'a tigress,' 'like the toothache - kept one awake night and day,' 'terribly aristocratic...and haughty,' 'as cold as a chunk of ice,' 'the female wild cat of the age."