Extra Credit Questions

[David Lockmiller]

Tad lost his best friend and brother, Willie, on February 20, 1862. Tad was approximately nine years old at the time. Tad also lost all of his other very best friends on the same day. Julia Taft and her brothers were banned from all contact with Tad because of Mary's grief from the loss of Willie. For Mary, just seeing the Taft children was an unacceptable reminder of Willie's death.

There was only one person that could have explained the situation at the time to Tad and gained Tad's "manly" acceptance to this consequence. That person would have been his father, President Abraham Lincoln (in my opinion, because I cannot point to any facts to support this conclusion).

However, it would not be true to say that this great loss of the companionship of the Taft children did not profoundly affect Tad for quite some time. Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote in Team of Rivals at page 614: "[T]he lonely boy, [Tad], broke down in tears when the appearance of Julia Taft at a White House reception recalled his happier days with Willie and the Taft boys . . . ." (Bayne, Tad Lincoln's Father, p. 201.)