Mary's Reputation

[L Verge]

In the process of researching for an article, I ran across this excerpt from the writings of Noah Brooks, who actually was a defender of Mary Lincoln. Uncharacteristically, Michael Burlingame allowed it to remain in his editing for the publication on Lincoln Observed: Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks!

The wife of the President has been so frequently and cruelly misrepresented and slandered that, though hesitating to approach so delicate a subject, your correspondent cannot refrain from saying a word in strict justice to this distinguished and accomplished woman. When the present Administration came into power, the National Capital was infested as well as besieged by rebels, and every conceivable means was adopted to render the members of the new Administration unpopular. To this end slanders innumerable were circulated concerning the habits of the Presidents and his family; and it is not many months since when candid and loyal men were to be found believing that our temperate President drank to excess, and that Mrs. Lincoln was a vulgar, ill-bred woman. Such stories are scandalous, and though time has done justice to the President, who is seen and read of all men, Mrs. Lincoln is denied the privilege of defense, and in the privacy of a house-hold clad in mourning has not yet had justice done her by the public. The slanderous tales of those who prayed daily that ‘Lady Davis’ might occupy the White House are still circulated and believed, and loyal people, more shame to them, without knowing the truth of what they repeat, still allow themselves to become the media for the dispersion of scandals as base as they are baseless. It is not a gracious task to refute these sayings, but the tales that are told of Mrs. Lincoln’s vanity, pride, vulgarity and meanness ought to put any decent man or woman to the blush, when they remember that they do not know one particle of that which they repeat, and that they would resent as an insult to their wives, sisters or mothers that which they so glibly repeat concerning the first lady in the land. Shame upon these he-gossips and envious retailers of small slanders. Mrs. Lincoln, I am glad to be able to say from personal knowledge, is a true American woman, and when we have said that we have said enough in praise of the best and truest lady in our beloved land.