Stanton dealing with Lincoln's death

[Rhatkinson]

I'm watching football and reading a surprisingly good book called "Twenty Days". In it, the story is told of how seeing Lincoln dying affected Stanton, and a most disturbing story is told.

Stanton's daughter Lucy died in 1841 and he was so overcome with grief that he had her body exhumed and kept the coffin in his house for 2 years!!! That is so disturbing. Did y'all know this (I did not).

Heath

[L Verge]

I believe that there was another incident when Stanton's first wife died, also. It seems ironic that a man with so many feelings about death would be in charge of the War Department during our most horrific dealings with death on the battlefield and in the back bedroom of a boardinghouse.

P.S. Heath - you will end up referring over and over again to Twenty Days as one of your chief sources for information. Just be careful of a few things that have been questioned and disproven by historians who came after the Kunhardts.

[RJNorton]

In his early days Stanton developed a semi-romantic relationship with the daughter of his landlady. The girl's name was Anna Howard. She died suddenly from cholera and was buried quickly. Stanton was horrified and refused to believe it. He refused to believe she was dead and thought she was buried alive. He rushed to the graveyard and exhumed the body. He convinced himself by personal inspection that the girl was indeed dead.

----from Lincoln's War Cabinet by Burton J. Hendrick

[Troy Cowan]

Yes, Rhatkinson, I gave it a couple of paragraphs in my book.

"In the same year he was admitted to the bar, he married Mary Lamson. They had a baby girl and named her Lucy. In 1841, his little girl died. Stanton was so overcome with grief, he had her coffin exhumed, and he kept it in a spare room. He kept it for two years until he reluctantly returned it to the ground. Then in 1844, his wife died. Stanton plunged into a deep depression. In anguish, he refused to admit that she was dead. He dressed Mary in her wedding dress and kept her in his bed. He slept with her corpse for several days until he accepted her death. He then had her buried alongside Lucy.
After Mary’s death, his personality changed. Previously, he was described as having a good sense of humor, but after Mary’s death, he became brusque and rude. He lost himself in his legal work and turned into a fierce litigator."

[Jim Garrett]

Stanton seemed to deal with AL's death by going into overdrive, overseeing the details of the manhunt, prosecution,punishment of the conspirators and also overseeing the details of AL's funeral. In the midst of all this, he still had a war, albeit winding down, to finish up.. In the long run, could all this mental, emotional and physical overexertion have hastened Stanton's own death?

[BettyO]

According to Flower's biography of Stanton, Stanton's brother committed suicide by cutting his throat with a straight razor. When he was informed of his brother's death, Stanton screamed and tore from the house running blindly through the woods until he was overtaken and caught. It was feared he would harm himself. This was when he was a young up and coming lawyer living in Steubenville, Ohio.

Stanton certainly did have a weird fixation with death for some reason.

[Jenny]

Stanton certainly did have a weird fixation with death for some reason.

Yes, I read all of those stories too. He was also there to personally oversee Lincoln's body being prepared and dressed for the funeral, wasn't he?

[LincolnMan]

Yes, I knew about it too. Sounds very strange- but was it so odd back then?

[Anita]

Given everything I've read here, I'm surprised Stanton didn't want to personally see Booth's body.

[L Verge]

I found this interesting tidbit about Stanton's erratic behavior on other matters as reported in Gideon Welles's diary:

http://cwbn.blogspot.com/2012/01/madness...nt_11.html

This is apparently a continuation of an article, but I didn't search for the beginning pieces.

[Craig Hipkins]

People dealt with death in the 19th century in a way that people today would find disturbing. Often times they would take photographs of their deceased relatives and keep them in a scrapbook as a keepsake. Rather morbid to say the least!

Craig

[LincolnMan]

Even Lincoln, it has been said, would visit the corpse of his son Willie.

[BettyO]

I found this interesting tidbit about Stanton's erratic behavior on other matters as reported in Gideon Welles's diary:

http://cwbn.blogspot.com/2012/01/madness...nt_11.html

This is apparently a continuation of an article, but I didn't search for the beginning pieces.

Here is the entire "Madness of Stanton" article - just click on "next" at the end of this long post - good stuff!

http://cwbn.blogspot.com/search?q=madnes...M.+Stanton


By the way, thanks so very much Laurie for bringing this site to our attention - it's Excellent !

Civil War Bookshelf - http://cwbn.blogspot.com/

[RJNorton]

Even Lincoln, it has been said, would visit the corpse of his son Willie.

Bill, like you, I have read this. The first time I read it was in Twenty Days. The Kunhardts write, "Word soon got out about that Mr. Lincoln had been back to the (Carroll) tomb twice to have Willie's coffin opened so that he could look at him again." The Kunhardts don't have footnotes so I don't know the original source for this. Offhand I cannot think of many Lincoln books that carry this story.

[LincolnMan]

Roger-that must be where I got it from. It requires further investigation I think. Maybe it didn't happen.