Did Lincoln Regret Marrying Mary?

[Eva Elisabeth]

Angela, you are right, the Dubois story was given to J. Weik (undated), that was the story when Mary allegedly hit her husband for the wrong choice of meat. The story involving the piece of firewood and the bandaged nose was told by Margaret Ryan to J.W. on Oct. 27, 1886, but also by Herndon to J.W. on Jan. 23,.1886.

As Mike said, differences on Mary emotions run high, I'm sorry if I was a bit harsh and petty in (at?) arguing.

[Mike B.]

(12-15-2013 12:05 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  As for the quote, you possibly mean what Abraham Lincoln said to a correspondent to the "Christian Register" at a White House reception: "My wife is as handsome as when she was a young girl and I, a poor nobody, fell in love with her, and what is more, I have never fallen out" ?!

Yes, that is the one. Didn't have it at my fingertips. I do believe the intamacy was a plus on the marriage for 10 years. Mary's letter from Lexington is full of wanting him if you read between the lines. I don't know what happened after Tad's birth may have injured Mary. But what happened later is again pure speculation.
Matt Pinkster did find a witness that saw them in bed together at the Anderson college, so I assume there was something still going on.

In "Enigma," Richard Lawrence Miller paints a happy life for the house at 8th and Jackson. Also, Douglas Wilson questions the Herndon hated Mary meme as a circular argument. He feels that the hate didn't begin until Herndon gave the Ann Rutledge lecture in poor taste. So there is something for everyone.

[Eva Elisabeth]

(12-15-2013 09:06 AM)Mike B. Wrote:  Matt Pinkster did find a witness that saw them in bed together at the Anderson college, so I assume there was something still going on.

...my, my!

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(12-14-2013 11:15 PM)Mike B. Wrote:  Daniel Epstein has found...the records of the buying of the bandages by Lincoln in a local store

On Aug. 9, 1858, A. L. purchased adhesive plaster for $ 0.10 (and nothing else) at Corneau & Diller's. Could that have had to do with this?

[RJNorton]

(12-15-2013 06:07 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  The story involving the piece of firewood and the bandaged nose was told by Margaret Ryan to J.W. on Oct. 27, 1886,

As usual I cannot recall where I saw it, but I once read that Margaret Ryan's stories are considered apocryphal.

[L Verge]

As I have announced several times, I have never truly studied Lincoln biography and politics, but I have always taken things about the love-hate relationship of the Lincolns with a grain of salt because my limited readings always seemed to throw it back to Herndon and his take on things. And, it seemed, to my limited understanding, that it was male authors who kept on spreading the stories. I'm not trying to put down men or their research; I just feel that they put unintended personal feelings into their writings -- like I do when coming to Mary's defense. To be perfectly honest, I doubt that I could have loved and endured Abraham Lincoln as my lifelong spouse.

I have never read the work of the Levins. Do they cover the Lincoln marriage's ups-and-downs?

As for the adhesive plaster purchase, unless we know the date that Mary clobbered Lincoln and sent him to the store to buy his own bandage - and have evidence that the store clerk was told how the wound (got it right this time, Roger) occurred - that ledger note means nothing. It might just as well mean that three growing boys had scraped knees or a cut on their arms.

To my mind, it is pretty presumptuous of historians (and us) to try and judge the personal relationship of Mary and Abraham Lincoln. Every human relationship has strong and weak points, and if you hold it together, it means that you have accepted that fact and will handle each point as it arises. The Lincolns obviously did that.

[Angela]

(12-15-2013 06:07 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Angela, you are right, the Dubois story was given to J. Weik (undated), that was the story when Mary allegedly hit her husband for the wrong choice of meat. The story involving the piece of firewood and the bandaged nose was told by Margaret Ryan to J.W. on Oct. 27, 1886, but also by Herndon to J.W. on Jan. 23,.1886.

As Mike said, differences on Mary emotions run high, I'm sorry if I was a bit harsh and petty in (at?) arguing.

Eva, I get those stories mixed up all the time - almost as many battles at the home front as on the other front ;-)
I can understand that it is quite an emotional debate - but I don't think you were petty at all! On the contrary, I find it quite important to remember the agenda many people have when telling a story, and I think Herndon did have an agenda at times. At least, it appears that he was actively seeking out certain gossip once he got wind of it.

I have a very difficult time, figuring MTL out. She is a true enigma!

[RJNorton]

I mentioned in a previous post that I thought there was some doubt about (at least some of) Margaret Ryan's reminiscences. Here are Jesse Weik's notes from an interview with her on October 27, 1886. Notice she says she met Lincoln the day he was assassinated. I know of no evidence of that.

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Margaret Ryan — 47 year. Lived at Lincoln House till Feby 1860 — Mrs L was cranky — told M before L. was nominated that she would go to the White House yet. L hired M. and told her he would pay M. 75c More than Ms L. to stay there — not to fuss with Mrs. L. often would put hand on Ms — head and tell her to Keep courage. Ms L would whip Bob a good deal. She was half crazy — black women Jane Jenkins colored woman did not live there — in next block. M went to Washington — saw L at White House — he gave her a pass back home — told her to call next day and get some money &c for clothes for her children — but that night he was assassinated — while in Sp L. went to Taylorville hired M. to stay while his wife was confined — gave birth to boy. Dr Wallace attended her. Ms L. often struck other girls but never struck M. — When L. was leaving for Taylorville his wife ran him out half dressed — as she followed him with broom — he told to Meg not to get scared — that Ms L. would get over it — M had to go and bring him out his clothes — he dressed and went up town through woodhouse & alley — when he returned in evening would come in through kitchen and find out from M. if ML. was all right before going in front of house — At another time saw Mrs L. strike L. on head with piece of wood while reading paper in South Parlor — cut his nose — lawyers saw his face in Court next day but asked no questions

[Donna McCreary]

Yes, Margaret Ryan told her tale of a flying piece of firewood to Jesse Weik. The story has been believed because Ms. Ryan was telling stories about things she witnessed. However, in THE MARY LINCOLN ENIGMA (page 73, in the essay written by Richard Miller titled "Life at Eight and Jackson), Ms. Ryan was a fraud. According to Mr. Miller's reseach, "Census records and family correspondence fail to confirm her (Margaret's) presence in the Lincoln household." Ryan also claimed to have seen Lincoln on April 14, 1865. However, there is no evidence to support her presence in Washington or Lincoln having seen her at the White House.

Plus, all of the versions of the firewood story say that Mary was mad and threw the wood at Lincoln as if she meant to hit him. Maybe, she did hit him with a piece of wood. Maybe she was tossing it to him to catch and put in the stove. Accidents happen, and none of us were there to hear her words or the immediate reaction afterwards.

[LincolnToddFan]

This is a fascinating subject. In about 100 years Lincoln scholars will still be debating the mysteries of the Abraham Lincoln-Mary Todd relationship and marriage.(Unless their lost letters turn out not to have been destroyed by RTL after all, and are discovered in someone's attic someday!)

The Herndon School of thought insists that she decimated him emotionally and that he made the best of a very tragic situation. The Randall School calls it a great American love story. I think the truth is much, much more complex than either view. Do you all know Charles Strozier's fascinating, thought provoking psychobiography of Abraham Lincoln "Lincoln's Quest For Union"? He writes in depth about how emotionally stunted Lincoln was, about his subtle push/pull encouragement of both distance and intimacy in his personal relationships, his ambivalence, his emotional coolness. This was behavior that of course drove Mary crazy with frustration and jealousy. But she adored the man, truly worshipped him and as much as he was able to do so, I believe he loved her back. He could also control his "child wife" by his paternalistic treatment of her and his very frequent and long absences. That was the way he got his need for both love and distance in the marriage met.

Anyway it was a very complex relationship. They were probably not soulmates. But in a poignant way they filled a need that the other had...Lincoln was her father-lover(Mary herself described him that way in a letter to a close friend after his death) and she was of course his "child wife"...the woman who bedeviled and tormented him, but whom he could also love and indulge and escape from when he needed. Because Abraham Lincoln actually needed an escape route in all his emotional relationships, even from his beloved children.

Did he ever regret marrying her? Who knows? Even married people who love one another can sometimes look back at what if....

Jacqueline Kennedy once said something to the effect that the only two people who know the secrets of a marriage are the two people in it.

She was right.

[Gene C]

Ruth Painter Randall is a whole lot more enjoyable to read than Herndon.
I've just started reading her "Mary Lincoln Biography of a Marriage", a vey interesting and pleasurable book to read. So far, she portrays a much softer, kinder side of Mary that I hadn't read about before.

[LincolnToddFan]

Gene C, I couldn't possibly agree more. Randall's book is admittedly rose colored glasses, but she does not paper over Mary's faults and low moments. In particular the City Point debacle a few weeks before the assassination.

Herndon, besides being completely without humor or empathy, is simply horrible. He even resents Lincoln's blameless young children, probably because Mary was their mother. At least one Lincoln biographer(Charles Strozier) opines that Herndon was possibly a little in love with the great man himself and saw Mary Todd as an(unworthy) rival. His fixation on Lincoln's sex life had me rolling my eyes, and the passages devoted to Ann Rutledge were more worthy of a cheap Harlequin romance novel than serious biography.

I have often wondered what Lincoln would have thought of Herndon's brutal treatment of the mother of his children after his death, when she was at her saddest and most vulnerable. He was truly merciless.

I think Lincoln would have been furious.

[Joe Di Cola]

(04-03-2014 11:11 PM)Gene C Wrote:  Ruth Painter Randall is a whole lot more enjoyable to read than Herndon.
I've just started reading her "Mary Lincoln Biography of a Marriage", a vey interesting and pleasurable book to read. So far, she portrays a much softer, kinder side of Mary that I hadn't read about before.

Gene,

I read the book about 4 years ago and thought it to be fairly blanaced in its approach to Mary, pulling few punches at times. It is too bad that biographies in those days were not known for using techniques of historiography, e.g., footnotes and endnotes.

Joe

[L Verge]

Has there ever been an extensive biography of Herndon to see what his marriage or other relationships were like? Granted, he appears to have a vendetta against Mary Lincoln, but maybe he was a woman hater in general?

[LincolnToddFan]

His first wife died, then he married a much younger woman who was reportedly very beautiful. I think David Herbert Donald wrote an extensive bio of Herndon in the 50's.

As for his Mary hate, I suspect it's the same with a lot of biographers-primarily males-who tend to lionize Lincoln at the expense of his wife. And nobody hero-worshipped AL like Herndon did.

Author Montgomery Lewis(Legends That Libel Lincoln) wrote that the more these biographers admire and idealize AL, the more they tend to dislike Mary and to feel that she was not worthy of him. If they could not imagine loving a woman like her, then of course their hero must have felt the same way. Lincoln is a god-myth, so of course there is no way that he could have loved a mere flesh and blood woman who was all too human. Not coincidentally this is also probably why it's so easy for some to seize upon the Ann Rutledge legend. This pure, saintly paragon is more "worthy". Even better, she died young and spotless making it even easier to put her on a pedestal with AL.

Another writer has posited something even more interesting...the more happily married biographers tend to be more charitable to MTL. Dale Carnegie loathed his former wife and had a dreadful marriage, which he described as a miserable inferno of hell.

Three guesses on how he described the AL/MTL marriage in his AL biography??

[Eva Elisabeth]

At least he was married twice. In 1840, he married Mary Maxcy, with whom he had six children. She died in 1861. In 1862 Herndon married Anna Miles with whom he had three more children. She was 18 years younger, and initially not interested. To woo her, Herndon traveled to Washington in January 1862 in order to seek an office for her sister's husband, Charles W. Chatterton. Anraham Lincoln found the courtship "wonderfully funny", and named Chatterton agent for the Cherokee Indians. This was the last time Herndon and Lincoln met (and Herndon had to borrow $25 because Washington was more expensive than he had expected).