At the end, did MTL have a sense of vindication

[Juan Marrero]

Mrs. Lincoln's story is so sad after the Presidency that she would give Job a run for the money. After Tad died, she was arguably being quite reasonable when she declared a preference to join her late loved ones over her semi-nomadic existence.

Would it be possible to say, however, that she was at least consoled by the notion that, despite the tragedies, the Lincoln story was one of the great triumphs of the human spirit? Or, historically, was it too soon for the country to have gained such a perspective. I've read that during her lifetime, it was Grant, not Lincoln, who was the preeminent hero of the Civil War and that Lincoln became a secular demi-god around the time of the 1909 centennial.

Of former first ladies, I would say that the one (for vastly different reasons) to have had almost as sad a post-presidency was Pat Nixon. Mrs. Nixon, in my view, did everything right, but for reasons beyond her control was pretty well forgotten after her husband resigned. Perhaps, both Mary and Pat had had their fill of publicity by the time they left the White House and didn't miss the spotlight.

I believe both these ladies were alot finer than the treatment they got. But the case of each has something to say about how the President's reputation may or may not reflect on the first lady. Mrs. Lincoln's poor standing hasn't been helped by Lincoln's reputation and Mrs. Nixon became an innocent victim of Watergate.

[LincolnToddFan]

Hi Juan,

It's true that the goodwill and glory afforded her late husband did not extend to MTL, as one would have expected. Some of that is Mary's fault, some of it definitely not.

During her Springfield years she acquired a reputation for being hard to get along with and this extended to her WH tenure, where her instability and bad temper became more pronounced due to the stresses of the war and personal tragedy like the loss of Willie. She had a deserved reputation for being extravagant, unfortunate for ANY First Lady but a First Lady during wartime? Disastrous. One of the cruelest(imo) accusations leveled at her was that she was a Confederate spy. She was the most loyal of wives. But Northerners felt she was a spy and Southerners believed her disloyal to her roots. She literally could not win.

There were a handful of people like Lizzie Keckley, William Stoddard, and Jane Swisshelm who were personal witness to her courage and generosity when she was at her best. Few people to this day know about her visits to Union hospitals to cheer wounded soldiers with gifts, and to write to their families on their behalf. She never sought publicity for these visits by taking a reporter along(like she should have imo).

What she is most remembered for today is her extravagance and her instability, most notoriously on display at City Point in March 1865.

While he was alive, Abraham Lincoln indulged his wife and for the most part protected her from the consequences of her behavior. In today's pop culture lingo he would be called an "enabler". Once he died and was no longer around to defend her, the gloves came off and her enemies had a field day. Some might say she brought it on her self, but there is something unseemly about the feeding frenzy of abuse people heaped on the widow of a man they claim to have revered, imo...at a time when she was alone, shattered and defenseless.

According to letters she wrote after the assassination, MTL would have been happy to have died with AL or in his place. Only the fact that Tad depended on her kept her from taking her own life.

[Juan Marrero]

Thank you for your thoughful response. It is amazing how Mary was cut-off from the sympathy that the Nation usually extends to the wife of a fallen President. Mrs Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy were certainly the recipients of well-deserved goodwill. One would think that the assassination would have wiped the slate clean as far as bad or mixed feelings for Mrs. Lincoln. But the country seemed to have felt comfortable with a "great man and his harpy wife" dichotomy in viewing the Lincolns. Perhaps now (one major historian to the contrary), she is being given a fairer hearing. And I hope she can hear it!

[LincolnToddFan]

[.. But the country seemed to have felt comfortable with a "great man and his harpy wife" dichotomy in viewing the Lincolns..]// quote

Unfortunately Juan, there are some in the public and among Lincoln scholars who still cling stubbornly to that view. I've recently read one famous author's incredible statement that the President's marriage was more of a tragedy than his murder...and another Lincoln fan gush that Ann Rutledge was without a doubt the "most important" person in his life. Based on what, do we ask?? UNBELIEVABLE.

If Lincoln was as great and as brilliant as many believe he was(including myself) why would he select such a monster as his wife and the mother of his children? Why was he attracted to her in the first place? Why did he return to her after she had released him from his commitment to her and gone on with her life?

Those are questions that people who denigrate MTL to make Lincoln appear even more heroic and saintly never seem to be able to answer.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Would it be possible to say, however, that she was at least consoled by the notion that, despite the tragedies, the Lincoln story was one of the great triumphs of the human spirit?
Or, historically, was it too soon for the country to have gained such a perspective. I've read that during her lifetime, it was Grant, not Lincoln, who was the preeminent hero of the Civil War and that Lincoln became a secular demi-god around the time of the 1909 centennial.

As usual, I 100% agree with Toia on this topic, and couldn't have worded it better!

Am I understanding your first question correctly as asking for Mary's feelings (not the nation's perspective)?

I think the faith in her husband's love is what she took the greatest comfort in, and this might have been partly linked to his achievements respectively her personal belief in his greatness, independently of what contemporaries thought as she had already believed in his greatness when she maried him. I wonder what would have happened had he not succeeded - but I consider it likely she would have blamed the rest of the world for that rather than him.

In 1869 she wrote: “He was . . . from my eighteenth year — Always — lover — husband — father & all all to me — Truly my all,” and AFAIK she didn't at any minute doubt Herndon was utterly wrong with his "Rutledge claims" (while quite some other wives in similar situations might have entertained suspicions à la "no smoke without a fire".).

Regarding the country's perspective, I recall e.g. someone (Stoddart I believe but am not 100% sure) once raved about Mary's hospital visits and caring for the wounded soldiers which took place quietly and without publicity, and deeply regretted the complaints of the ignorant press that Mary cared too little about the war and its victims.

As for Grant, more of the eyewitnesses who attended Ford's Theater on April 14 came to see Grant rather than the President. Also Mary was outraged when during the April 13 Illumination, the crowds at times cheered more for the General than for her husband (at other times v.v.). There's no record how Mary thought about not being invited nor mentioned when the Grants visited and were received in Pau.

When Mary at City Point said to Julia Grant "I suppose you think you'll get to the White House yourself, don't you?" - was she wrong? I'm not so well-read on the Grants but have always had the impression Julia Grant was similarly ambitious about her husband. What do you think?

[RJNorton]

Regarding the country's perspective, I recall e.g. someone (Stoddart I believe but am not 100% sure) once raved about Mary's hospital visits and caring for the wounded soldiers which took place quietly and without publicity, and deeply regretted the complaints of the ignorant press that Mary cared too little about the war and its victims.

Good memory, Eva! I think Stoddard comments at least twice about this in Inside the White House in War Times.

[Juan Marrero]

Those are excellent comments. I hope that Mary had an inkling of what greatness her husband had achieved. In 1869, it might have seemed that Grant was the great figure to emerge from the Civil War and that Lincoln, admired and lamented, belonged to the ages--which could also mean he was yesterday's man.

It would have been impossible for her to know that his position in U.S. history would somewhat eclipse Washington and gain the admiration of writers as different as Tolstoy and K. Marx. I would never quote Marx with approval, except for his observation that Lincoln was the rarest of men because he was a great man who also happened to be a good man.

It was pretty sad that the Grants did not invite Mary to join them in Pau, although there may have been some mercy in not showing her up as they traipsed around the world. Worse, I think is that Queen Victoria never (as far as I've read) invited her to visit while she stayed in Britain.

That, actually, was the impetus of my initial query--whether in the decade after Lincoln's death (and after the extraordinary funeral) the country (and the world) felt it was time to take a break from all things Lincoln and with the Civil War with which he represented. For all her "majesty", Victoria was a politician in a way and if there had been political advantage in meeting MTL she probably would have. It speaks volumes that she dined with the Grants but not Mary. I hope that I am wrong and that there was some contact between the two in England.

[LincolnToddFan]

In Mary's letters she indicated that Queen Victoria was not in residence at Balmoral when she and Tad toured Scotland, or she is certain she would have been received by HM. She was not offended in the least.

Not sure about Mary's other visits to Britain or even if QV was aware that Lincoln's widow was in the country.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Regarding the country's perspective, I recall e.g. someone (Stoddart I believe but am not 100% sure) once raved about Mary's hospital visits and caring for the wounded soldiers which took place quietly and without publicity, and deeply regretted the complaints of the ignorant press that Mary cared too little about the war and its victims.

Good memory, Eva! I think Stoddard comments at least twice about this in Inside the White House in War Times.

Thanks, Roger!

[LincolnToddFan]

Thank you Eva.

And it's not only the "ignorant press" of Mary's own time that either doesn't know or care about MTL's kindness and generosity to those soldiers. Quite a few well regarded Lincoln scholars today have chosen to concentrate on her worst, well known character flaws and ignore that facet of her personality.

But the soldiers knew, and her husband knew...which is probably all Mary cared about anyway.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Julia I. Spriggs said about Mary that "she was the kind of woman that children liked, and children would be attracted to her." A German proverb says that children and drunks always tell the truth.

[LincolnToddFan]

Eva, I think the German proverb is right on the mark! And don't forget animals. They often have a sixth sense about bad people.

I wish poor Fido had used HIS sixth sense before approaching the drunk creep who killed him.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Fido probably believed in the basic goodness of man.

[Juan Marrero]

This may be a little tangential and has been discussed with reference to Henry Rathbone, but I would add a word about MTL and PTSD. She certainly was exposed to an episode that would almost guarantee some degree of post-traumatic stress. Coming only three years after Willie's death and all the family trauma relative to the Civil War, I would say that she handled it all reasonably well. I haven't read whether she experienced flashbacks, but PTSD is at core a memory that will not be processed. It remains raw and continues to disturb. There was a recent study of WW II veterans that suggested that thoses vets without PTSD "sugar-coated" their war expereinces, remembering with emphasis the camraderie and the excitement of youth. In a sense, they edited their internal "video" of WWII and turned it into PG rated memory. Those with PTSD recalled the events exactly as what they were--bloody, exhausting and perilous. One would want to flee from such memories. Interestingly, the two First Ladies who witnessed ther husband's murder "fled" the country--Mary to the Continent and Mrs. Kennedy to Greece. Perhaps today, MTL would have been viewed and treated for this disturbance. Incidentaly, PTSD can make the sufferer explosive--both physically and verbally. Gee, to what extent are we really in control of ourselves? A Spanish philosopher wrote: "I am I and my circumstances."

[LincolnToddFan]

Fido probably believed in the basic goodness of man.

Yes, he did. He had that in common with his owner.

---

This may be a little tangential and has been discussed with reference to Henry Rathbone, but I would add a word about MTL and PTSD. She certainly was exposed to an episode that would almost guarantee some degree of post-traumatic stress. Coming only three years after Willie's death and all the family trauma relative to the Civil War, I would say that she handled it all reasonably well. I haven't read whether she experienced flashbacks, but PTSD is at core a memory that will not be processed. It remains raw and continues to disturb. There was a recent study of WW II veterans that suggested that thoses vets without PTSD "sugar-coated" their war expereinces, remembering with emphasis the camraderie and the excitement of youth. In a sense, they edited their internal "video" of WWII and turned it into PG rated memory. Those with PTSD recalled the events exactly as what they were--bloody, exhausting and perilous. One would want to flee from such memories. Interestingly, the two First Ladies who witnessed ther husband's murder "fled" the country--Mary to the Continent and Mrs. Kennedy to Greece. Perhaps today, MTL would have been viewed and treated for this disturbance. Incidentaly, PTSD can make the sufferer explosive--both physically and verbally. Gee, to what extent are we really in control of ourselves? A Spanish philosopher wrote: "I am I and my circumstances."

Juan,

There is a book by Jason Emerson("The Madness of Mary Lincoln") with contributions by psychiatrist Dr. James Brust that argues very conclusively that MTL suffered from PTSD, probably as early as the death of Willie and most certainly after the assassination.

Her psychotic break of 1875 coincided with the 10th anniversary of the murder, and it's what led to RTL to move to have her institutionalized. Interestingly enough there were no further incidents of severe psychosis after that milestone anniversary.