Mary Lincoln and Suicide

[RJNorton]

Last night Vicki and I watched an excellent show on the Smithsonian Channel. It was part of its series on First Ladies. This episode was entitled "First Ladies Revealed » In Times of War." The emphasis was on Laura Bush, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mary Lincoln.

The segment on Mary included a brief discussion of her years after the assassination, and the commentator noted that on two occasions Mary attempted suicide. No details were given. I can think of one supposed attempt: Mary allegedly tried to commit suicide with laudanum right after she was found guilty in her 1875 insanity trial and told she must go to Bellevue. I use the words "supposed" and "alleged" as I do not believe there is unanimity among historians as to whether this was really a serious suicide attempt.

My mind has gone blank on a second suicide attempt. Does anyone know what the narrator was referencing when she said "two suicide attempts?"

[Susan Higginbotham]

Perhaps the narrator was referring to the story that Mary drank one dose of "laudanum," then, finding that the compound, which in fact was a mixture of burnt sugar and water, had no effect, went back to the drugstore to get another (also harmless) dose?

[RJNorton]

Thanks, Susan. Yes, that could well be it.

[Gene C]

it's been a while since I read it, and I'm at work, but did W A Evans mention this in his book on Mrs. Abraham Lincoln?
considering the time in which it was written, he may have bypassed that subject.

[RJNorton]

(07-19-2017 01:11 PM)Gene C Wrote:  it's been a while since I read it, and I'm at work, but did W A Evans mention this in his book on Mrs. Abraham Lincoln?
considering the time in which is was written, he may have bypassed that subject.

Gene, he did write about it. Here is what he wrote:

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"On May 21 the Chicago dailies carried a story relating an attempt at suicide made by Mrs. Lincoln the previous day. In some way she had eluded her attendants, left the hotel, gone to a drug-store in the Grand Pacific Hotel, and asked for some laudanum and camphor for neuralgia of her arm. Knowing her mental condition, the druggist told her to call again in half an hour, at which time it would be ready. When she left, he trailed her to Rogers and Smith's drugstore, Adams and Clark streets, where he heard her order the same drugs. Slipping into the prescription department, he told the clerk the circumstances, whereupon the clerk declined to sell laudanum to Mrs. Lincoln. She then went to Dale's drug-store and repeated the order, and again the sleuthing druggist was able to prevent the sale. After this she returned to the Grand Pacific drug-store and was given a bottle of colored camphor water, labeled " Laudanum and Camphor.*' She left the drug-store and, while under observation, drank the mixture. In ten minutes she returned for more of the same medicine. She was given a bottle of the same placebo, and this she swallowed. Meanwhile her son, who had been summoned, arrived and took his mother in charge.

There is no reason to disbelieve this story because of the jury verdict, or for any other reason. Many people have momentary urges to self-destruction many thoroughly sane people. If such people yield, it is done promptly and under impulse. There is no evidence that these urges with Mrs. Lincoln were more than momentary, or that she ever had any trouble in resisting them. The nature of her mental malady was such that efforts at suicide were not to be expected."

[loetar44]

(07-19-2017 02:36 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(07-19-2017 01:11 PM)Gene C Wrote:  it's been a while since I read it, and I'm at work, but did W A Evans mention this in his book on Mrs. Abraham Lincoln?
considering the time in which is was written, he may have bypassed that subject.

Gene, he did write about it. Here is what he wrote:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"On May 21 the Chicago dailies carried a story relating an attempt at suicide made by Mrs. Lincoln the previous day. In some way she had eluded her attendants, left the hotel, gone to a drug-store in the Grand Pacific Hotel, and asked for some laudanum and camphor for neuralgia of her arm. Knowing her mental condition, the druggist told her to call again in half an hour, at which time it would be ready. When she left, he trailed her to Rogers and Smith's drugstore, Adams and Clark streets, where he heard her order the same drugs. Slipping into the prescription department, he told the clerk the circumstances, whereupon the clerk declined to sell laudanum to Mrs. Lincoln. She then went to Dale's drug-store and repeated the order, and again the sleuthing druggist was able to prevent the sale. After this she returned to the Grand Pacific drug-store and was given a bottle of colored camphor water, labeled " Laudanum and Camphor.*' She left the drug-store and, while under observation, drank the mixture. In ten minutes she returned for more of the same medicine. She was given a bottle of the same placebo, and this she swallowed. Meanwhile her son, who had been summoned, arrived and took his mother in charge.

There is no reason to disbelieve this story because of the jury verdict, or for any other reason. Many people have momentary urges to self-destruction many thoroughly sane people. If such people yield, it is done promptly and under impulse. There is no evidence that these urges with Mrs. Lincoln were more than momentary, or that she ever had any trouble in resisting them. The nature of her mental malady was such that efforts at suicide were not to be expected."

The National First Ladies Library writes on her website: “In 1875, she was committed to the Bellevue Insane Asylum, in Batavia, Illinois. Later in the day after the verdict was made, she TWICE attempted suicide by taking what she believed to be the drugs laudanum and camphor - which the suspicious druggist had replaced with a sugar substance.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 21, 1875 writes:

   

According to the story in the New York Times, Mary visited three drug stores: Squire & Co at the Grand Pacific Hotel (they told her it would take about 10 minutes), Rogers & Smith at the corner of Adams and Clark Streets (Smith told Mary his stock of laudanum had run out and refused to give her the mixture), William Dale’s drug store on Clark Street (Dale told her he did not sell laudanum by retail) and after that returned to Squire & Co. Here a four ounce vial was filled with a colored but harmless fluid and given to Mary. Mary returned to her room, swallowed the mixture (already as she reached the sidewalk) and returned after an interval of 10 minutes again to Squire & Co., where she received the same harmless mixture as the first. Again she swallowed this when outside the store. Again it did not work.

Stories diverge on the mixture Mary wanted. Jean Harvey Baker says in Mary Todd Lincoln, a Biography, that Mary wanted a three-ounce bottle of laudanum. Leonard Swett reported two ounces, the Inter Ocean reported also three ounces and the Chicago Times reported four ounces (two of laudanum and two of camphor). Also about the time Mary had to wait in Squire & Co. is no agreement. Swett reported that the mixture would be ready in 10 minutes, the Chicago Times reported this as well, but the Chicago Tribune reported 30 minutes, as did the Inter Ocean. Jean Harvey Baker also writes in her book: “In fact, Mary Lincoln had received sugar water and camphor”. And she further writes: “Like so much else in the Mary Lincoln apocrypha, this story was probably false. Never before or after did she try to take her life, though she had ample opportunity to do so.”

[RJNorton]

Thanks, Kees. In my own mind I had always counted the goings-on right after the trial as one overall attempt; it looks like the Smithsonian (and others) count it as two separate attempts.

Here is a little more from Dr. Evans' book on the topic of Mary Lincoln and suicide:

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"Elizabeth Keckley wrote that Mrs. Lincoln once discussed suicide with her, about 1863. In January 1867 she wrote Mrs. Keckley that she was tempted to commit suicide. The danger that Mrs. Lincoln would take her own life was one possibility that was talked of at the meeting of physicians and friends held on the Saturday before May 19, 1875."