(03-01-2020 04:00 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Thanks much - I hope it will be available for awhile!

(03-02-2020 07:26 PM)Anita Wrote:  Welcome back and thanks for sharing your research tidbits! Much to digest.

(03-04-2020 12:18 AM)Steve Wrote:  Thanks for sharing your blog, Kerry. I was especially intrigued by your Mistaken Identities Part 2 article (or is it a draft?).

If your concerned about people not being able to follow your blog. Have you considered adding one of those icons that lets people sign up for email announcements to be sent when a new article post has been made. If you can't, you can always post a notice here to make those of us on the Forum aware.

Have you considered writing an article on the clash between Mary and Herndon, especially after the assassination?

(03-04-2020 12:58 AM)kerry Wrote:  

(03-04-2020 12:18 AM)Steve Wrote:  Thanks for sharing your blog, Kerry. I was especially intrigued by your Mistaken Identities Part 2 article (or is it a draft?).

If your concerned about people not being able to follow your blog. Have you considered adding one of those icons that lets people sign up for email announcements to be sent when a new article post has been made. If you can't, you can always post a notice here to make those of us on the Forum aware.

Have you considered writing an article on the clash between Mary and Herndon, especially after the assassination?

Hi Steve...thank you for reading! Part I is also there--both were published in the Manuscript Society's quarterly journal.

I decided to make a substack, https://ke.substack.com/ so that people can register there to be alerted to new posts. It's an email newsletter site, and I migrated my blog articles, but for some reason it put a giant-sized version of the Wordpress footnote icon between every footnote on the Mistaken Identities series. I'm slowly deleting them one by one. But as long as you don't scroll to the footnotes, you can read the articles easily on substack, and sign up for more. The form will allow me to do short daily reveals of things I've found.

I have considered an article on Mary and Herndon---some of it is written. I feel like something's off with how that is understood. I do have something somewhat related to it that I hope to reveal soon. One thing I will point out is that before Ida Tarbell got involved, they weren't consistently portrayed as nemeses.

A better characterization, I suspect, is that Herndon just had a lot of fixations because of the way his mind worked and his personality. He was brilliant, obsessive, and eccentric. Two of his many obsessions were Ann Rutledge and Lincoln's domestic life. He was prone to a great deal of speculation, sometimes insightful and other times not so much. I don't think his actions that caused "the clash" were mainly motivated by a desire to strike at Mary Lincoln. He was caught up in certain ideas.

But it is striking to me that in the early 1890s, several people noted that Herndon had at least tried to be fair to her, as compared with an opportunistically faux-moralizing press. Her oft-quoted cousin Eliza Norris's letter to Emilie Helm makes this point, but that part is never published.

(03-04-2020 12:58 AM)kerry Wrote:  I have considered an article on Mary and Herndon---some of it is written. I feel like something's off with how that is understood. I do have something somewhat related to it that I hope to reveal soon. One thing I will point out is that before Ida Tarbell got involved, they weren't consistently portrayed as nemeses.

A better characterization, I suspect, is that Herndon just had a lot of fixations because of the way his mind worked and his personality. He was brilliant, obsessive, and eccentric. Two of his many obsessions were Ann Rutledge and Lincoln's domestic life. He was prone to a great deal of speculation, sometimes insightful and other times not so much. I don't think his actions that caused "the clash" were mainly motivated by a desire to strike at Mary Lincoln. He was caught up in certain ideas.

But it is striking to me that in the early 1890s, several people noted that Herndon had at least tried to be fair to her, as compared with an opportunistically faux-moralizing press. Her oft-quoted cousin Eliza Norris's letter to Emilie Helm makes this point, but that part is never published.

(03-04-2020 05:45 PM)Steve Wrote:  Kerry, bringing up Ann Rutledge reminded me of this thread from last year about Herndon and the reliability of his sources that you might want to check out:

https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussionSymposium/thread-4015-post-76355.html#pid76355

(Note: My viewpoint on Herndon's "defaulting bridegroom" account of the events of Jan. 1, 1841 have changed since my posts in that thread. I now think Mary's sister, Elizabeth, might have been remembering preparations for something like a New Year's party but confusing them for wedding preparations years later. But I still remain somewhat skeptical of the Ann Rutledge romance story, there's enough evidence for it to be "possible" but not yet enough for it to be "probable".)

I do think Herndon was trying to be fair in his evaluation of Mary in his role as an historian. I can see where his source may have led him astray in the "defaulting bridegroom" story. Even though he was only reporting what his source told him, it's easy to see why Mary would be upset about it and him -- if it weren't true. Herndon's emphasis on the Ann Rutledge story seems hard to base on the vague and contradictory stories his sources told him about Lincoln and Rutledge. I'm sure Herndon believed it to be true but I can't help but feel his own feelings toward Mary helped tint his glasses on the evidence. And the emphasis he placed on the Rutledge story does come off like an attack on Mary, even if he tried to be fair to her and bring up what he felt were Mary's good qualities.

(03-05-2020 03:09 PM)Amy L. Wrote:  1. What happened on the 'Fatal First'?

(03-05-2020 03:09 PM)Amy L. Wrote:  Sorry it these points have already been made, but - Some rhetorical questions -
I just finished 'Honor's Voice', by Douglas Wilson. I cannot speak to his sources, but in this book it seems he attempted to dash almost every pre-'43 assumption that's been made.

Quote: “From the Hay diary it would appear that throughout the Civil War it was not uncommon to place journalists in important military and public positions whence they could write for the paper with a view to directing public opinion . . . We are accustomed to think of government propaganda as having been developed during the World War.”

Quote:1. What happened on the 'Fatal First'? Is the only referrence to it twice, in correspondences with Speed? Why does this fatal event have to have something to do with Lincoln? Could Speed have trespassed against someone? (aka Sarah Rickard?)

Quote:I am not going beyond the truth, when I tell you, that the short space it took me to read your last letter, gave me more pleasure, than the total sum of all I have enjoyed since that fatal first of Jany.'41. Since then, it seems to me, I should have been entirely happy, but for the never-absent idea, that there is one still unhappy whom I have contributed to make so. That still kills my soul. I can not but reproach myself, for even wishing to be happy while she is otherwise. She accompanied a large party on the Rail Road cars, to Jacksonville last monday; and on her return, spoke, so that I heard of it, of having enjoyed the trip exceedingly. God be praised for that.

Quote:

2. Wilson speculated that Mary was planning to announce her engagement to Lincoln at a party hosted by the Edwards, and then Lincoln's cold feet didn't show up. (is the only proof of their '41 engagement Speed's verbal interview, where he said, he recommended to Lincoln - go to her instead of writing a letter?).

(03-05-2020 11:41 PM)kerry Wrote:  As an update, at this point, I am pretty sure the Jane Bell letter was "forged", which would seem to make a difference. It would be easy for a Lincoln buff to see an opportunity to do this, and the wording closely tracks existing sources. It reads as though it is contrived, and a few years ago one Lincoln scholar sent out a call for the original, leading me to believe others have realized this. The same may be true for some of the other letters--this was (and probably to some extent still is) trivially easy to do, and the market for new gossip is always present, and people want to believe. The famous Ann Rutledge letters debacle in The Atlantic was quickly uncovered because it was so poorly done, and even then it got published. Someone with more skill and knowledge could have made a killing in that environment.

(03-10-2020 02:40 AM)Steve Wrote:  

(03-05-2020 11:41 PM)kerry Wrote:  As an update, at this point, I am pretty sure the Jane Bell letter was "forged", which would seem to make a difference. It would be easy for a Lincoln buff to see an opportunity to do this, and the wording closely tracks existing sources. It reads as though it is contrived, and a few years ago one Lincoln scholar sent out a call for the original, leading me to believe others have realized this. The same may be true for some of the other letters--this was (and probably to some extent still is) trivially easy to do, and the market for new gossip is always present, and people want to believe. The famous Ann Rutledge letters debacle in The Atlantic was quickly uncovered because it was so poorly done, and even then it got published. Someone with more skill and knowledge could have made a killing in that environment.

If your interested in trying to find out if the Jane Bell letter is a forgery, this citation:

https://books.google.com/books?id=HcYWhdPvGkEC&pg=PT249&lpg=PT249&dq=January+27+1841+jane+bell&source=bl&ots=Q9Jq1u5UAL&sig=ACfU3U08lL-BvZ9wbtFryQzgStnFqsIgwA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj37JKQmo_oAhXTlXIEHd8dCNIQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=January%2027%201841%20jane%20bell&f=false

says that a relative of Bell named "Mrs Henry Jackson" first brought the letter to light and gave a copy of it. My advice would be to try and find out who this woman was, her exact relationship to Bell, and does she have a "spotty" record or connection to other forgeries/questioned documents?

I can see why a family might want to keep the original of a letter by a relative who knew Lincoln in Springfield as a keepsake and part of their cherished family history. I've also seen forgeries being passed off as a "copy", usually when a forger wants to influence the scholarship on an issue. Only more research on the background of the background of the letter will illuminate which is more likely.