Mary Todd Lincoln's faux pas (plural), worse, and much worse

[RJNorton]

Susan sent me the Boston Daily Advertiser article referenced above, and it is here. Scroll down for the part about the "gay party of ladies." Thanks, Susan!

David said that the above .pdf file was difficult to read. And he was able to obtain the article in more readable print. I am posting what David sent here:

[LincolnToddFan]

Thanks Roger!

[David Lockmiller]

(06-18-2014 11:59 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Susan sent me the Boston Daily Advertiser article referenced above, and it is here. Scroll down for the part about the "gay party of ladies." Thanks, Susan!

Thank you very much, Susan and Roger!!!

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks to both of you! I wonder if that was mentioned in any April 1865 newspaper?
Thanks also for trying to find the Whitney quote, Roger!!

[LincolnToddFan]

Eva...I have searched online and in my many books, and I can find no mention of any April 1865 or even May 1865 newspaper mentioning the First Lady and her friends committing any such egregious faux pas as chattering over the president's historic speech that night.

How very convenient that this information only found it's way into a newspaper years later when her husband was dead and she was under fire for yet another scandal. I wish just once Mary had fought back against the "vampire press" as she called it, but I guess that wasn't done in her day...at least not by a woman.

[Gene C]

Sometime you have to "raise a stink", to clear the air
- Pepe' Le Pew -

[David Lockmiller]

(07-02-2014 02:28 AM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  Eva...I have searched online and in my many books, and I can find no mention of any April 1865 or even May 1865 newspaper mentioning the First Lady and her friends committing any such egregious faux pas as chattering over the president's historic speech that night.

How very convenient that this information only found it's way into a newspaper years later when her husband was dead and she was under fire for yet another scandal. I wish just once Mary had fought back against the "vampire press" as she called it, but I guess that wasn't done in her day...at least not by a woman.

Well, "this information did find its way into a newspaper [TWO] years later when . . . she (Mary Todd Lincoln) was under fire for yet another scandal," as you so ably describe the context for the publishing of the article.

Perhaps the last paragraph of this article may explain somewhat why this incident, which you describe correctly above as "such [an] egregious faux pas as chattering over the president's historic speech that night," was not printed by the newspapers at that time. The last paragraph of this Boston newspaper story in 1867 reads:

"This little incident has some suggestions which recent developments make oppotune just now, so apparent that we need not direct attention to them more explicitly. The wife and widow of the President may do things which shock the public taste, as they would have grated upon the heart of her husband; but respect for the memory of one of the best loved and most worthy of the sons of the republic, requires that no more notice than is unavoidable should be taken of unpleasant displays of a lack of discretion for which he, at any rate, was not responsible."

[Eva Elisabeth]

Why compared to 1865 was taking note of " unpleasant displays of a lack of discretion" that unavoidable in 1867 so that the "respect for the memory of one of the best loved and most worthy of the sons of the republic" could be neglected then?

Don't you consider it odd that not any 1865 account exits of such an - as I understand you think - obvious, inexcusable public faux-pas? And what would you say if a court judged someone guilty of a deed only upon the deed's mentioning in a newspaper article two years later - without any witness' name or sources?

[David Lockmiller]

(07-03-2014 06:05 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Why compared to 1865 was taking note of " unpleasant displays of a lack of discretion" that unavoidable in 1867 so that the "respect for the memory of one of the best loved and most worthy of the sons of the republic" could be neglected then?

Don't you consider it odd that not any 1865 account exits of such an - as I understand you think - obvious, inexcusable public faux-pas? And what would you say if a court judged someone guilty of a deed only upon the deed's mentioning in a newspaper article two years later - without any witness' name or sources?

Maybe the people who came to hear Lincoln's speech that night should have just asked the President to speak much louder, instead of disrupting the First Lady's party?

Or, are you suggesting that the 1867 newspaper report was based upon a complete fiction? What were some of the Twitter posts made by members of the audience that night in 1865?

This reminds me of Lewis Gannett's argument: How could there have been an engagement to marry between Ann Rutledge and Abraham Lincoln if there are no specific witness accounts of individual courtship occurrences?

[Gene C]

(07-04-2014 12:31 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Or, are you suggesting that the 1867 newspaper report was based upon a complete fiction? What were some of the Twitter posts made by members of the audience that night in 1865?

Well, as you have mentioned before, sometimes these reporters don't always get their facts right. This could have been one of those occasions.

[David Lockmiller]

(07-03-2014 06:05 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Why compared to 1865 was taking note of " unpleasant displays of a lack of discretion" that unavoidable in 1867 so that the "respect for the memory of one of the best loved and most worthy of the sons of the republic" could be neglected then?

Don't you consider it odd that not any 1865 account exits of such an - as I understand you think - obvious, inexcusable public faux-pas? And what would you say if a court judged someone guilty of a deed only upon the deed's mentioning in a newspaper article two years later - without any witness' name or sources?

I looked up Professor Burlingame's reference to the speech disruption on the Knox college website. There was also this reference which was not in the book: Clara Harris in Timothy S. Good, ed., We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995), 70.

I looked up the Timothy Good book on Google books and brought up the book preview. Unfortunately, the preview excludes page 70.

If anyone is going to make a comment on this incident favorable to Mary Todd Lincoln, it would be Clara Harris. I would like to know what Clara Harris said regarding the incident.

[Eva Elisabeth]

David, please re-read Susan Higginbotham's post #23 on this thread:

"I looked up Burlingame's sources for the story about Mary and Clara chattering while Lincoln tried to give his speech. One is the October 7, 1867, Boston Daily Advertiser, which refers to Mary and a "gay party of ladies" in the window instead of just to Mary and Clara (and recounts the detail about Lincoln's pained look); the other is Clara's letter of April 29, 1865, in "We Saw Lincoln Shot," where she recalls standing at a window with Mary the night of the speech but doesn't mention herself or Mary drowning out the President. She adds that after the speech, the company went into Lincoln's room, where 'Mrs. Lincoln declared the last few days to have been the happiest of her life.'"

[Linda Anderson]

(07-04-2014 02:54 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  ]

I looked up Professor Burlingame's reference to the speech disruption on the Knox college website. There was also this reference which was not in the book: Clara Harris in Timothy S. Good, ed., We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995), 70.

I looked up the Timothy Good book on Google books and brought up the book preview. Unfortunately, the preview excludes page 70.

If anyone is going to make a comment on this incident favorable to Mary Todd Lincoln, it would be Clara Harris. I would like to know what Clara Harris said regarding the incident.

David, you can find Clara's account on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/We-Saw-Lincoln-Sho...ncoln+shot

It starts on page 69. "He spoke from the center window of the Executive Mansion. I had been invited to pass the evening there, and stood at the window adjoining room with Mrs. Lincoln, watching the crowd below as they listened and cheered. Of course Booth was there, watching his chance. I wonder he did not choose that occasion but probably he knew a better opportunity would be offered. After the speech was over, we went into Mr. Lincoln's room; he was lying on the sofa, quite exhausted but he talked of the events of the past fortnight, of his visit to Richmond, of the enthusiasm everywhere felt through the country; and Mrs. Lincoln declared the last few days to have been the happiest in her life."

[Eva Elisabeth]

(07-04-2014 02:54 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Or, are you suggesting that the 1867 newspaper report was based upon a complete fiction?

Yes. I consider it likely, and you can't prove the opposite unless coming up with at least another contemporary account, at best a witness' name. To me it seems most likely someone who disliked the former First Lady expanded and embellished his memory to add his share in the delight the press had in the clothes scandal.


My question remains - why did the story (if true) not spread at the time when it was current and rather of interest than two years later?

[L Verge]

In his great book, Worst Seat in the House, author Caleb Stephens has reprinted a letter that Clara sent to a friend from Washington on April 29:

The letter is addressed to "My Dear M." and the first paragraph is a remembrance of being with the Lincolns on many occasions and how they enjoyed jaunts to the theater and opera - especially to hear Forrest, Booth, Hackett, "and such actors when playing in Washington." Clara also said they enjoyed drives and that those and the receptions at the White House were the only amusements in which they could indulge because most of the time they were surrounded by crowds.

The next paragraph is significant to our concerns here. "The night before the murder was that of the general illumination here, and they drove all through the streets to see it; a less calculating villain might have taken that opportunity for his crime, or the night before, when the White House alone was brilliantly illuminated and the figure of the President stood out in full relief to the immense crowd below who stood in the darkness to listen to his speech. He spoke from the center window of the Executive Mansion. I had been invited to pass the evening there, and stood at the window of an adjoining room with Mrs. Lincoln watching the crowd below as they listened and cheered. Of course, Booth was there, watching his chance. I wonder that he did not choose that occasion, but probably knew a better opportunity would be offered. After the speech was over we went into Mr. Lincoln's room; he was lying on the sofa, quite exhausted; but he talked of the events of the past fortnight, of his visit to Richmond, of the enthusiasm everywhere felt through the country; and Mrs. Lincoln declared the past few days to have been the happiest of her life. Their prospects indeed seemed fair - peace dawning upon our land and four years of a happy and honored rule before one of the gentlest, best, and loveliest men I ever knew. I never saw him out of temper, the kindest husband, the tenderest father, the truest friend, as well as the wisest statesman...."

My thoughts? I don't see a gaggle of giggling gooses at the window disturbing either the President or the crowds (notice that Clara only mentions herself and Mrs. Lincoln, but we can surmise that Mrs. Keckly might have been there also). It seems that the crowds heard enough of the speech unimpeded in order to voice their approval with cheers - or curse him and decide to kill him as Booth did. If those gaggle of gooses had irritated the President during his speech, I doubt (in his "exhausted" state) that he would have lounged and discussed current events with those same geese.

I agree with Eva that some snippet who did not care for the First Lady later wrote the disparaging remark and embellished upon what was a normal reaction to the happiness and glee that was all around everyone that night in D.C. Unfortunately, other authors have picked up on it and spread their own disgruntled opinions of Mrs. Lincoln. Cheap shot, in my estimation,

P.S. Several months ago, we were discussing whether or not the Lincolns picked up Clara and Henry before heading to the theater, or whether the couple came to the White House. In this same letter, Clara states that "We four composed the party that evening. They [the Lincolns] drove to our door in the gayest spirits..." Evidently, protocol was not as strict - or the Lincolns not as staid - as what we would expect today.