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Susan Higginbotham · 02-28-2019, 12:44 PM

(02-28-2019 11:28 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:
(02-26-2019 01:51 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:
(02-26-2019 12:57 PM)L Verge Wrote: I believe that the warm and fuzzy feelings between Mary Harlan Lincoln and her mother-in-law had cooled a bit by this time. She also had a new baby to care for, so I suspect she ran home to her mother for help and comfort. I would really like to know what the Robert Lincolns' marriage was like (the Alice Roosevelt in me needs to know!).

Also, I question how much contact Robert and Tad had with each other, especially with the age differences. Tad was born in 1853, and Robert went off to New England for prep school and Harvard in 1859. He wasn't around to pick up the pieces after Willie died, and were they really sharing a room prior to Robert's leaving? That doesn't seem fair to Robert.

I suspect that Master Tad used every trick in the book to get attention, especially once his father became President and time was scarce - and his mother had her own agenda. Frankly, if one psychoanalyzed each and every member of that family, we might term the family as being "dysfunctional." Will I now be tossed off the forum for blasphemy?

I double-checked in Emerson's bio of Robert. He states, quoting a newspaper article, that Mary Todd Lincoln was at the service held at Robert's house but was in too poor shape emotionally to accompany Tad's body to Springfield. As for Mary Harlan Lincoln, she was in Washington, D.C., with her daughter and her ailing mother. Robert regularly wrote to his wife to update her on Tad's condition. He wrote that Tad had become "so manly and self-reliant that I had the greatest hopes for his future."
I seem to recall reading somewhere that in the Chicago days Tad briefly even had the ambition to work on joining his brother's business. But I also seem to recall reading the endurance wasn't long lasting.

Was this after he and Mary returned from Europe in 1871? I would think that his rapidly declining health, not lack of ambition, was the obstacle at that point.

David Lockmiller · 02-28-2019, 04:00 PM

(02-28-2019 12:44 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:
(02-28-2019 11:28 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote: I seem to recall reading somewhere that in the Chicago days Tad briefly even had the ambition to work on joining his brother's business. But I also seem to recall reading the endurance wasn't long lasting.

Was this after he and Mary returned from Europe in 1871? I would think that his rapidly declining health, not lack of ambition, was the obstacle at that point.

See hyperlink story “The Death of Tad Lincoln” posted by Susan Higginbotham on 2-25-2019.

[Tad] wanted to go home. [Mary and Tad lived in Germany from 1868 to 1871.] Mary booked passage in mid-May, 1871.

The arrival of the Widow Lincoln in New York was of modest interest, and one of the newspapers sent a reporter – none other than John Hay, who had been one of Lincoln’s private secretaries, and who knew the family intimately. Hay was particularly interested in seeing Tad, who he remembered as a somewhat spoiled child. He was delighted by the progress of young “Mr. Thomas Lincoln”, including his improved speech, albeit now with a German accent. Even before he filed his story, Hay wrote his good friend Robert Lincoln with glowing praise for Tad, who had made such great strides.

Tad had caught a cold en route [from New York], and when they reached Chicago, it had worsened. Their stay as guests of the young Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln was brief, and also worsened. The two Mary Lincolns saw their once-cordial relationship deteriorate to a point that Robert’s wife packed up the baby and left to care for her own ailing mother.

The tensions created sufficient turmoil for the Widow to pack up as well, and move with Tad to the Clifton House Hotel on Wabash Avenue.

Tad’s cold had become serious and required Dr. C.G. Smith’s medical attention. He had trouble breathing, and was feverish. The diagnosis was (by various sources) dropsy, or pleurisy, or tuberculosis. Whatever the actual cause, all aforesaid possibilities were extremely serious without modern antibiotics. He suffered horribly, and was confined to a chair with an iron bar across it to prevent him from falling forward or lying down, a position that made breathing impossible. Mary Lincoln hovered by his side. Robert came daily. Doctors came daily. So did a few old Lincoln friends who could extend words of sympathy, but little more. Tad died on July 15.

David Lockmiller · 03-01-2019, 11:41 PM

Sometime in 1867 Mary took Tad to a Chicago dentist who fitted [Tad] with a primitive set of braces to fix his overbite. Tad got up from the dentist’s chair wearing a barbaric “spring frame” in his mouth. The science of orthodontics was still in the early stages of development; the first paper on orthodontics, written by Dr. Norman Kingsley, had been published in a professional journal just a decade earlier. Although the technique of extracting teeth to improve the alignment of the mouth had been known since ancient times, Dr. Kingsley, a dentist and sculptor, made the important discovery that mild force, at timed intervals, could straighten crooked teeth. But the device in Tad’s mouth was pure torture. It also exacerbated his speech impediment and made it difficult for him to be understood by strangers. His fellow students at the Brown School also teased him unmercifully.

“It was annoying Tad very much,” Robert wrote David Davis. “He could hardly speak so as to be understood and to keep him talking in that way for a year, I thought, with his present bad habits of speech, to be risking so much.” Robert took his little brother to another dentist who examined the lad and declared that the spring frame apparatus “was not at all necessary.” That was the professional opinion Robert was looking for, and the device was extracted from Tad’s mouth. Robert then arranged to take Tad to Dr. Amasa McCoy, a well-known orator and professor of elocution and vocal culture, to correct Tad’s lisp and work on his pronunciation. “I think he is improving under McCoy’s efforts,” Robert reported.

(The Last Lincolns: The Rise and Fall of a Great American Family by Charles Lachman, page 93.)

By comparison, Tad's life in the White House with his brother Willie and his father was such a joyful and fulfilling experience.

Eva Elisabeth · (This post was last modified: 03-02-2019 05:53 AM by Eva Elisabeth.)

David, this is what Roger wrote above (post #3242). Yes, Tad had a grand time in the White House most American kids (many of whom lost their fathers on battlefields) didn't have in those days, not at all. I lost my father four years younger than Tad and living with my staunch Prussian mother, although I love her, was sort of Hell compared to other kids home. I didn't have brothers to help me. What I mean to say was Tad certainly still was living under better conditions than many, including many still today.

Wild Bill · 03-02-2019, 06:42 AM

Having lived through a similar childhood Hell as you, Eva, with a Prussian father, I agree with your analysis of Tad's youth.

Eva Elisabeth · (This post was last modified: 03-02-2019 08:42 AM by Eva Elisabeth.)

IMO Tad was pampered and he wasn't someone (other than his brothers) whose intrinsic strive could overcome convenience, comfort zone and lacking extrinsic need. Robert wasn't even that pampered at all (even got slapped). If Tad had had to live with my mother, that would have cured him from pranks, mischief or lacking work attitude thoroughly. He would NEVER have dared to fail in school or steal colors to smear on White House walls. That is why I think Hohagen's did him good...(and still I wonder, David, do you have kids? Maybe you have good nerves.). Just to clarify, being spoiled from pampering doesn't have to do with being or not being good-hearted (and it's even easier to share what you don't need yourself because you have enough as well as it is easier to prank when you have endless spare time for self-amusement) - I do think he was emphatic and caring nevertheless, but a pampered lazy bone without any proper working attitude. It's OK, it was the Lincolns' policy and matter, and they consequently had to deal with it.

Now imagine Tad had had to grow up under exactly his father's conditions and circumstances, in a modest working class family and log cabin home, having to work hard physically and having to work hard for the mere option of education, losing siblings and warm-hearted mother - what would he have done?

David Lockmiller · 03-02-2019, 10:29 AM

(03-02-2019 06:48 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote: IMO Tad was pampered and he wasn't someone (other than his brothers) whose intrinsic strive could overcome convenience, comfort zone and lacking extrinsic need. Robert wasn't even that pampered at all (even got slapped). If Tad had had to live with my mother, that would have cured him from pranks, mischief or lacking work attitude thoroughly. He would NEVER have dared to fail in school or steal colors to smear on White House walls. That is why I think Hohagen's did him good...(and still I wonder, David, do you have kids? Maybe you have good nerves.). Just to clarify, being spoiled from pampering doesn't have to do with being or not being good-hearted (and it's even easier to share what you don't need yourself because you have enough as well as it is easier to prank when you have endless spare time for self-amusement) - I do think he was emphatic and caring nevertheless, but a pampered lazy bone without any proper working attitude. It's OK, it was the Lincolns' policy and matter, and they consequently had to deal with it.

Now imagine Tad had had to grow up under exactly his father's conditions and circumstances, in a modest working class family and log cabin home, having to work hard physically and having to work hard for the mere option of education, losing siblings and warm-hearted mother - what would he have done?

Here's an idea: Let's pass a law and have everyone's children raised in only military schools. Let's stop all of this pampering of children. If even one person has had a difficult childhood upbringing anywhere in the world, then everyone's children thereafter should have harsh discipline as the norm. Make it a law. Our draft-dodging President would certainly sign it.

There already is such a country. It's called North Korea. But things there are a little bit reversed. Kim had is uncle executed.

And, you say: "Robert wasn't even that pampered at all (even got slapped)." Robert got slapped in the movie "Lincoln." I believe that most historians do not believe that he was slapped by President Abraham Lincoln.

And, how many young men like Robert at the time were being educated at a private preparatory school and then received a Harvard education rather than be subject to being drafted into the Army to fight in mortal combat? And, is not true that when Robert was finally granted permission to serve in the military by Mary (after many entreaties by President Abraham Lincoln), his father wrote the following message to General Grant?

''My son, now in his twenty-second year, having graduated from Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before it ends,'' Lincoln wrote. ''I do not wish to put him in the ranks, nor give him a commission to which those who have already served long are better entitled, and better qualified to hold.

''Could he, without embarrassment to you or detriment to the service, go into your military family with some nominal rank, I, and not the public, furnishing his necessary means? If no, say so without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious, and as deeply interested that you shall not be encumbered, as you can be yourself.''

Grant replied that he would be glad to put the young man on his staff as an assistant adjutant. Bob Lincoln reported the following month at City Point, Grant's base of operations in Hopewell, Va., sporting a captain's bars and paid by the Army.

(Source: "Lincoln Sought Safe Civil War Haven for His Oldest Son"
By WOLFGANG SAXON for the New York Times AUG. 22, 1988)

You say: "Robert wasn't even that pampered at all." How many other parents wrote to General Grant and made similar requests? General Grant must have had a staff numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

When you stop being ridiculous, I'll stop being ridiculous.

You write: Now imagine Tad had had to grow up under exactly his father's conditions and circumstances, in a modest working class family and log cabin home, having to work hard physically and having to work hard for the mere option of education, losing siblings and warm-hearted mother - what would he have done?

President Abraham Lincoln chose how to raise his child Tad. I think President Abraham Lincoln did a very good job of raising his child Tad given all the particular circumstances at the time.

Eva Elisabeth · (This post was last modified: 03-02-2019 03:39 PM by Eva Elisabeth.)

"President Abraham Lincoln chose how to raise his child Tad." - I said that in my second to last sentence, didn't I?
Here it goes again: "It's OK, it was the Lincolns' policy and matter, and they consequently had to deal with it." And they could afford it (having Tad not up to contest).

The point which was not the Lincolns' matter is touching or even (ab)using others' belongings without permission (like Hicks' colors, and this was for sure not the only incident). This is IMO an absolute no-go, and parents have to ensure that their offspring does not do that. Even if they could allow to replace the item, this is a general matter. One just isn't to touch or use what isn't yours without asking. (And I do not find it any cute if kids do, or if parents even allow their begging, lamenting youngsters such as to unwrap and eat the candy in the supermarket right away before paying, before it is legally theirs.)

Your "reply" is also no reply to my question you quote right before. (The question was how Tad would have developed under the conditions Lincoln had to face, and with zero financial background.) I guess you also know it wasn't Lincoln's wish that Robert went to Harvard. Robert's motivation however was intrinsic.

I think President Abraham Lincoln slapped Robert on the inaugural trip when he missed to watch the inaugural address. (I wonder if Tad had accomplished that better but doubt he had gotten slapped if not.) I also think there was a scene with a reception where Robert queued as a "guest" and Lincoln lost his temper.

So, if all kids were raised as laissez-faire as Tad and showed the same lack of working attitude, skills and discipline, please tell me what the world would look like.

L Verge · 03-02-2019, 03:44 PM

(03-02-2019 11:53 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote: "President Abraham Lincoln chose how to raise his child Tad." - I said that in my second to last sentence, didn't I?
Here it goes again: "It's OK, it was the Lincolns' policy and matter, and they consequently had to deal with it." And they could afford it (having Tad not up to contest).

Your "reply" is also no reply to my question you quote right before. (The question was how Tad would have developed under the conditions Lincoln had to face, and with zero financial background.) I guess you also know it wasn't Lincoln's wish that Robert went to Harvard. Robert's motivation however was intrinsic.

I think President Abraham Lincoln slapped Robert on the inaugural trip when he missed to watch the inaugural address. (I wonder if Tad had accomplished that better but doubt he had gotten slapped if not.) I also think there was a scene with a reception where Robert queued as a "guest" and Lincoln lost his temper.

So, if all kids were raised as laissez-faire as Tad and showed the same lack of working attitude, skills and discipline, please tell me what the world would look like.

Eva - the former school teacher in me (and this is from years ago, decades of experience then, and interaction with thousands of children both in schools and now at the museum) makes me take your side instinctively. I suspect that David - if we put him in a classroom with ten students of Tad's ilk - would resign after the first week or two. I would have labeled Tad a possible problem child on the first day of school (and I often did just that while teaching). My problem became that I was so good at calming the beasts and making them interested in learning that I got stuck with other teachers' problems!

As for Robert, while I'm sure he would not be a dear friend of mine, I feel sorry for him. He grew to manhood while his father was either away from home riding circuit or away from home politicking. Meanwhile, he's dealing with an erratic mother and partially raising three little brothers.

And, you can't tell me that he did not feel the pressure of attending Harvard to please his father and mother - this while Tad is allowed free reign, especially after Willie's death. Even his being granted dispensation from REAL military service must have grated on his nerves while knowing that so many other young men were out there dying in a war that thousands blamed on his father.

As I said before, I suspect the family was dysfunctional. We can only hope that Tad was growing into a dignified and caring person before death took him at such an early age. I would even be hesitant to judge his last year, when I suspect that illness was "slowing him down."

Susan Higginbotham · 03-03-2019, 05:53 PM

The only slapping incident I recall in connection with Robert and his father is the one reported by Mercy Conkling in a letter to her son dated Feb. 12, 1861, describing a reception at the Lincolns' house in Springfield: "Bob figured quite largely. While I was standing near Mr. L--he came up, and in his humorous style, gave his hand to his father, saying "Good evening Mr. Lincoln!' In reply his father gave him a gentle slap in the face." I don't read this as being a slap in anger. Notably, when Bob handed the satchel containing the first inaugural address to a hotel clerk, forcing Lincoln to search through similar-looking bags in order to find his, Bob reported that he was not scolded, only told after Lincoln was reunited with his bag, "Now you keep it!"

As for Tad, I don't understand the vitriol directed toward him, considering his age when he was living in the White House. Yes, he probably took advantage of his parents' lax disciplinary practices and the privileges he enjoyed from being the President's son, and it didn't help when he lost his brother Willie and was deprived of his playmates the Taft brothers, which gave him little to do but pester the adults around him. But by his mother's account--and she should surely know--after his father's assassination, his behavior improved markedly. In June 1865, for instance, Mary wrote to Alexander Williamson that she had "not the least trouble in managing him"--an implicit admission that she had had trouble before--and in September 1865, she told Williamson that Tad was going to school and "for once in his life" was "really interested in his studies." When he wasn't in school, he seems to have been a good companion for his mother, which couldn't have been easy. While I don't think he had the potential that Willie had, people do surprise one, and there's no reason to assume that he wouldn't have grown into a capable, decent man.

David Lockmiller · 03-03-2019, 07:57 PM

(03-03-2019 05:53 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote: The only slapping incident I recall in connection with Robert and his father is the one reported by Mercy Conkling in a letter to her son dated Feb. 12, 1861, describing a reception at the Lincolns' house in Springfield: "Bob figured quite largely. While I was standing near Mr. L--he came up, and in his humorous style, gave his hand to his father, saying "Good evening Mr. Lincoln!' In reply his father gave him a gentle slap in the face." I don't read this as being a slap in anger. Notably, when Bob handed the satchel containing the first inaugural address to a hotel clerk, forcing Lincoln to search through similar-looking bags in order to find his, Bob reported that he was not scolded, only told after Lincoln was reunited with his bag, "Now you keep it!"

As for Tad, I don't understand the vitriol directed toward him, considering his age when he was living in the White House. Yes, he probably took advantage of his parents' lax disciplinary practices and the privileges he enjoyed from being the President's son, and it didn't help when he lost his brother Willie and was deprived of his playmates the Taft brothers, which gave him little to do but pester the adults around him. But by his mother's account--and she should surely know--after his father's assassination, his behavior improved markedly. In June 1865, for instance, Mary wrote to Alexander Williamson that she had "not the least trouble in managing him"--an implicit admission that she had had trouble before--and in September 1865, she told Williamson that Tad was going to school and "for once in his life" was "really interested in his studies." When he wasn't in school, he seems to have been a good companion for his mother, which couldn't have been easy. While I don't think he had the potential that Willie had, people do surprise one, and there's no reason to assume that he wouldn't have grown into a capable, decent man.

Thank you for writing this. I am as mystified as are you: "As for Tad, I don't understand the vitriol directed toward him, considering his age when he was living in the White House."

Susan Higginbotham · 03-04-2019, 12:24 PM

Goodness, I certainly didn't expect or want you to delete anything or to keep quiet. "Vitriol" may have been stating the case too strongly, for which I apologize, but it did seem to me that poor Tad, who must have brought his parents a lot of comfort in a difficult time and whose loss was a terrible blow to his mother, was being made to bear the brunt of your (understandable) frustration with modern parenting styles and society in general.

L Verge · 03-04-2019, 03:18 PM

As you can tell from my posts, I tend to side with Eva on thinking that much of Tad's behavior was uncalled for - especially in the 19th century when children were expected to be "seen and not heard." It is a shame that it took the deaths of Willie and his father (and the reaction of his mother) to finally snap him into being a more considerate young man. I suspect that the education in a German environment helped too (and probably why Mrs. Lincoln chose that country to live in). Germany has always been a leader in education - and discipline, which is a key ingredient to learning.

I'm an old-timer who remembers quite well that good discipline and proper manners were required when company came or when out in public. My mother was the disciplinarian in the family, and the first signal for me to behave was her utter silence. If it went further than that, her weapon of choice was an aspen switch aimed at the ankles. Just the sound of that aspen's whine as she swung it in open air would bring me into proper behavior immediately - I didn't have to feel the switch, just hear it. As a teacher and then as a mother, my clue to behave one's self was that same silence and a raised eyebrow.

Now, at the museum, I watch as elementary school children run rough shod over their teachers and are not disciplined. In the days when I could climb the stairs to a school bus, I actually had several occasions to climb on board and settle the kids down before I allowed them to visit the museum. I actually had one teacher thank me for getting them under control; and I wanted so badly to tell her that she was getting paid a lot more than I and could take care of the situation also. It doesn't take violence to teach respect for law and order - and learning.

As an analytical sidebar, I have wondered if Mr. Lincoln was just too tired after the traveling, the politicking, and finally running the war to even care what Tad was up to... Was it just easier to turn a blind eye or tune out the noise? I know that Willie was "active" also, but was it to the same extent as Tad? I have not studied the Lincoln family enough, but I just have a gut feeling that there was a slight personality disorder lurking there.

Gene C · 03-04-2019, 03:56 PM

It's my opinion that Willie and Robert may have instigated Tad just a little.
Isn't that what big brothers are for?
As the youngest, Tad may have gotten away with some things the others didn't.
Plus, with his speech impediment, his parents may have been a little more lenient with him.
I wonder if Herndon didn't exaggggerate some of the children's actions like he did Mary's.

RJNorton · 03-04-2019, 04:15 PM

(03-04-2019 03:18 PM)L Verge Wrote: As an analytical sidebar, I have wondered if Mr. Lincoln was just too tired after the traveling, the politicking, and finally running the war to even care what Tad was up to... Was it just easier to turn a blind eye or tune out the noise?

William Herndon wrote that the "let the children have a good time" attitude also existed in Springfield. This is from Herndon's Life of Lincoln:

"He (Abraham Lincoln) exercised no government of any kind over his household. His children did much as they pleased. Many of their antics he approved, and he restrained them in nothing. He never reproved them or gave them a fatherly frown. He was the most indulgent parent I have ever known. He was in the habit, when at home on Sunday, of bringing his two boys, Willie and Thomas — or "Tad" — down to the office to remain while his wife attended church. He seldom accompanied her there. The boys were absolutely unrestrained in their amusement. If they pulled down all the books from the shelves, bent the points of all the pens, overturned ink-stands, scattered law-papers over the floor, or threw the pencils into the spittoon, it never disturbed the serenity of their father's good-nature. Frequently absorbed in thought, he never observed their mischievous but destructive pranks — as his unfortunate partner did, who thought much, but said nothing — and, even if brought to his attention, he virtually encouraged their repetition by declining to show any substantial evidence of parental disapproval. After church was over the boys and their father, climbing down the office stairs, ruefully turned their steps homeward."