Mary's Reputation
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06-13-2013, 01:36 AM
Post: #185
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RE: Mary's Reputation
(07-15-2012 01:22 PM)RJNorton Wrote: Hi Laurie. Personally I think this is true, at least in in part. Certainly Mary did some things totally separate from Herndon that caused her to have a "reputation." Her negative comments about Mrs. Ord and Mrs. Grant, for example, had nothing to do with Herndon. Roger wrote: " Certainly Mary did some things totally separate from Herndon that caused her to have a "reputation." Her negative comments about Mrs. Ord and Mrs. Grant, for example, had nothing to do with Herndon. Professor Michael Burlingame wrote of incidents occurring on March 26, 1865 (less than a month before Lincoln's assassination) involving Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Griffin, and Mrs. Ord in his book, "Abraham Lincoln: A Life" Vol. II, pages 781 -782. The principal witness for the narration was General Grant's aide, Major Adam Badeau. After lunch aboard Porter's flagship, the Malvern, Lincoln proceeded to Aiken's Landing, where Ord's officers were waiting to escort the presidential party to the review. Lincoln rode with Grant and Ord, while the First Lady and Julia Grant, along Grant's aide Adam Badeau, followed in an ambulance. The president cheerfully laughed and chatted with the generals. When they arrived at Ord's campsite, Lincoln was dismayed to learn that the troops had been awaiting their arrival for hours and had missed lunch. He therefore urged that the review begin without further delay while the women caught up. Meantime, Major Badeau tried to make polite conversation with the First Lady and Mrs. Grant. He predicted that a battle would soon take place, for Grant had ordered to the rear the wives of officers in the Army of the Potomac. Mrs. Charles Griffin, who had received special permission from the president, was an exception. This news rasped Mary Lincoln. "What do you mean by that, sir?" she asked indignantly. "Do you mean to say that she saw the President alone? Do you know that I never allow the President to see any woman alone?" Julia Grant tried to rescue poor Badeau, who balked when Mary Lincoln instructed him to order the vehicle to halt so that she could leave it. The First Lady then took matters into her own hands by seizing the driver, but Mrs. Grant persuaded her to remain inside until they had reached the reviewing ground. There General Meade, unaware of the delicacy of the situation, replaced Badeau as the ladies' escort. When they returned to the carriage, the First Lady glared at Badeau and remarked, "General Meade is a gentleman, sir. He says it was not the President who gave Mrs. Griffin the permit, but the Secretary of War." Later that day a more embarrassing scene occurred when the same party visited the command of General Ord's Army of the James. His beautiful, vivacious wife, like Mrs. Griffin, had been allowed to remain at the front. On a highly spirited horse she rode alongside the president while Mary Lincoln's carriage was making its way to the site. According to Badeau, as "soon as Mrs. Lincoln discovered this her rage was beyond all bounds. "What does the woman mean,' she exclaimed, 'by riding by the side of the President? and ahead of me? Does she suppose that he wants her by the side of him?' She was in a frenzy of excitement, and language and action both became more extravagant every moment." Mary Lincoln grew angrier still when Julia Grant once again attempted to calm her down. Haughtily, the First Lady asked: "I suppose you think you'll get to the White House yourself, don't you?" Mrs. Grant explained that she was quite content with her current situation, provoking a sharp retort: "Oh! you had better take it if you can get it. 'Tis very nice." At this awkward moment an officer approached and innocently remarked: "The President's horse is very gallant, Mrs. Lincoln; he insists on riding by the side of Mrs. Ord." "What do you mean by that, sir?" she asked heatedly. The astounded officer slunk away. When the carriage finally reached Ord's headquarters, that general's wife rode up. As Badeau remembered it, Mary Lincoln "positively insulted her, called her vile names in the presence of a crowd of officers, and asked what she meant by following up the President. The poor woman burst into tears and inquired what she had done, but Mrs. Lincoln refused to be appeased, and stormed till she was tired. Mrs. Grant still tried to stand by her friend, and everybody was shocked and horrified." At dinner that evening, the First Lady vehemently condemned General Ord and urged her husband to remove him, for in her opinion he was unfit for his command. . . . Badeau reported that Mary Lincoln over the next few days "repeatedly attacked her husband in the presence of officers because of Mrs. Griffin and Mrs. Ord." The spectacle dismayed Badeau, who later wrote: "I never suffered greater humiliation and pain . . . than when I saw the Head of State, the man who carried all the cares of the nation at such a crisis -- subjected to this inexpressible public mortification." Lincoln "bore it as Christ might have done; with an expression of pain and sadness that cut one to the heart, but with supreme calmness and dignity." With "old-time plainness" he called his wife "mother." He also "pleaded with eyes and tones, and endeavored to explain or palliate the offenses of others, till she turned on him like a tigress; and then he walked away, hiding that noble, ugly face that we might not catch the full expression of its misery." "So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history." -- Plutarch |
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