Mary Lincoln's presence at Abraham's death-bed

[Linda Anderson]

Stanton certainly didn't handle the situation well, in fact I agree he was downright cruel to Mary, but I wonder if he thought that Mary was disturbing Lincoln. Perhaps he wanted to give the dying man some peace in which to die.

Lincoln died 20 minutes after Mary left. Perhaps she was holding him back in some way? I heard of someone who left their dying relative for a moment and that's when the relative died.

Maybe someone can address this who has experience with dying people being told it's okay to "let go."