Missing Plane and Mysteries of the Lincoln Assassination

[LincolnToddFan]

(03-31-2014 09:56 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(03-29-2014 10:23 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  And last but not least....who stole Nanny and Nanko, his beloved pet goats, after his funeral??! They were directed by Mary to be taken to the Montgomery Blair home in Silver Spring but my fear is that they landed on someone's dinner table instead!

Toia, I have tried to find what happened with the goats, but I am drawing a blank. Is it certain the goats were still there in 1865? On August 8, 1863, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Mary (who was away). Regarding the goats he wrote:

"Tell dear Tad, poor 'Nanny Goat', is lost; and Mrs. Cuthbert & I are in distress about it. The day you left Nanny was found resting herself, and chewing her little cud, on the middle of Tad's bed. But now she's gone! The gardener kept complaining that she destroyed the flowers, till it was concluded to bring her down to the White House. This was done, and the second day she had disappeared, and has not been heard of since. This is the last we know of poor 'Nanny'."

Hi RJ...I am basing my fears for the fate of the goats on a letter Mary wrote to Elizabeth Blair Lee from Chicago in July 1865. She and Tad wanted to know if the goats were enjoying their new home at the Blair estate in Silver Spring, MD where she assumes they had arrived following her directive from the WH on the day she left. She is surprised and dismayed when EBL replies that the goats never arrived. Mary's letter to EBL can be read in it's entirety in Linda Leavitt-Turner's excellent 1972 book The Letters of Mary Todd Lincoln. I own this book and it contains about 600 pieces of MTL's correspondence, all that was known to exist until Jason Emerson's fantastic discovery of her "lost" letters about a decade ago.

So, there were definitely some pet goats living at the WH at the time of the assassination. Maybe they had replaced the famous Nanny and Nanko? It's always bothered me that someone might have taken advantage of the chaos of MTL's final days at the residence and stolen those poor animals. Lord knows what became of them on their way to Silver Spring, MD...they never made it!

The Lincolns just had terrible luck with their pets...the burnt ponies in the barn, the (probably)kidnapped goats, and of course the brutally murdered Fido. Passionate animal lover that I am, it makes me very sad.

You are a sweetheart to try and find out for me...thanks!