Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[LincolnToddFan]

Count me in with Roger and Tom and Liz. He obviously knew this young woman, cared deeply for her, and grieved terribly at her death. But the fact is that a very short time later, Lincoln was considering marriage to another woman.(Mary Owens). He never even casually mentions Ann in subsequent letters to his most intimate friend at the time, Joshua Speed.

As for her death haunting him to the end of his life, where is the evidence for that? Taking Lincoln's own statements into account(to army nurse Rebecca Pomeroy, artist Francis Carpenter, and his own church pastor) the greatest trial of his life was the loss of Willie, his and Mary's golden child. It was Willie who's death caused him so much suffering that he would go to bed at night and try to conjure conversations with the boy in his dreams.

Youthful first love is very powerful and special. Most of us have experienced it. What could be more devastating than to experience the death of such a person? But the idea that his first tragic experience in love cast a shadow over Lincoln and that he spent the rest of his legendary life brooding over Ann Rutledge is for me, based on little more than Herndon's fevered imagination.