Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[LincolnToddFan]

Laurie,

Author Gerald Prokopowicz("Did Lincoln Own Slaves"?) makes your exact point...that men who have a negative view of MTL and the Lincoln marriage might in general be projecting their own feelings and experiences. Dale Carnegie is a great example. He bitterly hated his ex-wife and used the "furnace of hell" metaphor or something similar to describe both his marriage and the Lincoln's. Prokopowicz posits that the more happily married people are, the more balanced and charitable they tend to be toward Mary.

How do you reconcile the opinion of Michael Burlingame that AL was tricked/seduced in to the marriage with the fact that AL himself told a journalist in the WH that he had fallen in love with his wife and had remained in love? How to explain the fact that Lincoln would race home through the streets of Springfield to hold and comfort his wife during a thunderstorm because he knew she was afraid with Douglas Wilson's claim that he married her only out of a sense of honor? How to explain the affectionate pet names(Molly, Puss)?

These men seem to feel that because MTL was a dreadful woman who would have made THEM miserable, AL felt the same way.

Stephen Oates, Mark David Epstein, Charles Strozier, Kenneth J. Winkle and the late David Herbert Donald are examples of men who have written about the marriage with what I feel is a balance of fact based honesty and compassion. Those are the authors I recommend for anyone seeking a balanced view of Mary and the marriage, untainted by personal bitterness.