Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[RJNorton]

(05-25-2014 03:29 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Nevertheless (that this might be not a proven fact) I would like to add one quote - also to ask if someone knows the original source (I quote from W.E.Reck's "...His Last 24 Hours"):

"We must both, be more cheerful in the future - between the war and the loss of our darling Willie - we have both, been very miserable...Mary, we have had a hard time of it since we came to Washington, but the war is over, and with God's blessing we may hope for four years of peace and happyness, and then we will go back to Illinois and pass the rest of our lives in quiet..."

Eva, I could not find the (entire) exact quote, but part of it comes from what Mary wrote to Francis Carpenter on November 15, 1865. Do you have the Turners' book? If so, please see the very bottom of p. 284 and top of p. 285. Also, it looks like part of the quote came from Isaac Arnold. That part is on pp. 429-430 of Isaac Arnold's The Life of Abraham Lincoln, and he gives his source as a personal conversation he had with Mary Lincoln. So, at this point, I am thinking that when authors quote from this conversation they are combining at least two sources.