Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[David Lockmiller]

(05-29-2014 01:24 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote:  I just read another poster wondering whether AL would have gotten cold feet at the altar with Ann Rutledge. We will never know of course, but I am more than a little convinced that much of what attracted AL to Rutledge was the fact that she was basically UNAVAILABLE. She was engaged to another man, and her ability to marry AL depended on whether or not she could be released from her engagement to John McNamar.

Incidentally David[Lockmiller] there is no real proof that AL and AR were ever officially engaged, let alone that there was any "well planned" wedding in the offing. John McNamar later said that as far as he knew, he and Ann were still going to marry. He bought furniture for their new home. He and Lincoln remained friends after Ann's death. There are several extent letters from Lincoln to McNamar, who he calls "Mack". Is that likely to have been the case if AL had bird-dogged the guy's fiancée?

I note that the analysis of the Ann Rutledge story by other posters on this subject relies almost entirely on the work of J. G. Randall to support their claims.

However, Professor David Herbert Donald in his Pulitzer Prize winning book "Lincoln" expressed some reservations about the standard for proof of facts utilized by Randall (page 609, footnote 55):

Moreover, Randall showed that the basic facts concerning the [Ann Rutledge] affair could not be proved in a court of law, where the firsthand testimony of two independent witnesses would be required. On the other hand, the court of history usually accepts a less rigorous standard of proof; indeed, if Randall's criteria were applied, almost nothing could be unquestionably proved about the first thirty years of Lincoln's life. With these problems in mind, scholars have recently undertaken a reexamination of the Ann Rutledge story. For their findings, from which I have learned a great deal, see John Y. Simon, "Abraham Lincoln and Ann Rutledge," Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 11 (1990): 13-33, and Douglas L. Wilson, "Abraham Lincoln, Ann Rutledge, and the evidence of Lincoln's informants," Civil War History 36 (Dec. 1990): 301 - 324. For a more general attempt to restore faith in Herndon's credibility, see Douglas L. Wilson, "William H. Herndon and His Lincoln Informants," Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 14 (Winter 1993): 15-34.

In considering the arguments made by posters who characterized other posters supporting Herndon's assessment of the Ann Rutledge story as being part of a "male gossip" conspiracy, I suddenly thought of a question. Why have none of the pro-Mary protaganists not made any reference whatsoever to the work of the world's undisputed leading female Lincoln scholar, Ida Tarbell? I know that there is one poster on this website who was recently writing a book on the papers of Ida Tarbell but I do not recall a single post by this person being made on the subject of the Ann Rutldge engagement to Abraham Lincoln.

I "smelled a rat" and accordingly went down to the library and got a copy of a book written and published by Ida M. Tarbell in 1896 entitled "The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln." All of the "male gossip" conspiracy theorists who have posted on this thread should read from Chapter XVII entitled "Lincoln's First Acquaintance with Ann Rutledge - The Story of Their Love" and specifically from the section of that chapter entitled "Ann's Engagement to Lincoln" at pages 214 - 18. I quote below from this section as proof that they were engaged and Lincoln's deep feelings for Ann.

It was not until McNeill, or McNamar, had been gone many months, and gossip had become offensive, that Lincoln ventured to show his love for Ann, and then it was a long time before the girl qould listen to his suit. Convinced at last, however, that her former lover had deserted her, she yielded to Lincoln's wishes, and promised, in the spring of 1835, soon after Lincoln's return from Vandalia, to become his wife. But Lincoln had nothing on which to support a family -- indeed, he found it no trifling task to support himself. As for Ann, she was anxious to go to school another year. It was decided that in the autumn she should go with her brother to Jacksonville and spend the winter here in an academy. Lincoln was to devote himself to his law studies; and the next spring, when she returned from school and he was a member of the bar, they were to be married.

A happy spring and summer followed. New Salem took a cordial interest in the two lovers, and presaged a happy life for them; and all would undoubtedly have gone well if the young girl coud have dismissed the haunting memory of her old lover. The possibility that she had wronged him; that he might reappear; that he loved her still, though she now loved another; that perhaps she had done wrong -- a torturing conflict of memory, love, conscience, doubt, and morbidness lay like a shadow across her happiness, and wore upon her until she fell ill. Gradually her condition became hopeless; and Lincoln, who had been shut from her, was sent for. The lovers passed an hour alone in an anguished parting, and soon afte, on August 25, 1835, Ann died. (page 214)

But though he had regained self-control, his grief was deep and bitter. Ann Rutledge was buried in Concord cemetery, a country burying ground seven miles northwest of New Salem. To this lonely spot Lincoln frequently journeyed to weep over her grave. "My heart is buried there," he said to one of his friends.

When McNamar returned (for McNamar's story was true, and, two months after Ann Rutledge died, he drove into New Salem, with his widowed mother and his brothers and sisters in "prairie schooner" beside him) and learned of Ann's death, he "saw Lincoln at the post office," as he afterward said, and "he seemed desolate and sorely distressed." Within a year he married another woman; and his conduct toward Ann Rutledge is to this day a mystery.

Many years ago a sister of Ann Rutledge, Mrs. Jeane Berry, told what she knew of Ann's love affairs; and her statement has been prserved in a diary kept by the Rev. R. D. Miller, now Superintendentof Schools of Menard County, with whom she had the conversation. She declared that Ann's "whole soul seemed wrapped up in Lincoln," and that they "would have been married in the fall or early winter" if Ann had lived. "After Ann died," said Mrs. Berry, "I remember that it was common talk about how sad Lincoln was; and I remember myself how sad he looked. They told me that every time he was in the neighborhood after she died, he would go alone to her grave and sit there in silence for hours."

In later life, when his sorrow had become a memory, he told a friend who questioned him: "I really and truly loved the girl and think often of her now." There was a pause, and then he added: "And I have loved the name of Rutledge to this day." (pages 217 - 18)

Professor David Herbert Donald in his book "Lincoln" also made reference to this conversation with Isaac Cogdal at pages 57-58:

Many years later, after his first election as President, he began talking with an old friend, Isaac Cogdal, about early days in New Salem, asking the present whereabouts of many of the early settlers. When the name of Rutledge cam up, Cogdal ventured to ask whether it was true that Lincon had fallen in love with Ann. "It is true -- true indeed I did," Lincoln replied, if Cogdal's memory can be trusted. "I loved the woman dearly and soundly: she was a handsome girl -- would have made a good loving wife. . . . I did honestly and truly love the girl and think often -- often of her now."

By the way, based on her scholarship, Ida Tarbel offered her own opinion of the marriage of Lincoln to Mary Todd. I quote from Professor Burlingame's book "Abraham Lincoln, A Life" Vol One at page 196:

Ida Tarbell, who queried many friends and relatives of the Lincolns, stated that Abraham and Mary "were utterly unsuited for sympathetic companionship. I doubt if Mary Todd had the faintest conception of the meaning of the words."

This exact quote referece made by Ida Tarbell was referenced as follows (page 196, footnote 209): Ida Tarbell to T. A. Frank Jones, n.p., 12 Dec. 1922, copy, Tarbell papers, Allegheny College.