Mary Todd Lincoln's faux pas (plural), worse, and much worse

[David Lockmiller]

(06-12-2014 09:47 AM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  Gene, you can read Burlingame's unedited manuscript here.

The reference to Baker's funeral is in Volume 2, Chapter 25, p. 2772.

http://www.knox.edu/academics/distinctiv...-life.html

By the way, I don't think Burlingame gives enough credit to Lincoln for loving this difficult woman. With all the horror of the war upon him, Lincoln still took the time to reach out to Mary by asking her to go on a solitary carriage ride with him on April 14. There is no way he would have done that if he did not love her. Whatever matters to me is how Lincoln treated Mary, not how I personally feel about her.

First of all, I want to say that I highly respect you for all of the informatiive postings that you have made. I especially appreciate the information that you provided about the Grants and Mary in Paris. I would have known nothing on this particular subject without your comments. However, I do think though that both General Grant and Mrs. Grant were justifiably wary of providing Mary with any kind of stage for her theatrics.

I believe that I have said here on the Lincoln Discussion Symposium and I know that I have said these words on the old Friends of Lincoln Mailbag: "Lincoln loved Ann; he married Mary."

It was Lincoln's family (and Mary as the mother) that was important to him. As the years passed, it seems correct to me that he referred to Mary more and more often as "Mother."

You state above that you "don't think Burlingame gives enough credit to Lincoln for loving this difficult woman." Lincoln did the best he could in the marriage, the very best he knew how in dealing with this very difficult and highly insensitive woman right up to the very end of his life. He never abandoned her to uncontrolled and justifiable criticism from himself, although sometimes he had to walk away (and stay away) from her tirades.

I provide the following two examples of what I consider to be highly insensitive behavior by Mary Todd Lincoln in the last six months of President Lincoln's life:

1) Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States for a second term in November, 1864. Beforehand, Mary Todd Lincoln told her confidante, Mrs. Keckley: "If he is re-elected, I can keep him in ignorance of my affairs; but if he is defeated, then the bills will be sent in, and he will know all."

2) On the night of April 11, 1865, President Lincoln delivered a formal speech to a very large crowd on the important and contested subject of reconstruction. Professor Burlingame reported on an incident occuring during the initial portion of the speech (Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Vol. Two, page 802):

As the president spoke from a window of the White House, his wife and Clara Harris, daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris, stood at a nearby window chatting so loudly that they nearly drowned out the president. Initially, the crowd tolerated this unbecoming behavior, but in time people emphatically told the noisemakers to quiet down. Disconcerted by their shushing, Lincoln feared that something he said had given offense. But he soon realized that no disrespect was meant and, with "an expression of pain and mortification which came over his face as if such strokes were not new," continued reading his speech.



Sometimes, Mary Todd Lincoln showed no consideration whatsoever for the difficulties and challenges that Abraham Lincoln faced as President of the United States in four years of Civil War. Lincoln did not have a well-deserved partner in marriage; he had a very difficult woman with whom he had to contend on many occasions.

From a woman's perspective, I should want to know how does such a highly-respected man "love" a difficult woman such as Mary Todd Lincoln?