Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[Lewis Gannett]

I am thoroughly enjoying this thread. I am a novice in early Lincoln studies, but from the first I instinctively disliked Herndon. Some of the points being made here seem to support my instinct for disliking him! I also appreciate that some of the Burlingame bubbles are being pricked also.

L Verge, I'm curious. Why the remark about Burlingame bubbles? For myself, I find him puzzling. He's a meticulous scholar in many ways but seems to have blind spots a mile wide.

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Well you had me cheering you on Lewis, until those last few sentences.

I politely, but strongly disagree with you.

Gene C, Thanks for your candor & politeness. For what it's worth, I was quite skeptical when I first saw the "gay" Lincoln hypothesis. I thought it was gay lib gone overboard: and full disclosure, I'm gay. I also helped C. A. Tripp prepare the "gay Lincoln" book, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln. Tripp enlisted my help despite the fact that I had a lot questions, some of them hostile. Long story short, it took me a while to see a picture different from what I'd expected. One of the things that fascinated me is the extremely touchy way that Lincoln scholarship, for a long time now, has approached the subject of Lincoln's love life. For example, I was floored when I learned that Carl Sandburg and Roy Basler (ed. of the Collected Works) had quiet conversations about what they called the "sex problem." It's been a major problem. But one that, for understandable reasons, has rarely surfaced in mainstream Lincoln Studies.