Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[Lewis Gannett]

Tripp's book attracted giant negatives and some positives in critical reaction. The most interesting reviews--Christine Stansell's in The New Republic and Richard Brookhiser's in The New York Times--mixed sharply negative remarks about various aspects but ended with acknowledgments that Tripp's analysis carried a certain weight that couldn't be dismissed outright--and as it's turned out, still hasn't been dismissed (not even by Edward Steers). But I think there's a much more important issue going on with the entire argument. It dwarfs the debate over Lincoln's love life, and it has directly to do with what Eva brought up: bias in the practice of history. Can a gay person do objective historical work about gay--or straight--aspects of the past? Can anyone be objective about a subject that's "close to home"? It's an old problem and it won't be solved here, needless to say. But to put it in the context of Lincoln history: scholars have looked at exactly the same body of evidence and drawn opposite conclusions. Take the case of Ann Rutledge. Lincoln scholars have performed spectacular interpretative flip-flops over not only almost EXACTLY the same evidence, but also--it's amazing--a very SMALL body of evidence. I'm talking about the Rutledge-related interview material gathered by Herndon after Lincoln's assassination. A bright high-school student can read ALL of it in just a couple of hours. But: how peculiar: Herndon extracted one picture from it, decades later J. G. & R. P. Randall and David Donald extracted a completely different picture, decades after that J. Y. Simon and Douglas L. Wilson extracted yet another picture (similar to Herndon's but with important differences). From the same small set of extremely short interviews! How is that possible? I won't get philosophical but will say this: the bias issue is deep. Essentially, even historians can make the mistake of seeing what they want to see. OK then, the obvious question: Am I making that mistake? Maybe. However--this might come as a bit of a surprise--I don't care very much about whether or not Lincoln was "gay." It's interesting, and important in some ways, but it's not my focus. I'm much more interested in why, in academia, especially in top-tier academia, interpretation flip-flops happen. For example, why did Lincoln Studies reverse itself on the Rutledge story? I find that kind of question enormously interesting. It's the subject of my next book.

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Mike, I forgot to mention. Yes on the question of "Secret Mark." That was a while ago & I haven't gone further with it since. Sullivan endorsed Tripp, yes. About Baker & Buchanan I don't recall, but it wouldn't surprise me if she, along with a lot of informed people, thinks that Buchanan had a "spousal relationship" with William Rufus de Vane King. Not proving a negative: yup. No can do. Burlingame beat that drum in his Afterword. Burlingame's "dissent" was reasonable, I think. It wasn't desperately ignorant. Of course, I think he's wrong. But then. There's that old problem of seeing what one wants to see.