Mary Lincoln's presence at Abraham's death-bed

[Anita]

This is from "Mrs. Lincoln" by Clinton p. 167

"The President was distracted, while his wife was paralyzed. She sat next to Willie's bed day by day, trying to erase memories of the sickbed vigil she spent during winter a dozen years before, when she sat by her little Eddie, praying for his recovery before he died."

The quotes below are from Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum,
http://www.lincolnlogcabin.org/education...nology.pdf

Mrs. Lincoln "did all a mother ought or could during Willie's sickness—she never left his side at all after he became dangerous, & almost wore herself out with watching, and she mourns as no one but a mother can at her son's death," reported Benjamin B. French.

Edward “Eddie” Lincoln was three and a half when he became sick with an illness that lasted fifty-two days. Both Mary and Lincoln nursed their son with the accepted treatments of the day, including Wistor’s Balsam of Wild-cherry, an opium-based cough suppressant. The inadequate medicine was not enough to save Eddie who died of pulmonary tuberculosis on February 1, 1850.