Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[LincolnToddFan]

Eva., count me in with you and everyone else agreeing with Dr. Houmes' opinion of the inscription.

By the way, I wonder if the people who make the pilgrimage to Ann Rutledge's gravesite at Petersburg Cemetery are aware that there is in fact nothing beneath that massive stone...except two small bones, some pieces of rotted wood and a small amount of soil? When AR was disinterred from Old Concord Cemetery in 1890, this was basically all that was found in addition to a few stands of hair, a ribbon and a button? Her descendants kept everything except the two bones and the rotted wood, which were re-interred at Petersburg under the stone with the ELM poem.

(Source: "Lincoln Legends: Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated With Our Greatest President" pgs #51-59, author Edward Steers Jr.)

Even if I was enamored of the Ann/Abe legend, the fact that the man who authored the poem on the headstone (Edgar Lee Masters)later turned so violently and viciously against Lincoln and disavowed every good thing he had ever said about him would give me pause. For me at least, it makes his gravestone "tribute" ring even more hollow.