A new work on Emilie Todd Helm's visit to Lincoln's White House

[LincolnToddFan]

The rupture of the relationship between MTL and AL and Emilie Todd Helm is poignant and heartbreaking. The Lincolns doted on Emilie and treated her as the daughter they never had. When Emilie came to visit the couple in Springfield there are stories of Mary purchasing pretty bonnets and clothes for her pretty younger sister and proudly giving parties in her honor. When she married Ben Hardin Helm AL took him under his wing. Hardin Helm loved and admired his brother-in-law and the feeling was mutual.

But the Civil War changed everything. AL pleaded with young Helm to join him in Washington, but Helm was a loyal son of the South and despite his feelings of gratitude and fondness for his brother-in-law he turned him down. When Helm was killed at Chickamauga, Lincoln lamented that he felt like the biblical David weeping over Absalom("The House of Abraham" by Stephen Berry). When his widow refused to take the loyalty oath AL directed Union officers to "send her to me" rather than take punitive measures against her and that is how she came to be in the WH, which was a politically risky thing for the president to have done. He even tried to persuade Emilie to spend the summer with them at the Soldier's Home. But after a brief, sad and strained visit with her sister and brother-in-law she returned to Kentucky and never saw either of them again.

The fatal breach came when Emilie wrote a bitter letter excoriating AL for refusing to allow her to sell her cotton without taking the loyalty oath. She told the president that "your minie balls have made us what we are". Mary never, ever forgave anyone who attacked her husband. This is why I have always felt any attempt to paint her as disloyal to AL or the Union cause patently absurd and dishonest. The relationship with Emilie might have been mended after the assassination. After all, both sisters were now widowed as a direct result of the war. But MTL had hardened her attitude, perhaps made even more bitter after the tragic murder of her husband.

Emilie later corroborated with her daughter Katherine Helm in the writing of "The True Story of Mary, Wife of Lincoln". Her reminisces of her sister and famous brother-in-law are decidedly flattering and affectionate, with no bitterness whatsoever. And she was extremely close to Robert Todd Lincoln until the end of his life. He assisted her financially and visited her often. They were close in age, and had played together as children.

[I love Emilie on many levels - do not like her on others - and in one of my lectures about Lincoln and his in-laws, I refer to Emilie as "the little twit." It always gets a good laugh]// quote

Donna,

It gave ME a good laugh too! I liked Emilie until I read her final letter to Lincoln. And even though I understand the grief and anger that produced those hard words, it still made me flinch when I remember how desperately Lincoln attempted to comfort and accommodate "Little Sister" in the WH...at considerable political risk to himself.

She was certainly a very pretty young woman-no doubt about that!