At the end, did MTL have a sense of vindication

[LincolnToddFan]

Hi Juan,

It's true that the goodwill and glory afforded her late husband did not extend to MTL, as one would have expected. Some of that is Mary's fault, some of it definitely not.

During her Springfield years she acquired a reputation for being hard to get along with and this extended to her WH tenure, where her instability and bad temper became more pronounced due to the stresses of the war and personal tragedy like the loss of Willie. She had a deserved reputation for being extravagant, unfortunate for ANY First Lady but a First Lady during wartime? Disastrous. One of the cruelest(imo) accusations leveled at her was that she was a Confederate spy. She was the most loyal of wives. But Northerners felt she was a spy and Southerners believed her disloyal to her roots. She literally could not win.

There were a handful of people like Lizzie Keckley, William Stoddard, and Jane Swisshelm who were personal witness to her courage and generosity when she was at her best. Few people to this day know about her visits to Union hospitals to cheer wounded soldiers with gifts, and to write to their families on their behalf. She never sought publicity for these visits by taking a reporter along(like she should have imo).

What she is most remembered for today is her extravagance and her instability, most notoriously on display at City Point in March 1865.

While he was alive, Abraham Lincoln indulged his wife and for the most part protected her from the consequences of her behavior. In today's pop culture lingo he would be called an "enabler". Once he died and was no longer around to defend her, the gloves came off and her enemies had a field day. Some might say she brought it on her self, but there is something unseemly about the feeding frenzy of abuse people heaped on the widow of a man they claim to have revered, imo...at a time when she was alone, shattered and defenseless.

According to letters she wrote after the assassination, MTL would have been happy to have died with AL or in his place. Only the fact that Tad depended on her kept her from taking her own life.