At the end, did MTL have a sense of vindication

[Juan Marrero]

Those are excellent comments. I hope that Mary had an inkling of what greatness her husband had achieved. In 1869, it might have seemed that Grant was the great figure to emerge from the Civil War and that Lincoln, admired and lamented, belonged to the ages--which could also mean he was yesterday's man.

It would have been impossible for her to know that his position in U.S. history would somewhat eclipse Washington and gain the admiration of writers as different as Tolstoy and K. Marx. I would never quote Marx with approval, except for his observation that Lincoln was the rarest of men because he was a great man who also happened to be a good man.

It was pretty sad that the Grants did not invite Mary to join them in Pau, although there may have been some mercy in not showing her up as they traipsed around the world. Worse, I think is that Queen Victoria never (as far as I've read) invited her to visit while she stayed in Britain.

That, actually, was the impetus of my initial query--whether in the decade after Lincoln's death (and after the extraordinary funeral) the country (and the world) felt it was time to take a break from all things Lincoln and with the Civil War with which he represented. For all her "majesty", Victoria was a politician in a way and if there had been political advantage in meeting MTL she probably would have. It speaks volumes that she dined with the Grants but not Mary. I hope that I am wrong and that there was some contact between the two in England.