The Women Lincoln Loved

[Gene C]

Written by William E Barton in 1927 (90 years ago)
368 pages, no footnotes or bibliography, written when many authors did not include them.

For its age, this is a pretty good book. 14 women are mentioned, with Mary Lincoln getting the most attention with over 150 pages.
Other women getting their own chapter, even though it may be only a few pages are: Lucy Hanks, Betsy Sparrow, Bathsheba Lincoln, Nancy Hanks, Sara Bush Lincoln, Sarah Lincoln Grigsby, The Johnson Girls (2 and a half pages), The Girl in the Covered Wagon, Katie Roby, Caroline Meeker, Polly Warnick, Ann Rutledge (only 20 pages), Mary Owens, and Mary Lincoln. I found the book a little slow with the chapters about Lucy Hanks and Bathsheba Lincoln, but it picks up pretty well after that.

The author was very much into Lincoln's paternity (he wrote a book entitled "The Paternity of Abraham Lincoln - an Essay on the Chastity of Nancy Hanks" a 390+ page book and is on Internet Archives) so he devotes a fair amount of space to grandmothers Lucy Hanks and Bathsheba Lincoln. Grandmother Lucy Hanks even has more written about her and her times than mother Nancy Hanks. It is questionable as to how much involvement the grandmothers had, if any, in the early life of Lincoln.

The Johnson Girls through Polly Warnick is mostly background information and involve Lincoln's years as a teenager and young man, although Kate Roby's chapter is longer than stepmother Sarah Bush Lincoln's. Considering the impact his step mother had on his life, I found that a bit surprising. . It does show Lincoln had a normal social life, found girls attractive, pretty much a normal teenager. Not much is known about these young ladies, I was surprised he came up with as much info as he did. I was hoping for more info on Ann Rutledge, but this book was written before that relationship seemed to gather much attention from serious historians.

Mary is not looked upon from a a critical viewpoint, he is very respectful of her. While acknowledging her personality and mood swings, he comments more about the critical views of the press and Washington elites (history does repeat itself). He does a good job of showing the incredible pressure she was under at this time. While Lincoln found relief from the pressure through humor, Mary seemed to find relief by shopping and spending money (which only added to the pressure later on)
I found his history of Mary following the assassination very interesting. Speaking of stress, this is from a letter dated Oct 10, 1867 to Elizabeth Keckley;
"My Dear Lizzie,
I am writing this morning with a broken heart, after a sleepless night of suffering....Pray for me that this cup of affliction may pass from me, or be sanctified to me. I weep whilist I am writing. I pray for death this morning. Only my darling Taddie prevents me from taking my life. I shall have to endure a round of newspaper abuse from the Republicans , because I dared venture to relieve a few of my wants...I am nearly loosing my reason."

Barton also wrote "The Soul of Abraham Lincoln, several biographies and books of a religious nature.

I got my copy from Amazon, in good condition, for less than $7. It is slightly different than the internet version (it may just be larger print)
https://www.amazon.com/Women-Lincoln-Lov...+E.+Barton

or read it on internet archives courtesy of the Digital Library of India
https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli....5/mode/2up