Sorting out the White House Staff

[kerry]

I know this has been discussed a lot and there have been great books about it like Conroy's, but I'm still very confused.

The multiple names and positions, formally and informally, held by the staff are hard to sort out. Is there a way to access online the personnel files? I know some of the info is reported in the Collected Works and other areas. (Btw, does anyone know if there is a planned update to the Collected Works?) But some of it is very confusing.

For example, who was steward? There was the original one Mary fired, and Edmund Bourke, and maybe Edward Burke as well, although I think he was actually a coachman and they are confusing him with Bourke. Then there's Cuthbert and Stackpole. Then there was Mary acting as stewardess. And was Watt's wife a stewardess also at one point?

Who were the gardeners, once Watt left? It seems one was a holdover from Buchanan. But then Mary writes to Williamson after Lincoln's death and appears to refer to Stackpole as being an ex-gardener, although the exchange is kind of confusing. She then later says she begs to remembered to the gardeners, who are all her friends.

What on earth happened with Edward McManus, and was he also the one known as Jimmy, or were they different? French didn't fire him for months afterward.

For many of these people, I can find references to them in newspapers at the time. Obituaries, or the obituary of a family member. Advertisements for them at other businesses. Interviews about their time with the Lincolns. Arrest records. But some fall right off the earth, to a rather strange degree. William S. Wood is one of them. Where did he go, after all that? McManus was another.

I'm particularly confused by Mary Ann Cuthbert. How do we know her name is Mary Ann? I assume there is a record somewhere. And wasn't she French? The name doesn't sound French, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. But I can't find a reference to any Cuthberts, male or female, that seem to match up to her or her husband, at any time during or after the war. I currently don't have an active ancestry.com subscription, but I'm not sure if perhaps she's there somewhere. I know Browning wrote about seeing her in 1866, so it seems she was still in DC a while. Mary's letters reference her for a while after Lincoln's death, but the references abruptly end without explanation.

It seems like more telegraphs periodically surface that cover the goings on at the Executive Mansion. Does anyone have good tips as to where more may be found?

With a few notable exceptions, the Lincolns seem to have had really close relationships with their servants. Clara Harris said Mary sent her hellos in the late 1870s I think.

Is there an article about who Johnson decided to keep? I know he kept Slade, and it seems Pendel and Crook. What happened to Aunt Mary? French was also kept around for a while, as was Newton.