Extra Credit Questions

[David Lockmiller]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that in the Chicago days Tad briefly even had the ambition to work on joining his brother's business. But I also seem to recall reading the endurance wasn't long lasting.

Was this after he and Mary returned from Europe in 1871? I would think that his rapidly declining health, not lack of ambition, was the obstacle at that point.

See hyperlink story “The Death of Tad Lincoln” posted by Susan Higginbotham on 2-25-2019.

[Tad] wanted to go home. [Mary and Tad lived in Germany from 1868 to 1871.] Mary booked passage in mid-May, 1871.

The arrival of the Widow Lincoln in New York was of modest interest, and one of the newspapers sent a reporter – none other than John Hay, who had been one of Lincoln’s private secretaries, and who knew the family intimately. Hay was particularly interested in seeing Tad, who he remembered as a somewhat spoiled child. He was delighted by the progress of young “Mr. Thomas Lincoln”, including his improved speech, albeit now with a German accent. Even before he filed his story, Hay wrote his good friend Robert Lincoln with glowing praise for Tad, who had made such great strides.

Tad had caught a cold en route [from New York], and when they reached Chicago, it had worsened. Their stay as guests of the young Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln was brief, and also worsened. The two Mary Lincolns saw their once-cordial relationship deteriorate to a point that Robert’s wife packed up the baby and left to care for her own ailing mother.

The tensions created sufficient turmoil for the Widow to pack up as well, and move with Tad to the Clifton House Hotel on Wabash Avenue.

Tad’s cold had become serious and required Dr. C.G. Smith’s medical attention. He had trouble breathing, and was feverish. The diagnosis was (by various sources) dropsy, or pleurisy, or tuberculosis. Whatever the actual cause, all aforesaid possibilities were extremely serious without modern antibiotics. He suffered horribly, and was confined to a chair with an iron bar across it to prevent him from falling forward or lying down, a position that made breathing impossible. Mary Lincoln hovered by his side. Robert came daily. Doctors came daily. So did a few old Lincoln friends who could extend words of sympathy, but little more. Tad died on July 15.