Lincoln and Syphilis

[RJNorton]

(04-05-2019 10:31 AM)Rob Wick Wrote:  It's in the same letter that Herndon reports to Weik on the story about Lincoln staying with a gentleman named Cottenbarger in 1850 when Lincoln went to Bloomington for court. This was the incident when Lincoln was sleeping in the same room as Cottenbarger's daughter and her feet hit Lincoln's pillow. "This put the devil into Lincoln at once, thinking that the girl did this of a purpose. Lincoln reached up his hand and put it where it ought not to be." (Herndon to Jesse Weik, January 5, 1889 in Herndon on Lincoln: Letters, University of Illinois Press, 2016, pg. 296). By the way, Herndon told Weik that Lincoln also told the story to James Matheny and Milton Hay, and all three remembered the story the same way.

Could this story actually be a joke Lincoln enjoyed telling people? Lincoln apparently told James Short a fairly similar story during his New Salem days. According to Nathaniel William Branson in a letter to Herndon dated August 3, 1865:

"Mr. L. used to tell Mr. S. (James Short) the following anecdote of himself. Once when Mr L was surveying, he was put to bed in the same room with two girls, the head of his bed being next to the foot of the girls' bed. In the night he commenced tickling the feet of one of the girls with his fingers. As she seemed to enjoy it as much as he did he then tickled a little higher up; and as he would tickle higher the girl would shove down lower and the higher he ticked the lower she moved. Mr L would tell the story with evident enjoyment. He never told how the thing ended."

What are the odds that there were two separate instances in which Lincoln was sleeping next to a girl who was sleeping with her feet next to his head?

(Normally I would consider this a little too "graphic" for this forum, but the similarity to Rob's story, and my belief Lincoln may have been creating stories rather than speaking reality, caused me to post it.)