Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[Rob Wick]

Thanks Roger, sometimes I have a good day.

As to my own question, I believe it. It's been hard for me to understand why many historians have done their level best to prove it false, especially Ruth Randall, who wrote the chapter on Rutledge in James G. Randall's Lincoln the President.

I think it's silly to think that Lincoln didn't have other relationships before Mary Todd, although I imagine you could count on one hand the number of women he was seriously interested in.

What clinched it for me was the story which appeared in the Menard Axis four years before Herndon gave his lecture. The article says:

He now became an actor in a new scene. He chanced to meet a lady who to him seemed lovely, angelic, and the height of perfection. Forgetful of all things else, he could think or dream of naught but her. His feelings he soon made her acquainted with, and was delighted with a reciprocation. This to him was perfect happiness, and with uneasy anxiety he awaited the arrival of the day when the twain should be one flesh. But that day was doomed never to arrive. Disease came upon this lovely beauty, and she sickened and died. The youth had wrapped his heart with hers, and this was more than he could bear. He saw her to her grave, and as the cold clods fell upon the coffin, he sincerely wished that he too had been enclosed within it. Melancholy came upon him; he was changed and sad. His friends detected strange conduct and a flighty imagination. New circumstances changed his thoughts, and at length he partially forgot that which for a time had consumed his mind.

What else could this be but the Ann Rutledge story, told in a Democratic paper in 1862.

Here is an article by Barry Schwartz on Ann Rutledge in American memory from the Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association. It's a little dry, but still interesting.

Best
Rob