The Soul of Ann Rutledge

[maharba]

I think Bill Herndon was immediately and most hated by Lincoln zealots for intruding reality and Lincoln's interest in Rutledge. You could almost track a chronology of the various time periods of blunders of Lincoln scholars on this and that topic. They had the Rutledge episode deeply buried for decades, and may do so again. Folks just hated NOT to believe that dear Mary Todd Lincoln was not a charming domestic lady. In fact, she apparently was something straight out of Shakespeare, and no wonder Lincoln (or any man) would want to evade her. But when William Herdon researched and documented that Lincoln might first have chosen Rutledge, that really upset the true believers in all the Lincoln mythos.