Gore Vidal and Lincoln's legacy

[Linda Anderson]

Gene, that's an interesting question. Burlingham is reporting what Joshua Speed supposedly told Herndon who in turn told Weik.

This is the sentence that came before what I quoted above, from Abraham Lincoln: A Life. If Burlingham is quoting Herndon, I assume he would think there is some credibility to the story but perhaps by using the word, "alleged," he is letting the reader decide whether to believe Herndon or not.

"Herndon told
Caroline Dall that “Up to the time of Anne Rutledge’s death Lincoln was a pure perfectly
chaste man. Afterwards in his misery – he fell into the habits of his neighborhood.”351
Herndon alleged that from 1837 to 1842, Lincoln and Joshua Speed, “a lady’s man,” were “quite familiar – to go no further [–] with the women.”352

"352 Herndon to Jesse W. Weik, Springfield, 10 December 1885, Herndon-Weik Papers, Library of
Congress. Abner Y. Ellis said that Lincoln “had no desire for strange women[.] I never heard him speak of
any particular Woman with disrespect though he had Many opportunities for doing so while in Company
with J[oshua] F. S[peed] and Wm B[utler] two old rats in that way.” A. Y. Ellis, statement for Herndon,
enclosed in Ellis to Herndon, Moro, Illinois, 23 January 1866, Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon’s
Informants, 171."