Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[Liz Rosenthal]

I believe the Ann Rutledge story.

We do know that it first appeared in a newspaper in 1862, before Herndon had done any snooping around.

And the people that Herndon interviewed about it seemed pretty certain, particularly members of the Rutledge family.

Of course Lincoln must have had at least a crush on someone before he met Mary Todd - or before he met Mary Owens! This sort of thing happens to everybody.

(I haven't read Tripp's book, but he apparently preferred to discount anything that didn't tend to "prove" that Lincoln was gay. And Randall apparently was skeptical of evidence gathered through oral histories. As Douglas Wilson pointed out, oral histories have finally been recognized as vital to understanding the past; sometimes they are our only link to the past!)

The only thing I am skeptical about is Herndon's assertion that Ann Rutledge was Lincoln's only true love. That is a conclusion he reached independently of the facts he gathered and may have been colored by his dislike of Mary Todd Lincoln.