Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[Lewis Gannett]

David,

"I do not understand 1836 being Lincoln's mental breakdown year. Is that just a typographical error?"

I hope I've already cleared this up. It's not a typo, by the way. I think you misunderstood my sentence.

"The well-respected Lincoln scholar Ida Tarbell published a book in 1896 entitled The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln. She interviewed many of the same Rutledge family members and residents of New Salem that Herndon interviewed for his famous lecture on the Abraham Lincoln-Ann Rutledge love story and thus had the first-hand opportunity to measure credibility of her witnesses familiar with the story."

Ida Tarbell's book appeared 61 years after Ann Rutledge died. Tarbell did not, in fact, interview "many of the same Rutledge family members and residents of New Salem that Herndon interviewed." Most of the witnesses were dead well before 1896, including Ann's brother Robert Rutledge (d. 1881), by far the most important Rutledge informant--in fact, the only significant Rutledge informant (Jean Berry, Ann's sister, was very young when Ann died). Help me out: who did Tarbell interview who witnessed events in New Salem & environs in the late summer of 1835? Offhand I know of only one, William "Slick Willie" Greene, who in my opinion isn't a reliable source, as detailed at length in an article I published in Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, issue of Summer 2010 (Google lewis gannett ann rutledge to get the full text). Greene is the source of the anecdote about Lincoln's involuntary weeping over the memory of Ann, which you quote as follows:

"The last chapter of the book is entitled 'Lincoln's First Acquaintance with Ann Rutledge--The Story of Their Love.' I quote from the last section of that chapter entitled 'Ann's Engagement to Lincoln' (pages 214-18). Ida Tarbell wrote: 'The lovers passed an hour alone in an anguished parting, and soon after, on August 25, 1835, Ann died.... The death of Ann Rutledge plunged Lincoln into the deepest gloom. That abiding melancholy, that painful sense of the incompleteness of life, which had been his mother's dowry to him, asserted itself. (emphasis added) It filled and darkened his mind and his imagination, tortured him with its black pictures. One stormy night he was sitting beside William Greene, his head bowed on his hand, while tears trickled through his fingers; his friend begged him to control his sorrow, to try to forget. 'I cannot,' moaned Lincoln; 'the thought of the snow and rain [falling] on her grave fills me with indescribable grief.'"

Now, the first thing to say about Greene's statement is how Herndon-like it sounds. Even allowing for Victorian purple prose, it's way over the top. Second, no contemporary gave a first-hand account of Lincoln saying good-bye to Ann: the "anguished parting" is supposition. Yes, the deathbed farewell scene is famous. But we don't have an account. This is what we have: the little Rutledge farmhouse on McNamar's land some six miles out of New Salem was a scene of abject misery. The whole family was desperately ill with "brain fever" that had sickened the entire area. We have no first-hand account of a funeral for Ann; there might not have been a funeral. Few if any ceremonial niceties attended her death & that of others in what was probably a typhus epidemic. As one contemporary recalled, there weren't enough well people to take care of the sick. It was truly a terrible time for little New Salem and much of the rest of Southern Illinois. Greene quoted Lincoln lamenting rain and snow on Rutledge's grave. Lincoln did speak of rain on Ann's grave, according to one other firsthand account in addition to Greene's. Here's the thing, though: those two comments about rain on the grave are the only recorded references Lincoln made to Ann in the aftermath of her death. Isaac Cogdal supplied more Lincoln quotes about Ann, but these statements, if Lincoln really made them, which is highly doubtful, happened in '65 or '66, 30 years after the events. Think about this. Here we have alleged events of very high drama. But no one remembered Lincoln saying, at the time, anything about the tragedy other than remarks about rain. Actually, it's even more peculiar. Other than the two rain comments and Cogdal's dubious claims we have no reliable records that Lincoln ever spoke of or even wrote to Ann. "My heart is buried there," meaning the grave: no reputable historian will tell you that we have evidence that Lincoln uttered those words. Ann's name appears nowhere in the Collected Works. No letters from either party to the other. No contemporary diary accounts. No marriage documents.

David, I realize that you took some effort to compose your post, I thank you for it, and I'm glad to have made this reply. But there's not much point in me going further. You can find more details than you probably want to know about all of this in the JALA article.

Best, Lewis