Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[Lewis Gannett]

(06-27-2014 08:22 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  

(06-24-2014 05:33 PM)Lewis Gannett Wrote:  [T]he more credible of the New Salem informants (e.g., Elizabeth Abell) professed no personal knowledge of AL-AR romance, and those who did claim knowledge were suspect, some of them--William "Slick Willy" Greene, for example--highly suspect. By the way, Hannah Armstrong had nothing at all to say about Rutledge romance. (Michael Burlingame's claim to the contrary is based on a weirdly flimsy newspaper quote from a daughter of Hannah's published in I think 1930. This is what you call desperate evidence.)

This is getting stranger and stranger.

Mr. Gannett makes the claim above that Elizabeth Abell "professed no personal knowledge of the AL-AR romance."

Yet, Professor David Herbert Donald states in his Pulitzer Prize winning book Lincoln at page 57: "[Lincoln] told Mrs. Bennett Abell, with whom he was staying, 'that he could not bare [sic] the idea of its raining on her grave.'" If Mrs. Abell "professed no personal knowledge of the AL-AR romance," then Mrs. Abell must have been absolutely stupefied as to why Lincoln became so upset at the thought of the rain falling on her grave.

And, Professor Burlingame in his book Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Vol. One, page 100 wrote: "Elizabeth Abell, who witnessed the depth of Lincoln's grief, recalled that 'he was staying with us at the time of her death,' which was a great shock to him and I never seen a man mourn for a companion more than he did for her.' The 'community said he was crazy' but 'he was not crazy,' though 'he was very disponding a long time.'"

Professor Burlingame cites as the source for these comments by Elizabeth Abell (who Mr. Gannett describes above as "one of the more credible of the New Salem informants) as a statement made by her to Herdon on 15 Feb. 1867 (Herndon's Informants), pp. 556-557.

And, then, Mr. Gannett disparages the entire testimony made by William G. Greene in an interview with William Herndon at Elm Wood, Illinois on May 30, 1865 by referring to Greene as William "Slick Willy" Greene, without citing any basis for this character assassination. Professor Burlingame at page 100, on the other hand, appears to consider William Greene to be a credible source and quotes the story he told at length:

William Greene testified that "after the sudden death of one whom his soul & heart dearly & lov[e]d," Lincoln's friends were "[c]ompelled to keep watch and ward over Mr Lincoln," for he was "from the sudden shock somewhat temporarily deranged. We watched during sotrms--fogs--damp gloomy weather Mr Lincoln for fear of an accident. He said 'I can never be recondiled to have the snow--rains & storms to beat on her grave.'"

Professor Burlingame quotes (again, at page 100) William Greene's comments regarding the duration of Lincoln's recovery made to another interviewer Paul Hull in 1887 for an article entitled "Another Lincoln Tale" which was published by the New York Mail and Express on page 16 of the February 15, 1896 issue.

"Long after Anne died," Greene reported, "Abe and I would be alone perhaps in the grocery on a rainy night, and Abe would sit there, his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands, the tears dropping through his fingers."

In order to complete this section, I thought that I would quote from Professor Burlingame's book (page 100) , the "desperate evidence" provided by Eliza Armstrong Smith, the daughter of Hannah Armstrong, in correspondence to the Lerna, Illinois, Eagle which was published on September 19, 1930 (if my reading of the citation is correct):

"Another surrogate mother, Hannah Armstrong, saw 'Lincoln weep like a baby over the death of Ann Rutledge.'"

In summary, according to Mr. Gannett, one witness who he believed, Elizabeth Abell, was quoted by Professor David Herbert Donald as being told by Lincoln that "that he could not bare [sic] the idea of its raining on her grave." Mr. Gannett then thoroughly discredits additional testimony of the same nature because it comes from William "Slick Willy" Greene, without a word as to how William Greene earned Mr. Gannett's condemnation. Professor Burlingame, on the other hand, appears to disagree with Mr. Gannett's assessment of William Greene's character. And, according to Mr. Gannett, the daughter of Hannah Armstrong was "desperate" to get her name in a small Illinois town newspaper.

David Lockmiller: Prof. David Donald didn't in fact cite Elizabeth Abell's quote as evidence that Lincoln romantically loved Ann Rutledge. Elizabeth Abell wrote to Herndon about Lincoln and Ann, "the Courtship between him and Miss Rutledge I can say but little this much I do know he was staying with us at the time of her death it was a great shock to him and I never seen a man mourn for a companion more than he did for her." Herndon's Informants, pp. 556-57. Donald commented about this passage, "Mrs. Abell, who may have been Lincoln's closest confidant in New Salem, professed to know nothing about a love affair, though she testified to Lincoln's genuine grief at Ann's death." "We Are Lincoln Men": Abraham Lincoln and His Friends, p. 22. Donald in this book rejects the Rutledge story, in part because Elizabeth Abell, who was indeed a very close New Salem friend of Lincoln's, couldn't confirm a love affair. Abell did confirm that Lincoln took Ann's death hard. Does that mean that Lincoln & Ann were in love and planned to marry? Some historians think so. David Donald isn't among them! About William Greene, whose nickname actually was "Slicky Bill," not "Slick Willie" (my memory lapse). Herndon himself expressed doubts about William Greene's truthfulness. It's true that Tarbell quoted Greene without reservation, and so does Michael Burlingame. But that doesn't mean that Greene is a reliable source. David Donald, for one, didn't consider him reliable--and by the way, Donald mentions Greene's nickname, "Slicky Bill," in "We Are Lincoln Men" (p. 11). About Hannah Armstrong. I can't for the life of me understand how Michael Burlingame can claim that a 1930 newspaper quote provides credible evidence about Lincoln's reaction to Ann Rutledge's death almost a century before. If I recall correctly, Burlingame doesn't even explain how the alleged quote from Hannah's alleged daughter even got into the newspaper. By 1930, of course, the Rutledge story had become the Rutledge Legend, with novels, plays, movies, magazine articles breathlessly portraying a doomed high romance. If we're going to take seriously the idea that Lincoln "bawled like a baby" after Ann Rutledge died, it doesn't help that the only evidence for it came from such a far remove.

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Gene wrote, "There's a little more to it than that. Each of the writers you mentioned had more material to examine than their predecesor." Actually, Gene, with regard to the Rutledge story, the evidence really hasn't changed since Herndon corresponded with and interviewed witnesses. You can find almost every last item in the indispensable book Herndon's Informants. A few interviews with some of Ann's sisters appeared independently of Herndon; in my opinion they add very little to the record, mostly because the sisters in question were very young when Ann died. And then we have such finds as the quote in a newspaper article published in 1930, allegedly from Hannah Armstrong's daughter, which asserts that Lincoln "bawled like a baby" after Ann died. If you consider that good evidence I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you.