Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[Lewis Gannett]

Hi David. A couple of things to keep in mind about Robert Rutledge's nine known letters to Herndon. First, they're wonderful letters, especially the long one that Hertz dates "Oct. 1866" and Wilson & Davis date "ca. Nov. 1, 1866." This letter supplies many of the most familiar details of Lincoln's life in New Salem: feats of strength such as picking up a barrel as if to drink from the bunghole, and other famous anecdotes. Second, Robert took it upon himself to be the Rutledge family spokesman to Herndon, and as far as I can tell he did a conscientious job, writing to his mother through his older brother, John, to ask about what she knew. He did his best to collect what information he could, and it's to his credit that he doesn't appear to have exaggerated anything, which he very easily could have done. It's also worth mentioning that Robert was 17 when his sister Ann died. Third, notwithstanding his role as family spokesman, Robert didn't report any specific family memories of Lincoln courting Ann; not even from his mother. He also never asserted that Ann had ever discussed with him marriage to Lincoln (contrary to a claim made by Douglas Wilson; see my JALA article, p. 44). In short: we don't have specific memories from the Rutledge family about Lincoln courting Ann. Is that significant? Of course it is. Not even one story about a courtship involving the greatest man of the age? Robert supplied assertions that Ann and Lincoln pledged to marry; that a brother named David (long dead by the time Robert wrote Herndon) had claimed that Ann had hinted at the existence of an engagement to Lincoln; and he relayed a letter from a cousin, James McGrady Rutledge, which asserted without details that Ann and Lincoln had planned to marry. That's it. No stories. And in fact, NOBODY from that vanished New Salem era could supply Herndon with any details about a courtship. The only details had to do with Lincoln's perceived reaction to Ann Rutledge's death. And as mentioned, Lincoln's two recorded statements about the death concerned rain on her grave. But here's the most telling aspect of the Rutledge family account as delivered by Robert: like everybody else from the New Salem era who cared to comment, he too claimed that the smoking-gun proof for a love affair was Lincoln's great grief. But he ALSO admitted that he hadn't personally witnessed this grief. And he supplied no accounts that any OTHER family member had witnessed grief. This is the way I sum up the Rutledge testimony in the article: "If the family spokesman invoked what the family hadn't witnessed--the grief story--to sustain what the family also hadn't witnessed--the romance story--how much of a house of cards supports those stories?" (p. 47)