Herndon on Lincoln: Letters

[Rob Wick]

Gene (and everyone else),

Here is the detailed information on the book I mentioned in the Lincoln/syphilis thread.

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/ca...39812.html

The book is part of the Knox College Lincoln collection, which has made a name for itself in presenting solid research and annotations on classic Lincoln works. Anyone familiar with Douglas Wilson and Rodney Davis know they are not as skeptical of Herndon as many others. In order to bring Herndon's valuable material to a larger audience, they first brought out Herndon's Informants. Their next project in this process was the annotated version of Herndon's biography. This book is the first of a two-volume series of Herndon's writing. This, as the title states, is Herndon's letters. The next volume will include Herndon's lectures and other previously unpublished items. I've not heard of a potential date of publication, but you can rest assured I will be one of the first to buy it.

The editors mention they brought out the book in order to correct many of the mistakes in Emanuel Hertz's collection of Herndon material in The Hidden Lincoln. I make no secret of my deep admiration of both men (Wilson kindly provided me with the manuscript copy of a speeh he gave on Tarbell at Allegheny College several years ago). Much of that stems from my support of their desire to restore Herndon as a trusted source on Lincoln's life. They don't approach the subject blindly, and are quite serious about keeping bad information out of the record, but ever since the Springfield clique of Randall, Angle, Thomas, etc., made Herndon toxic waste, much of the wheat has been tossed out with the chaff.

The first volume is now in paperback.

Best
Rob

[Gene C]

Thanks Rob

(04-06-2019 08:28 PM)Rob Wick Wrote:  but ever since the Springfield clique of Randall, Angle, Thomas, etc., made Herndon toxic waste, much of the wheat has been tossed out with the chaff.

Do you know what caused that?

I've read "Legends That Libel Lincoln" by Montgomery Lewis, and thought he made some valid points.

[Rob Wick]

Gene,

I believe Douglas Wilson can answer that for you far better than I can.

Best
Rob

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/262986...w=fulltext

[Steve]

One quick note, according to that UoIP webpage link, the paperback version of Herndon on Lincoln: Letters won't be out until this September.

[Steve]

Rob,
Thanks for sharing the Wilson article. I definitely concur with Wilson that Herndon tried to give a factual accounts, as he understood it, of Lincoln's life. I do think that each Herndon-Weik related anecdote/story has to be individually checked for its reliability based on each source, how it was transmitted to us and how might errors have crept in to it's transmission to Herndon and through him, us. I own a copy of Wilson's book Herndon's Informants because it's usually so helpful in doing that.

For instance, I agree with the argument made by Wilson that Lincoln was in fact a "defaulting bridegroom" on their first engagement because it was Mary's sister, Elizabeth, who brings it up, using the words "Every thing was ready & prepared for the marriage - Even to the supper &c". Surely, Elizabeth would've been an eyewitness to this and I can't understand why some scholars, like the Randalls, wouldn't take her account seriously and even suggest it was Herndon's "framed-up".

On other arguments I think Wilson goes too far in his defense of Herndon. Personally, I'm skeptical of the Ann Rutledge romance story. This article by Lewis Gannett sums up a lot of my problems with it and Wilson's defense of it:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/262986...w=fulltext

I don't think Herndon promoted the Ann Rutledge story to specifically maliciously get at Mary. He obviously thought it was true and as such important for the public to know about Lincoln's past. After reading the accounts of Herndon's sources on Rutledge, I just come to a differing opinion (and conclusion) from him on how strong of evidence they are. But just because I don't find Herndon reliable on this point/conclusion doesn't mean one should ignore Herndon's other collected accounts of parts of Lincoln's life as "unreliable" without a thorough examination of the evidence for each of them.

[RJNorton]

Didn't Speed move back to Kentucky on January 1, 1841? It seems strange to me that Lincoln would agree to be married on the same day his best friend (and I assume best man in a wedding) moved away from Springfield. That doesn't seem right to me.

[Rob Wick]

Steve,

It's interesting to me that we approach the topics from different sides. I've always accepted that Herndon got the wedding story wrong (although one has to wonder why Elizabeth Edwards would say it) and that he was, generally speaking, correct on Ann Rutledge. When Lewis Gannett and I were discussing Tripp's book, he often pointed out what he believed to be the fallacy of the Rutledge story. Yet, in a number of instances in our discussions, he misread and mischaracterized some of the evidence. I personally grew to like Lewis (who's grandfather, also named Lewis, was book review editor of the New York Herald Tribune), but I could never escape the fact that he had an agenda in his work.

Add to that John Y. Simon's piece on Ann Rutledge, including the discovery of the article in the Menard Axis, and I think it's about as certain as one can make it that Ann and Lincoln had a relationship. As I've often stated, I don't think she was the only woman Lincoln loved, but I do think he "went off the rails" after her death.

I am in complete agreement with your point that each story has to be judged on its own merits. Even Herndon's most ardent current defenders admit that he got things wrong. But not near as much as his critics charge.

Best
Rob

[Susan Higginbotham]

Didn't someone here speculate that either Ann Todd's or Frances Todd's husband failed to show up for his wedding (if I recall, something happened to delay him, and the wedding took place the next day), and that Elizabeth might have been confusing that groom with Lincoln many years after the marriage? Given his breakup with Mary, it's easy to see how Elizabeth might have conflated the two incidents.

Elizabeth was hardly an infallible witness, in any case. She described Matilda Edwards' husband, Newton Strong, as "such an old dried up husband -- such a withered up old Buck." He was 34 at the time of his marriage, only 12 years older than his bride.

[RJNorton]

Many thanks to Steve for sending these articles. Steve writes, "The first is from page 3 of the 05 May 1865 edition of the Illinois State Journal about a copy of Kirkham's Grammar presented to Robert Rutledge by Abraham Lincoln. The second is from page 2 of the 09 May 1865 edition of the Illinois State Journal, publishing a letter from 06 May 1865, sent by Robert to the newspaper correcting the earlier article by saying the book was given in New Salem, not Petersburg, and that it had originally been given to his older sister Ann by Lincoln."

[RJNorton]

(04-09-2019 09:32 PM)Susan Higginbotham Wrote:  Didn't someone here speculate that either Ann Todd's or Frances Todd's husband failed to show up for his wedding (if I recall, something happened to delay him, and the wedding took place the next day), and that Elizabeth might have been confusing that groom with Lincoln many years after the marriage? Given his breakup with Mary, it's easy to see how Elizabeth might have conflated the two incidents.

Elizabeth was hardly an infallible witness, in any case. She described Matilda Edwards' husband, Newton Strong, as "such an old dried up husband -- such a withered up old Buck." He was 34 at the time of his marriage, only 12 years older than his bride.

Yes, Susan. Donna McCreary made that point here.

I simply cannot believe Lincoln was a no-show at his own wedding on January 1, 1841. There is no marriage license as there is for the 1842 wedding. There is no evidence of the purchase of a ring from Chatterton's as there is for the 1842 wedding. There are no known accounts of a cancelled wedding from a best man, maid of honor, groomsmen, bridesmaids, etc. As far as I know there is no supporting evidence that Lincoln did not appear for a planned January 1, 1841, wedding in Herndon's Informants until an 1883 interview with Elizabeth and Ninian Edwards (40+ years after the "event").

Two weeks before this alleged wedding, Mary Todd wrote a letter to her close friend, Mercy Levering. In reading the letter, Abraham is barely mentioned, let alone an upcoming wedding.

I simply cannot believe Herndon on this particular story. IMO, there was no wedding ever planned for January 1, 1841.

[Susan Higginbotham]

I agree. I don't think that Elizabeth Edwards told the story in bad faith, but human memory is a very tricky thing, trickier than perhaps Herndon appreciated.

[Steve]

I don't know where the exact 01 Jan. 1841 leave date for Speed comes from, but wouldn't stand to reason that Lincoln might try to plan a wedding date before his good friend left.

According to Herndon's Informants, Herndon's interview of Elizabeth which mentioned Lincoln skipping out of the wedding is dated 10 Jan. 1866. To read most of this 1866 account, here's a link to most of it printed in The Hidden Lincoln (undated):

https://archive.org/details/hiddenlincol...n/page/372

Jason Weik had an aborted interview of Elizabeth of the wedding incident which he mentioned in his diary 20 Dec. 1883. The diary account is reprinted (mostly in a footnote) in Albert Beveridge's Lincoln:

https://archive.org/stream/BeveridgeAlbe...9/mode/2up

The footnote from Herndon's Informants says its text (which matches the text from Beveridge's book) comes from a photostatic copy of the page from Weik's diary in the Beveridge papers.

So, Elizabeth's first account is "only" 25 years following the incident, not 40. The Lincoln's eventual wedding took place at the Edwards' home, so it's not unreasonable to assume that could've also have been true on the prior occasion with Elizabeth being more aware of wedding preparations than other members of the community. Are the circumstances of Ann and Mary's engagements similar enough for being confused? Clark Smith was only delayed in arriving in Springfield and Ann rashly claimed because of his illness that she didn't want to be a widow and was calling off the wedding. And then Clark arrived in Springfield on a train and then they got married. Would the food preparations that Elizabeth describe match a situation where the groom hasn't even arrived in Springfield yet? Just because a similar event sort of happened to Ann, doesn't necessarily mean that it didn't happen to Mary.

Here's an image of the Lincoln's marriage record followed by an image supposedly of the returned license that I found on the internet, but I can't determine the provenance of:





Both say the 1842 license was applied to the same day of the wedding. So, I don't see how the absence of an unused marriage license from 1840-1 necessarily contradicts Elizabeth's 1866 and 1883 accounts. (01 Jan. 1841 was a Friday, but I don't know if New Years was a public holiday yet in Illinois then or not.)

I know memory can be tricky, especially after a couple of decades, but there doesn't seem to be any good reason to doubt the quality of Elizabeth's recollections on this point.

[RJNorton]

Thanks for noting the 1866 interview, Steve. IMO, Elizabeth Edwards' memory was faulty. I still lean toward no actual wedding being planned for that date, but perhaps a dinner celebration of a marriage engagement between Mary and Abraham. So, IMO, Abraham backed out of his engagement, not a wedding, on the "fatal first." It just seems logical to me that Mary would have told Merce about a planned wedding in her c. December 15, 1840, letter. And I am sure she would have asked Merce to be in the wedding if one were really planned.

Professor Kenneth J. Winkle writes, "After Lincoln's death, William Herndon concocted a compelling but dubious story in which his law partner left his fiancée standing at the altar on January 1. IMO, Professor Winkle got it right.

[Anita]

I agree Roger. Lincoln broke off his engagement on that "fatal first."

Unlike the last minute wedding plans made in Nov. 1842, it's logical Jan. 1, 1841 plans would not have been rushed. Elizabeth and Mary would have planned an event befitting the status of the Edwards family complete with announcements in the press. It would have been a topic of discussion in social circles of Springfield. No matter how cold his feet, Lincoln wouldn't have hurt Mary in a public display of ultimate betrayal, damaging his reputation in the process. If this happened there would be more evidence beyond Herndon's story. So far it hasn't turned up.

[Susan Higginbotham]

New Year's Day was also a big visiting day, where hostesses would open their houses and people would stop by and take refreshment. It seems an odd day on which for Mary to schedule her wedding, knowing that so many society people would be otherwise engaged.

It also strikes me as odd that none of the Springfield people who disliked Mary would remember the story of her having been stood up. Even if it didn't reflect well on Lincoln, there would still be a certain satisfaction in recounting Mary's humiliation if such an event had actually occurred.