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L Verge · 05-28-2014, 01:23 PM

I agree, Susan. Gene has phrased that beautifully. I think some of what he says could also rub off on us who sit in judgment as to whether Mary was a "suitable" wife. We have no idea as to what the underlying causes of her mood changes might have been - physical, mental, or just plain "difficult." Or, was her behavior overly exaggerated by people? Lincoln is the only one who would know for sure, and he seems to have known how to make lemonade.

Did Mary Todd Lincoln's behavior seriously affect or change our nation's (or even Lincoln's) future?

Linda Anderson · 05-28-2014, 01:30 PM

(05-28-2014 01:23 PM)L Verge Wrote: Did Mary Todd Lincoln's behavior seriously affect or change our nation's (or even Lincoln's) future?

Does anyone think that the Grants would have gone to Ford's on April 14th if not for the incident at City Point that David Lockmiller refers to in an earlier post? And if the Grants did go, would that have changed Booth's plans?

David Lockmiller · 05-28-2014, 02:12 PM

(05-28-2014 08:38 AM)Gene C Wrote: [quote='David Lockmiller' pid='33604' dateline='1401251869']
Eva, may I ask your comment regarding Mary's tempers and the possible deleterious affects upon her husband at that time.

It is well documented that Mary had a temper. Possibly aggravated by her head aches, hormone changes, medication taken, and stress. On the other hand, she was a very kind, compassionate woman. She visited military hospital, took flowers, fresh fruit, listened to to and comforted the wounded soldiers, on a fairly frequent basis. Not a criticism, but our current first lady doesn't do that (and she doesn't have Mary's personality quirks) . After Lincoln's death, and she was pinching pennies, she wrote a kind letter to Abraham's step mother and sent her money. Now I personally think Abraham loved her deeply, and it pained him to see her erratic behavior and see her suffer. He had to know there was something wrong with her. It's hard to stand by and see someone suffer when you don't know how to help them. I'm sure all of this hurt him (especially when Willie died). But how he responded is one of the reasons we have this discussion forum, why thousands of books are written about him. He rose above the circumstances with strength, dignity, compassion, and his faith in God, even when he didn't feel like it.

I very much agree with what you have said, except for the part that Lincoln "deeply" loved Mary. I think that Lincoln suffered in silence for the important concept of family (including Mary) and that it did "pain him to see her erractic behavior and see her suffer."

As you state, the death of Willie was especially disheartening to them both. Willie, Mary said, "was the favorite child, so good, so obedient, so promising."

Professor Burlingame wrote of Willie and his father ("Abraham Lincoln: A Life" Vol. Two, pages 300-01):

With Willie, Lincoln had known the special pleasure that a parent derives from having a child who is a near-clone. The boy's tutor thought that the lad "was the exact counterpart of his father," and the poet and editor Nathaniel P. Willis, a fixture in Mrs. Lincoln's White House circle, agreed that Willie "faithfuly resembled his father" in all important respects.

So close were they that the president could read Willie's mind. One day at breakfast in the White House, Willie's emotional brother Tad broke out crying because soldiers to whom he had given religious tracts mocked him. When paternal hugs and kisses failed to comfort the boy, Willie set his mind to devise some way to ease Tad's hurt feelings. Willie silently thought for a long while, then suddenly looked up with a smile at his father, who exclaimed: "There! you have it now, my boy, have you not?" Turning to a guest, Lincoln remarked: "I know every step of the process by which that boy arrived at his satisfactory solution of the question before him, as it is by just such slow methods I attain results."

The death of Willie deprived Lincoln of an important source of comfort and relief from his heavy official burdens. The boy was his favorite child. The two were quite close. Springfield neighbors said Lincoln "was fonder of that boy than he was of anything else." Bob and Tad took after their mother, and did not resemble Lincoln physically or temperamentally. The president's eldest son, with whom he shared little in common, was attending college at Harvard. His youngest son, the hyperactive, effervescent Tad, was not a clone like Willie but much more like his mother. Julia Taft recalled that he "had a quick, fiery temper," was "implacable in his dislikes," but could be "very affectionate when he chose."

In the wake of Willie's death, the president's love for Tad grew stronger as he displaced onto him the powerful feeling he had harbored for the older boy. He explained to a friend that he wished to give Tad "everything he could no longer give Willie." Lincoln derived great comfort from Tad's fun-loving, irrepressible nature and delighted in his common sense.

As described by Professor Burlingame, Mary's reaction to the death of her son Willie was quite different than that of Mr. Lincoln.

Mary came to regard Willie's death as punishment for her vanity and for her decision to give the elaborate party at the White House with hundreds of guests while two of her sons lay sick abed. Months later she described her "crushing bereavement' to a friend: "We have met with so overwhelming an affliction in the death of our beloved Willie a being too precious for earth, that I am so completely unnerved." In her agony, Mary Lincoln was unable to help care for her younger son, Tad, who also ran a dangerous temperature.

Lincoln summoned Mary's eldest sister, Elizabeth Edwards, from Springfield to help calm her down. Lincoln urged Mrs. Edwards to stay at the White House as long as she possibly could: "you have Such a power & control Such an influence over Mary -- Come do Stay and Console me," he implored her. From Washington, Elizabeth reported that "my presence here, has tended very much to soothe, the excessive grief" of her sister. According to Elizabeth, Mary "has been but little with (Tad), being utterly unable to control her feelings."

When her sister went back to Illinois, Mrs. Lincoln turned for comfort to her dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckly, a black woman whose only son had been killed in battle the previous year. Mrs. Keckley, who had accepted her own loss stoically, looked askance on the First Lady's maifest inability to control her grief. The seamstress, however, did what she could to console her friend.

Public resentment against Mary's excesive grieving swelled when, for over a year, she forbade the traditional weekly White House Marine Band concerts; she even refused permission to have them performed in Lafayette Park across the street. Lincoln had enjoyed those concerts.

Professor Burlingame described one other related episode, but I am not sure when this encounter took place: She wrapped herself so profoundly in mourning that Lincoln one day led her to a window, pointed to an insane asylum in the distance, and said: "Mother, do you see that large white building on the hill yonder? Try and control your grief, or it will drive you mad, and we may have to send you there."

In the final months of the war, Lincoln also had an issue with his wife regarding military service of their eldest son, Robert, in the Civil War. Lincoln, husband and father, had a duty and obligation to the nation as President, as well. (See "Abraham Lincoln: A Life" Vol. Two, pages 737 - 38.)

One partisan Democratic journal sneeringly asked why "Mr. Lincoln's son should be kept from the dangers of the field, while the sons of the laboring men are to be hurried into the harvest of death at the front? Are the sons of the rail-splitter, porcelain, and these other common clay?" When New York Senator, Ira Harris bluntly asked her why Robert was not in uniform, Mary Lincoln replied that her son was "not a shirker as you seem to imply for he has been anxious to go for a long time. If fault there be, it is mine."

Actually, Robert was eager to drop out of Harvard and enlist, but his mother adamantly objected.

"We have lost one son,and his loss is as much as I can bear, without being called upon to make another sacrifice," she insisted to the president.

Lincoln replied; "But many a poor mother has given up all her sons, and our son is not more dear to us than the sons of other people are to their mothers."

"That may be; but I cannot bear to have Robert exposed to danger. His services are not required in the field, and the sacrifice would be a needless one."

"The services of every man who loves his country are required in this war. You should take a liberal instead of a selfish view of the question, mother."

Don't I know that only too well? she cried; before this war is ended I may be like that poor mother, my poor mother in Kentucky, with not a prop left in her old age."

On another occasion, she remarked to her husband: "I know that Robert's plea to go into the Army is manly and noble and I want him to go, but oh! I am so frightened that he may never come back to us!"

In January1865, when the First Lady finally yielded, Lincoln wrote Grant asking that Robert be placed on his staff: "Please read and answer this letter as though I was not President, but only a friend. My son, now in his twenty second year, having graduated at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war before it ends. I do not wish to put him in the ranks, nor yet to give him a commission, to which those who have already served long, are better entitled, and better qualified to hold. Could he, without embarrassment to you, or detriment to the service, go into your Military family with some nominal rank, I, and not the public, furnishing his necessary means? If no, say so without the least hesitation, because I am as anxious, and as deeply interested, that you shall not be encumbered as you can be yourself."

Grant graciously replied: "I will be most happy to have him in my Military family in the manner you propose. The nominal rank given him is immaterial but I would suggest that of Capt. as I have three staff officers now, of considerable service, in no higher grade. Indeed I have one officer with only the rank of Lieut. who has been in the service from the beginnng of the war. This however will make no difference and I would still say give the rank of Capt." On February 11, Robert entered the army as a captain and served creditably on Grant's staff.

I shall end this post with a story about Lincoln that took place late in the Civil War, long after his son Willie's death. There is a narration version of what I believe is this same story within the first posting reference above to Professor Burlingame's work. However, I much prefer the narration of this incident within Emanuel Hertz book "Lincoln Talks, a Biography in Anecdote" at page 662.

Mr. Lincoln said: "Colonel, did you ever dream of a lost friend, and feel that you were holding sweet communiion with that friend, and yet have a sad consciousness that it was not a reality? Just so I dream of my boy Wilie." Overcome with emotion, he dropped his head on the table, and sobbed aloud. --Paul Selby.

L Verge · 05-28-2014, 03:57 PM

(05-28-2014 01:30 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:
(05-28-2014 01:23 PM)L Verge Wrote: Did Mary Todd Lincoln's behavior seriously affect or change our nation's (or even Lincoln's) future?

Does anyone think that the Grants would have gone to Ford's on April 14th if not for the incident at City Point that David Lockmiller refers to in an earlier post? And if the Grants did go, would that have changed Booth's plans?

I believe that the Grants' overriding desire was to see their children - not attend a rather old comedy - and to find some down time for the General. Mrs. Grant's disdain for what she had observed of Mrs. Lincoln's behavior at City Point was probably genuine, but generals' wives don't override Presidential invitations.

I don't think Booth would have changed his plans, but I believe that he would have been unable to carry them out if Grant arrived at Ford's with his usual entourage.

Gene C · 05-28-2014, 04:16 PM

As a father who has two grown children who no longer live near home, I can understand the Grant's desire to visit their children. The theater invite from Mary probably made it an easier decision to leave asap. Mary may have inadvertently saved Grant's life.

Eva Elisabeth · (This post was last modified: 05-29-2014 03:28 AM by Eva Elisabeth.)

(05-28-2014 08:38 AM)Gene C Wrote: [quote='David Lockmiller' pid='33604' dateline='1401251869']
Eva, may I ask your comment regarding Mary's tempers and the possible deleterious affects upon her husband at that time.

It is well documented that Mary had a temper. Possibly aggravated by her head aches, hormone changes, medication taken, and stress. On the other hand, she was a very kind, compassionate woman. She visited military hospital, took flowers, fresh fruit, listened to to and comforted the wounded soldiers, on a fairly frequent basis. Not a criticism, but our current first lady doesn't do that (and she doesn't have Mary's personality quirks) . After Lincoln's death, and she was pinching pennies, she wrote a kind letter to Abraham's step mother and sent her money. Now I personally think Abraham loved her deeply, and it pained him to see her erratic behavior and see her suffer. He had to know there was something wrong with her. It's hard to stand by and see someone suffer when you don't know how to help them. I'm sure all of this hurt him (especially when Willie died). But how he responded is one of the reasons we have this discussion forum, why thousands of books are written about him. He rose above the circumstances with strength, dignity, compassion, and his faith in God, even when he didn't feel like it.

Great reply, Gene!!! Thanks!

At all, as I said once on another thread, I think A. Lincoln was aware Mary was far more extreme than others (positive as negative), and I think he cared much more for the positive traits and for what he and Mary shared - love for children, poetry, theater, politics, and travelling.

I can only repeat - as for most of her tempers I think it was just like he (allegedly) said (even if he didn't really): "It does her a power of good, and it doesn't hurt me any." It might have been unimaginable for others like Mr. Burlingame or Herndon, but people feel differently and have different values. Mary sure caused him certain troubles, but only very few marriages are without such, and he sure was not always an easy husband to live with, too. Daveid, I think if it did "pain" and worry A. Lincoln to see Mary's behavior etc. it was because he loved her.

David Lockmiller · 05-29-2014, 08:31 AM

(05-28-2014 04:16 PM)Gene C Wrote: As a father who has two grown children who no longer live near home, I can understand the Grant's desire to visit their children. The theater invite from Mary probably made it an easier decision to leave asap. Mary may have inadvertently saved Grant's life.

Grant may have been able to save Lincoln's life. He had some recent experience in combat situations.

RJNorton · 05-29-2014, 09:07 AM

(05-28-2014 08:08 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote: But I have a (quite related) question: Roger wrote on another thread: "Regarding Mr. [William] Wood Jean Baker writes, 'At some point Mary Lincoln and William Wood had become friends and possibly more.' I think I have read the 'possibly more' implication in at least one other book."

Hi Eva. I now remember the other book. It was in Michael Burlingame's The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln. If you have access to that book please see p. 292.

Hi David. Thank you for including that reference to the story of Abraham and his dream of Willie. Very moving indeed.

LincolnToddFan · (This post was last modified: 06-12-2014 12:01 AM by LincolnToddFan.)

It is typical and unsurprising that while Michael Burlingame reports in great detail about Mary Lincoln's infamous City Point freak out and how it distressed and embarrassed AL according to Adam Badeau(Grant's secretary) he ignores other commentary on the incident. According to Lieutenant Commander Barnes, who was also at City Point as a member of Grant's staff:

[Barnes asked after Mrs. Lincoln, "hoping that she had recovered from the fatigue of the previous day". The president's answer reveals a depth of understanding and compassion for the frail woman that other witnesses to her tirades did not share. He knew it was not jealousy alone that had disturbed his wife. Lincoln explained "that she was not at all well, and expressed fear that the excitements of the surroundings were too great for her, or for any woman." He did not apologize for his wife or try to defend her behavior. He put his finger on the crux of her problem so that Barnes, at least, could be begin to comprehend it.

Barnes and Mrs. Grant stayed aboard while AL and MTL left the ship to wander alone together "arm in arm in the woods". AL was hopeful that in that quiet place he could "cheer up his wife".

[Among several witnesses to Mrs. Lincoln's trouble, Barnes is most trustworthy because he harbors no bitterness toward the afflicted woman(EMPHASIS MINE) and actually appears to have absorbed some of Lincoln's compassion. "She was at no time well; the mental strain upon her was great....Mr. Lincoln I am sure felt deep anxiety for her. Lieutenant Barnes would always remember Lincoln's kindness toward his wife, "the most affectionate solitude, so marked, so gentle and unaffected that no one could see them together without being impressed by it."] //quoted from Daniel Mark Epstein's The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage

Burlingame also quotes Elizabeth Keckley's famous story of the incident where AL showed Mary the mental asylum and suggests that she might be taken there if she didn't get a grip, but predictably ignores her other observation about the couple...that "Lincoln loved the mother of his children tenderly...and craved only affection from her."

I just read another poster wondering whether AL would have gotten cold feet at the altar with Ann Rutledge. We will never know of course, but I am more than a little convinced that much of what attracted AL to Rutledge was the fact that she was basically UNAVAILABLE. She was engaged to another man, and her ability to marry AL depended on whether or not she could be released from her engagement to John McNamar.

Incidentally David[Lockmiller] there is no real proof that AL and AR were ever officially engaged, let alone that there was any "well planned" wedding in the offing. John McNamar later said that as far as he knew, he and Ann were still going to marry. He bought furniture for their new home. He and Lincoln remained friends after Ann's death. There are several extent letters from Lincoln to McNamar, who he calls "Mack". Is that likely to have been the case if AL had bird-dogged the guy's fiancée?

We read that Mary might have been unfaithful to AL with William Wood. Burlingame seems to relish that possibility, but dismisses any and all conjecture about his hero's possible affair with Officer David Derickson in the summer and fall of 1862. There is at least as much evidence for Lincoln's affair with Derickson as there is for Mary's with Wood, so what gives?

A couple of weeks ago I was reading through some of William Herndon's published letters. I am now convinced this guy was probably not rowing with both oars. Here is what he writes about the deaths of the Lincoln children......"I should like to know what caused the death of those children? I have an opinion which I shall never state to anyone. I know a good deal of the Lincoln family and too much of Mrs. Lincoln.":huh:// quoted from Herndon's letter to Jesse Weik in "Legends That Libel Lincoln" by Montgomery Lewis.

Alrighty then...let's recap!

1)Conniving, lustful Mary Todd seduced an older but clueless bumpkin Abraham Lincoln, who had too much "honor" to resist. The morning after, he got nervous about having sex out of wedlock and the possibility that she might be pregnant. So he proposed. Then, meekly following Mary's instructions, he had her wedding band inscribed LOVE IS ETERNAL. But he was dreaming of Annie.

2)Mary was intent on punishing him for ditching her the first time. He really hated her and was miserable. He tried to stay away as much as possible. But when he did come home, she threw things at him and forced him to have sex. That explains why there were four children in the first ten years. He never wanted to do anything except practice law and read and live on the Illinois prairie in peace. But Mary wanted to be the wife of a president so much she nagged the hell out of him. He acquiesced, brooded, and dreamed of Annie.

3) Mary was so depraved she probably had a hand in the deaths of toddler Eddie and golden child Willie. Lincoln wept, grieved, and dreamed of Annie.

4)After they got to the WH, Mary spied on behalf of the South and was at the same time a vile traitoress to her Southern forebears. She also stole money, bribed officials, threw tantrums, and committed adultery. Lincoln "bore it all as Christ might have" and dreamed of Annie.

5) Mary took part in the plot to have her husband murdered at Ford's Theater. She offended the Grants so much they refused to attend, and weren't there to protect him.So John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln and he went to be eternally reunited with Ann Rutledge(this last according to poet Edgar Lee Masters, who incidentally later turned savagely against the Lincoln legend and regretted ever saying anything good about him)

I might be resorting to sarcasm, but every last one of the charges above has at one time or another been laid at the feet of Mary Todd Lincoln. If her critics are to be believed she was the reincarnation of the Roman Messalina, not a basically kind, intelligent, cultured but emotionally unstable woman.

L Verge · 05-29-2014, 03:12 PM

All I can say is BRAVO, Toia. What an excellent rebuttal to the likes of Herndon, Burlingame, and others who have disparaged the First Lady for lo these many years. I'm afraid that such authors deserve a little sarcasm being thrown in their direction - especially when the sarcasm gets to the heart of the matter.

Eva Elisabeth · 05-29-2014, 03:22 PM

I second Laurie 100%!

(05-29-2014 01:24 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote: I just read another poster wondering whether AL would have gotten cold feet at the altar with Ann Rutledge. We will never know of course, but I am more than a little convinced that much of what attracted AL to Rutledge was the fact that she was basically UNAVAILABLE. She was engaged to another man, and her ability to marry AL depended on whether or not she could be released from her engagement to John McNamar.

Interesting thought! BTW, I agree on the following you once posted:

"Ironically I think it's also something that her husband might have found attractive about her. I simply cannot ever see AL content with some docile, uneducated little housewife."

I think so, too. I think he needed a counterpart that matched his personality.

As for A. L. having gotten cold feet at the altar, in a newspaper interview on Sept. 2, 1885, Frances Wallace wrote: "No, it was as I tell you. There never was but one wedding arranged between Mary and Mr. Lincoln, and that was the time they were married."

LincolnToddFan · (This post was last modified: 05-29-2014 04:23 PM by LincolnToddFan.)

Thank you Laurie and Eva E, but I'm afraid it's all futile. Burlingame's 1000+ page tome...with all it's attendant, customary distortions of the Lincoln relationship and marriage, is being hailed as "definitive". It's apparently also won the prestigious Lincoln Prize. I think 50-100 years from now scholars will be as much influenced by Burlingame's bitter, one sided take on things as they were by Herndon's for many years.

It's all so frustrating. I keep wishing and hoping for a miracle, that the couple's lost correspondence will someday be discovered in a buried chest somewhere at Hildene... Confused

LincolnToddFan · (This post was last modified: 05-29-2014 10:56 PM by LincolnToddFan.)

[Mary came to regard Willie's death as punishment for her vanity and for her decision to give the elaborate party at the White House with hundreds of guests while two of her sons lay sick abed]// quote David Lockmiller

Mary emphatically did not make the decision to give the ball while her children were ill. The plans for the party were well underway...invitations sent, caterers engaged when first Willie, and then Tad fell ill literally on the eve of the gathering. Mary was frantic and wanted to cancel it immediately. The president insisted that it was too late to cancel, and the family doctor assured them both that Willie was in no danger. Both Mary and AL left the party at frequent intervals to sit at the bedside of their child. Willie's illness in combination with the war, was the reason there was no dancing at the party.

It is indeed true that after Willie died she became convinced that she was being punished by God for her frivolity and vanity during that first year in the White House. That in itself gives the lie to critics of the woman who accuse her of having no self-awareness and no conscience.

Eva Elisabeth · (This post was last modified: 05-30-2014 05:41 AM by Eva Elisabeth.)

(05-29-2014 10:50 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote: Mary was frantic and wanted to cancel it immediately. The president insisted that it was too late to cancel, and the family doctor assured them both that Willie was in no danger. Both Mary and AL left the party at frequent intervals to sit at the bedside of their child.

Despite that, Willie died 15 after the reception. At that point in time it was as well possible he would recover.

David, as for your post #108, I'm sorry, but if mentioning the Lincoln's discussion about Robert's military service was intended to prove the Lincolns had a bad marriage or A. Lincoln did not love his wife, could you please explain why you think so? I don't.

I can't believe that you don't understand Mary wasn't willing to lose another son, or doubt A. Lincoln, in his role as a father, understood, and as a father most likely shared Mary's respective fears and objections? Of course, Especially since he himself was still grieving about Willie's death? Of course, being the president, he couldn't other but consent. Don't you think he, too, was glad about the solution that Robert got a post where he was not danger of any involvement in fighting? (In case Mary had instantly consented, wouldn't you have considered her a bad, non-protective mother?)

David Lockmiller · 05-30-2014, 08:48 AM

(05-30-2014 05:40 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:
(05-29-2014 10:50 PM)LincolnToddFan Wrote: Mary was frantic and wanted to cancel it immediately. The president insisted that it was too late to cancel, and the family doctor assured them both that Willie was in no danger. Both Mary and AL left the party at frequent intervals to sit at the bedside of their child.
Despite that, Willie died 15 after the reception. At that point in time it was as well possible he would recover.

David, as for your post #108, I'm sorry, but if mentioning the Lincoln's discussion about Robert's military service was intended to prove the Lincolns had a bad marriage or A. Lincoln did not love his wife, could you please explain why you think so? I don't.

I can't believe that you don't understand Mary wasn't willing to lose another son, or doubt A. Lincoln, in his role as a father, understood, and as a father most likely shared Mary's respective fears and objections? Of course, Especially since he himself was still grieving about Willie's death? Of course, being the president, he couldn't other but consent. Don't you think he, too, was glad about the solution that Robert got a post where he was not danger of any involvement in fighting? (In case Mary had instantly consented, wouldn't you have considered her a bad, non-protective mother?)

My point was the point that Lincoln made and that was that other mothers througout the nation not only lost one son in the Civil War in the cause of the Union but in some cases two, three, or all of her sons. Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States and she was the First Lady of the United States. How can the President and the First Lady ask the mothers of the nation to risk the lives of their sons in combat while the President's son was attending Harvard, safe and sound? For the life of me, I do not understand why you cannot understand that very simple concept. Perhaps you should read over the narrative which I typed out a couple dozen times.