THE TRAGIC CAREER 
 
 OF 
 
 JtfARY TODD jCINCOLN 
 
 by 
 Dr. Charles Stoltz 
 
 H 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/tragiccareerofmaOOstol 
 
The Tragic Career 
 
 of 
 
 ^Jvlary Todd Jjncoln 
 
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 THE TRAGIC CAREER 
 
 OF 
 
 ^MARY TODD LINCOLN 
 
 by 
 T)r. Charles Stoltz 
 
 Privately Printed 
 
 The 'Rgund Table 
 
 South ^Bend, Indiana 
 
 1931 
 
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As the writer of this paper died 
 between the date of its delivery and 
 that of its publication, it has been 
 thought proper to depart from the 
 usual form in which Round Table 
 papers are published, and to in- 
 clude a picture and short appreci- 
 ation of the author. 
 

 
S&fe^2^^^ 
 
 &jfl<KSiJUs4 
 
 hxup 
 
 'Born, January 17, 1864 
 T)ied, August 5, 1931 
 
tfS^tfSsStftnSsgtftfSStftfSsgU) 
 
 ^An ^Appreciation 
 
 Charles Stoltz was a native of this county. His an- 
 cestors, while of German origin, came from Alsace-Lor- 
 raine and for a time lived in France. All of Dr. Stoltz's 
 sympathies and traditions were French, and something of 
 his Gallic background was noticeable in his mannerisms 
 and personality. 
 
 Essentially, he was typical American, with inherent love 
 of freedom, independence, with a fine flair for discriminat- 
 ing justice, and an unfailing sense of humor. 
 
 His lifes story is almost a duplication of that of most 
 of the successful men of his generation. He had to ma\e 
 his way by his own efforts. He was teacher and principal 
 in the public schools, attended Valparaiso University two 
 years, Indiana University one year, where he became the 
 lifelong friend of David Starr Jordan, then through the 
 College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago. All this 
 education accomplished by unceasing labor and privation. 
 
 Dr. Stoltz had a natural and strongly developed interest 
 in science and advocated the study of pure science regard- 
 less of its immediate practical value. His next strongest in- 
 terest was history. He acquired a vast store of historical 
 \nowledge and, owing to his remar\able memory, this 
 
\now ledge remained immediately available until his death. 
 He devoted much time to the history of Indiana, and if a 
 question arose as, for instance, why South Bend came to 
 be in Indiana instead of Michigan, where its site was 
 originally located, Dr. Stoltz could furnish carefully com' 
 piled information. 
 
 In larger matters his historical \now ledge was as broad 
 and accurate. 
 
 Few men were better informed on the life and charac 
 ter of Lincoln and he possessed one of the finest Lincoln 
 libraries in the West. 
 
 His research in this field led him to spend his final days, 
 at a time when his sight had all but gone, in preparing the 
 paper which follows, for he had come to believe that Mary 
 Todd Lincoln had been greatly misunderstood and 
 maligned. 
 
 Dr. Stoltz in appearance and character was an unique 
 personality. He had in mar\ed degree the main elements of 
 greatness, — courage, simplicity, and sincerity. His sixty 
 seven years were filled with hard wor\, high thin\ing, and 
 \indly and helpful interest in his fellow man. 
 
 U. G. Manning. 
 
It was the intention of the au- 
 thor to accredit various writers 
 with the quotations and items of 
 fact which he used from their 
 wor\s to substantiate his thesis 
 which emphasizes the fine culture 
 and education in the early life of 
 both Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln. 
 
 These individual acknowledg- 
 ments were made impossible by 
 reason of his untimely death. 
 
 The publishers desire to ma\e 
 this \nown to those readers who 
 are interested in the treatment of 
 this subject, and to those writers 
 to whom these courtesies are due. 
 
f( I am a man, and everything 
 human interests me. " 
 
<^^>3 <nS?S^ 6<2?5i3 e^XiS ■ 
 
 ■ <,■ ■,;■■ .,,..,.., ..... .... ,.,..,. ...... .,., 
 
 ^Argument 
 
 "Lady of Lincoln, 
 They wreathed her head 
 With thorns when living, 
 With nettles though dead." 
 
 Marion Mills Miller 
 
 * * * 
 
 "The world will never \now the full extent of its in' 
 debtedness to Mary Todd Lincoln for what Abraham Lin- 
 coln was, and for what he was permitted to accomplish." 
 
 * * * Ervin Chapin. 
 
 "I wish my readers could have \nown this woman as 
 it was my good fortune to \now her in the prime of her 
 life, and could understand her devoted ambition for, and 
 the inspiration she was to Abraham Lincoln in all the days 
 of their Springfield literary, financial, and political strug' 
 
 les." Henry S. Rankin. 
 
 * * * 
 
 "It may have been that gentle Ann Rutledge, or portly, 
 complacent Mary Owens, or youthful, light-hearted Sarah 
 Ric\ard, could have endowed the tall Sycamore of the 
 Sangamon with richer measure of marital bliss, but never 
 did a young wife bring to a husband, interested in state- 
 craft and anxious for preferment, such a wealth of first- 
 hand information on a grave, moral and political asso- 
 ciation with great men of her day, as did Mary Todd to 
 
 Abraham Lincoln." ._ . TT _ 
 
 William n. Townsend. 
 
CTS^(nS^tf<S5Sis<nSsS3(nS5©5 
 
 The Tragic Career 
 
 of 
 
 ^JViary Todd Xjncoln 
 
 A century has elapsed since the youthful 
 Abraham Lincoln entered politics. It was 
 in the early spring of 1832. He had just attained 
 the age of twenty 'three. He had been in his newly 
 adopted state barely two years when he aspired to 
 become a member of its legislature, expressing his 
 ambition in that perfectly written epistle ending 
 naively, — "If the voters elect me they will have 
 conferred a favor upon me for which I shall be un- 
 remitting in my labors to compensate. But if the 
 good people in their wisdom should see fit to 
 keep me in the background, I have been too 
 familiar with disappointments to be very much 
 chagrinned." 
 
 The Black Hawk War interrupted his election- 
 eering. He enlisted and was elected captain of 
 his company. The Indian uprising proved a wide- 
 spread scare, but hardly bloody. 
 
 Chief Black Hawk was captured in Wisconsin, 
 marched off to Washington in irons — had a long 
 
16 The Tragic Career of 
 
 satisfactory powwow with the Great Father, An- 
 drew Jackson, and lived warless "ever after." 
 Captain Lincoln walked home. Not only had his 
 horse been stolen, but on account of his absence 
 from the hustings, he suffered defeat for the legis- 
 lature. 
 
 Thus his public career began with war and was 
 destined to end with war — for, twenty-nine years 
 later he was himself to become the Great Father at 
 Washington, and journeyed from his Illinois home 
 fettered, indeed, not like the vanquished Black 
 Hawk, with iron chains and manacles but by trea- 
 son, calumny, intrigue and suspicion. 
 
 The decade which followed Captain Lincoln's 
 attempt at politics was not without results. It 
 embodied flat-boating, store-keeping, debts, sur- 
 veying, postmaster, the law, politics, four terms 
 in the legislature, several love affairs of varying 
 intensity, and finally matrimony. 
 
 For the background of his achievements of the 
 first decade in Illinois, we must go back to his last 
 decade in Indiana, for, all in all, Lincoln was a 
 Hoosier. 
 
 The phenomenal thing about Lincoln was his 
 constant intellectual growth. His was an untiring 
 quest of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, 
 and that quest, which became so useful in later 
 years, originated in early Indiana. 
 
 No biographer from Herndon to Beveridge 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 17 
 
 ever knew enough about early Indiana History to 
 write an adequate biography of the adolescent 
 Abraham Lincoln. We must not take the sarcas- 
 tic Baynard R. Hall's "New Purchase" nor Ed- 
 ward Eggleston's humorous "Hoosier School Mas- 
 ter" nor yet James Whitcomb Riley's amusing 
 dialect as indicative of the intelligence of primi- 
 tive Indiana. The decade preceding Lincoln's re- 
 moval to Illinois was remarkable for its growth 
 and learning. 
 
 I pray your indulgence for the time I am con- 
 suming in picturing early Indiana and rebuilding 
 the elements of Lincoln's youthful environment. 
 It is these early days, of our state and our great 
 president which our historians have so grievously 
 distorted. Unfortunately, these distortions have 
 become the accepted conceptions. Their incon- 
 sistencies are apparent. No woman of the culture 
 and refinement of Mary Todd could have been 
 drawn to the shallow uncouth Lincoln of the glib, 
 pot-boiler, Emil Ludwig; nor to the unwashed 
 ignoramus of Edgar Lee Masters, nor yet to the 
 Lincoln of Beveridge's diatribes. 
 
 When Indiana was admitted as a state there 
 were only thirteen organised counties all adjacent 
 to the Ohio and Wabash Rivers. The Indian vil- 
 lage, Kekiongay, on the Maumee, had long ago 
 become the enterprising town of Fort Wayne, but 
 it was still isolated in unorganized territory. 
 
18 The Tragic Career of 
 
 The Ohio River was a great highway of com- 
 merce but even more so a great highway of intelli- 
 gence and intellectual enterprise. 
 
 Much of Lincoln's youth was spent on this 
 river. Up and down this stream traveled many of 
 the great minds of the world: Aaron Burr, Blen- 
 nerhasset, Constantine Raffinesque, the eccentric 
 naturalist, Audubon, the ornithologist, Daniel 
 Drake, renowned Cincinnati physician and nat- 
 uralist, O. M. Mitchell, pioneer astronomer west 
 of the Alleghanies, Lafayette, when he visited 
 America in 1824, Sir Charles Lyell, Harriet Mar 
 tineau, De Tocqueville and others. 
 
 The ubiquitous Johnny Appleseed, whose body 
 lies buried in Fort Wayne, was planting his or- 
 chards along the Ohio, from the Muskingum to 
 the Wabash. The population was still too sparse 
 for the fragrance of his apple blossoms to reach 
 from settlement to settlement. However, the ec- 
 centric but welcome Swedenborgian itinerant 
 filled in the gap by his seasonal presence, carrying 
 news and personal messages, thus making the 
 Southern Indiana world a kin. 
 
 In 1826, Robert Owen brought his "boat load 
 of knowledge' ' down the Ohio and up the Wabash 
 to New Harmony, which became the scientific out- 
 post of the west. To New Harmony came nota- 
 bles from all over the civilised world to confer 
 with these eminent scholars: Thomas Say, father 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 19 
 
 of American zoology, Maclure, the naturalist, Jo' 
 seph Neef, disciple of Pestalossi, Gerard Troost, 
 earliest American mineralogist, and the rest. 
 
 Notable among these visitors were Joseph War' 
 ren, social philosopher, the Duke of Saxe'Weimar, 
 Sir Charles Lyell, the eminent English geologist, 
 Harriet Martineau and Basil Hall, English travel' 
 ers and commentators, and Maximillian, Prince of 
 Wied, who spent an entire winter in New Har 
 mony. He wrote a description of his travels and a 
 commentary on the mammals of North America. 
 In later years he published a synopsis of this latter 
 work, a copy of which is in the possession of our 
 learned fellow member, Dr. Marcus Lyon. 
 
 Here also came De Tocqueville, the philosophic 
 Frenchman who wrote his observations in that 
 most searching analysis of our institutions — 
 "Democracy in America." 
 
 "New Harmony became the headquarters of 
 the United States Geological Survey, with one of 
 its own students, David Dale Owen, son of Robert 
 Owen, in charge. New Harmony was the site of 
 a museum containing the remarkable collections of 
 Say and Maclure, and of a scientific library unex- 
 celled on the continent/'' 
 
 Here was published the New Harmony Gazette 
 which Lincoln read carefully as he also did the 
 Vincennes Sun and the Louisville Journal. 
 
 "It was in certain of the New Harmony commu" 
 
20 The Tragic Career of 
 
 nities that women were first given a voice and vote 
 in local legislative assemblages, and there the doc 
 trine of equal political rights for all, without re' 
 gard to sex or color, was first proclaimed by 
 Frances Wright/ ' It is suggestive of Lincoln's 
 Hoosier education that he made Frances Wright's 
 declarations in the New Harmony Gazette, part 
 and parcel of his first political platform referred 
 to at the beginning of this paper. 
 
 Fourteen miles west from Lincoln's home lived 
 Ratliffe Boone, second governor of Indiana and 
 later U. S. congressman for many terms, who was 
 known to the Lincolns in Kentucky days. His 
 library was open to young Lincoln. 
 
 Fourteen miles south on the Ohio River was 
 Rockport, the county seat of Spencer County, 
 where Lincoln attended court. Here he cultivated 
 the friendship of Judge John Pitcher, whose well 
 selected library was also open to the youthful 
 reader. 
 
 Lincoln was too shrewd a politician to air his 
 early educational advantages, for frontier voters 
 did not take kindly to candidates for office who 
 lauded their own accomplishments. However, 
 when he once confided to Leonard Swett that, 
 back in Indiana, he had read every book he could 
 get his hands on within a radius of fifty miles, he 
 let slip a clue that his biographers should not have 
 overlooked. 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 21 
 
 When you shall have read Dr. Louis A. War- 
 ren's forthcoming work on Lincoln in Indiana, 
 you will be convinced that books were not so 
 scarce in early Hoosierdom. 
 
 At Rockport, Princeton, and other county 
 seats Lincoln saw lawyers fight legal battles and 
 listened to the oratorical emanations of good legal 
 minds. Particularly was he impressed, as he stated 
 years afterward, with an address to a jury by 
 John A. Breckenridge, of Booneville. David Tur- 
 nam, of Gentry ville, loaned him the Indiana Stat' 
 utes and other legal tomes which he devoured 
 assiduously. 
 
 Lincoln, when eighteen years old, had acquired 
 sufficient familiarity with legal procedure to be able 
 to defend and win a suit against himself in Squire 
 Pate's court over in Kentucky, across from the 
 mouth of Anderson's Creek, where he operated a 
 ferry. After this, at the invitation of Squire Pate, 
 he frequently crossed the river and attended ses' 
 sions of his court. On these trips he also busied 
 himself reading the Kentucky statutes. 
 
 When Lincoln was in Indiana there was intense 
 activity in founding schools and colleges. Vin- 
 cennes University opened its doors to students in 
 1816. Indiana University was founded in 1820, — 
 Hanover College in 1827. The organization of 
 Asbury, now De Pauw University, was projected 
 in 1832. The same year Wabash at Crawfords- 
 
22 The Tragic Career of 
 
 ville, founded by four pioneer missionaries of the 
 Presbyterian Church, James Thompson, John 
 Steele Thompson, Edmund O. Hovey, and James 
 Carnahan, received students at its beautiful sylvan 
 campus. 
 
 The itinerant clergy, some of whom were, or 
 were to become eminent divines, were no small 
 part of the intellectual life and educational urge of 
 Southern Indiana in Lincoln's Hoosier days. Rev. 
 Henry Little, maternal grandfather of Dr. Edward 
 H. Griggs, well known lecturer, was a scholarly 
 Campbellite preacher widely known and of great 
 influence. 
 
 The great Methodist Bishop Roberts, after a life 
 of toil and triumph on the Southern Indiana cir- 
 cuit, died and was buried in a cornfield. He was 
 later re-interred in the grounds of De Pauw Uni- 
 versity, which institution he had been instrumental 
 in establishing. 
 
 Peter Cartwright, who defeated Lincoln in his 
 first race for office in 1832 and was to be his po- 
 litical antagonist for a score of years, but who 
 became one of his strongest defenders during the 
 Civil War, was not new to the nascent politician 
 of the Sangamon. This redoubtable Jacksonian 
 Democrat's circuit riding had for years extended 
 eastward over the Wabash, into the Lincoln coun- 
 try in Indiana. 
 
 During the Civil War, no one stood higher in 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 23 
 
 the confidence of Abraham Lincoln than Henry 
 Ward Beecher, Dr. Gurly and Bishop Ames, the 
 last named, widely conversant with the slave ques- 
 tion. All these clergymen were from early Indian- 
 apolis but before this they had been circuit riders 
 in Southern Indiana, and well known to Lincoln. 
 
 Indiana — up to the last decade — has had a long 
 line of learned and distinguished governors. The 
 first six of these namely, Jonathan Jennings, Rat' 
 lifFe Boone, William Hendricks, James Brown 
 Wray, Noab Noble, whom Beecher designated as 
 "Noble by name and Noble by nature" and Da- 
 vid Wallace, father of Lew Wallace, all stumped 
 Southern Indiana and were models for Lincoln in 
 his political aspirations. 
 
 Among the outstanding stump speakers of In- 
 diana, inclusive of the governors already men- 
 tioned, were: Thomas Posey, Christopher Har- 
 rison, Gen. John Carr, Mark Grume, Dr. John W. 
 Davis, Oliver H. Smith, Andrew J. Wiley, — as- 
 tronomer and first President of Indiana University, 
 Judge Isaac Blackford, Dr. Israel T. Canby, Har- 
 bin H. Moore, John Tipton, Dan Lynn, Frederick 
 Rapp and scores of others, too numerous to men- 
 tion. 
 
 The enterprising young Lincoln came in con- 
 tact with all of these and in his official life after- 
 ward had occasion to refer to their activities. That 
 he himself had been well known is proved by the 
 
24 The Tragic Career of 
 
 fact that when in 1844 he stumped Southern In- 
 diana for Clay, he was received with acclaim as 
 an old friend and citizen, and in turn he was able 
 to recognise and call by name many prominent 
 persons in his audiences. 
 
 The Southwestern Indiana Historical Society, 
 under the leadership of such enthusiasts as John 
 Barker, of Booneville, Mrs. Kate Ehrman, of 
 Rockport, and the venerable, vivacious Judge John 
 E. Iglehart, of Evansville, is piling up evidence on 
 evidence that Abraham Lincoln left Indiana a 
 thoroughly sophisticated and well educated young 
 man. 
 
 I have thus, of necessity, but as briefly as pos- 
 sible, detailed these few facts about Lincoln's en- 
 vironment and intellectual development during 
 his Indiana years from 1816 to 1830, because his 
 biographers have invariably misrepresented his true 
 status as a Hoosier and have asserted an incon- 
 gruity in his marriage to the cultured Mary Todd. 
 There was nothing phenomenal nor incongruous 
 about this alliance. It was an intellectual match. 
 Moreover, there is plenty of evidence that there 
 was love and devotion from the beginning of their 
 ardent, though sometimes stormy courtship, to the 
 very end of their days. Both had Revolutionary 
 and Indian-fighting ancestors. They were both 
 supremely intellectual. Both cherished ambitions 
 and high ideals. Both were deeply versed in poli- 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 25 
 
 tics and statecraft. Both were ardent disciples of 
 Henry Clay and last, but not least, both were 
 deeply concerned in the Whig faith, for in those 
 days people took their religion and their politics 
 seriously. 
 
 Miss Todd came to Springfield from Lexington, 
 Kentucky, the Athens of the west — the seat of 
 Transylvania University, and other renowned edu' 
 cational institutions. She came to make her home 
 with her sister, Elisabeth, who, at sixteen years of 
 age, had married Ninian Edwards when he was a 
 junior at Transylvania. This young man, a son 
 of Governor Edwards, when first visited by Mary 
 Todd at Springfield, had become attorney general 
 of Illinois. 
 
 Mary Todd was the daughter of Robert Smith 
 Todd, a citizen of dignity, probity and honor — 
 and a man of many and diverse affairs, high in 
 the counsels of the Whig party in Kentucky. Her 
 grandfather, Gen. Levi Todd, was the only field 
 officer at the battle of Blue Licks who was not 
 killed. Her great/uncle, John Todd, was the first 
 governor of what later became Illinois, and was 
 present with George Rogers Clark in 1778 at the 
 capture of Kaskaskia and Vincennes. 
 
 On the side of her mother, Ann Eliza Parker, 
 her ancestry was scarcely less distinguished. She 
 traced her descent from Gen. Andrew Porter of 
 the Revolution. Her great-uncles, George B. Por- 
 
26 The Tragic Career of 
 
 ter, territorial Governor of Michigan from 1829 
 to the time of his death in 1834, James Madison 
 Porter, Sec'y of Navy under President Tyler, and 
 David R. Porter, Governor of Pennsylvania, were 
 all men of note. 
 
 Mary Todd's academic career was begun in 
 Ward's celebrated Preparatory School, and fin' 
 ished in Madam Mentelle's renowned Academy, 
 just on the outskirsts of Lexington, opposite Ash' 
 land, Henry Clay's home. She was a brilliant 
 pupil and a diligent student. She developed a tal' 
 ent for languages which was exceptional. She 
 spoke French fluently and with such purity as to 
 surprise those who had the native Parisian tongue. 
 The French classics were her choice reading but 
 beyond this there was a wide range in her taste. A 
 writer, who was familiar with the Springfield 
 home of the Lincolns, has described her as reading 
 aloud evenings while her husband sat by the hour, 
 with his chair propped against the wall, his feet 
 comfortably encased in the large slippers on which 
 Mary Todd had embroidered the initials "A. L." 
 Moreoften, however, it was Lincoln who read 
 aloud while the devoted wife was the listener as 
 she sat busy with her needle. 
 
 Soon after Lincoln's marriage, Robert Smith 
 Todd made a visit to Springfield. Upon return- 
 ing home, he declared that he had four daughters 
 in Springfield, and he was proud to say that each 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 27 
 
 had married a gentleman of culture and distinc- 
 tion. 
 
 Mary Todd was a discerning student of men 
 and affairs. Lexington was the center of slave 
 activity from its mildest to its worst form, and 
 there was no phase of the slave question with 
 which she was not thoroughly familiar. The Todd 
 residence on Second Street, still standing today, 
 and the nearby Parker residence, were adjacent to 
 the notorious Robard's slave pen. At Cheapside, 
 the court house square of today, were the auction 
 block and the whipping post which, by the time 
 Mary Todd left Lexington, were being used with 
 painful and increasing frequency. 
 
 Slavery was the dominating political, social and 
 moral question. Her father's house was the ren- 
 dezvous for politicians and statesmen. She knew 
 them all, — John Hunt Morgan, John C. Brecken- 
 ridge, Vice-President with James Buchanan and 
 candidate for President against Lincoln, Cassius 
 M. Clay, Richard H. Menifee, and many others 
 who later became prominent in national affairs or 
 the victims of pro-slavery domination. These were 
 about her age and were her playmates. A few of 
 the older group were, Henry Clay, Robert Breck- 
 enridge, Senator Crittenden, who had been best 
 man at her father's second marriage, and Samuel 
 B. Shy, grandfather of our talented Mrs. Violet 
 Shy Parks, of Mishawaka. 
 
28 The Tragic Career of 
 
 When Miss Todd came to Springfield to reside, 
 the ambitious western capital sat up and took no' 
 tice. Here was a young woman who could talk 
 politics and statecraft with the most expert. 
 When she appeared at social gatherings, she was 
 usually surrounded by such prominent profession' 
 al and political characters as Judge David Davis, 
 Stephen A. Douglas, John A. McClernand, Ly 
 man Trumball, O. M. Hatch, Simeon Francis, 
 editor of the Sangamon Journal, Newton Bate' 
 man, state superintendent of public education, and 
 her two cousins, Major John T. Stuart and 
 Stephen T. Logan, successively early law partners 
 of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 If there were striplings about, politically in' 
 clined, such as Clark E. Carr, Henry B. Rankin or 
 Ervin Chapman, they were sure to be drawn into 
 the charmed circle. For this we may be thankful, 
 because some of them lived to redeem the good 
 name and nature of Mrs. Lincoln after the veno' 
 mous froth and fusillade of words were dissipated. 
 
 Biographers have had much to say about the 
 numerous suitors at the disposal of Miss Todd, 
 but I have yet to find one who had the temerity 
 to set out, by name, any of this fancied multitude 
 except, of course, Stephen A. Douglas and Abra' 
 ham Lincoln. 
 
 For brevity's sake, I shall give you Barton's dis- 
 posal of the situation. Barton says: 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 29 
 
 "Of her lovers, only two were of importance. 
 One of them was the gay, brilliant Stephen A. 
 Douglas, whom she rejected as a lover and re 
 tained as a friend, and whom she still found use' 
 ful for an occasional flirtation; and the other was 
 the tall gaunt Abraham Lincoln. 1 '' 
 
 "And she chose Abraham Lincoln.' ' 
 
 I do not think that there ever was any consid' 
 erable personal animosity between the Lincolns 
 and Stephen A. Douglas. Their differences, 
 though at times intense, were purely political, and 
 their relations outside of long political opposition 
 were, at least, not hostile. Lincoln and his wife 
 in later years always referred respectfully to Doug- 
 las as Judge Douglas or Senator Douglas, while 
 one of Douglas's oft repeated pleasantries concern- 
 ing his tall antagonist was, that — "Of all the 
 damned Whig rascals about Springfield, Abe Lin- 
 coln is the ablest and the honestest." 
 
 No statesman ever had a more comprehensive 
 understanding of any major controversy than did 
 Abraham Lincoln of slavery. In the development 
 of this profound knowledge, Mrs. Lincoln played 
 a paramount part. Lincoln's sources of familiarity 
 with this grave, moral and political question were, 
 of course, numerous and varied. His childhood 
 days in Kentucky were tinctured with revulsion 
 towards the evil system. 
 
 By the ordinance of 1787 as well as by the first 
 
30 The Tragic Career of 
 
 constitutions of Indiana and Illinois, slavery was 
 forbidden in these two states of Lincoln's adop- 
 tion. Yet for decades negroes were actually held 
 in bondage in these two commonwealths. Slave 
 litigation was dragging through the courts. Slave- 
 catching and negro-stealing were exciting the pop- 
 ulation. 
 
 Travelers from foreign countries, De Tocque- 
 ville, Lyell, Dickens, Mrs. Martineau and the rest, 
 were writing about slavery in American period- 
 icals, many of which found their way to the well 
 filled reading table of the Lincoln home at Eighth 
 and Jackson Streets. Lincoln's great Cooper-Union 
 speech, his masterpiece of logic, was the consum- 
 mation of years of thought and browsing in the 
 state library. But of all the sources of knowledge 
 which Lincoln had at his command, none wrought 
 so powerful an influence over him as did the little 
 help-mate who was reared in affluence in the midst 
 of the accursed system. 
 
 Lincoln, before his marriage, had made Joshua 
 Speed a visit in his Louisville home which may or 
 may not have colored his view of slavery. How- 
 ever, after his marriage he made three prolonged 
 visits with Mrs. Lincoln to Lexington, where 
 slavery affected him profoundly. 
 
 In 1847, Mrs. Lincoln and the children accom- 
 panied him to her paternal home where he was a 
 keen observer of the system for weeks before he 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 31 
 
 went on to Washington to take his seat in the 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln's father died July 16, 1849. It 
 became incumbent on Lincoln to take part in the 
 settlement of Mr. Todd's estate, and together the 
 Lincolns again sojourned in Kentucky for four 
 weeks. At this time the wildest excitement pre' 
 vailed over slavery throughout Kentucky. Here 
 it was the most probable, as Townsend says, that 
 Lincoln came to the conclusion that interference 
 with slavery, where it was already established, did 
 not mitigate its evils nor tend to solidify sentiment 
 against even gradual emancipation. 
 
 In the spring of 1850 the Lincolns again made a 
 trip to the Blue Grass Capital. They had suf' 
 fered, what was to them, the first tragedy of their 
 married life. February 1st their four year old son, 
 Eddie, died of diphtheria after a two weeks 1 illness. 
 
 A few days later came the intelligence that 
 Mrs. Lincoln's grandmother, the aged Mrs. Eliz,a' 
 beth R. Parker, had died January 26th. 
 
 "Shaken and disconsolate in their first great sor' 
 row, seeking escape from surroundings that con' 
 stantly reminded them of their little son, Mary 
 and her husband took advantage of business in 
 connection with the settlement of the Parker es' 
 tate and came back to Lexington several weeks 
 after Eddie's death." 
 
 In all of these visits to Lexington, Lincoln and 
 
32 The Tragic Career of 
 
 his wife contemplated the growing evils of slavery. 
 Strange to say, no writer before Townsend seems 
 to have noted two of the most vital factors in 
 Lincoln's conception of slavery. Namely, his own 
 observation of the evil in a community deeply 
 steeped in it, and the fixed conclusion of Mrs. 
 Lincoln, based on her environment and discussion 
 with eminent statesmen of her day. 
 
 Students of Lincoln's life must be deeply indebt- 
 ed to Mr. Townsend, this young Lexington law- 
 yer, for writing so vividly and reliably on this 
 phase of Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln's career. 
 
 Mary Todd Lincoln was a born politician. No 
 other American woman ever had so much to do 
 with bringing her husband to the highest office in 
 the gift of the people as did Mrs. Lincoln. From 
 her childhood to the time she became mistress of 
 the President's Mansion, "on to the White House" 
 was ever her slogan and the world has never yet 
 been told the full story of the persistency, wisdom 
 and efficiency with which she accomplished her 
 purpose. 
 
 Katherine Helm, niece of Mrs. Lincoln, has re- 
 corded in her book, "Mary, Wife of Lincoln," the 
 girlish prattle of Mary Todd in which she ex- 
 pressed her ambition to live in the White House. 
 Galloping out to the Clay Mansion on her re- 
 cently acquired trick pony one day, this vivacious 
 youngster brought the gallant Harry of the West, 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 33 
 
 with six eminent statesmen, from his dinner table 
 to an inspection of the pony's virtues, and in turn 
 received an invitation from Mrs. Clay to join the 
 distinguished company at dinner. 
 
 "Seated by her hero she was blissfully happy 
 listening with absorbed interest to the political 
 discussion which animated the voices and faces of 
 the diners.' ' 
 
 "During a lull, she exclaimed suddenly, "Mr. 
 Clay, my father says you are the best judge of 
 horse-flesh in Kentucky and I just had to bring 
 my beautiful pony out for your inspection. My 
 father bought him of those strolling players who 
 were stranded here. Don't you think his tricks 
 are wonderful?" 
 
 "Mr. Clay, my father says you will be the next 
 President of the United States. I wish I could go 
 to Washington and live in the White House. I 
 begged my father to be President but he only 
 laughed and said he would rather see you there 
 than to be President himself." 
 
 "Well," laughed Mr. Clay, "if I am ever Presi- 
 dent I shall expect Mary Todd to be one of my 
 first guests. Will you come?" 
 
 "Mary accepted with enthusiasm." 
 
 But this was not the route by which she was 
 to arrive at the White House. For the tall, suave, 
 compromiser never completed the course. In 
 later life, she wrought better when she transferred 
 
34 The Tragic Career of 
 
 her hopes and energies to the sprightly tallsyca- 
 more of the Sangamon. 
 
 Few have appreciated either the capacity or the 
 versatility of Mary Todd Lincoln. She was un- 
 failing in the domestic share of her responsibilities. 
 She was the frugal wife who reared the children; 
 who tutored her eldest son for Harvard; who dis- 
 cussed the events of the day with outstanding 
 Illinois statesmen. 
 
 When Lincoln was on the circuit, other lawyers 
 ran home at week ends. Lincoln stayed out with 
 Judge Davis. Distances were too great for the 
 busy corpulent jurist to ride back and forth, so 
 Lincoln stayed with him, transacting legal business 
 and fixing up his political fences. These absences 
 were borne philosophically by Mrs. Lincoln be' 
 cause Lincoln was making strong political alli- 
 ances, which later became valuable in his sena- 
 torial and presidential campaigns. In 1853, when 
 President Filmore offered Lincoln the governorship 
 of Oregon Territory, Major Stuart and other 
 warm political friends advised him to accept. Lin- 
 coln put it up to Mrs. Lincoln, who promptly 
 vetoed it. She saw in it a disastrous diversion. 
 
 She cherished the friendship of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Simeon Frances and had access to the editorial 
 rooms of the Illinois State Journal which privilege 
 she used on occasion much to Lincoln's advantage. 
 During the Lincoln-Douglas debates she stayed pa- 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 35 
 
 tiently at home providing rest, comfort and cheer 
 for her husband when not out on the hustings. 
 She looked carefully after his health and the con' 
 servation of his energy throughout this terrific 
 struggle. 
 
 When Lincoln received the telegram anouncing 
 his nomination at the Chicago Convention in 
 1860, he said to his delighted friends, "There is a 
 little woman down on Eighth St. that will want to 
 know about this.'" Off he went towards his home 
 receiving congratulations from other friends along 
 the way. Before he reached his home, a second 
 and confirmatory telegram was handed to him by 
 a messenger boy who had hastened after him. 
 
 Joyously he entered his home, where he and 
 Mrs. Lincoln were alone to rejoice over the news. 
 This must have been to Mrs. Lincoln the supreme 
 moment of her life. With the democratic party 
 hopelessly split, this nomination was tantamount 
 to election. 
 
 The days between Lincoln's election and their 
 journey to the Nation's capital were busy ones for 
 Mrs. Lincoln as well as for the President-elect. 
 Lincoln was much of the time closeted with poli' 
 ticians, campaign managers, and prospective office 
 seekers. The construction of his cabinet was of 
 paramount concern. For awhile he received call' 
 ers in the State House, but finally in order that 
 he might write his inaugural address, and attend 
 
36 The Tragic Career of 
 
 to other urgent matters, Mr. Smith, his brother 'iiv 
 law, gave him secluded quarters in an upper story 
 over his place of business. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln, as usual, entertained the numer- 
 ous visitors, looked after the affairs of the house' 
 hold, persisted in bringing Lincoln to his meals 
 regularly and prepared for the party or levee to be 
 given before they left Springfield. 
 
 These bustling days of preparation and farewell 
 in Springfield; — what a drama of transition they 
 represent! What a fruitful epoch they closed! 
 What a momentous epoch they introduced. How 
 eagerly they must have been passed by Mary Todd 
 Lincoln, now a brilliant, quixotic woman of forty 
 three years. How little could she have apprehend' 
 ed the portent of the journey to Washington, and 
 the swiftness with which fate was to change her 
 triumph of fulfillment to the ashes of despair. 
 
 High noon, March 4, 1861, the Presidentelect 
 with the aged Chief Justice Taney and the clerk 
 of the United States Supreme Court walked slow- 
 ly to the front of the platform erected at the east 
 portico of the Capitol for the inaugural ceremo- 
 nies. In his left hand he held a large, gold headed 
 cane. Mrs. Lincoln and Senator Douglas were 
 seated in waiting at the front of the platform. 
 Taking the manuscript of the inaugural address 
 from his breast pocket, he laid it with the cane on 
 a little rickety table. As he glanced about for a 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 37 
 
 more suitable place to put his hat, the short, sturdy- 
 arm of Stephen A. Douglas reached forward and 
 relieved him of it. Then while Lincoln delivered 
 one of the masterpieces of English prose, the "Lit- 
 tle Giant" sat and listened attentively, nodding 
 his shaggy head in approval, holding "Old Abe's" 
 tall, shiny, new hat on his lap all the while. 
 
 At last these three resolute hearts throbbed in 
 unison for a common purpose and that purpose 
 was to save the Nation. 
 
 The ceremonies over, Mary Todd Lincoln went 
 to the White House. "Her childish dream had 
 become real," — her ambition of many years was 
 justified. Douglas went to Lincoln and said: 
 "Mr. President, what can I do to uphold you in 
 this momentous crisis?" 
 
 Lincoln replied: "Senator Douglas, you are the 
 idol of the loyal northern Democracy. Go back 
 home and tell the people what to do. They love 
 you and have faith in you." 
 
 Back to the west went the intrepid Douglas, 
 entering on a new role likely to be the most useful 
 of his long brilliant career. Day and night he 
 spoke for the Union, to immense audiences in 
 scores of places from Cincinnati to Chicago, where 
 he made his last impassioned speech in the crowd' 
 ed Wigwam, the very place in which Lincoln had 
 been nominated, only a year before. Vilified and 
 traduced by the slavocracy whom he had done so 
 
38 The Tragic Career of 
 
 much to placate, and for whom he had sacrificed 
 his own great ambition to become President, he 
 sank exhausted from his patriotic labors and on 
 June 3rd the White House was draped for him in 
 mourning. 
 
 In the Executive Mansion, Mary Todd found 
 herself regarded in the North as an interloper and 
 in the South as an apostate. She was surrounded 
 by spies, traducers and snobs. Mrs. Zachariah 
 Chandler, whose husband had vaulted from De- 
 troit shop-keeper to the United States Senate, 
 headed a self-appointed committee to show Mrs. 
 Lincoln the social way. This was justly but not 
 tactfully resented, and the Chandlers were hostile 
 toward the Lincolns ever after. 
 
 The capital was dangerously situated in slave- 
 holding Maryland — Baltimore reeking with seces- 
 sion, and rebellion. Across the Potomac was Vir- 
 ginia with her arrogant and belligerent slavocracy. 
 Men distrusted each other and the city was in 
 imminent danger of invasion. Treason lurked in 
 every corner and spies at every keyhole of the gov- 
 ernmental departments. 
 
 In the Lincoln household it was promptly de- 
 cided best that in order to relieve Mrs. Lincoln of 
 irritation from scurrilous letters and to thwart ac- 
 cusations of disloyalty, all her mail — even her in- 
 timate personal correspondence, should be opened 
 for her. To this duty was assigned William O. 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 39 
 
 Stoddard, one of Lincoln's secretaries. All White 
 House telegrams, of course, came through the 
 War Office and were there dealt with as thought 
 best. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln had had a foretaste of coming 
 tragedies when she was told at Harrisburg of the 
 plot to assassinate the President-elect at Baltimore 
 and that he was to be conducted secretly to the 
 Capitol. She became panic stricken and by her 
 excitement came very near revealing the Pinker- 
 ton plan. Lincoln was placed in charge of the 
 massive Ward Lamon, who was armed to the 
 teeth with almost every conceivable minor weapon 
 of attack and defense. Mrs. Lincoln was placed 
 in charge of Norman B. Judd. Both of these 
 escorts were lawyer friends of the Lincolns. 
 Needless to say Judd had the harder task of the 
 two. 
 
 Among Mrs. Lincoln's first heartaches came a 
 realisation that most of the intimates of her 
 youth, even her own Kentucky kinsfolk, must 
 espouse the rebel cause. The rich Blue Grass 
 country was a hot bed of secession. The vitriolic 
 Cassius M. Clay and the venerable but forceful 
 Robert Breckenridge, son of John Breckenridge, 
 Attorney General in Jefferson's cabinet, were 
 about the only outstanding belligerents for the 
 Union cause in Lexington. 
 
 The members of the Todd family, resident in 
 
40 The Tragic Career of 
 
 Kentucky, though all had been emancipationists, 
 were now, with but two exceptions, warmly sup- 
 porting the new Confederacy. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln's oldest brother, Levi, an invalid, 
 who died before the war ended, was for the Union, 
 as was also her half sister, Mrs. Margaret Kel- 
 logg. But her youngest brother, George, and 
 three half-brothers, Samuel, David, and Alexan- 
 der, had promptly joined the Rebel Army, while 
 her half-sisters, Emile Helm, Martha White and 
 Elodie Dawson, were the wives of Confederate 
 officers. 
 
 In April Mrs. Lincoln's youngest sister, Emile 
 Todd Helm, and her husband, were guests at the 
 White House. Ben Harden Helm had graduated 
 at West Point with the Class of '51. His father, 
 Ex-Governor Helm, was a strong Union man. 
 The young officer had become a great favorite of 
 the President. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln both hoped 
 to keep him enlisted in the cause of the govern- 
 ment that had educated him in the science of war. 
 
 Lincoln offered his young brother-in-law a com- 
 mission as Pay Master in the United States Army, 
 with the rank of Major. In the War Department 
 is this record: "Helm, Ben Harden, nominated 
 for Pay Master in the U. S. Army, April 27th, 
 1861. Declined." 
 
 Helm had had an interview with the traitor- 
 ous Col. Robert E. Lee — the pampered, Tidewa- 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 41 
 
 ter Virginian. Hence, the word "Declined" in 
 the record. 
 
 After the battle of Bull Run, David Todd was 
 made commandant of a Richmond prison. In con' 
 sonance with the cruel system of rebel prison man' 
 agement, his conduct when related north by es' 
 caped or exchanged prisoners, fed the rumors of 
 disloyalty against Mrs. Lincoln and brought her 
 profound distress. 
 
 Feb. 20, 1862, their third son, William Wal- 
 lace Lincoln, age eleven years, died at the White 
 House after a brief illness. Willie was a youth 
 of great promise and his death, the second tragedy 
 of their domestic life, cast deep gloom over both 
 Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln. 
 
 The bloody battle of Shiloh began on Sunday 
 morning, April 6th, 1862. Grant's army was 
 surprised, and by night was driven in a huddled 
 mass to the very banks of the Tennessee. Before 
 Monday morning, however, came reinforcements. 
 Lew Wallace's Corps had at last found their way 
 to Shiloh. The fresh troops of Buell and Nelson 
 had come by forced marches from Nashville in 
 time to attack the rebels at daybreak. The Con' 
 federates were driven back and still further back, 
 leaving their dead on the field to be buried with 
 grim and hasty funeral rites by Grant. Among 
 these dead were Mrs. Lincoln's brother, Sam. 
 
 There was exultation for a Union victory but 
 
42 The Tragic Career of 
 
 sorrow for the stricken little "Lady of the White 
 House. " Amid the rejoicings of the entire North, 
 Mrs. Lincoln must mourn in silent seclusion lest 
 her traducers find in her sorrow a passion for the 
 secession cause. 
 
 The year 1863 brought to devoted and loyal 
 Mary Lincoln the fullest measure of physical and 
 mental suffering. In June Mrs. Lincoln, while 
 riding with the President to the Soldiers' Home, 
 was violently thrown from her carriage and severe 
 ly injured by her head striking a stone. Her re" 
 covery, at first despaired of, was at best slow and 
 painful. The President was greatly alarmed and 
 watched over her tenderly and anxiously. 
 
 By mid-summer the Confederacy had reached 
 its zenith of confidence and arrogance. But after 
 Gettysburg, July 4th, Lee was in full retreat 
 southward. On the same natal day, Pemberton 
 surrendered Vicksburg to Grant. In Lincoln's 
 words, 'The Father of Waters again flowed un- 
 vexed to the sea." A minor but significant por- 
 tion of this grandiose southern strategy was Mor- 
 gan's raid into Indiana and Ohio. Morgan's three 
 thousand troopers were scattered and General John 
 Hunt Morgan, of Lexington, Kentucky, became a 
 prisoner in the Columbus, Ohio, penitentiary. 
 
 The North was again exultant but Mary Lin- 
 coln on her bed of pain could not be expected to 
 be cheerful. In spite of watchful precaution it 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 43 
 
 came to her that her brother, David, who had 
 been promoted from the prison pen at Richmond 
 to a command in Pemberton's army, was shot 
 through the lung and mortally wounded in the 
 siege of Vicksburg. 
 
 In August, and before she had recovered from 
 the accident, another shock came to her. In a 
 skirmish at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, her youngest 
 brother, Alexander, was killed. 
 
 Though an officer on the staif of General Ben 
 Harden Helm, he was only twenty-three, just a lit' 
 tie older than Mrs. Lincoln's own eldest son, Rob- 
 ert. In his babyhood, when the Lincolns visited 
 Kentucky, he had been the darling of her heart, her 
 loving, fiery red headed baby brother, Alex. Again 
 her distressed and sympathetic husband found it 
 difficult to comfort her. 
 
 September 19-20 occurred the battle of Chicka- 
 mauga — a disastrous Federal defeat and but for 
 the lion-hearted Thomas, 'The Rock of Chicka- 
 mauga," it would have been a total rout. Here 
 was a double blow; for Mrs. Lincoln was loyal to 
 the core. 
 
 At Chickamauga, General Ben Harden Helm 
 was killed — Helm, whom the President and his 
 wife had tried so zealously at the beginning of the 
 war to keep on the Union side. In her recent 
 book already referred to, Elizabeth Helm, Mrs. 
 Lincoln's niece, devotes a touching chapter to the 
 
44 The Tragic Career of 
 
 circumstances connected with the death of Gen- 
 eral Helm. 
 
 Like the wives of many southern generals, Emile 
 Todd Helm, followed the movements of her hus- 
 band, keeping near him as the strife wore on, and 
 thus, after Chickamauga, found herself beyond the 
 Union lines. General Helm lay buried at Atlanta 
 and she wished to return north to her children. 
 She secured a military pass, but at the frontier 
 was detained. The President was telegraphed, 
 asking what to do with her. Lincoln responded: 
 "Send her to me." When she reached the Execu- 
 tive Mansion there followed days of deep sorrow. 
 Not since the death of Willie had there been felt 
 such desolation. Day after day the two sisters 
 wept in silent embrace. Lincoln understood and 
 sympathised. Their emotion was too deep for vo- 
 cal comfort. 
 
 With returning physical health, Mrs. Lincoln 
 busied herself in various ways to shake off the 
 many lesser emotional traumas. She visited the 
 hospitals, of which there were about thirty-five in 
 Washington by the summer of 1864. Although 
 naturally of a warm, sympathetic nature, she was 
 not of the disposition to feel lightly the resentment 
 against her that had developed among the soldiers 
 during Col. David Todd's incumbency as a rebel 
 prison keeper. 
 
 Mary Lincoln was never a coward. Her "in- 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 45 
 
 herited instinct from her Indian'fighting ancestors 
 was ever fired at the prospect of battle." On that 
 fateful Sunday night after Bull Run in '61, when 
 McDowell's panic-stricken troops were surging 
 into the Capitol, expecting momentarily to be 
 overtaken by Beauregard's hosts, she was urged 
 by General Scott to flee. She did not budge — 
 declaring that where the President stayed she 
 would stay. 
 
 Now again in July, 1864, when Early's thirty 
 thousand rebels were advancing through Maryland 
 on their fruitless mission to capture Washington, 
 she was urged to leave the city. Again she refused 
 to abandon the President and together they went 
 to the battle front. 
 
 On the 11th there was a brisk assault by the 
 rebels on Fort Stevens, one of the strong but poor' 
 ly garrisoned fortifications around Washington. 
 The Lincolns received a baptism of fire. Only a 
 few feet from where Lincoln stood a Federal sup 
 geon was killed. 
 
 From City Point, General Wright had arrived 
 with his division of veterans in the nick of time to 
 engage the enemy and save the situation. While 
 the battle was raging, General Wright walked up 
 to Lincoln and said: "Mr. President, you are the 
 Commander'in'Chief of the Army and Navy, but 
 I command on this field. You must get away 
 from here." 
 
46 The Tragic Career of 
 
 Did it ever occur to you that Lincoln was the 
 only President that was ever under fire of an en- 
 emy army while in that office, to say nothing of a 
 President and his wife? 
 
 As Lincoln's first term was drawing to a close 
 he, of course, desired renomination. So did Mrs. 
 Lincoln. A political contest always brought her 
 to her feet. She was again cheered and gratified 
 by support from Lexington. And as four years 
 ago, Robert Breckenridge and the resolute Cas- 
 sius M. Clay both strenuously upheld Lincoln and 
 the Union. Breckenridge, aged but fiery, was made 
 temporary chairman of the National Union Con- 
 vention at Baltimore, June 6th. He was the most 
 striking figure in that assembly. He made one of 
 the most eloquent and patriotic addresses ever 
 made before a political convention. His fervid 
 logic and ringing eloquence brought the assembly 
 to its feet time after time. When the old patri- 
 arch closed his great keynote speech, all semblance 
 of doubt among the wavering delegates was dissi- 
 pated and Lincoln's renomination was assured. 
 The vicissitudes of that campaign were keenly 
 felt at the White House. Intense and bitter were 
 the personal and political slurs cast upon the Presi- 
 dent and Mrs. Lincoln. In the theatre of war the 
 rebels stubbornly held the inner lines. Early in 
 July a rebel army nearly captured the outposts of 
 Washington by the oft trodden Shenandoah trail. 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 47 
 
 Chambersburg was burned by McCausland 
 July 30th. Pennsylvania, the stronghold of Lin' 
 coin's support, was wavering. Her commercial 
 interests were jeopardized. This feeling was also 
 dominant in other northern centers of trade. New 
 York was deeply disgruntled, then as now always 
 alien to law and morals. "Her conscience choked 
 with cotton, her mouth kankered with gold," her 
 southern trade blighted, — why continue Lincoln's 
 foolish war? The foreign slave trade which had 
 been illicit since 1808, always nested in New 
 York, was at last obliterated by the blockade. 
 Here was a species of bootlegging alone aggregate 
 ing $17,000,000 a year, knocked into a cocked 
 hat. Indeed, New York was deeply aggrieved. 
 Why not capitulate to the slavocracy and have 
 peace? 
 
 The war was being declared a failure. PetU' 
 lent, disgruntled and intriguing politicians schemed 
 to maneuver Lincoln off the ticket. But before 
 the November elections the fates smiled on the 
 Administration. There were Federal victories. 
 
 Grant, the imperturbable, was tightening his 
 strangle hold on Lee at Richmond and Petersburg. 
 The intrepid Sherman had captured Atlanta, the 
 gateway to the South. The dashing Sheridan in 
 the Shenandoah Valley had ruthlessly closed the 
 back door to Washington against further inva' 
 sion. The Emancipation Proclamation had been 
 
48 The Tragic Career of 
 
 assimilated into northern psychology. Moreover, 
 it had staggered the slave power and had forever 
 dispelled the possibility of foreign intervention. 
 Triumph for the Union forces was assured and 
 Father Abraham was sustained. With character- 
 istic Hoosier humor he "allowed, the people did 
 not care to trade horses while crossing the stream." 
 Mrs. Lincoln was to remain mistress of the Execu- 
 tive Mansion. 
 
 By March 4, 1865, the Navy had closed all the 
 Southern ports. The invincible Thomas had de- 
 stroyed Hood's rebel army at Nashville. Sher- 
 man had marched sixty thousand veterans, scarcely 
 molested, from Atlanta to the sea, and turning 
 northward toward Richmond, was carrying every- 
 thing before him. Well could his great antagonist, 
 General Joseph E. Johnston, declare: "Such an 
 army, such a commander, never trod the earth since 
 the days of Caeser." The end of the war was now 
 plainly in view. 
 
 Mary Todd Lincoln again sat on the improvised 
 platform at the east end of the Capitol. Chase 
 administered the oath. Taney had gone to his re- 
 ward. Both of these renowned Chief Justices had 
 given the President many vexations; Taney, with 
 his brilliant legal mind benumbed by slavocratic 
 domination; Chase, by intrigues while Secretary 
 of the Treasury, but the great, patient Lincoln had 
 mastered them both. Douglas was not present to 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 49 
 
 manifest his approval. But Mary Todd Lincoln, 
 if possible, was more in earnest with the affairs of 
 the Nation than ever. Her heart thrilled with 
 pride as the President, tall and gaunt, his features 
 rugged and earnest, rose to deliver his second in' 
 augural. Particularly did she exultantly acquiesce 
 in the closing words — so touching and so memor' 
 able: 'With malice toward none; with charity 
 for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us 
 to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work 
 we are in; to bind up the Nation's wounds; to 
 care for him who shall have borne the battle, and 
 for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which 
 may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 
 among ourselves, and with all nations. " 
 
 Shortly after the inauguration, at Grant's invi' 
 tation, the Lincolns spent ten days at headquarters 
 of the Army of the Potomac. Their overstrained 
 minds needed relaxation. Especially did they need 
 to get away from the new influx of office seekers 
 which invaded every nook and cranny of the White 
 House. Their quarters were on the "River 
 Queen" which had conveyed them up the James 
 to City Point. Mrs. Lincoln rested and little Tad 
 had the time of his life. 
 
 Horace Porter in his sprightly volume, "Cam' 
 paigning With Grant," reminisces minutely of this 
 outing. Porter records some quixotic things which 
 Mrs. Lincoln did; but in the main it was a pleas' 
 
50 The Tragic Career of 
 
 ant, restful vacation. There were headquarters 
 dinners. There were reviews of the army and in' 
 spections. On these occasions Tad on his pony, 
 his little military cloak flapping in the breeze, was 
 the busiest trooper of the cavalcade. The elements 
 of the ludicrous were not lacking. The towering 
 Lincoln, betopped with the familiar stove pipe 
 hat, bestrode the General-in-Chief's big bay 
 charger, "Cincinnati," while the stubby Grant 
 himself rode his little pony, "Jeff Davis." Had 
 these two riders exchanged mounts the situation 
 would have been as risible. And thus remarking, 
 the members of Grant's staff got much amusement 
 out of the Presidential sojourn. 
 
 One sunny afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln 
 were given a ride along the James. They came to 
 a wooded cemetery near the roadside. The Presi- 
 dent directed the driver to stop. They got out of 
 the carriage and strolled among the tombstones, 
 the clustering foliage and the leafing trees. 'The 
 world was lifting its bowed head from the long 
 bereavement of winter." The scene was one to 
 make the tired couple thoughtful. Mr. Lincoln 
 said tenderly to his wife: "Mary, you are younger 
 than I, you will outlive me. When I die I wish 
 you to bury me in a quiet wooded place like this." 
 To this simple request, a momentous sequel was 
 to occur only too soon. 
 
 On Saturday, April 1st, the River Queen 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 51 
 
 steamed back to Washington, Tad and his mother 
 and his pony on board, leaving the President be- 
 hind. Grant had urged him to stay a few days 
 longer and Stanton had seconded this request by a 
 kindly urgent telegram from the War Office. Lin- 
 coln decided to stay, declaring in spicy Hoosier 
 vernacular, he "had a sneaking notion that things 
 were going to happen. " And things did happen. 
 Lee was making a last desperate effort to shake off 
 the bull dog grip of Grant. 
 
 Saturday, April 1st, the pitched battle of Five 
 Forks — a resounding Union victory — marked the 
 beginning of the final Confederate debacle. Sun- 
 day, April 2nd, Richmond was evacuated and the 
 truculent Jeff Davis, with his Cabinet, were fugi- 
 tives, bag and baggage. The next day Lincoln 
 walked about the abandoned rebel capital before 
 returning to Washington. 
 
 After an exciting one hundred mile race to cor- 
 ral the fleeing army of Northern Virginia, attended 
 by contacts and skirmishes at Burkeville, Amelia 
 Court-house, Farmville, Jettersville, Sailor's Creek 
 and Curdsville, Lee was finally brought to bay 
 Sunday morning, April 9th, at Appomattox Court 
 House. That Sunday afternoon the famous sur- 
 render took place in the parlor of Wilmer Mc- 
 Lean's brick house across the single street from 
 the Court House. Here twenty-eight thousand 
 three hundred and fifty-six starving rebel prison- 
 
 LIBRARY - 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
52 The Tragic Career of 
 
 ers were fed and paroled. Johnson's army was 
 not to capitulate until April 26th, but hostile 
 ties were giving way to negotiations and the war 
 was virtually over. The Lincolns back in Wash- 
 ington were contemplating a surcease from the 
 terrible trials of the past four years. They were 
 trying to efface from their memories the crimson 
 annals from Sumpter to Appomattox. On that 
 last ride which they took on Good Friday, April 
 14th, they were mutual in their desire to ride 
 alone and blithely talked of better days to come. 
 
 Then came the great tragedy at Ford's Theatre! 
 Who shall comprehend the volume or fathom the 
 depth of suffering that overwhelmed the already 
 overwrought Mrs. Lincoln as she sat moaning all 
 night in the little front room of the Peterson house 
 across the street from Ford's? 
 
 Saturday morning, April 1 5, at twenty 'two min' 
 utes after seven o'clock, Lincoln expired. Between 
 the sobs and shrieks of the distracted woman, the 
 commiserating Stanton was heard to declare, 
 "Now he belongs to the Ages!" Some kind soul 
 might truly have uttered the same noble sentiment 
 in regard to Mary Todd Lincoln. It is hardly a 
 figure of speech to say that the bullet that sped on 
 its way to take the life of the President also took 
 the life of Mary Todd Lincoln. From that mc 
 ment, her submerged pathological mentality be' 
 came apparent. 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 53 
 
 "The shock of this great culminating blow shat- 
 tered the last of Mary Lincoln's reserve force, 
 already so weakened by former losses and repres- 
 sions. Her collapse was complete." Little Tad 
 never left her and in him she now centered all the 
 life and hope she had left. 
 
 In the long sad seventeen years that followed 
 there were exacerbations of complete mental aliena- 
 tion. They were to be years of abuse, anguish and 
 isolation. Mrs. Lincoln was physically and mental- 
 ly too sick to note the Nation's demonstration of 
 grief, or to attend the last funeral rites at Spring- 
 field in May. 
 
 "Even the shocking tragedy of her husband's 
 murder did not protect Mary Todd Lincoln from 
 situations in which she displayed herself at a dis- 
 advantage. When it was determined to convey 
 the body of Lincoln back to Springfield, a meeting 
 was held in that city." A committee was chosen 
 and a site was selected for his tomb. 
 
 The bizarre populace of that ambitious capital 
 had in mind a plaza of four city blocks, between 
 the west front of the old Capitol and the Alton 
 Railroad, where the new State House now stands. 
 What could be more enticing than a beautiful 
 monument in this public place in the very heart 
 of the city? 
 
 'The land was owned by a family named Ma- 
 ther, who agreed to sell it for the purpose. A 
 
54 The Tragic Career of 
 
 vault was erected, men working day and night to 
 have it ready for occupancy when the body should 
 
 arrive it was later to be veneered with mar- 
 
 ble." But Mrs. Lincoln made emphatic protest 
 against interment at such a public place. Had 
 not her husband only a few weeks before in the 
 cemetery back on the James in Virginia said: 
 "Mary, you are younger than I. You will 
 outlive me. When I die I wish you to bury me 
 in some quiet wooded place/ ' Had she not pledged 
 her acquiescence to this emphatic request? 
 
 But scarcely anybody in Springfield could give 
 the sorrowing widow any credit for doing the 
 right thing. A bitter controversy ensued over 
 what was termed her obstinacy. She would not 
 allow the body to be placed in the partly finished 
 tomb. 
 
 The Association consented that Lincoln's body 
 should be placed in the public receiving vault at 
 the beautiful new wooded Oak Ridge Cemetery, a 
 mile north of Springfield, but only as a temporary 
 necessity. The city was determined to bring Mrs. 
 Lincoln to her senses and proceeded with the work 
 of embellishing their prised structure, thinking she 
 would ultimately yield. But they were mistaken. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln went to Chicago and took rooms 
 for herself, Robert and Tad, at the Tremont 
 House. 
 
 June 5th, she wrote the Springfield Monument 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 55 
 
 Association that, unless within ten days she had 
 the positive pledge that the tomb and monument 
 should be at Oak Ridge, and not on the Mather 
 plaza, she would positively remove the body and 
 take it back to Washington, to be buried under 
 the dome of the Capitol in the empty tomb origin- 
 ally constructed for the body of Washington, 
 which was at her disposal. 
 
 "The Association determined not to yield to 
 her. It voted to send its President, Richard J. 
 Oglesby, and its Secretary, O. M. Hatch, to Chi' 
 cago. . . . Mrs. Lincoln learned through the papers 
 of the Committee's approach, and refused to see 
 them. Instead, she sent her son, Capt. Robert T. 
 Lincoln, to meet them at the train. He sent them 
 back to Springfield with a letter from her dated 
 June 10th, 1865, saying that five of her ten days 
 of grace had already gone, and unless she had 
 the positive pledge of the Association that her de- 
 mands were to be complied with, she would re- 
 move the body." The Committee, fearing legal 
 proceedings, yielded. 
 
 She had kept the pledge made to her husband 
 back in the secluded Virginia cemetery but this 
 did not add to her list of friends. It now became 
 the fashion to vocalize the pent up abuse always 
 in store for herself and Lincoln. 
 
 The erratic Herndon proceeded to prepare and 
 deliver throughout the state a bombastic lecture 
 
56 The Tragic Career of 
 
 on Ann Rutledge which stung Mrs. Lincoln to 
 the quick. It was unfortunate that the first meet' 
 ing between Miss Todd and Billy Herndon back 
 in the early Springfield days ended in a lasting 
 disagreement between them. Otherwise the world 
 would never have heard much of the Ann Rut' 
 ledge affair. 
 
 In congress Senator Sumner introduced the bill 
 to give Mrs. Lincoln a pension of $5,000 a year. 
 This brought on a nationwide controversy in both 
 the Forum and the newspapers. The Republicans 
 made a disgraceful political fight on the bill, which 
 was exceeded in contumely only by the Democrats 
 trying to profit from the affair. The bill was dc 
 feated. At the next session of Congress, Senator 
 Sumner again brought up his bill and again an 
 acrimonious debate followed. The stalwart old 
 senator from Massachusetts, his eyes suffused with 
 tears, made a gallant appeal to Congress and the 
 country to recognize the rights of the widow in 
 distress. 
 
 The bill, modified to $3,000, was finally passed 
 by a bare majority. Years afterward, when Mrs. 
 Lincoln's days were numbered, a pension bill of 
 $5,000 was passed in favor of Mrs. Garfield. An 
 amendment to the bill raised Mrs. Lincoln's pen" 
 sion to $5,000. But she did not live to enjoy the 
 benefit, for she died July 16, 1882. 
 
 After the election in 1864, anticipating another 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 57 
 
 term in official Washington, Mrs. Lincoln, though 
 usually frugal, had made in New York extensive 
 purchases of merchandise for home and personal 
 adornment. The avaricious New York shopkeep- 
 ers, true to form, had extended to her excessive 
 credit, but now from her suddenly restricted in' 
 come she could not meet the bills. They scandal' 
 ously published her delinquency and joined in the 
 chorus of denunciation. 
 
 To be brief, her debts were finally adjusted and 
 Mrs. Lincoln obsessed with a desire to travel, took 
 Tad abroad, returning in the spring of 1871. She 
 placed him in a school in London and the youth 
 progressed satisfactorily with his education. 
 
 On their journey home, Tad developed typhoid 
 fever and died in Chicago, July 15, 1871. Eleven 
 more dreary years of tragic sorrow awaited her. 
 
 The episode of Mrs. Lincoln's final mental col' 
 lapse, to which we now come, has been little un' 
 derstood and I must present it with the most un' 
 satisfactory brevity. 
 
 "In the winter of 18 74' 5, she was in Florida. 
 On March 12, 1875, she wired to the family phy- 
 sician, Dr. Ralph Isham, imploring him to save 
 Robert's life, telling him that she was taking a 
 train for Chicago. Robert was not sick, and he 
 and Dr. Isham met her at the train. 11 
 
 "She was shocked and overjoyed in finding Rob' 
 ert alive and well, and soon grew cheerful and ani' 
 
58 The Tragic Career of 
 
 mated. " She talked pleasantly concerning her win- 
 ter in Florida except for a fancied attempt made 
 to poison her at Jacksonville, at which place she 
 bought a cup of coffee and was confident that it 
 contained poison. She went to the Grand Pacific 
 Hotel and insisted that Robert should remain with 
 her. 
 
 "Robert remained in the hotel that night and 
 subsequent nights, sleeping in the room next to 
 that of his mother. Every night, and several times 
 a night, she would rap at his door, and tell him 
 she was in danger. Sometimes he had to finish 
 the night sleeping on a lounge in her room; some- 
 times she came in with him, and he gave her his 
 bed and got what sleep he could on a couch. She 
 wore him out, and did much the same for the 
 chambermaids and other people in the hotel. An 
 Indian, she said, was pulling wires out of her 
 brain. The doctors were taking steel springs out 
 of her head. People were trying to murder her." 
 
 "The manager of the hotel and all who had to 
 do with her became apprehensive, and wished for 
 her removal to some more suitable place." 
 
 "At length Robert felt compelled to apply to 
 the County Court of Chicago to have her declared 
 insane. No little care was taken to hide the rec- 
 ords. When Mr. William E. Barton, in recent 
 years, instituted a search for them, the oldest 
 clerks in the office declared that such papers did 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 59 
 
 not exist; subsequent investigation, however, re- 
 vealed them. Mr. Barton was one of the first per' 
 sons to see these papers after they were carefully 
 hidden away without docket number. " 
 
 "So far as records show, the sad thing was done 
 as decently and with as much dignity as possible. 
 Robert's lawyer was Leonard Swett, and Mary 
 Lincoln's was Isaac N. Arnold — old friends of 
 the Lincolns. Judge Wallace was on the bench. 
 The complaining witness was, unfortunately but 
 of necessity, the son, Robert. The jury was com' 
 posed of twelve as prominent men as Chicago had 
 at that time, including such men as Lyman J. Gage 
 and Chas. B. Far well." 
 
 "Mary Lincoln was found insane and a fit sub' 
 ject for confinement in one of the State Hospitals 
 for the Insane in the state of Illinois. She was 
 not taken to a State Hospital, however, but to a 
 private asylum at Batavia." 
 
 'The date of Mrs. Lincoln's first trial in which 
 she was declared insane was May 19, 1875. She 
 was in the sanitarium not quite thirteen months," 
 after which she was brought into court and dc 
 clared sane. That she was insane when commit' 
 ted to Batavia admits of no doubt. That she was 
 sane when released is conjectural. 
 
 Again Mary Lincoln went abroad. She had 
 become estranged from Robert. Part of the time 
 he did not know her address. December, 1879, in 
 
60 The Tragic Career of 
 
 Frankfort, Germany, she suffered a severe injury 
 to her spine by a fall from a step'ladder. 
 
 With great difficulty she reached the home land. 
 Across the Atlantic she was aboard the Amerique. 
 On the same ship was Sarah Bernhardt, her man' 
 ager and her troupe. An issue of the New York 
 Sun in October, 1880, tells the story of how indif' 
 ferently Mary Lincoln, who had been almost a 
 queen, was received in her own country, — how 
 she was touched on the shoulder by the police 
 and told to stand back with the crowd while the 
 divine Sarah was cheered to the echo and carried 
 away triumphantly in Manager Abbey's carriage. 
 
 That simple newspaper story should have stirred 
 a national sense of shame. Sarah Bernhardt, never 
 in all her career upon the stage, played so tragic 
 a role as Mary Todd performed on that day. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln tarried in New York and con' 
 suited Dr. Lewis A. Sayre, the eminent orthope' 
 die surgeon. She felt improved and proceeded to 
 Springfield to the home of her sister, Mrs. Ed' 
 wards. It was the home in which she had first 
 met Abraham Lincoln, the home in which they 
 were married. She did not move among her old 
 friends. She shut herself in her room, and hid 
 herself as much as possible from her own kindred. 
 She shut every window, and pulled down every 
 shade. To the few friends who called on her she 
 talked of the virtues of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
Mary Todd Lincoln 61 
 
 "Especially did she remember and repeat the 
 story of their last ride together, the afternoon of 
 the assassination. Their happy daydream then 
 was of a trip to the Pacific Coast to see the min- 
 ing of the gold that was to pay the national debt." 
 She talked about the last words that fell from his 
 lips that night in the box at Ford's Theatre when 
 he expressed an animated desire for a trip to the 
 Holy Land. Let us be thankful that she had this 
 memory to brighten the horizon when her sun had 
 gone down. When her stricken mind was at the 
 nadir of melancholy, she talked of the stroll in the 
 wooded cemetery back on the James in Virginia 
 and the promise she had given to Lincoln. She 
 talked of the shameful attack made on her by her 
 old friends because she would not allow the Presi' 
 dent's body to be entombed in the noisy barren 
 plaza, with the Alton trains rattling by night and 
 day. 
 
 Robert T. Lincoln had not met his mother on 
 the pier in New York. She had not forgiven him 
 for sending her to the hospital. But after she had 
 returned to Springfield, Mr. and Mrs. Robert T. 
 Lincoln went down from Chicago and visited her 
 in the old Edwards home. She sat in her deep 
 mourning dress as they entered. 
 
 They laid in her lap a baby, saying, "We have 
 brought to you your granddaughter and name- 
 sake, Mary Lincoln." She hugged the baby to 
 
62 Mary Todd Lincoln 
 
 her heart with maternal joy, and Robert was for' 
 given. 
 
 "So much, at least, it is good to know, that she 
 did not die unreconciled to her eldest and only 
 remaining son/'' 
 
 The time has arrived when this noble woman 
 should come into her own in American history. 
 Her integrity of character, her intellectual endow 
 ments, her patriotism, her loyalty to Abraham 
 Lincoln and to the government during its greatest 
 crisis, should immunize her from venomous biogra' 
 phical fakers. In all the great affairs of their com' 
 mon life, Abraham Lincoln and his wife stood to" 
 gether — not shoulder to shoulder — for he was fif' 
 teen inches taller than she — but heart to heart. 
 
 "It may have been that gentle Ann Rutledge, or 
 portly, complacent Mary Owens, or youthful, 
 light-hearted Sarah Rickard could have endowed 
 the tall Sycamore of the Sangamon with a richer 
 measure of marital bliss, but never did a young 
 wife bring to a husband, interested in statecraft 
 and anxious for preferment, such wealth of first- 
 hand information on a grave, moral and political 
 subject — such fruits of intimate association with 
 great public men of her day as did Mary Todd to 
 Abraham Lincoln' ' — the greatest American of 
 them all. 
 
I AM A MAN AND EVERYTHING HUMAN 
 INTERESTS ME" 
 
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