A. Lincoln

by Ronald C. White, Jr.

  Some of the most marriageable young men in Springfield attended Coterie gatherings, including Stephen A. Douglas; Edward D. Baker; Lyman Trumbull, a slender, good-looking lawyer from Belleville; and James Shields, a native of Ireland, who became auditor of the state of Illinois in 1839. A new invitee was Abraham Lincoln.

  Next door to Mary’s sister lived attorney Lawrason Levering. His sister, Mercy Levering, a visitor from Baltimore, quickly became Mary’s dearest friend in Springfield. For many years Mary and Mercy exchanged long letters. Letter writing was an opportunity for women to share intimate feelings they could not express in public, even in conversation between friends. Mary’s correspondence reveals a young woman of intellectual depth and emotional intensity capable of communicating her thoughts and feelings in lucid prose. She wrote in small, slanted script, filling up every sheet right to the borders of the page, her writing style a metaphor for the way she wanted to extend her life right up to and sometimes beyond the prescribed female sphere of her day.

  Ninian and Elizabeth Edwards hosted the Coterie at their home on Aristocracy Hill Elizabeth never liked Lincoln, believing him to be beneath Mary’s social station.

  Mary attracted many suitors—old and young, short and tall. A lawyer and legislator named Edwin Webb became very interested, but Mary told Mercy he was “a widower of modest merit,” besides “there being a slight difference of some eighteen or twenty summers in our years.” Stephen Douglas had moved from Jacksonville to Springfield in 1837 after his appointment as register of the Land Office. He and Mary were seen frequently about town together, and rumors circulated about their relationship. Was it friendship or romance?

  ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND Mary Todd probably first became aware of each other in the summer of 1839. They pushed the old axiom “opposites attract” to its limits. Mary described herself a “ruddy pineknot, ” but in truth she was pretty and perky. Mary’s sister Frances described Lincoln as “the plainest man” in Springfield. Mary was well educated, whereas Abraham had received the barest of formal schooling.

  The differences between Abraham and Mary’s social standing were exhibited for all to see on the dance floor. James Conkling, Mercy’s beau, wrote her that when Lincoln danced he gave the impression of being “old Father Jupiter bending down from the clouds to see what’s going on.” Lincoln disliked dancing, but perhaps he could not resist asking this good-looking, witty young woman. “Miss Todd, I want to dance with you in the worst way,” he said.

  Later, Mary, with a mischievous smile, recounted the dance to her cousin Elizabeth, saying, “And he certainly did.”

  There were other, deeper differences, yet to be discovered in this oddly matched couple. But in many ways, they were alike. Both prized education and had worked hard to achieve it. In Mary, Lincoln recognized a soul mate in intellectual curiosity and learning.

  Lincoln’s courtship of Mary was a romance of the mind as well as the heart. Their mutual enjoyment of ideas and politics put Abraham at ease. They both loved poetry, especially that of Robert Burns, and enjoyed reading aloud to each other. Lincoln, who often led in conversations with men, found himself listening to Mary. Elizabeth Edwards happened upon them once when they were together and observed, “Mary led the conversation—Lincoln would listen and gaze on her as if drawn by some superior power.”

  Abraham and Mary also shared a passion for politics. The daughter of a leading Whig in Kentucky, she attended speeches for Whig presidential candidate Harrison in 1840 and often discussed politics with her friends. She wrote to Mercy, “This fall I became quite a politician, rather an unladylike profession.”

  But in the midst of delight there arose doubt. Unlike his political self-confidence, Lincoln’s confidence that he could succeed in marriage was always on shaky ground. He doubted himself as much or more than Mary. His experience with Mary Owens was still fresh in his mind. At age thirty-one, a part-time politician at the beginning of a career in law, he joined many young men of his time who wondered whether they could support a wife. Remembering the embarrassing attachment of his horse and surveying instruments in New Salem, not to mention his “National Debt” from his failed store he was still paying off, Lincoln had many questions on his mind as his courtship of Mary advanced.

  There was also the matter of the opposition of members of Mary’s family. Older sister Elizabeth expressed her resistance to the relationship. She thought that Lincoln, who came to her elegant home in his Conestoga boots, was beneath Mary in every way. “I warned Mary that she and Mr. Lincoln were not suitable. Mr. Edwards and myself believed they were different in nature, and education and raising.” She concluded, “They were so different that they could not live happily as man and wife.”

  Abraham and Mary courted in a sexually segregated Victorian society. Various marriage manuals counseled lovers to “test” each other. Women were encouraged to throw “large and small obstacles in the path of the courting male to measure the depth and intensity of his romantic love.” Mary, whether or not she was following the advice of a manual, was very adept at this kind of testing.

  A nineteenth-century Dictionary of Love stated that doubt was “a great sharpener and intensifier of the tender passions.” Lincoln could have been a case study for the Dictionary of Love, first with his doubts about his love for Mary Owens, and now his doubts about himself in his developing relationship with Mary Todd.

  At some point in 1840, Abraham and Mary’s relationship advanced from friendship to courting to an agreement that they might marry. This was not an engagement in the modern sense. He gave her no ring. They told no one of their decision. Rather, they had entered into an “understanding.” Mary described this change as having “lovers’ eyes.”

  By the end of that year, however, their relationship suddenly fell apart. It is not clear when or why the break occurred. It may have come on New Year’s Day, 1841, but it might also have occurred earlier, during the month of December 1840.

  There may have been another woman. Matilda Edwards, daughter of Whig politician Cyrus Edwards and cousin of Mary’s brother-in-law Ninian Edwards, arrived at the Edwards home that fall. No one, male or female, could fail to notice the beautiful sixteen-year-old. Mary described her to Mercy Levering as “a most interesting young lady,” who has “drawn a concourse of beaux & company around us.”

  Some contemporaries suggested that Lincoln may have been drawn by the “fascinations” of young Matilda. He certainly may have looked, and Mary may have seen him look, but he also knew he was nearly twice Matilda’s age.

  Friends differed on who ended the relationship. Conkling thought that Mary broke their understanding; Joshua Speed believed that Lincoln did. Speed said his best friend “went to see ‘Mary’—told her that he did not love her.” He further believed that “Lincoln did Love Miss Edwards” and “Mary Saw it.” Lincoln, acting honorably, told Mary of “the reason of his Change of mind” and she, in turn, “released him.” The conversation over, according to Speed, Lincoln “drew her down on his Knee—Kissed her—& parted.”

  JAMES CONKLING WROTE TO MERCY LEVERING, “Poor L! how are the mighty fallen!” Lincoln had not simply fallen; he was overwhelmed. On January 2, 1841, the clerk of the state legislature called the roll four times, but Lincoln did not answer “Present.” On Monday, January 4, Lincoln missed eight votes. On Tuesday, January 5, he did not answer to three afternoon roll calls. Lincoln was always regular in attendance, but his breakup with Mary had plunged him into such despair that he failed to show up to work.

  Lincoln’s melancholy became the talk of Springfield. Conkling told Mercy that when Lincoln finally returned to the legislature he was “emaciated in appearance and seems scarcely to possess strength enough to speak above a whisper.” Joshua Speed removed Lincoln’s razor for fear of what his friend might do.

  Lincoln sent a letter to Mary’s cousin, his former law partner John Todd Stuart, on January 23, 1842. “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole h
uman family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.” Lincoln was pessimistic about his future. “Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.”

  Nearly fifteen months later, Lincoln wrote to Speed and referred to “the fatal first of Jany.’41.” What did he mean? It has long been assumed that Lincoln was referring to the breaking of his understanding with Mary. Read in the context of a series of letters with Speed, however, in which Speed was struggling with his own engagement and prospective marriage, the reference could also refer to the pain in Speed’s life.

  Mary also suffered, and her feelings for Lincoln had not diminished with absence and time. Nearly six months after the breakup, she wrote to Mercy, “[Lincoln] deems me unworthy of notice, as I have not met him in the gay world for months, with the usual comfort of misery, imagine that others were as seldom gladdened by his presence as my humble self, yet I would the case were different, that ‘Richard’ should be himself again, much happiness would it afford me.”

  When Mary placed quotation marks around “Richard” she was referring to Shakespeare’s Richard II. Mary would have been an unusual young woman to be familiar with Shakespeare. At first it seems an odd allusion. Richard II had ascended the English throne as a young man in 1377, but quickly proved to be unwise in his choice of counselors and reckless in his spending of money. Mary may have been expressing her concern about Abraham’s mental well-being, and yet her confidence that, despite his humble beginnings, there was royalty in Lincoln’s future.

  SOMETIME IN 1842, more than a year after the split, Eliza Francis, wife of newspaper editor Simeon Francis, took matters into her own hands. She invited Abraham and Mary to her home, each not knowing the other was coming. Sitting in her parlor, Mrs. Francis urged Abraham and Mary to be friends again. It took a third person to get them to deal with the hurt and pain, and move toward forgiveness and reconciliation. Abraham and Mary began meeting clandestinely at the Francises’ home and at the home of Lincoln’s physician and Whig friend, Dr. Anson Henry.

  That fall, when Lincoln and Mary were participating in the biennial campaigning for state offices, Lincoln gave her an unusual gift. He tied up with a pink ribbon a list of the returns from the last three legislative elections in which he had been one of the winning candidates. Whether Mary found this romantic, we do not know.

  One of the most bizarre episodes in Lincoln’s life, which brought him face-to-face with the possibility of death, took place just as he and Mary were resuming their relationship. Early in 1842, the State Bank of Illinois had been forced to close. In August, the governor, treasurer, and auditor ordered county tax collectors not to accept the state’s own paper notes for payment of taxes and school debts. Only gold and silver would be accepted. Citizens, however, had almost no gold or silver.

  The problem escalated when state auditor James Shields issued an order advising state officers how to restore a sound currency. By this time, opposition to the state plan had begun to escalate. Shields, a young Irish immigrant and a rising Democratic politician, became the focus for a vigorous response by Illinois Whigs.

  Lincoln, a staunch defender of the state bank, saw an opportunity to harvest some political hay in the upcoming 1842 election for state legislature and governor. Where best to attack the Democrats but in Lincoln’s favorite vehicle—the newspaper?

  The Sangamo Journal had recently printed a satirical letter to the editor from “Rebecca,” a country woman who lived in “Lost Townships.” This letter, in its homely dialogue, enunciated important Whig ideas. Lincoln contacted editor Simeon Francis suggesting he write a follow-up letter. Lincoln assumed the persona of “Rebecca” and sharpened his writing sword to attack Shields and the Democratic Party’s policies. Lincoln showed his letter to Mary, and she and her friend Julia Jayne helped revise its humor and satire.

  Published on September 2, 1842, “Rebecca’s” letter singled out Shields for ridicule because of his role in the currency dilemma. She minced no words: “Shields is a fool as well as a liar.”

  Lincoln described Shields at a party in Springfield. “If I was deaf and blind I could tell him by the smell.” Placing Shields in the middle of a group of women, the usually gallant Lincoln authored a particularly coarse description: “All the galls about town were there, and all the handsome widows, and married women, finickin about, trying to look like galls, tied as tight in the middle, and puffed out at both ends like bundles of fodder that hadn’t been stacked yet, wanted stackin pretty bad.”

  Silver, the reason for Lincoln’s political invective, was now used against Shields with irony. “He was paying his money to this one and that one, and tother one, and sufferin great loss because it wasn’ silver instead of State paper.” Finally, Lincoln put words in Shields’ mouth: “Dear girls, it is distressing, but I cannot marry you all. Too well I know how much you suffer, but do, do remember, it is not my fault that I am so handsome and so interesting.”

  Mary and Julia, caught up in Lincoln’s escapade, decided to expand the fun by writing a third Rebecca letter, published in the Sangamo Journal on September 16, 1842.

  Shields, known for his violent temper, became enraged. He demanded the name of the person who had heaped such scorn upon him. Francis told him it was Lincoln. Lincoln may have allowed Francis to reveal his name, perhaps to protect the names of the two young women. Shields’s pride was hurt, but more important, Lincoln had threatened his aspiring political career.

  Shields fought back. He confronted Lincoln in Tremont at the Tazewell County Courthouse. He intended to get a retraction from Lincoln. Or else. Shields challenged Lincoln to a duel. The state auditor, who had fought in the Black Hawk War, enjoyed a reputation as an outstanding marksman with pistols.

  Dueling had become a recurring feature of American life in the early nineteenth century. The nation had been stunned when Alexander Hamilton died in a duel with Aaron Burr in 1804, but the shock arose from the death of one of America’s most talented leaders, not because of a duel. The first American duel took place in 1621 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. People of all walks of life participated in duels, even as many states passed anti-dueling laws. Dueling, according to the Illinois criminal statute of 1839, was a penitentiary offense, punishable by five years in prison.

  As the person challenged, Lincoln had the prerogative to select the weapons. Aware of Shields’s skills with firearms, Lincoln chose long cavalry broadswords instead of guns. Six feet four inches tall, Lincoln knew what a tremendous advantage his height and reach gave him over Shields, who was five feet nine inches.

  Dueling was not outlawed in Missouri. Just as Hamilton and Burr, nearly forty years earlier, had crossed the Hudson River from New York to New Jersey in 1804, early on Thursday morning, September 22, 1842, two boats embarked from Alton, Illinois, and crossed the Mississippi in the morning mist to a muddy shore on the Missouri side. The party walked a few steps to a clearing that would serve as the dueling ground.

  Accounts conflict over what happened next. Some said Lincoln, stretching out his long arm and longer broadsword, cut off the limb of a willow tree high above the combatants and frightened Shields with the demonstration of his extensive reach. Another report said Shields laughed at this gesture. But in his laughter, or his fear, he realized the absurdity of the situation and agreed to make peace. The duel ended before it began.

  What are we to make of the near duel between Lincoln and Shields? Did Lincoln, almost unable to stop his participation in the duel, act more like the young wrestler than a mature man? Did he agree to participate to defend the honor of Mary and Julia Jayne, who had written the third letter? It seems certain that Lincoln did not want to harm Shields. He understood he could disarm with a sword, but not with a pistol. Some have suggested that Lincoln and Shields thought they might get political publicity from the duel.

  When it was all over, Lincoln felt deeply embarrassed by the whole affair. Year
s later, when people would bring up the duel, Lincoln quickly let it be known that he did not want to discuss it.

  WITH THE DUEL BEHIND HIM, and now reunited with Mary, Lincoln still struggled over whether he should marry Mary. He wrote to his friend Speed for advice. Lincoln had received letters from Speed as his friend struggled over his own engagement to Fanny Henning. Now Lincoln wanted to know how it had turned out. “Are you now, in feeling as well as judgment, glad you are married as you are?” Lincoln recognized that “from any body but me, this would be an impudent question not to be tolerated,” but he was confident that Speed would accept the question from him, his closest friend. “Please answer it quickly as I feel impatient to know.”

  Speed must have responded, but no letter exists. Years later Speed wrote, “One thing is plainly discernable—If I had not been married & happy—far more happy than I ever expected to be—He would not have married.”

  On Friday morning, November 4, 1842, Abraham and Mary announced that they intended to marry—that very evening. The couple did not tell anyone in advance. There was much to do and little time to do it.

  They decided on a private marriage service. Lincoln called at the brown frame house at Eighth and Jackson to ask the Reverend Charles Dresser, rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, if he would marry them in his home. When Mary broke the news of her wedding to her sister and brother-in-law, Elizabeth and Ninian Edwards erupted over the suddenness of the decision. Elizabeth had long objected to Lincoln, but now that the deed was going to be done, Ninian insisted, as Mary’s legal guardian, that the wedding take place in their home.