Into this town in 1837 a young lawyer not much given to frivolity had ridden with all his worldly possessions packed in two saddlebags.
It was not long before the unlikely Abraham Lincoln, tall, thin, awkward, uncouth and even ugly, was included in the smart set around town. Seemingly a contradiction in terms, yes, but then, as noted by one observer who had heard him in the legislature, this Lincoln “spoke with such force and vigor that he held the attention of all.” More important, he was well known as the man most responsible for the removal of the state capital from Vandalia to Springfield.
The day of course came when Mary Todd, one of the belles squired about town by several eligible bachelors, first saw the up-and-coming legislator across a dance floor. It was not love at first sight, but, wrote Ishbel Ross in her book The President’s Wife, “by some magic a fire was lit [that day in 1839] that burned through a quarter of a century of love and sorrow.”
And here was another seeming contradiction—that popular Mary Todd, described by sister Elizabeth as having “clear blue eyes, long lashes, light brown hair with a glint of bronze, and a lovely complexion,” should be smitten by the poor country lawyer with few of Mary’s own social graces. And it certainly did make for an odd match—the tall, gawky Lincoln alongside such a sophisticated young lady associated with the “lively coterie.”
That Lincoln should find Mary alluring was far less a surprise. Consider the fetching picture that Mary made that year, as somewhat lavishly described by an obviously loving niece: “Mary, although not strictly beautiful, was more than pretty. She had a broad white forehead, eyebrows sharply but delicately marked, a straight nose, short upper lip and expressive mouth curling into an adorable slow-coming smile that brought dimples to her cheeks and glinted in her long-lashed blue eyes.”
The same niece went on to say: “Those eyes, shaded by their long silky fringe, gave an impression of dewy violet shyness contradicted fascinatingly by the spirited carriage of her head.”
As Lincoln soon would discover, there was an intellectual side to this beguiling young woman, who had been better educated than most of her distaff contemporaries, was well read, and was even given to a real understanding of politics. In a letter to Mercy in late 1840, for instance, Mary confessed to her strong interest in the recent election of William Henry Harrison as president: “This fall I became quite a politician, rather an unladylike profession, yet at such a crisis, whose heart could remain untouched while the energies of all were called in question?”
Sometimes what is not written tells more than the actual script, for Mary did not mention that her heart by then belonged to Lincoln. She said only that they had reached an “understanding.” And, in her chatty way, that his “lincoln green” suit had gone to dust, apparently a reference to an unbecoming suit the two women had laughed over in the past.
But then, just as the unlikely lovers were making marriage plans, the informal engagement was off! And to this day no one really knows why. Most probably the socially attuned Edwards couple did not consider the raw Lincoln a suitable husband for their Mary. Then, too, Lincoln himself felt he was a dreary prospect as a future husband.
While Mary Todd held her head high during the eighteen months the starcrossed lovers were apart, Lincoln became depressed, even physically ill. In a letter to his law partner at the time, Congressman John Todd Stuart, Lincoln lamented: “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.” And worse: “Whether I shall ever be better or not I can not tell; I awfully forbode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible, I must die or be better, it appears to me.”
If Mary were able to put up a brave face during their schism, in her heart of hearts she, too, felt the sting of their separation, as confided by letter to “Dear Merce” in mid-1841. “Summer in all its beauty has come again,” she wrote, while departing winter had left her with “some lingering regrets over the past, which time alone can overshadow with its healing balm.”
The Edwardses aside, there were some in Springfield who were determined to bring Mary and Abraham together again. According to Justin G. Turner and Linda Levitt Turner in their book Mary Todd Lincoln, such a person was their mutual friend Simeon Francis, editor of Springfield’s Whig newspaper, the Sangamo Journal. During the summer of 1842, Francis and his wife would be the healing balm that Mary had invoked. They invited the two unhappy people to their home, unbeknownst to either one, with the result that the onetime lovers “were shyly delighted when Mrs. Francis urged, ‘Be friends.’”
After two years of romantic ups and downs, love and breakup, family pressures and political interventions, Mary Todd and Abraham finally made a whirlwind decision to wed. Delighted to flout tradition and do without a big, “showy” wedding, Mary at first thought to be married at an Episcopal rectory—destined later to become the couple’s first real home—but then accepted sister Elizabeth’s insistent offer to hold the wedding at the Edwards home instead.
If the newly married Mary Todd Lincoln was seeking glamour, a continuation of parties and pretty clothes, a showy home and life of ease, well, she had chosen the wrong man.
There would be no elegant trips to Saint Louis and down the Mississippi River to New Orleans—the preferred vacation mode of her Kentucky kinfolk—no travels abroad for these newlyweds. A drive across town to a boarding house called the Globe Tavern would be their wedding trip. Here they would live until the birth of their first child in August 1843, just three days short of nine months from the night they had wed.
It was assumed that Mary would seek the comforts of her sister Elizabeth’s ample home for the birthing, but no, Mary’s long-smoldering streak of independence, so much a part of her nature and only further nurtured at the knee of Madame Mentelle, caused Mary to manage on her own, without Big Sister. No harm was done, as Mary produced a fine, strong, and healthy baby boy. They named him Robert Todd Lincoln after her father.
Now, of course, with the responsibility of a newborn on her hands, loving as Mary might be, surely she realized the contrast with her happy-go-lucky days as a member in good standing of “the coterie.” Rather than the gay parties she helped to organize at her very social sister’s home, Mary and Abraham now enjoyed all the amenities of a frugal boarding-house existence, for which they paid $4 a week.
There is no doubt that Mary married for love, yet with her intuitive powers she saw in her man, already standing tall in local politics, a potential for achievement, even the hope of greatness. Her competitive spirit found the political arena exciting—an arena where she, along with husband Abraham, could fill a heretofore somewhat empty life of frivolity and satisfy that nebulous but utterly human longing “to be somebody.”
Lincoln, too, was ambitious, if in a quieter way. “Nearly always between these two there was a moving undertow of their mutual ambitions,” wrote Carl Sandburg in his sentimental biography, Mary Lincoln. Their temperaments were startlingly different, but both had a burning desire to achieve. “And between these mutual ambitions of theirs might be the difference that while he cared much for what History would say of him, her anxiety was occupied with what Society, the approved social leaders of the upper classes, would let her have.”
Imagine her thrill as she saw predictions come true when, in 1846, Lincoln was elected to Congress! Her husband was going places and she with him. Unlike other congressmen of that day, Lincoln was taking his family—now two sons, the younger one named for a friend and fellow politician, Edward Dickinson Baker—with him to Washington. Not so incidentally either, Mary decided it at last was time to take her husband to meet her family and friends in Lexington. For one thing, stepmother Betsey Todd had never met the rising young politician who was her stepson-in-law.
So it was that before they set out on the long journey to Washington, the Lincolns first went to Mary’s hometown, where they spent three weeks. Here Lincoln experienced southern hospitality, and here he
saw with glaring clarity slavery at its worst and at its best.
From the porch of the Widow Parker’s down past sweeping lawns, he viewed the peaceful scene of the town, but not too far away, beyond a spiked fence, he could hear the moans and groans of runaway slaves housed in a grim-looking structure run by William Pullum, Lexington’s leading slave dealer. Here, in vermin-infested slave pens, poor black souls strained to see out from the highbarred windows. Slave trading went on almost every day, but on Saturdays and court days special auctions were held. Here half-naked men, women, and children were on view and bids were made for human flesh and blood.
And yet at the Todd home, Lincoln could almost believe the stories of contented slaves as he watched the house servants—mostly female—go about their capable management of the household and their gentle handling of children.
The first visit to the state where he was born was an eye-opener for the soonto-be congressman. But Lincoln enjoyed being with his wife’s family—he and his father-in-law were on friendly terms, and he was pleased to see that even his wife and her stepmother seemed cordial to one another. Relatives and friends rallied to the visitors. They were graciously entertained—after all, Mary was a Todd, and that carried weight in Lexington.
Robert Todd saw that Lincoln met important people, one of them Mary’s hero of her youth, Henry Clay, then mourning the death of his son in the Mexican War. The war was doubly painful for the elder statesman, for he felt that the war was an action of “unnecessary and offensive aggression.” Lincoln heard a speech made by Clay claiming also that to take over Mexico would open new territory to slavery. Lincoln could see why the venerable Clay had been such an influence on his wife, even inspiring much of her early interest in politics.
While Lincoln was taking in the lavish estates and grand lifestyle of Mary’s family, he must have felt that had she not married him, she would surely be living in luxury such as this, in a style he could never even aspire to match. Mary delighted in the parties and seeing old friends, while also enjoying unaccustomed leisure afforded when old Mammy Sally took charge of the two Lincoln boys. But Mary also was anxious to leave for Washington.
Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln and their two sons arrived in Washington on December 2, 1847, a great day in Mary’s eyes. If Mary had visions of grandeur, however, they were quickly thwarted—not only because Lincoln housed his family at Mrs. Ann G. Sprigg’s simple boarding house, but because Mary would hardly have time to find her way around before her congressman-husband would send her back to Lexington.
As far as Lincoln himself was concerned, Mrs. Sprigg’s was the place to be. It was ideal if one were in a hurry to get to the Capitol building. The lodging place was strategically situated where the Library of Congress now stands, so close to the Capitol that another congressman-boarder once explained, “The iron railing around the Capitol comes to within fifty feet of our door.” In those days, most congressmen boarded with fellow delegates from their state, but Lincoln originally choose Mrs. Sprigg’s on the recommendation of Mary’s cousin and former House member John Todd Stuart because it was a Whig stronghold, and he was the lone Whig sent to Congress from Illinois. (But he was only one of the four Lincolns crowded into a single room!)
Hardly a metropolis, Washington in 1847, with a population of thirtyeight thousand, nonetheless was the biggest city Mary—or her husband, for that matter—had ever seen. Newly built on swampland on the banks of the Potomac between Maryland and Virginia, the capital at the center of the old thirteen colonies was hardly on a par with Paris or London, but it was the seat of government, and for Mary that meant an exciting, stimulating center of power.
The weather on the flats of the Potomac was muggy, rainy, or generally uncomfortable, hardly the place for a young wife with two youngsters. Sharing one room with two boisterous boys in tow was no easy feat for the new congressman—or for his wife. Particularly with these two boys, onlookers commented on the undisciplined behavior of the Lincoln boys often.
Mary both helped and hindered her congressman in their crowded quarters at Mrs. Sprigg’s. She demanded his help with the children and yet was able to help him as she read over the legislative reports and gave him her quick analysis. Still he sent his brood back to Mary’s family in Kentucky in the early spring.
If he felt that his family interfered with his work when they were with him, without them he was lonely for them. His letters to her were filled with longing, and Mary’s expressed equal pining for him. “How much I wish, instead of writing, we were together this evening,” she wrote one May evening, and she assured him that his “codgers,” as he teasingly referred to their boys, had not forgotten him. “I feel very sad away from you,” she wrote.
Thus, on June 12, Lincoln wrote that he would welcome her on one condition: “Will you be a good girl in all things, if I consent?” A rather demeaning way to put it, but he had often referred to Mary as his child-wife. The letter continued, “Then come along, and that as soon as possible. Having got the idea in my head I shall be impatient till I see you.”
Joyfully packing her beautiful new dresses, she (and the boys, too) later joined Lincoln on the campaign trail of 1848 for Zachary Taylor, who subsequently won the presidency while Lincoln’s own state went for Taylor’s opponent, Lewis Cass. This was a real disappointment for the hopeful Lincoln, who would receive little recognition for the part he had played in Taylor’s successful run for the presidency.
Mary had not rejoined him in the capital, and when the Thirtieth Congress adjourned in March 1849, he returned to Springfield. These were dark days for the Lincolns. Feeling that his political career was over, he sank into deep depression. Mary suffered from recurring headaches but refused to give up her dreams of someday returning to Washington. According to legend at least, Mary even then declared she would not have married Mr. Lincoln had she not believed he was destined to be president.
During these seemingly hopeless times for Lincoln came an offer for the governorship of Oregon. If Lincoln thought seriously about this opportunity, Mary said no. She held to her belief that her husband was destined for greatness; Oregon would be a political dead end.
Lincoln continued his law practice, traveled the Eighth Circuit, and kept in touch with the people. Mary, meanwhile, kept up with local politics.
But sad events enshrouded the Lincolns during this time. On July 16, 1849, Mary’s father, Robert Todd, died of cholera, and soon after Christmas, in January 1850, Mary’s grandmother, the Widow Parker, who had outlived her husband by half a century, also died. It was especially hard for Mary to lose two members of her family in a span of six months—the very two who probably had exercised the most influence on her early life. But still worse was to come—less than a month later, her own son, little Eddie, her pride and joy, died of diphtheria.
Mary mourned her little one with an outpouring of grief that was an ominous prelude to the uncontrollable emotions she would display years later upon another young son’s death, this time in the White House. Lincoln, for his part, mourned little Eddie inwardly, as evidenced by his deep gloom.
Over the next few years, meanwhile, there were few developments in Lincoln’s life and activities to encourage the deep conviction that Mary still harbored of a great destiny awaiting him…and her.
One bright spot in this otherwise uneventful period was a visit in 1854 of Emilie Todd, now a lovely young lady of eighteen. Four married Todd sisters who now lived in Springfield began a gay round of parties, which of course delighted Mary. “Little Sister” Emilie, as Lincoln liked to call Mary’s favorite half sister, was a keen observer of people and events who years later would write one of the best accounts of the home life of the Lincolns. According to historian Randall, Little Sister not only spent a good deal of time with the Lincolns but kept a diary noting no unhappiness between them. Emilie went so far as to record the pride she saw in Lincoln’s eyes as they rested on his comely little wife, and the pains that same little wife took to dress prettily, the effort she made to
sparkle and bring that look to her husband’s eyes.
But this observer was also aware that sister Mary was nervous and often let her Todd temper run uncontrolled. “Her little temper was soon over,” Emilie once wrote, “and her husband loved her nonetheless, perhaps all the more, for this human frailty which needed his love and patience to pet and coach the sunny smile to replace the sarcasm and tears—and, oh, how she did love this man!”
Emilie married Ben Hardin Helm, a popular choice with both Mary and her husband, especially when they discovered his mutual interest in politics, albeit not always of their persuasion. Some of the correspondence between Emilie and Mary over the years fortunately survived the calamitous events of the 1860s to offer a glimpse into the political talk of their day. In November 1856, for instance, Mary wrote to her sister that Lincoln absolutely was not an abolitionist. “All he desires is that slavery not be extended, let it remain where it is,” Mary explained. Both she and Lincoln believed in gradual emancipation, she added, with compensation to slaveholders.
But now, suddenly, came a major change in the lives of the Lincolns. The year 1858 would give the busy wife, mother, and letter-writer much to celebrate and to write about. At the Republican state convention on June 16, Lincoln was selected to be his party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate! He made an acceptance speech that same evening that included the now-famous line, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
His Democratic opponent was none other than Mary’s own onetime beau, Stephen A. Douglas. Mary of course was proud and excited when her candidate challenged her old suitor to a series of debates. Now, at last, Mary’s confidence in her man was dramatically reinforced…and she was ready to realize her dream.
The debates gained Lincoln national recognition and followers, but now would come Mary’s own turn in the limelight. On the day of the last debate Lincoln’s wife would make a grand appearance. It was agreed that the charming Mrs. Douglas, who had been traveling with her husband, needed the competition of a pretty, beautifully dressed, intelligent, and refined lady on the Republican side. Mary’s excitement that day was reflected in her comment while watching the two debaters on the platform: “Mr. Douglas is a very little, little giant by the side of my tall Kentuckian, and intellectually my husband towers above Douglas just as he does physically.”
Best Little Stories from the Civil War: More than 100 true stories Page 39