In reply, Lincoln explained that “the urgent solicitation of an old friend who has served me all my life, and who has never before received or asked anything in return,” led to the appointment. “His (Mr. Dennison’s) good character was vouched for from the start by many at New York, including Mr. Opdyke.”96 But, as Chase had warned, some prominent New York reformers questioned Denison’s integrity. James A. Briggs said Denison “only cares to make money. He knows nobody, & nobody knows him. His appointment was a party outrage.”97 Denison helped his cause by giving Mrs. Lincoln a handsome carriage and establishing a $5,000 line of credit for her in New York, leading Briggs to state: “this office was sold.”98 Irwin was acting on behalf of Marston, a Wall Street broker with whom Denison formally agreed to split evenly the profits of his lucrative government position.99 (Denison abused his power as naval officer, engaging in extortion, seizing ships promiscuously, and pocketing cash from out-of-court settlements that should have gone into the government’s coffers.)100 Senator Preston King complained to Lincoln about the gift Denison gave to Mrs. Lincoln. A New York merchant called Denison an unqualified “good looking boy about 25 years of age, whose only naval experience was obtained as a runner, or collecting clerk” for the New York Evening Post, which allegedly received $80,000 “worth of pecuniary aid” from Denison. The appointment was made “in order to please the sinister desire of the editors” of that paper.101 Sam Ward, a Washington insider known as “King of the Lobby,” suggested that there was something unsavory about the relationship between Denison and Mrs. Lincoln.
In Washington, Mary Lincoln would continue to accept bribes and engage in other unethical conduct.102
On March 10, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, regaled a friend with stories about how “Mrs. Lincoln appointed a collector [of the Port] for Boston on ac[count] of [her son] ‘Bobby,’ and had made a naval officer” and how she “was meddling with every office in the gift of the Executive.”103 For the Boston collectorship, she favored Amos Tuck of New Hampshire, who had befriended young Robert Lincoln during his year at Phillips Exeter Academy (1859–1860). Robert had lived with the Tuck family for a time. The wealthy Republican national leader and lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, John Z. Goodrich, was named collector; Tuck became naval officer in the Boston customhouse, which was considered a “good place—fat salary and no work!” Mary Lincoln wrote friendly letters to the Tucks. In January 1861, Amos Tuck visited Springfield, stayed overnight at the Lincoln home, and accompanied Mrs. Lincoln part-way on her trip east to shop.104 She also pestered Seward to give a friend the consulship at Honolulu.105
Mary Lincoln championed William S. Wood, impresario of the train journey from Springfield, for the post of commissioner of public buildings. She told a senator that he “would always find a very true friend in her” if he would support the pending nomination of Wood, who, she alleged, “was very popular and very worthy[.]”106 In March, Wood presented the First Lady with a gift of fine horses.107 She also urged Ward Hill Lamon to use his influence with the president to have Wood, whom she called “a clever man,” well qualified to “make an efficient Commissioner,” appointed despite Lincoln’s misgivings.108 David Davis, who found the appointment of Wood “incomprehensible,” was told by the president that “it would be ruinous to appoint him—ruinous to him.”109
It is hard to know what to make of Lincoln’s statement; perhaps it had something to do with rumors that his wife was committing adultery with Wood. In June 1861, the president received a pseudonymous letter about a “scandal” involving Mary Lincoln and Wood, who went on shopping trips together to New York. The writer warned that if the rumors about that scandal were published, it would “stab you in the most vital part.”110
The president spoke sharply to his wife about this matter; Schuyler Colfax later recalled “the war she had with Mr. Lincoln” about her relations with Wood. According to Colfax, the First Couple “scarcely spoke together for several days.”111 An Iowan, referring to Wood, claimed that Mary Lincoln “used to often go from the White House to the Astor House in New York to pass the night with a man who held a high government office in Washington, given to him by her husband.”112 Benjamin Brown French, who replaced Wood as commissioner of public buildings, called Wood a “libertine” and “a disgrace to the Nation, to Lincoln & to the office.” A friend of French’s, “whose wife he [Wood] undertook to seduce,” termed Wood a “damned infernal villain.”113 Others deemed Wood “a great scamp.”114
Mary Lincoln may have been unfaithful with men other than Wood. John Watt, the White House gardener, told a journalist in 1867 that “Mrs. Lincoln’s relations with certain men were indecently improper” and claimed to be well informed about “the secrets of Mrs. Lincoln’s domestic affairs.”115 Rumors circulated that Watt himself had “too great an intimacy” with her.116 Oswald Garrison Villard, son of the noted journalist Henry Villard, asserted that Robert Todd Lincoln “systematically bought up any books that reflected [poorly] on Mrs. Lincoln,” including one by “the Hungarian adventurer who very nearly succeeded in eloping with Mrs. Lincoln from the White House.”117 She purportedly wrote to her confidant Abram Wakeman, postmaster of New York, saying “I have taken your excellent advice and decided not to leave my husband while he is in the White House.”118 In 1870, Senator Richard Yates of Illinois hinted broadly that Mary Lincoln had been unfaithful, telling his colleagues that “there are recollections and memories, sad and silent and deep, that I will not recall publicly. … Amid all the perils of life, and its devastation, amid good and evil report, a woman should be true to her husband. … I shall not … go into details.”119 Edward McManus, a White House doorkeeper, evidently made a similar allegation to Thurlow Weed.120
Lincoln finally agreed to appoint Wood only after the First Lady shut herself in her room.121 She used the same tactic to win an army officer’s commission for John Watt, who colluded with her in padding bills.122 Maine Senator William P. Fessenden and the historian George Bancroft both heard that she “wished a rogue [Watt] who had cheated the government made a lieutenant: the cabinet thrice put the subject aside. One morning in came Lincoln sad and sorrowful: [‘]Ah,[’] said he, [‘]to-day we must settle the case of Lieutenant [Watt]. Mrs. Lincoln has for three nights slept in a separate apartment.’ ”123
Wood did not last long as commissioner. After learning from a congressional delegation that Wood was corrupt, Lincoln obtained his resignation. While serving as commissioner-of-public-buildings-designate (the senate had not yet acted on his nomination), Wood told one Samuel A. Hopkins: “I understand that you are here … trying to get work from the government in the way of engraving. I want to tell you, as a friend, that there is no use at all of trying; that the work will be given to the American Bank Note Company and the National Bank Note Company.” When Hopkins protested that his firm could do the work better and cheaper than those competitors, Wood explained the contract would not go to him because Wood himself had an interest in the American Bank Note Company and that George Denison and William H. Marston had an interest in the National Bank Note Company. Hopkins then said he was trying to sell the government some cannons for $500 apiece. Wood replied, “Well, I can help you in that matter. Say nothing about the price; we can make something out of that. If the government wants them, they can as well afford to pay more as less. I will take you down and introduce you to Mr. Leslie, the chief clerk of the War Department.” After Hopkins told this story on August 30, 1861, to a congressional committee investigating government contracts, members of that body promptly informed Lincoln, and Wood was replaced on September 6.124
A week later, Mary Todd Lincoln denounced Wood “as a very bad man” who “does not know, what truth means.” Everyone, she claimed, understood that he was “a most unprincipled man.” Her wrath had been occasioned in part by Wood’s charge that her friend John Watt was disloyal.125 In addition, he allegedly refused to falsify bills at her behest.126
Mrs. Lincoln also lobbied on behalf of a pompous former New York congressman, Caleb Lyon, who had written some adulatory puff pieces about her for newspapers.127 (Horace Greeley noted that Mary Lincoln “enjoys flattery—I mean deference.”128 She reportedly took offense at “the want of attention” from Jessie Benton Frémont when she called at the White House.)129 Lyon was named governor of the Idaho Territory, where he proved woefully inadequate, spending less than half his time in the territory and embezzling money designated for Indian tribes.130
When the New York World reported that in “the scramble for jobs presidential relatives did well,” it was doubtless referring to Lincoln’s in-laws, including two of his wife’s brothers-in-law, William S. Wallace (paymaster of volunteers) and Ninian Edwards (commissary of subsistence). Mary Lincoln boasted that she had fought a “hard battle” to get Wallace appointed.131 Lincoln explained that Wallace “is needy, and looks to me; and I personally owe him much.”132 According to Herndon, Lincoln said Wallace was “appointed to a bureau simply to ‘keep hell’ out his own family!”133 Wallace’s brother Edward became naval officer at Philadelphia. Charles S. Todd, a distant relative, was named a tax assessor in Kentucky. Mary Lincoln’s cousins also fared well in the patronage lottery. Lyman Beecher Todd was appointed postmaster of Lexington, Kentucky. Thomas M. Campbell held the same post at Boonville, Missouri. Lincoln nominated John Blair Smith Todd as a brigadier general, but the senate rejected him. Lockwood Todd was appointed U.S. drayman for the San Francisco customhouse, a highly remunerative post. That selection touched off a furor.
The appointment of Ninian Edwards, husband of Mary Lincoln’s eldest sister Elizabeth, caused much aggravation to the president, who had been warned that Edwards associated with corruptionists. Along with another quartermaster, William H. Bailhache, Edwards used his post to enrich himself, triggering protests from several of Lincoln’s Springfield friends. In 1862, when Edward L. Baker defended the two, Lincoln replied: “The appeal to me in behalf of Mr. Edwards and Mr. Bailhasche, for a hearing, does not meet the case. No formal charges are preferred against them, so far as I know; nor do I expect any will be made; or, if made, will be substantiated. I certainly do not suppose Mr. Edwards has, at this time of his life, given up his old habits, and turned dishonest; and while I have not known Mr. Bailhasche so long, I have no more affermative reason to suspect him. The trouble with me is of a different character. Springfield is my home, and there, more than elsewhere, are my life-long friends. These, for now nearly two years, have been harrassing me because of Mr. E. & Mr. B. I think Mr. E. & Mr. B. without dishonesty on the other hand, could have saved me from this, if they had cared to do so. They have seemed to think that if they could keep their official record dryly correct, to say the least, it was not any difference how much they might provoke my friends, and harrass me. If this is too strong a statement of the case, still the result has been the same to me; and, as a misfortune merely, I think I have already borne a fair share of it.”134
Mary Lincoln also worked hard to get her cousin Lizzie Grimsley the postmastership in Springfield. Behind the scenes, Lincoln and Nicolay both urged Illinois friends to have her chosen by an election among the various candidates for that post. To Lincoln’s appeal, John Todd Stuart replied: “I would not let the case of Cousin Lizzie trouble me if I were you[.] No one will complain of you if you do not give her the appointment while very many doubtless would complain of her appointment and would have much show of reason because the appointment of a lady would be unusual.”135 (It would have been unusual but hardly unique; 411 women served as postmasters during Lincoln’s administration.) When Shelby Cullom, the speaker of the Illinois House, asked for control of both that office and the revenue collectorship in Springfield, the president replied: “Well, you may have the collectorship, but the Post Office I think I promised to old Mrs. [Seymour] Moody for her husband. I can not let you have the post office, Cullom; take the collectorship.”
“Now, why can’t you be liberal, and let me have both?” responded Cullom.
“Mrs. Moody would get down on me,” said the beleaguered chief executive.136
Ultimately, Mrs. Grimsley and Mr. Moody both lost out to Lincoln’s friend, John Armstrong. When Lincoln explained “that a Post-Mistress in a place the size of Springfield would produce dissatisfaction,” Lizzie Grimsley immediately abandoned her quest.137 Moody, who was considered not a good enough party worker for the postmastership, was offered a job either as commissary of subsistence or as a quartermaster, but he turned both posts down because they would take him out of Springfield.
Mary Lincoln boasted that she significantly influenced the president’s appointments. “My husband placed great Confidence in my Knowledge of human Nature,” she said in 1866. He “had not much Knowledge of men.”138 Actually, her voice counted for little except in minor cases like Watt, Henderson, Lyon, and Wood. When she criticized officials, Lincoln chided her, saying “you are too suspicious” and “you are disposed to magnify trifles.”139 Some cabinet members resisted her meddling. When she lobbied to have a “half loafer, half gentleman” appointed to office, Edwin M. Stanton replied: “If I should make such appointments, I should strike at the very root of all confidence in the government, in your husband, you and me.”140
Ben Hardin Helm, husband of Mary Lincoln’s half-sister Emilie, sought a paymaster’s job, which Lincoln obligingly offered him. Helm reluctantly turned it down in order to join the Confederate army.
The largesse enjoyed by Mary Lincoln’s family created bad blood in Illinois. Ebenezer Peck bitterly remarked that the president “and his wife have some relatives not yet provided for” and that “until all these shall have been provided for, all newer friends I suppose must needs wait.”141 William Jayne thought it “very strange how as bitter a democrat as Capt [Lockwood] Todd can have so much influence over Mr Lincoln.”142
Lincoln was clearly embarrassed by the extensive patronage given to the Todds. To one of his wife’s importunate cousins, he asked: “Will it do for me to go on and justify the declaration that Trumbull and I have divided out all the offices among our relatives?”143 (One relative Lincoln did not accommodate was his son Robert, who wrote on behalf of a friend seeking the postmastership of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the lad was enrolled at Harvard. Upon reading that letter, the president replied sharply: “If you do not attend to your studies and let matters such as you write about alone, I will take you away from college.”)144
While Lincoln gave offices to many of his wife’s relatives, he did little for his mother’s family. Dennis Hanks sought in vain to be named postmaster of Charleston. When John Hanks asked for an Indian agency, Lincoln was eager to oblige his old partner in rail-splitting. “He is thoroughly honest, and his son has a tolerable education and might be his clerk,” the president told Henry C. Whitney. But Hanks’s semiliteracy posed an insuperable barrier to his appointment. (In 1864, Hanks wrote to Lincoln complaining that “you hav given som of the best offices to men that I consider mi self so peair to them her under mi nose I dont think you hav treated me rite all though you hav don your duty as a president wich you ar not to blame I hav allways hav loved you from Child hood and Still think well ove you.”)145 Whitney remarked apropos of the president’s failure to gratify his cousins, “Lincoln regarded his obligation to duty as a stronger obligation than that to friendship.”146 Dennis Hanks’s son-in-law, Augustus H. Chapman, sought unsuccessfully to become marshal for the southern district of Illinois, though Lincoln wanted to appoint him.
As well as Mary Lincoln’s meddling in patronage matters, her rustic, penny-pinching ways also set tongues wagging. Mary Clemmer Ames noted that the First Lady “brought shame upon the President’s House, by petty economies, which had never disgraced it before.”147 On March 11, 1861, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., attended a reception at which she was discussed: “All manner of stories about her were flying around; she wanted to do the right thing, but, not knowing how, was too weak and proud to ask; she was goin
g to put the White House on an economical basis, and, to that end, was about to dismiss ‘the help,’ as she called the servants; some of whom, it was asserted, had already left because ‘they must live with gentlefolks’; she had got hold of newspaper reporters and railroad conductors, as the best persons to go to for advice and direction.”148 Some believed Mary Lincoln was tightfisted because she wanted to preserve her husband’s salary “as much as possible to build them a house after [his] term at Washington expires.”149 She allegedly told a White House staffer that she and her husband “were poor and hoped to save twelve thousand dollars every year from their salary.”150 One Sunday in the New York Avenue Presbyterian church, she and her husband both placed money in the collection plate. As the collector moved on to the next pew, Lincoln drew him back and whispered: “I want to contribute more than that; come to the White House in the morning.”151 In 1861, William Howard Russell recorded that she “beat down a poor widow” by paying her fourteen cents instead of twenty for cloth “after immense chaffing.”152 She sought to sell the milk produced by the White House cows and haggled over the price unbecomingly. Alexander Williamson, the tutor for the Lincolns’ sons, reported that the First Lady bargained like a fishwife over his compensation.
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