Socially, Mary Lincoln’s position in Washington was a difficult one. As the wife of the Republican President, she incurred the enmity of the secessionist ladies of the capital; while, as a Southern woman, with the speech and manners of her native Kentucky, she was an alien among the Yankee matrons. With the greatest tact and graciousness, she could not have avoided criticism.
It had been taken for granted by strangers that Abraham Lincoln’s wife would be unused to polite society. Kindly disposed Republican ladies showed her that they were ready to offer advice and assistance. She quickly sensed the implied reproach to her breeding, and never forgave them. Mary Lincoln had grown to womanhood among proud and hospitable people, the slaveholding aristocracy of Lexington. By the standards of the day, she had received a good education, had a smattering of French and could turn a graceful phrase in writing a letter. Her manners were not vulgar, but genteel; the manners of the provinces, more elaborate than the casual, easeful ways of cosmopolitan people. After the custom then still prevalent in the South, she addressed gentlemen as sir, using the word to punctuate her conversation, like a comma. This old-fashioned mannerism seemed affected, but it was by no means ill-bred. Mary Lincoln’s stilted airs matched those of many a Washington dame who refused to call on her. Her stepmother had kinsmen in the capital. John C. Breckinridge and the Blairs called her Cousin Mary.
Nevertheless, the ladies of Washington society persistently jeered at Mrs. Lincoln as an outrageous vulgarian. Prejudice was partly nourished by her ostentatious way of dressing, by her unfortunate choice of intimate friends and her arrogant assumption that they constituted a “court,” and her quick resentment of even a formal courtesy paid by her husband to another woman. Above all, it fed on an often unconscious perception of the dark tides of her personality. There was a look “very like cunning” in the smiling face under the artificial roses; an almost coarse tone in the affable, company voice. Mary Lincoln had been an attractive girl, plump, blue-eyed and animated. Greed and jealousy and rage leave their marks on the face of a woman of forty-three. When she had her headaches, as people in Springfield knew, she lost all control, picked quarrels, railed at servants and screamed like a fishwife. John Hay called her “the Hell-cat.” If Mrs. Lincoln appeared to be acting an unnatural part when she politely received her callers in the Blue Room, it was not for the reason the gossips whispered, that she had wanted gentle training, but because her emotional instability was too great to be concealed by the mask of acquired discipline.
On the morning after the inauguration, four mantuamakers had waited at the White House while Mrs. Lincoln finished breakfast. One of them was colored—a former slave, Mrs. Elizabeth Keckley, who had been highly recommended to the President’s wife. Mrs. Lincoln had a pattern of bright rose moire antique which she wanted to have made up immediately for the first evening levee at the Executive Mansion. She engaged Mrs. Keckley with the stipulation that they were poor; if the mulatto seamstress would work cheap, she would give her plenty to do. Only four days remained in which to cut and fit and finish the dress, and Mrs. Keckley also had an order to make a waist of blue watered silk for Mrs. Lincoln’s cousin, Mrs. Grimsley. When she came with the garments on Friday evening, shortly before the hour appointed for the levee, she found Mrs. Lincoln in an angry and perverse temper. It was so late, she said, that she had no time to dress and go down; but Mrs. Keckley tactfully persuaded her. The seamstress combed Mrs. Lincoln’s hair, and arranged red roses in it, and smoothed and adjusted the bright rose dress and the point-lace trimming. Mrs. Lincoln was pleased. There was deference and kindness in Mrs. Keckley’s manner. She was colored, and the Kentucky woman felt at ease with her. She often acted as Mrs. Lincoln’s personal maid; and she made her many dresses, cutting the evening bodices to reveal the firm neck and rounded arms, fitting the rich materials deftly to the dumpy figure. Mrs. Keckley became the only intimate friend that the President’s wife had in Washington.
Although Mrs. Lincoln’s tantrums were often vented on her husband, she was an indulgent mother. She had borne four sons, the second of whom—Eddie, named Edward Baker after Lincoln’s friend, who fell at Ball’s Bluff—had died eleven years before the family left Springfield. Willie and Tad, then respectively aged ten and nearly eight, were lively youngsters whom no one had even been at pains to correct. Lincoln was a doting father, blind to his children’s faults, pleased by their racket and intrusions, and ready to throw himself full-length on the floor for a wrestle and romp. Willie, good-looking and blue-eyed, had been idolized by his parents for his frank and intelligent manners, and his cleverness at his studies. Their love for Tad was warmed by an intense and protective compassion, for he had a defective palate, and spoke in a halting baby talk which was hard for strangers to understand. Whether because of overindulgence or actual mental deficiency, Tad did not learn to read or write during the four years he spent in the White House, and he was still dressed by a nurse. In appearance, he was not stupid, but sparkling with mischievous enterprise. He was a forward, self-willed brat, given to asking impertinent questions and banging his drum in the ears of clerks and Cabinet ministers. Yet there was something winning in his impetuous, stormy personality. He had a tender heart, and his queer, muted little face was lighted by “dark, loving eyes.” All the White House employees were his friends. After Willie’s death the devotion of both parents was concentrated on Tad. The mother was also deeply attached to Robert, made many trips to Cambridge to visit him, and fiercely opposed any suggestion that he should become a soldier.
Two characteristics of Mrs. Lincoln’s divided nature immediately became the subject of critical comment. She was at once avaricious and wildly extravagant. “All manner of stories about her were flying around,” wrote young Charles Francis Adams, after attending a fashionable reception in Washington; “she wanted to do the right thing, but, not knowing how, was too weak and proud to ask; she was going 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.’. . .” The Commissioner of Public Buildings was responsible for appointing and paying the doorkeepers, night watchmen, furnace men and gardeners, while others of the White House employees, including a coachman and footman, received their wages from the President. The secretaries disbursed about twenty thousand dollars a year for the upkeep of the mansion. Mrs. Lincoln’s conception of “an economical basis” was to discharge members of the staff, and demand their wages for her own pocket. A year after her arrival in Washington, she was badgering John Hay to pay her the steward’s salary. She engaged in controversies with the secretaries over the feed for their horses, which were kept in the President’s stable, and sent the doorkeeper of the Executive office, Stackpole, to “blackguard” Hay on the subject, making no concealment of her opinion that there was cheating in the accounts.
Mrs. Lincoln had never had much spending money, but her shopping expeditions soon brought her wide publicity. Two months after the inauguration, she paid a visit to New York with Mrs. Grimsley, and purchased a solferino and gold dinner service, with the arms of the United States emblazoned on each piece. She also selected some handsome vases and mantel ornaments for the Blue and Green Rooms, and ordered a seven-hundred-piece set of Bohemian cut glass. These were but the premonitory signals of a great renovation of the White House. All its elegance was concentrated in the parlors, where the furniture, which dated from the time of Monroe, was handsome in its antique way; but even in these much admired rooms the decorations were soiled and shabby. At the session preceding an inauguration, it was customary for Congress to make an appropriation, to be expended under the direction of the President, for refurnishing the Executive Mansion. Mrs. Lincoln had twenty thousand dollars to use as she pleased, in addition to the purchases which she expected to charge to the Commissioner of Public Buildings, and she luxuriated in samples of costly damask and lace and wallpaper, and placed orders for
carpets and materials to be imported from Europe.
During the first summer of the war, the President’s family did not follow Buchanan’s example of moving out to the cottage at the Soldiers’ Home. All during June and July and even in the insalubrious heat of August, the White House levees continued. “Private soldiers in hodden grey and hobnailed shoes,” wrote Mr. Russell, “stood timorously chewing on the threshold of the state apartments, alarmed at the lights and gilding, or, haply, by the marabout feathers and finery of a few ladies who were in ball costume, till, assured by fellow-citizens that there was nothing to fear, they plunged into the dreadful revelry.” The President seemed in good humor, but Mrs. Lincoln, in the midst of her bevy of ladies, appeared less contented.
The state dinner for Prince Napoleon Jerome Bonaparte was the most important function of the summer of First Bull Run. Leaving the Princess Clothilde on his yacht in New York harbor, the Prince had come to see Washington and the encampments of both the Federal and the Confederate armies. In spite of a startling resemblance to his uncle, Napoleon I, he was known to have very advanced political ideas, and the capital was agreeably fluttered by his visit.
On the Saturday evening of August, when the dinner party took place, Mr. N. P. Willis, proprietor of the successful magazine, the Home Journal, was in the White House grounds, enjoying the open-air concert of the Marine Band with the rest of the Washington crowd. Willis was a foppish, middle-aged gentleman, admired for the grace of his literary style in prose and verse, and recently noted for dancing attendance on Mrs. Lincoln. Though he disclaimed any intention of catching a glimpse of royal entertainment, he had his eye firmly fixed on the mansion. He was rewarded only by the sight of the President, who, with his knees to his chin, was reading his letters at the window in full view of the south lawn. At half past six, Mr. Willis began to wonder whether “Abe” would be able to change his gray coat in time for a seven o’clock dinner. At that moment, a servant entered the room, draped a napkin around the President’s throat, expeditiously shaved him, and shook the napkin out of the window. Mr. Lincoln’s long arms moved about his head. He stooped—“for biforked disencumberment,” Mr. Willis guessed. Presently, there came a gleam of white linen. The President’s elbows shot out as he tied his cravat. He donned his black coat, and Mr. Willis checked the time by his watch—twenty-two minutes flat.
Mrs. Lincoln was elegantly attired in white grenadine over white silk, with a long train. The only other lady at the dinner party was Mrs. Grimsley, who had been staying at the White House for over five months. She wore a salmon tulle dress with natural flowers, and sat on the President’s right. On his left was General Scott, while Mrs. Lincoln had the Prince Napoleon and Secretary Chase on her right and left respectively. Lord Lyons, M. Mercier, General McClellan and the Sewards, father and son, were also present and there was a retinue of aides, attachés and secretaries. As they entered the diningroom, the Marine Band struck up the “Marseillaise,” under the innocent impression that any French tune was appropriate for complimenting a Frenchman. The Prince was said to have observed goodnaturedly, “Mais oui, ici je suis républicain.”
Like many sharp-tongued and destructive critics of human character, Mrs. Lincoln lacked capacity for judging it. Young Charles Francis Adams heard that “she had got hold of newspaper reporters and railroad conductors, as the best persons to go to for advice and direction.” Mr. Russell observed that she had “permitted her society to be infested by men who would not be received in any respectable private house in New York.” “She allowed herself to be approached and continuously surrounded,” wrote Henry Villard, “by a common set of men and women whose bare-faced flattery easily gained controlling influence over her.” Flattery was the unfailing means of winning Mrs. Lincoln’s regard, but not all of the sycophants who made up the White House coterie were common. Mr. Willis was almost unbearably elegant. At one reception, a newspaper reporter satirized the elderly dandy by noting a wrinkle on the back of his coat as an attempt to set a new fashion. He was, however, well endowed with the qualifications of a courtier. In the Home Journal, he gushed over Mrs. Lincoln as “unaffectedly happy,” and declared that “the presence of a . . . . most motherly and kindly woman . . . . gives a home character to the great White Palace. . . .” Challenged by a correspondent for his use of the word “motherly,” Mr. Willis tactfully amended it by explaining that “the Lady President is at the most florescent point of her ‘thirties,’ and in the calmest repose of her noon of beauty. . . .”
Another well-mannered member of Mrs. Lincoln’s circle was the disreputable Henry Wikoff, secret representative of Mr. James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald. Wikoff was a clever and polished man of the world, who had inherited a large fortune, gone everywhere and known everyone. It was said that no other American was acquainted with so many of the notables of Europe as the Chevalier Wikoff, as he was usually called, because of a decoration given him by Queen Isabella of Spain. He had been intimate with several members of the imperial family of France. While attaché of the United States legation at London, he had performed a mission for Joseph Bonaparte, carrying to him from Paris the valuables of Napoleon I, and receiving a silver drinking cup as a reward. Louis Napoleon, whom Wikoff visited during his imprisonment in the fortress at Ham, gave him the cross of the Legion of Honor. Lord Palmerston, on meeting Wikoff, offered him a connection with the British Foreign Office, and for a year the Chevalier served as its secret agent in Paris. According to Wikoff himself, he thoroughly antagonized the British. Soon after his work for the Foreign Office ended, he found himself in a little scrape. He was in love with an American lady, living in London, and claimed to be engaged to her. When she left for Italy, the Chevalier pursued her, and attempted an abduction, as a result of which he landed in a Genoese dungeon. It was Wikoff’s contention that his long imprisonment—over fifteen months—was enforced through British influence.
This was the social spy whom the Herald planted in the White House—a glittering, middle-aged scapegrace, who had enjoyed all the gifts of life save stability of character. Villard ascribed Mrs. Lincoln’s admiration of him to the fact that she had been accustomed only to Western society; yet Palmerston and Louis Napoleon had moved in wider circles. It is easier to understand Wikoff’s attraction for Mrs. Lincoln than his own willingness to engage in a shabby employment, whose remuneration he did not need. On the other hand, he was in such disrepute that ordinary discretion should have prevented the President’s wife from an intimate association with him.
Wikoff showed the utmost assurance in his appeals to the vanity of the mistress of the White House [Villard noted]. I myself heard him compliment her upon her looks and dress in so fulsome a way that she ought to have blushed and banished the impertinent fellow from her presence. She accepted Wikoff as a majordomo in general and in special, as guide in matters of social etiquette, domestic arrangements, and personal requirements, including her toilette, and as always welcome company for visitors in her salon and on her drives.
The Herald paid Mrs. Lincoln’s social career the dubious compliment of columns of unctuous drivel.
At the capital [one story ran], she was thrown suddenly among a number of old-time fashionables, to whom her simplicity seemed rustic and her cordiality ill-bred, and who would gladly have patronized and controlled her. Without any apparent effort, however, the President’s lady quietly ignored her would-be mentors, and took the lead of society with as easy grace as if she had been born to the station of mistress of the White House. Soon after, she came to the metropolis, visited the most modish stores, and—like the Empress Eugénie, who was as suddenly elevated in rank—displayed such exquisite taste in the selection of the materials she desired, and of the fashion of their make that all the fashionable ladies of New York were astir with wonder and surprise. Returning to Washington, the President’s lady received and entertained the most polished diplomats and the most fastidious courtiers of Europe with an ease and elegance which made republican simplicity seem alm
ost regal. Her state dinner to the Prince Napoleon, on Saturday last, was a model of completeness, taste and geniality; and, altogether, this Kentucky girl, this Western matron, this republican queen, puts to the blush and entirely eclipses the first ladies of Europe—the excellent Victoria, the pensive Eugénie and the brilliant Isabella.
In August, Mrs. Lincoln was tired, and took a holiday at the seaside. “Thus having burst upon the fashionable world as suddenly and as brilliantly as the last comet did upon the celestial,” said the Herald, “Mrs. Lincoln is now about to leave Washington for a time to enjoy the purer air and more healthful breezes of Long Branch, and to achieve new triumphs in a brief summer campaign. Let all of our best society prepare to follow in her train.”
Bob Lincoln, who in company with John Hay had preceded his mother to the resort, proved to be too moderate and quiet for the reporters of a sensational newspaper. The belles were “all aflutter to be introduced to, to dance and talk with Mr. Lincoln,” and the Herald thought it a “strange infatuation.”
He does everything very well, but avoids doing anything extraordinary. He doesn’t talk much; he doesn’t dance differently from other people; he isn’t odd, outré nor strange in any way. . . . In short, he is only Mr. Robert Lincoln. . . . He does nothing whatever to attract attention, and shows by every gentlemanly way how much he dislikes this fulsome sort of admiration, but it comes, all the same. . . . Mr. Robert is happier when smoking a pipe, student fashion, and doing his share in a good laugh than among all the doings of the Branch.
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