Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  143. Linder, Reminiscences, 155.

  144. Reminiscences of R. R. Hitt, in Otis B. Goodall, “Hon. Robert Roberts Hitt,” The Phonographic Magazine 7 (1 June 1893): 206–207; Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 19 July 1880.

  145. Lincoln’s endorsement, dated 26 Mar. 1862, on a letter by Logan, Springfield, 13 Jan. 1862, Gilder-Lehrman Collection, New-York Historical Society.

  146. Mary Todd to Mercy Levering, Springfield, June 1841, Turner and Turner, eds., Mary Lincoln, 27.

  147. Interview with Mrs. Alexander R. McKee (née Martinette Hardin), Marietta Holdstock Brown, “A Romance of Lincoln,” clipping identified as “Indianapolis, January 1896,” LMF.

  148. Sarah A. Rickard Barret to Herndon, 12 Aug. 1888, HI, 665.

  149. William E. Barton, memorandum of a conversation in Springfield with Mrs. Charles Ridgely, [1921], Barton Papers, University of Chicago.

  150. Address by James Speed at Cincinnati, 4 May 1887, Speed Family Papers, Filson Club, Louisville, Kentucky.

  151. John Gilmer Speed, “Lincoln’s Hesitancy to Marry,” Ladies’ Home Journal 12 (Oct. 1895):2.

  152. Lincoln to Mary Speed, Bloomington, Illinois, 27 Sept. 1841, CWL, 1:261.

  153. Joshua Speed to Mary L. Speed, Springfield, 31 Oct. 1841, Speed Family Papers, Filson Club, Louisville, Kentucky.

  154. Lincoln to Speed, Springfield, 3 Feb. 1842, CWL, 1:268.

  155. Lincoln to Speed, Springfield, 5 Oct. 1842, CWL, 1:303.

  156. Lincoln to Speed, n.p., [3 Jan.? 1842], CWL, 1:266.

  157. Lincoln to Speed, Springfield, 3 Feb. 1842, CWL, 1:268.

  158. Lincoln to Speed, Springfield, 13 Feb. 1842, CWL, 269–270.

  159. Lincoln to Speed, Springfield, 25 Feb. CWL, 1:280.

  160. Lincoln to Speed, Springfield, 27 Mar. 1842, CWL, 1:282. January 1 is customarily thought to be the day on which Lincoln broke his engagement to Mary Todd, but Douglas L. Wilson has shown that this is most improbable. Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 231–255.

  161. Lincoln to Speed, Springfield, 4 July 1842, CWL, 1:289. In the Book of Exodus (14:13), Moses tells the Israelites as Pharaoh’s army closed in on them: “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you today.”

  162. Chicago Press and Tribune, n.d., copied in the Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 27 Apr. 1860.

  163. Mel T. Cook to Jesse W. Weik, New Brunswick, NJ, 4 Mar. 1923, Weik Papers, IHi.

  164. The “Rebecca” letter, 27 Aug. 1842, CWL, 1:295–296.

  165. Shields to Lincoln, Tremont, IL, 17 Sept. 1842, CWL, 1:299n. Most Lincoln biographers have asserted that Lincoln was protecting Mary Todd, who had allegedly written the Rebecca letter that so offended Shields. They were seemingly justified, for she, in a somewhat garbled account, said that Lincoln had done so. Mary Todd Lincoln to Mary Jane Welles, Chicago, 6 Dec. 1865, and to Francis B. Carpenter, Chicago, 8 Dec. 1865, in Turner and Turner, eds., Mary Lincoln, 295, 299. But Douglas L. Wilson has demonstrated that Mary Todd’s version of events could not be accurate. Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 265–283. After the three Rebecca letters appeared, Mary Todd did compose some verses signed “Cathleen,” published two weeks after the abusive second Rebecca letter. Julia Jayne’s husband “never understood that the Shields duel had any thing to do with hastening the marriage” of Lincoln and Mary Todd. Lyman Trumbull to Jesse W. Weik, Chicago, 17 Apr. 1895, Weik, Real Lincoln, ed. Burlingame, 378.

  166. Koerner, undated letter to The Century Magazine 33 (Oct. 1887):974.

  167. Undated article by Col. Thomas Bangs Thorpe, reproduced in another undated article, clipping collection, LMF.

  168. Merryman to the editor, Springfield, 8 Oct., Sangamo Journal, 14 Oct. 1842.

  169. I. M. Short, Abraham Lincoln: Early Days in Illinois: Reminiscences of Different Persons Who Became Eminent in American History (Kansas City, MO: Simpson Publishing Company, 1927), 35–37.

  170. Lincoln to Shields, Tremont, 17 Sept. 1842, CWL, 1:299.

  171. Bledsoe, “Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln,” Alexandria Gazette (Virginia), 8 Nov. 1876.

  172. Ibid.

  173. Sophie Bledsoe Herrick, letter to The Century Magazine, Mar. 1892, 796.

  174. Linder, Reminiscences, 66–67.

  175. Reminiscences of Josiah M. Lucas, Chicago Journal, n.d, copied in the Washington Post, 22 Aug. 1882.

  176. Undated article by Col. Thomas Bangs Thorpe, reproduced in another undated article, clipping collection, LMF.

  177. This description of the near-duel is based on the eyewitness accounts by William G. Souther, a reporter for the Alton Telegraph. See H. G. McPike, “The Lincoln-Shields Duel,” The Magazine of History 4 (1906):145–147; Topeka correspondence of the Kansas City Journal, n.d., copied in the New York Tribune, 25 May 1896; Topeka correspondence, 11 May, Chicago Tribune, 12 May 1896; and Stevens, A Reporter’s Lincoln, ed. Burlingame, 15–20.

  178. Quoted in Lincoln’s memo of duel instructions for E. H. Merryman, [19 Sept. 1842], CWL, 1:301.

  179. Illinois State Register (Springfield), 4 Nov. 1842, 30 June, 11 and 18 Aug. 1843; letter by “Loco,” Jacksonville, 7 Oct., ibid., 20 Oct. 1843.

  180. Shawneetown Illinois Republican, 8 Oct. 1842, reprinted in Springhouse 14 (1998):16.

  181. Shawneetown Illinois Republican, 3 Nov. 1842, reprinted ibid., 17.

  182. Alton Daily Telegraph & Democratic Review, 1 Oct. 1842.

  183. Jacksonville Illinoisan, n.d., copied in the Chicago Weekly Democrat, 8 Oct. 1842.

  184. George W. Meeker to Lyman Trumbull, Chicago, 29 Sept. 1842, Illinois State Archives, copied on the Web site of the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, Northern Illinois University.

  185. Lincoln to Martin S. Morris, Springfield, 26 Mar. 1843, CWL, 1:320.

  186. Milton Hay to Thomas Venmun, Springfield, 16 Jan. [18]92, Milton Hay Papers, IHi.

  187. F. B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln: The Story of a Picture (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1867), 305.

  188. Mary Todd Lincoln to Mary Jane Welles, Chicago, 6 Dec. 1865, Turner and Turner, eds., Mary Todd Lincoln, 296.

  189. Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 58.

  190. Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon’s Lincoln, 146.

  191. Mary V. Stuart, undated interview with Ida Tarbell, Tarbell Papers, quoted in Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 285–286; reminiscences of Christopher C. Brown, Chicago Times-Herald, 25 Aug. 1895. Ninian and Elizabeth Todd Edwards told Herndon that “[a]fter the match was broken off between Mary and Lincoln Mrs Francis shrewdly got them together. Doct. Henry who admired and loved Mr. Lincoln had much to do in getting Mary and Lincoln together again.” Elizabeth and Ninian W. Edwards, interview with Herndon, 27 July 1887, HI, 623. Leigh Kimball, who lived with the Edwards family, “said he frequently took Miss Mary Todd to the house of Mr. Simeon Francis to meet Mr. Lincoln.” Brown, “Springfield Society,” 35. The great-grandniece of Simeon Francis, who married Eliza Rumsey of New London, Connecticut, in 1820, reported a similar tradition. Katherine M. Goodloe to Katherine Helm, Rio Vista, California, 18 May 1928, William H. Townsend Papers, University of Kentucky, Lexington. Mrs. Francis refused Herndon’s request for a statement about the Lincolns. Mrs. Francis to Herndon, Portland, Oregon, 10 Aug. 1887, HI, 624. Most biographers have credited Simeon Francis and his wife with facilitating the rapprochement. Douglas L. Wilson has shown that the Hardins were more responsible for that development; see Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 281–284.

  192. Sarah Rickard interviewed by Nellie Crandall Sanford, Kansas City Star, 10 Feb. 1907.

  193. Elizabeth Todd Edwards, interview with Herndon, [1865–1866], HI, 444.

  194. Lincoln to Speed, Springfield, 5 Oct. 1842, CWL, 1:303.

  195. Speed’s friend, W. H. McKnight, reporting what Speed had told him, in McKnight to Ida M. Tarbell, Louisville, 1 Feb. 1909, Louisville Courier-Journal, n.d., clipping collection, LMF.

  196. Caroline Owsley Brown, quoting Elizabeth Edwards, in
“Springfield Society before the Civil War,” [Brown], Rewarding Years Recalled, 34. This is a fuller version of Mrs. Brown’s article, originally written for the “Anti-Rust Club,” than the one published in Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 15 (1922). See also Helm, Mary, Wife of Lincoln, 94.

  197. Betsy Davis, a relative of Dr. Dresser, in Corneau, “Road of Remembrance,” 120.

  198. Elizabeth Todd Edwards, interview with Herndon, [1865–1866], HI, 444.

  199. Albert S. Edwards, in Stevens, A Reporter’s Lincoln, ed. Burlingame, 116. The bride recalled that her sister “gave us quite a big wedding” and that her sister Elizabeth “wanted to give her [Mary Todd] a big wedding.” On 12 May 1839, Frances was married to William S. Wallace. Chicago Times Herald, 25 Aug. 1895.

  200. Helm, Mary, Wife of Lincoln, 94; Mrs. Benjamin S. Edwards’s reminiscences, Chicago Tribune, 12 Feb. 1900; Albert S. Edwards in Stevens, A Reporter’s Lincoln, ed. Burlingame, 117; Weik, Real Lincoln, ed. Burlingame, 60–61. According to Albert S. Edwards, Lincoln said that he and Mary planned to wed at the home of Simeon Francis.

  201. Frances Todd Wallace, quoted in Eugenia Jones Hunt, My Personal Recollections of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln (Peoria, IL: H. A. Moser, 1966), 8.

  202. Brown, “Springfield Society Before the Civil War,” 34.

  203. Raymond, Incidents in the Life of Mrs. Benjamin S. Edwards, 14–15; letter by Mrs. Benjamin S. Edwards, n.d., unidentified clipping, LMF; reminiscences of Mrs. Edwards’s niece, Mrs. H. D. Ames, Washington Post, 13 Feb. 1929. See also T. G. Onstot, Pioneers of Menard and Mason Counties (Peoria, IL: J. W. Franks and Sons, 1902), 36; Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt, “An Old Lady’s Lincoln Memories,” Life, 9 Feb. 1959, 57. Mary Lincoln’s sister-in-law witnessed the scene and described it much later to Octavia Roberts. Roberts, “Our Townsman: Pictures of Lincoln as a Friend and Neighbor,” Collier’s, 12 Feb. 1909, 17, 24.

  204. James H. Matheny, quoted in Weik, Real Lincoln, ed. Burlingame, 61–62; Linder, Reminiscences, 73; James H. Matheny, interview with Jesse W. Weik, Springfield, 21 Aug. 1888, HI, 665.

  205. Lincoln to Samuel D. Marshall, Springfield, 11 Nov. 1842, CWL, 1:305.

  206. Battle Axe, and Political Reformer (Winchester, IL), 19 Nov. 1842, in Thomas F. Schwartz, “ ‘—in short, he is married!’: A Contemporary Newspaper Account,” For the People: A Newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association (Winter 1999), 4. The quoted verse is from Shakespeare’s Richard III.

  207. Lincoln to Joshua Speed, Springfield, 18 May 1843, CWL, 1:325.

  208. Mrs. B. S. Edwards to Ida Tarbell, Springfield, 8 Oct. 1895, Ida M. Tarbell Papers, Allegheny College.

  209. Ida Tarbell to T. A. Frank Jones, n.p., 12 Dec. 1922, copy, Tarbell Papers, Allegheny College.

  210. Eleanor Gridley to W. A. Evans, n.p., 4 June 1932, copy, Gridley Papers, ICHi. Mrs. Gridley believed that “LOVE is the essence of kindness, compassion, tenderness, thoughtfulness, [and] consideration.”

  211. Corneau, “The Road of Remembrance,” 118. Albert J. Beveridge doubted that Lincoln “really ‘loved’ ” Mary Todd. Beveridge to William E. Barton, Indianapolis, 24 Jan. 1927, Lincoln Collection, RPB.

  212. John S. Bradford, in Weik, Real Lincoln, ed. Burlingame, 99.

  213. Mary Lincoln to Emilie Todd Helm, Springfield, 20 Sept. [1857], in Turner and Turner, eds., Mary Todd Lincoln, 50.

  214. Remarks at Bloomington, 21 Nov. 1860, CWL, 4:143–144.

  215. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 8 Dec. 1860.

  216. Herndon, “Lincoln and Mary Todd,” manuscript, H-W MSS DLC.

  217. Speed, interview with Herndon, [1865–1866], HI, 475.

  218. Browning, interview with John G. Nicolay, Springfield, 17 June 1875, Burlingame, ed., Oral History of Lincoln, 2.

  219. William J. Butler, grandson of William Butler, in the Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 28 Feb. 1937.

  220. John Todd Stuart, interview with Herndon, [late June 1865], HI, 64.

  221. Note by Jesse W. Weik, n.d., memo book no. 2, box 2, Weik Papers, IHi. In the Herndon-Weik biography of Lincoln, the authors speculated that because “Lincoln was inordinately ambitious,” it was therefore “natural that he should seek by marriage in an influential family to establish strong connections and at the same time foster his political fortunes.” Wilson and Davis, ed., Herndon’s Lincoln, 132.

  222. Lincoln to Martin S. Morris, Springfield, 26 Mar. 1843, CWL, 1:320.

  223. Matheny, interview with Herndon, 3 May 1866, HI, 215. Herndon’s notes of his interview with Matheny contain this further explanation: “Said it was Concocted & planned by the Edwards family.” It is not clear whether Matheny is paraphrasing what Lincoln told him or offering his own speculation about why Lincoln felt “driven” into wedding Mary Todd.

  224. Lincoln allegedly told this to Speed Butler, son of William Butler. William J. Butler, grandson of William Butler, Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 28 Feb. 1937. See also Salome Butler, daughter of William Butler, in Roberts, “ ‘We All Knew Abr’ham,’ ” 28, and in Hunt, My Personal Recollections of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, 10; statement by Speed Butler to Lincoln Dubois, in a questionnaire filled out by Dubois, 15 June 1924, enclosed in Lincoln Dubois to Albert J. Beveridge, 15 June 1924, Beveridge Papers, DLC.

  225. Temple, Lincoln: From Skeptic to Prophet, 27–28.

  226. Matheny, interview with Herndon, 3 May 1866, HI, 251.

  227. Herndon to Charles H. Hart, Springfield, 12 Dec. 1866, Hart Papers, CSmH.

  228. These activities are detailed in Michael Burlingame, “Mary Todd Lincoln’s Unethical Conduct as First Lady,” in Burlingame, ed., At Lincoln’s Side, 185–203, based in part on long-suppressed passages from the diary of Orville Hickman Browning, which were made public in 1994. See also David Rankin Barbee’s untitled essay on Mrs. Lincoln’s misconduct, Barbee Papers, Georgetown University. Barbee was an indefatigable researcher who turned up abundant evidence in newspapers, manuscripts, archives, and the Congressional Record.

  229. Hodder to Albert J. Beveridge, Lawrence, Kansas, 30 May 1925, Beveridge Papers, DLC. In this letter, Hodder speculated “that Mary captured him and that he finally married her from an exaggerated sense of justice.”

  230. E. B. Webb to John J. Hardin, Springfield, 6 Jan. 1842, Hardin Family Papers, ICHi.

  231. Mary Todd to Mercy Ann Levering, Springfield, June 1841, Turner and Turner, eds., Mary Todd Lincoln, 26.

  232. Herndon told this to Caroline Dall in the fall of 1866, according to Dall’s “Journal of a tour through Illinois, Wisconsin and Ohio, Oct. & Nov. 1866,” entry for 29 Oct. 1866, Dall Papers, Bryn Mawr College. Helen R. Deese, who is editing Dall’s journal for publication, believes that its entries are not contemporary but were written three decades later, based on notes taken in 1866 and no longer extant. Douglas L. Wilson, “Keeping Lincoln’s Secrets,” The Atlantic Monthly, May 2000, 84.

  233. William Jayne to Herndon, Springfield, 17 Aug. 1887, HI, 624–625.

  234. Helm, Mary, Wife of Lincoln, 84.

  235. James Gourley, interview with Herndon, [1865–1866], HI, 453. As this reminiscence suggests, it is possible that Mary Lincoln was unfaithful to her husband. In 1866 Caroline Dall apparently saw evidence in Herndon’s memorandum books (no longer extant) that indicated as much. Wilson, “Keeping Lincoln’s Secrets,” 88. See also Burlingame, Inner World of Lincoln, 291–292.

  236. David Davis, interview with Herndon, 20 Sept. 1866, HI, 350. No credible contemporary evidence suggests that Lincoln was homosexual or bisexual. On that subject, see David Herbert Donald, “We Are Lincoln Men”: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 35–38, 140–146; Michael Burlingame, “Afterword” in C. A. Tripp, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Free Press, 2005). 225–238.

  237. Herndon to Jesse W. Weik, Springfield, 23 Jan. 1890 and Jan. 1891, and Herndon to James H. Wilson, n.p., 23 Sept. 1889, H-W MSS DLC. Herndon went on to say that Lincoln suspected that he had contra
cted syphilis. Some writers have speculated that Mary Todd Lincoln contracted that disease from her husband and died of it. The best evidence suggests, however, that she died of diabetes. Norbert Hirschhorn and Robert G. Feldman, “Mary Lincoln’s Final Illness: A Medical and Historical Reappraisal,” Journal of the History of Medicine 54 (1999):511–542.

  238. Herndon to Jesse W. Weik, Springfield, 5 Jan. 1889, H-W MSS DLC. Douglas L. Wilson sensibly observed that these “stories of overnight encounters on the road with young women” were “probably based on real incidents,” though they “may have been colored by the familiar genre of stories about ‘the farmer’s daughter.’ ” Wilson, “Keeping Lincoln’s Secrets,” 81.

  239. N. W. Branson to Herndon, Petersburg, Illinois, 3 Aug. 1865, HI, 90.

  240. Henry C. Whitney to Herndon, 23 June 1887, HI, 617.

  241. C. C. Brown, interview with Herndon, [1865–1866], HI, 438. Lincoln had attended Brown’s wedding. “Autobiography of Christopher C. Brown,” in [Brown], Rewarding Years Recalled, 14.

  242. CWL, 3:360.

  243. Herndon’s account in Caroline Dall, “Journal of a tour through Illinois, Wisconsin and Ohio, Oct. & Nov. 1866,” entry for 29 Oct. 1866, Dall Papers, Bryn Mawr College.

  244. Herndon to Jesse W. Weik, Springfield, 10 Dec. 1885, H-W MSS DLC. Abner Y. Ellis said that Lincoln “had no desire for strange woman[.] I never heard him speak of any particular Woman with disrespect though he had Many opportunities for doing so while in Company with J[oshua] F. S[peed] and Wm B[utler] two old rats in that way.” A. Y. Ellis, statement for Herndon, enclosed in Ellis to Herndon, Moro, Illinois, 23 Jan. 1866, HI, 171.

  245. Speed, interview with Herndon, 5 Jan. 1889, HI, 719; Herndon added, “Lincoln went out of the house, bidding the girl good evening and went to the store of Speed, saying nothing. Speed asked no questions and so the matter rested a day or so. Speed had occasion to go and see the girl in a few days, and she told him just what was said and done between herself & Lincoln and Speed told me the story and I have no doubt of its truthfulness.”

  246. Hannah Armstrong, interview with Herndon, [1866], HI, 527.