The Lincoln Marriage: WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT IT?

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Author: J.E.

THE MARRIAGE OF ABRAHAM AND MARY Lincoln was at times trying and turbulent but by most accounts was based on love. Unfortunately, not many letters between the two still exist to offer testimony to that fact.

Of course the Lincoln marriage started rather incongruously, and some thought it too odd to last. Abraham Lincoln was an attorney and a member of the state legislature, but he grew up an impoverished, backwoods farmer. Mary Todd came from a rich, aristocratic Lexington family. She had 13 years of schooling and lived in a house with slaves. While Mary was beautiful, young, and vivacious when Lincoln met her, she was also outspoken, spoiled, petulant, and selfish.

Yet letters from Lincoln's single term in Congress attest to their love. He wrote in 1848: "In this troublesome world, we are never quite satisfied. When you were here, I thought you hindered me some in attending to business but now, having nothing but business â€" no vanity â€" it has grown exceedingly tasteless to me. I hate to sit down and direct documents, and I hate to stay in this old room by myself." Part of Mary's response stated, "How much, I wish instead of writing, we were together this evening, I feel very sad away from you."

Mary Lincoln, however, "was gifted with an unusually high temper and that invariably got the better of her," according to one Springfield neighbor, James Gourley said the Lincolns had their ups and downs, like all families, but got along as well as anyone. "Lincoln yielded to his wife â€" in fact, almost any other man, had he known the woman as I did, would have done the same thing." Lincoln sometimes would ignore his wife's hysterics, Gourley stated, and frequently he would laugh at her. If Mary did not calm down, he would simply pick up one of the children and leave the house.

Gourley's reminiscences are in accord with others from the White House years. Mary's seamstress, Elizabeth Keckley, wrote in 1868 that Lincoln "was a kind and indulgent husband, and when he saw faults in his wife he excused them as he would excuse the impulsive acts of a child."

There is no doubt that Mary Lincoln had a high temper (Lincoln's White House secretaries referred to her as the Hell Cat), but perhaps it is better to characterize her as overly emotional, not only in anger but also in sorrow. Two specific episodes of overwhelming loss that occurred during Lincoln's life offer a prelude to the 1875 insanity case.

When the Lincolns' second son, Eddie, died in 1850, Mary refused to eat or sleep. forcing Lincoln to plead, "Eat, Mary, for we must live." When their third son, Willie, died in the White House in 1862, Mary submitted to her anguish so thoroughly Lincoln feared for her sanity. "Mrs. Lincoln's grief was inconsolable," Elizabeth Keckley wrote. "In one of her paroxysms of grief the president kindly bent over his wife, took her by the arm, and gently led her to a window. With a stately, solemn gesture, he pointed to the lunatic asylum.

"'Mother, do you see that large white building on the hill yonder? Try and control your grief, or it will drive you mad, and we may have to send you there.'"

After the assassination, she again became completely consumed and even incapacitated by her feelings and did not vacate the White House for more than a month. Her friend Dr. Anson G. Henry wrote to his wife in April 1865 that Mary's misery was so overwhelming because she loved Lincoln with an intensity possible only for such an emotional, high-tempered person.

Mary's most notorious episode was the old-clothes scandal of 1867, in which she tried to sell some of her White House gowns and jewelry in New York City under a pseudonym. She did this believing herself to be practically destitute, but in reality she was worth more than $50,000. This fact, along with Mary's generally poor popular reputation resulting from her temper and her eccentricities, led to her actions being derided in the press as socially improper and embarrassing to the memory of her husband. For many people, including Mary's son Robert, the scandal was practically verification of the former First Lady's mental imbalance.

Had Abraham Lincoln survived his Presidency, who can say whether Mary Lincoln would ever have been committed to a sanitarium? The early signs of the reasons for her committal were evident, however, long before 1875.

PHOTO (COLOR): The young lawyer courts his wife at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

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By J.E.