Abraham Lincoln’s Life and Times: True Tales of a Great Man, Uncommon People, and Major Events

True Tales of a Great Man,

Uncommon People, and Major Events

By Dr. Hal Malehorn, PhD

Published by Dr. Hal Malehorn at Smashwords.com

copyright 2011 Hal Malehorn

ISBN 978-1-4581-5823-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, except for brief excerpts for reviews.

Cover design by Steve Hogan shogan_6218@yahoo.com

Smashword Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The material in this book is the property of the author. If you would like to contact the author, email Janet@TriviaQueen.com

Table of Contents

Notes From the Author

About This Book

Preface to Part One

Part One: The Lincolns and the Land

Skip to Part Two: Agents and Arenas of Change

Skip to Part Three: Challenges of Enterprise, Expansion, and Race

Skip to Part Four: The Presidency, the War, the Legacy

Part One:

The Lincolns and the Land

1. THE LINCOLN CLAN (AND ANN): THESE ABE HAS LOVED

1. THOMAS LINCOLN: A Father Figure For A Famous Son

2. NANCY HANKS LINCOLN: A Grand Mother, Too Soon Gone

3. SARAH BUSH LINCOLN: Urging Her Tall Step-Lad Towards Other Heights

4. ANN RUTLEDGE: Love’s Favors Lost

5. MARY TODD LINCOLN: Ambition Enough for Two

6. ROBERT TODD LINCOLN: At Odds With His Kin

7. DENNIS HANKS: One Near Cousin, Living Close

8. A LINCOLN FAMILY ALBUM: Abe’s Bloodline Ceases; Photos Carry On

2. MIDLAND WATERWAYS: NOT SO GENTLY DOWN THOSE STREAMS

9. THE OHIO RIVER: The First Fast Way West

10. FLATBOATS: A Risky One-Way River Ride

11. THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER: Not Always Flowing Long Unvexed to the Sea

12. KEELBOATS: By Oar, By Pole, By Sail, By God !

13. THE MISSOURI RIVER: Mighty, Muddy, and More

14. NICHOLAS ROOSEVELT’S VESSEL: Proving A Propulsive Point

15. THE ILLINOIS-MICHIGAN CANAL: Chicago Nears the Gulf

16. STEAMBOATS ON INLAND WATERS: Churning Through the Channels

3. THE LINCOLNS’ QUEST FOR LAND: PLANTING NO ROOTS FOR LONG

17. THE WILDERNESS ROAD: Pathway to a Place of Promise

18. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY: Opening Gates to Five New States

19. EARLY LAND BOOMS: A Race for a Space

20. LOG CABINS: Little Houses of the Woods

21. THEIR INDIANA HOME: A Clear Title to Cleared Turf

22. ON TO ILLINOIS: Macon County Welcomes the Wayfarers

23. THE WINTER OF 1830-1831: How Cold? How Deep? No More !

24. THEIR COLES COUNTY FARMSTEAD: Abraham’s Elders Call It Quits

4. FARMING BEFORE MID-CENTURY: VERY HARD ROWS TO HOE

25. OXEN AT WORK: Dumb and Slow, Always Ready to Go

26. CORN CULTIVATION: Favored Fare for Stable and Stall

27. HOG PRODUCTION: Hanging Hams and Pickling Pork

28. JOHN DEERE’S PLOW: A Shiny Share to Scour the Sod

29. McCORMICK’S REAPER: His Contraption and Marketing Really Work !

30. HIRED FARM LABOR: Bed and Board, Plus Four Bits A Day

31. AGRICULTURAL FAIRS: A Place for a Show (and a Win?)

32. THE ‘MILK SICK’: I Like to Have Died (and Some Did)

5. ABRAHAM IN THE PRAIRIE STATE: HERE HE LABORED AND LIVED

33. NEW SALEM BEGINNINGS: Where the Driftwood Lodged

34. THE BLACK HAWK WAR: A Deadly Summer’s Pursuit

35. MENTOR GRAHAM: Tutor to an Apt Abraham

36. SURVEYOR LINCOLN: Mastering Compass, Transit and Chain

37. EARLY SPRINGFIELD: Politicos Find a Capital Spot

38. POST–FRONTIER ILLINOIS: The State and Lincoln Grow Up

39. CHICAGO PRE-WAR: A City Mushrooms from Boggy Ground

40. LINCOLN’S HOME: Life on the East Side, and All Around the Town

6. LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS POLITICS: LOGROLLERS AND BEDFELLOWS

41. ILLINOIS STATEHOOD: Coming of Age at 21

42. THE LEGISLATURE YEARS: To the Statehouse From the Stump

43. VANDALIA, ILLINOIS: Illinois Politics Go Party-Line

44. THE WHIG PARTY: A Gradual Rise, a Slow Demise

45. THE ELECTION OF 1840: A Hullabaloo for Harrison

46. A REPRESENTATIVE RUN: Hoping for a Home in the House

47. LINCOLN IN CONGRESS: A Freshman Politico on the Spot

48. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY: A Phoenix Rises from Whig Ashes

7. LINCOLN AT LAW: HIS PRACTICE MADE PERFECT (almost)

49. LAWYER LINCOLN: One of the Best Before the Bench

50. THE EIGHTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT: Comrades, Courtrooms, Riding Rounds

51. THE MATSON TRIAL: Not so Sad to Lose This Case

52. BLACKS IN PRE-WAR ILLINOIS: Free by Law, Bound in Fact

53. THE EFFIE AFTON CASE: Full Steam Ahead ! (But Mind the Bridge !)

54. WILLIAM HERNDON: A Partner Rough Around the Edges

55. DAVID DAVIS: Lincoln’s Colleague Ends Up in Court

56. JOHN NICOLAY: A Pen at Abe’s Right Hand

Notes From the Author

You might say this book began in 1938 in the one-room public library serving Farmington, New Mexico. That’s where and when I discovered American history. I was eight years old and in the third grade. Choosing from Farmington’s scant collection, I read every single book on this nation’s past. Matter of fact (as I’ve later jested), I read BOTH books.

My parents were then teaching as half the high school faculty in the local Methodist boarding school for Navajo Indians. And so, during my early high school years (1944 to 1946), with only Navajos as classmates, I sat under my father’s instruction in history. And, enrolled in my mother’s classroom in freshman and sophomore English in that same school at that same time, I also discovered the joy of writing. I traveled to Illinois for my last two high school years. And then I enrolled in college, where I majored in English, minored in History, and prepared to teach English in a Junior High.

My love affair with Abraham Lincoln started during my first year of teaching. And it came about purely by accident: my classroom was next-door to the Social Studies classroom, where our eighth graders studied, among other things, the Civil War. As they entered my classroom daily from lively discussions of that conflict, they peppered me with questions. But I didn’t know many answers. This prompted me to read all of Bruce Catton’s works on the Civil War, as well as several biographies of Abraham Lincoln. And so, I got hooked on Old Abe and the War (the city library in Forest Park, Illinois, being much larger than Farmington’s).

My final classroom assignment brought me to Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, where for 27 years I taught Elementary Education (but not one lick of history or English). In my spare time I volunteered as a first-person living-history interpreter at the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site south of town. That two-room 1837 Cabin was the last farmstead of Thomas Lincoln, Abraham’s father, and Sarah Bush Lincoln, Abraham’s stepmother. An itinerant lawyer by then, Abraham visited his kin there twice yearly, as he rode the Eighth Judicial Circuit.

At the Cabin we volunteers portrayed the lifestyles of the Lincoln clan and their neighbors, as of the year1845. I was typecast as Alfred Balch, the local master of the Indian Creek (Injun Crick) school. My role as a re-enactor called for further reading about Abraham, the notable people he would have known, and the main national events he would have heard or read about – or taken part in. Then, to fill out my characterization, and to better understand the mid-nineteenth century in Illinois, I also read regional newspapers of the times. And so, during 24 seasons of interpretation I interacted with thousands of visitors interested in our collective portrayal of the Lincolns’ story.

Meanwhile, I asked the editors of the two county-wide newspapers if I could write a regular column, The Lincoln Log. Both editors agreed, and so began my 20 years of preparing a tri-weekly feature on Lincoln and his career. That column eventually appeared weekly, broadening its scope and changing its title to The USA’s Yesterdays. This change called for further research into national events that occurred during Lincoln’s lifetime, as well as prominent figures who peopled that era (the University’s library being much larger than Farmington’s – or Forest Park’s).

Along the way, readers of my newspaper feature occasionally mentioned that selected columns would make an interesting book. To satisfy those suggestions, our daughter, Janet Spencer -- who is in the publishing business -- proposed my assembling an electronic book, for which she would provide technical advice. And she would arrange for readers to have FREE access to it.

And so, I chose 272 columns (out of 716) for publication. These are the electronic volume you have before you now.

A BIT ABOUT THE BOOK

The arrangement of this work is different from most others. First of all, it’s a collection of those 272 selected newspaper columns. There are 34 chapters, with each chapter presenting eight topics related to its heading. Because of the semi-encyclopedic nature of the work, it will not likely be read through at a single sitting – nor even at several sittings. But, as each topic is its own 1,000-word story, each one takes only a few minutes.

These tales are arranged in four parts.

PART ONE is devoted to Abraham and the Lincoln clan, their travels in search of land, Abraham’s preparation to practice law, and his participation in Illinois politics as a legislator and a lawyer.

PART TWO introduces some of the presidents and other prominent politicians of Lincoln’s lifetime. And it details the courage and commitment of women who made a difference in mid-nineteenth century America. Noteworthy happenings and intellectuals connected with the schooling, religion, and literature of the era also appear, along with stories of popular activities and customs

PART THREE deals with more practical aspects of life in the Republic, including narratives of how production, transportation and communication affected mid-century lifestyles and trade. The expansion of this nation’s influence and boundaries through wars, travel, and exploration is also presented, along with America’s unsavory history of slavery.

PART FOUR turns again to Abraham Lincoln’s destiny, as the chosen topics describe how states’ rights, coupled with slavery, brought attempted disunion. And they explain how candidate Lincoln captured the Union’s attention, and how he managed the Civil War. The last nine chapters tell what happened during that terrible time: front-rank commanders, decisive battles, and Lincoln’s out-waiting, out-thinking, out-maneuvering and coping with opponents of several sorts.

I cannot claim that any of these tales is either complete or authoritative, as I am a popularizer of history, not a scholar. I’m indebted to the many authors whose research and publications have given me insight regarding Lincoln and his times. And I hope that their work (and my interpretation of that work) informs, entertains, and prompts readers to pursue further any of these topics (maybe even reading many more books than were in Farmington’s 1938 collection!)

Dr. Hal Malehorn

Charleston, Illinois

2010

PREFACE TO PART ONE:

The Lincolns and the Land

The ongoing history of America is a tale of people on the move. It was true of the earliest colonists, and it holds true today. From the settlements of St. Augustine, Jamestown and Plymouth until this very moment the typical American has been someone seeking something better somewhere else. Immigrants from all over the world have arrived in search of free political expression, or an unrestricted religious experience, or an improved livelihood, or simply the thrill of a novel adventure. Most of these newcomers, for the sake of another chance, abandoned all.

This geographical mobility has also been true of emigrants within America, as well. Settlers moved through the Cumberland Gap, or traveled the National Road, or coursed inland rivers, canals or railways. And as territories opened up beyond the Missouri, they moved farther west on wearisome wagon treks, or afoot, in search of adventure or land or gold.

To this wanderlust the Lincolns were no exception. In fact, before Abraham there were six generations of Lincolns in America, starting in the 1630s in Massachusetts. Each of these paternal generations ended up somewhere other than where it had begun.

And Abraham’s father, Thomas, was himself one of the restless ones. Born in Rockingham County, Virginia, he was carried babe-in-arms along the Wilderness Road and into eastern Kentucky.

As a young adult, Thomas ventured westerly within the Bluegrass State, learned the carpenter’s trade, married Nancy Hanks, started a family. Needing a farm of his own, he bought ground near Elizabethtown, then the Sinking Spring spread, and, finally, acreage along Knob Creek.

But that still wasn’t good enough. Trouble securing clear claim to his land, plus the issue of slavery that was splitting the Little Mount Baptist Church, prompted Thomas to undertake a 100-mile early-winter cross-country trudge to southern Indiana. The Hoosier State in 1816 was a just-admitted free state, and was being surveyed to guarantee settlers uncontested title to their own Government Ground.

The Lincolns’ last major move was to Macon County, Illinois, where the harsh winter of 1830-31 shivered them out. Intending to return to the milder climate of southern Indiana (Abraham at 21 having set off on his own), they stopped by Coles County to say farewells to clan members who earlier had come to stay.

These close kin suggested that the Lincolns stay on, as well. And that’s just what they did, first squatting at Buck Grove, then purchasing a place at Muddy Point, and finally settling for good at Goose Nest Prairie -- all three properties within Pleasant Grove Township.

In contrast to Thomas’s lifelong wanderings across the land, Abraham’s journey was an intellectual one. Even as a teen, he knew he didn’t want to spend his life farming. As he later confessed, Pap taught me how to do hard work, but not to like it.

Still, Abe did his chores, splitting out 3,000 fence rails during their Macon County summer alone. And his stepmother later testified that, as a youth, he never refused to do anything he was asked. And he never said a cross word about it, she added.

Yes, Abraham wanted to live by his brain, not his brawn – by my jawin’, not my sawin’.

Young Abe knew that his kind of journey involved acquiring knowledge. And since, as a child, he had sat under five different schoolmasters for only one year of schooling all told -- readin’, writin’, and cipherin’ to the Rule of Three -- he set about ‘larnin’ all by m’self. His next steps on those intellectual excursions: begging , borrowing, and buying books.

As a grown-up in New Salem, Lincoln mastered English under Mentor Graham, and also read law on his own sufficient to earn his attorney’s certificate. And in 1837 he began twice-yearly rounds of Illinois’ Eighth Judicial Circuit, where he hob-nobbed with influential men -- especially members of the legal fraternity; many of them, like himself, bound for politics.

Part One of this book, then, narrates those two journeys -- one trip geographical, chanced by Thomas, and the other intellectual, chosen by Abraham.

Your Choices for Part One:

1. The Lincoln Clan (and Ann)

2. Midland Waterways

3. The Lincoln’s Quest for Land

4. Farming Before Mid-Century

5. Abraham in the Prairie State

6. Lincoln in Illinois Politics

7. Lincoln at Law

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Part 1: The Lincoln Clan + Ann

"These Abe Has Loved"

Chapter 1

THOMAS LINCOLN:

A Father Figure for a Famous Son

A person might reasonably think that the man who fathered one of America’s greatest presidents would have earned, over the years, consistent and heartfelt respect. But the fact is that the memory of Thomas Lincoln, father of Abraham, has not always been highly prized.

Some citizens have even belittled Thomas’s origins and attainments, dismissing him as little more than white trash: ignorant, unpromising, and poor.

But there was much more to Thomas Lincoln than that. Beneath his ordinary appearance, and beyond his unremarkable activities, lay a deeper self from which arose Abraham, a truly extraordinary man.

Thomas Lincoln was born in Virginia in January of 1778. His parents journeyed to Kentucky via the Wilderness Road, which Daniel Boone had blazed not long before. The Lincolns took up farming on a Jefferson County acreage owned by Captain Abraham Lincoln, Thomas’s father.

In 1786 the Lincolns moved farther west, settling near present-day Louisville. One May day that year, as the Captain and his young sons, Mordecai and Thomas, were tending their crops, a roving Indian shot the elder Lincoln dead. Young Mordecai grabbed a rifle and killed the attacker, thereby saving the life of Thomas, age 8.

The widowed mother Bathsheba then moved with her five offspring to Washington County, Kentucky. There Thomas lived until he turned 18, meanwhile mastering carpentry in Richard Berry’s woodshop.

In 1806 Thomas met and courted Nancy Hanks, who at the time was sewing for Polly Berry. The couple married in Hardin County, Kentucky, on June 12 of that same year, and went to keeping house in nearby Elizabethtown.

During the next ten years Thomas sired three children: Sarah in 1807; Abraham in 1809; and in 1811, Thomas Junior, who died an infant. During those same ten years Thomas Lincoln bought three different farms in Hardin County. But each parcel he lost, in turn, as other early Kentuckians insisted they held prior claim to those pieces of real estate.

Thomas served his neighborhood more than a dozen times: as prison guard, jury member, road patroller, property appraiser, and road commissioner. Although those public offices did not call for a man of schooling, they did demand a person who could be counted on – and someone well-thought of by his neighbors.

Thomas Lincoln joined the local Little Mount Separate Baptist Church in 1816. But when that congregation started to split apart over the issue of slavery, Thomas began to think about moving away from the Southland’s peculiar institution.

That same year statehood was granted to Indiana. The land the federal government was selling to emigrants coming into that free state was just then being surveyed. This survey would give Thomas clear title to a claim. And so, In December of 1816 the Lincoln family left Knob Creek, Kentucky, and removed 100 miles almost due west to Pigeon Creek, Indiana, a few miles north of the Ohio River.

On October 5, 1818, death claimed Nancy Lincoln, as she fell victim to the puzzling milk sick that from time to time affected the region. A year later, the widower Thomas returned to Elizabethtown and married an acquaintance, Sarah Bush, now the widow of Daniel Johnston. Sarah had lost her husband in 1816, leaving her to raise her three young ones alone.

As Sarah Bush Lincoln took over mothering all five children, she and her new husband at times differed in their expectations of parenthood. While Sarah required her own son John to tend to his daily chores in woods and fields, she often allowed her stepson Abraham to spend some of his daylight in study. Thomas at first was not well pleased with such an arrangement. But eventually he did give Abraham an arithmetic book, and challenged the lanky lad to work his way through it.

In the late winter of 1830, partly to escape another likely outbreak of milk sick, and partly to find better soil, the entire Thomas Lincoln clan, in three wagons, moved to Illinois.

Once arrived, their one-year stay in Macon County in central Illinois was disappointing, though, for the autumn was feverish, the winter was severe, and the next spring too wet to plant. And so, as the summer sun of 183l warmed the loam, the Lincolns decided to forsake Illinois and return to a hoped-for comfort in Indiana.

By then son Abraham had turned 22, well past the age to be on his own. So he bade his kin farewell and headed west to help Denton Offutt build a flatboat bound for New Orleans.

The rest of the Lincoln caravan traveled southeast, retracing their steps of the spring before. As they passed once again through Coles County, relatives living there persuaded the Lincolns to stay on.

Unhappily for Thomas, during his remaining years in Coles County his stepson John Johnston took up hazy deals and lazy ways. Six times Thomas got tangled in financial distresses not of his making.

Still, Thomas Lincoln became known locally as a man of peaceable behavior and pleasant ways. He was a ready storyteller, clever with his hands and tools, and generous to a fault. And to kith and kin alike he was sociably and simply Uncle Tommy.

Like most dirt farmers of his time and place, Thomas scratched out a living for his household. He had worked the earth all his life. At last he owned his own ground free and clear. And at the end he left behind no unpaid debts.

In 1851 Thomas Lincoln died, gone too soon to know the heights his tall boy would one day reach. Other than his paid-for property, he had nothing to bequeath. But he did leave behind something far better than meager goods. He had passed on to Abraham his humor, patience, common sense, and fair play.

Long after his passing, a granddaughter had given Thomas a fitting tribute: Uncle Abraham got three things from his father: his honesty, his clean notions of living, and his kind heart. No greater legacy than that could any common man bestow upon any uncommon son.

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Chapter 2

NANCY HANKS LINCOLN:

A Grand Mother, Too Soon Gone

As almost everyone knows, Nancy Hanks birthed and raised Abraham Lincoln to the age of nine. Considering that she gave America one of this nation’s best-loved presidents, it seems strange that so little is known about the woman. For one thing, she was born about 1783 in Virginia, but no one knows just when or where. She was brought to Kentucky by her mother, but no one knows in what or how. And her father walked away from his woman and babe, but no one knows who he was or why he left.

Much of the lore that describes Nancy Hanks has come by word of mouth. Nancy Hanks was said to be taller than most, of medium build, with dark eyes and skin. Her hair was reportedly brown, her forehead high. Although she was not well-schooled, she supposedly had a good mind.

Raised by Thomas and Elizabeth Sparrow, Nancy grew skillful with needle and thread. At age 22 she was sewing for Polly Berry when young Tom Lincoln came to call. After the two were promised, they traveled to Washington County, Kentucky, for their vows. Even though Nancy was of age and needed no guardian to speak for her, Richard Berry provided a bond to swear there was no reason to object to the match.

News of the upcoming marriage was spread about the neighborhood from kin to kith. With spring planting done, the timing was right for a gathering of witnesses, plus a festive supper to mark the event.

The preacher who sealed the vows was Jesse Head. The good reverend was a circuit-riding, devil-wrestling, bully-thumping Methodist. His fiery red hair well fit his flaming pulpiteering.

The ceremony happened as the sun set on June 12, 1806. Next came the food, fixed by the Berrys’ slaves. The fiddler then rosined his bow and, scraping out age-old tunes, sparked the jigs.

With the pan-clanging shivaree done and the guests gone, Thomas and Nancy headed for Elizabethtown. There the log cabin Nancy would call home was nothing to brag on. But it did give the newlyweds a sound roof and strong walls that shed rattling winds and rains. Inside that rude shelter Nancy on February 10, 1807, gave birth to her first child, Sarah.

Almost two years later Thomas and Nancy moved several miles south to the Nolin Creek farm. At this modest spread near Sinking Spring, Nancy on February 12, 1809, delivered a hoped-for boy; she named him Abraham after his father’s father.

For two more years Thomas tilled the Nolin Creek soil. But then came a squabble with someone who claimed prior title to that piece of land. Rather than wrangle, the Lincolns moved to a new acreage several miles northeast along Knob Creek. Not long later Nancy bore her third, little Thomas.

But the baby did not thrive. Even the doctor hastening from Elizabethtown in pitch dark could not save the infant’s life. Nancy’s grieving carpenter-husband made the tiny coffin from his own whipsawn boards. After an overnight wake, and with no clergy there to pray over the babe, the little walnut box was lowered into its grave. A carved wooden headboard marked the spot.

Soon came another legal dispute: the Knob Creek place, too, was contested as to ownership. Rather than lock horns once more, Thomas chose to move to Indiana, newly-added to the Union. Surveyors of plentiful virgin ground there could assure settlers that the land they staked out was truly theirs.

In spite of the hard winter of 1816 (afterwards locally called Eighteen-Hundred-and-Froze-to-Death), the foursome, accompanied by cousin Dennis Hanks, packed their wagon and in December moved 100 miles west, crossing the Ohio River into Indiana. There they shivered for a while in a half-faced camp made of notched logs and a hillside for walls, with a bearskin for a door.

Aided by neighbors, Thomas soon put up a snug one-room cabin with all four walls of logs and a packed-dirt floor. Nancy’s foster parents, Thomas and Elizabeth Sparrow, moved in close by. For two years Tom Lincoln edged back the wilderness and worked the sod. Nancy minded the two children, and at times hurried over to aid needful neighbors.

Two such persons in distress were the Sparrows. In the fall of 1818 both of them came down with the dreaded milk sick. Nancy nursed them during what turned out to be their final days. The couple were buried, and Nancy, sorrowing, went home to once more take up her chores.

Sadly, while Nancy was next door helping the Sparrows, she unknowingly had drunk milk from the cow poisoned by eating the white snakeroot. A week later, after feebly bidding her little family farewell, she too lay dead. It was October 5, 1818.

Once again Thomas, sorrowing, turned to his pile of planks. Helped by nine-year-old Abraham, who whittled the pegs, Thomas bent over hammer, auger and saw to shape a coffin for their beloved. Nancy Hanks was laid to rest beneath a coverlet of autumn leaves close by her cabin door.

Several months later Reverend David Elkins rode by to say a sermon over Nancy’s grave, and over the mounds of all others who had not had a preaching at their burying times. It was likely that Elkins, though unlettered, spoke a powerful message that combined tender tribute, stern warning, and fond hope.

While the grief of Thomas and his two young was sharp at the time, eventually their pain of heart gave over to tender memories of a woman of strong virtues and quiet ways. Certain it was that Abraham never forgot her, for she had given him a start toward goodness. This he much later gratefully confirmed: All I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

Nancy Hanks left precious little of herself behind: hardly any worldly goods, and only a few memories to show for her 35 years. But what she did give the nation was Abraham Lincoln. Surely that one gift was more than enough.

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Chapter 3

SARAH BUSH LINCOLN:

Urging Her Tall Step-Lad Towards Other Heights

Most men are blessed with one loving and caring mother; but some men are blessed with two. Such a double boon came to Abraham Lincoln, who was born in 1809 to Nancy Hanks Lincoln, and who, after Nancy’s death in 1818, was raised to adulthood by Sarah Bush Lincoln.

While Nancy had mainly nurtured the lad’s physical needs well into childhood, it was Abraham’s stepmother who recognized the growing youth’s intellectual potential and nourished it into greatness.

Differing from most women of her time and place, Sarah Bush came from a Kentucky family of more than modest means. She and her eight siblings enjoyed a comfortable life. And their social circle in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, numbered many friends, including the young men, Thomas Lincoln and Daniel Johnston.

As a 17-year-old in 1806 Sarah chose to wed Daniel, a man of little standing in their small village. He often found himself in debt. And his slim earnings as town jailer ended when he died in 1816, leaving Sarah a widow with three young ones to raise all by herself.

After Daniel’s passing, Sarah bought a cabin in Elizabethtown and settled down with her offspring to eke out a living, doing for hire whatever simple housewifely chores her neighbors might have had. Meantime Thomas Lincoln had married Nancy Hanks and had moved to southern Indiana. There in 1818 Nancy died of the milk sick. Needful of a woman to raise his own two motherless children, and having heard of Daniel’s death, Thomas traveled to Elizabethtown and proposed marriage to the widow. She accepted his offer, but only if he would help her pay off the debt Daniel had left.

Thomas agreed, and after several months, the two were wed. Sarah packed into Mr. Lincoln’s wagon her three children, along with a few pieces of cherished household goods. Then the party of five jolted back to Thomas Lincoln’s Indiana cabin.

As she gradually became acquainted with her new stepson Abraham, Sarah began to sense something about him that was quite different from the qualities in the other children under her care. Even though she herself was illiterate, she encouraged Abraham to read and study books, even, at times, at the expense of his own chores.

Much later Sarah said of Abraham, He was a good boy; he never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused to do anything I asked of him. His mind and mine seemed to run right along together – move, as it were, in the same channel.

Abraham, in turn, said of Sarah, She was my best friend in this world, and no son could love a mother more than I loved her.

Sarah Bush Lincoln was nearly 43 when the Thomas Lincoln clan moved to Illinois. Friends and kin there remembered her as a tall woman, straight as an arrow, fair of face, sprightly, talkative and proud. She wore her hair in curls and was noted by neighbors for being hardworking and kind.

Throughout his adulthood Abraham kept his dear stepmother close in mind. And he helped provide for her daily needs. During the many seasons he rode the Circuit (which twice-yearly carried him close to the Thomas Lincoln farm), he always took time to visit his stepmother. Astride a horse, or conveyed by buggy, on his side trips out to Goosenest Prairie he not uncommonly brought along gifts of goods to make Sarah’s life a bit more bearable, married as she was to a dirt-farming man.

Abraham also sometimes sent money to help the family out, especially after Thomas’s death in 1851. As President, he sent money to Sarah in care of her son-in-law, Dennis Hanks. In one such instance Hanks wrote back, Dere Abe, I recived yer Letter Check for 50.00. I shoed it to Mother, She cried like a child.

At the time of Abraham’s assassination in April of 1865 Sarah was living with a grandson, John J. Hall. She wept over the death of her favorite, saying sadly, They’ve killed him. I knowed they would.

Afterwards, as John J. Hall explained, She never had no heart after that to be chirp and pert like she used to be.

William Herndon, Abraham’s longtime law partner, and later biographer, interviewed Sarah in the fall of 1865. Sarah told him that she had not favored Abraham’s running for President, for she felt something bad would befall him.

Sarah never met Abraham’s widow, Mary Todd Lincoln. But after Abraham’s death, Mary did send a gift to Sarah, along with a note of friendship and condolence. Mary reminded Sarah that Abraham’s favorite child, nicknamed Tad, had been named Thomas after Sarah’s beloved spouse. Knowing how well you loved my darling husband is a great satisfaction to me, Mary wrote.

In January of 1867 Sarah’s granddaughter, Harriet Chapman, reported to William Herndon, Gramma is getting very feeble. Since I wrote last month, I have visited her and found her quite sick.

But Sarah clung to life for two years more, finally dying in April of 1869, four years to the week after Abraham’s fateful visit to Ford’s Theater in the nation’s capital.

At her funeral Sarah was laid out in a coffin in a black wool dress that Abraham had given her on his last visit to the homestead.

Many mourners gathered for the service. The preacher filled the Lincoln cabin’s doorway; the family sat within; and neighbors stood without. Sarah Bush Lincoln was buried beside her husband in the nearby Gordon Cemetery, a bit more than a mile and a quarter west of her longtime log home.

Biographer William Barton later paid Sarah high praise: Year in and year out, through the period of his late boyhood and young manhood, Abraham Lincoln saw and admired and loved this handsome new mother of his; and he carried into life a finer ideal of womanhood for what he had discovered in her.

And (he might well have added), Sarah Bush Lincoln also helped this promising young stepson to carry into life a finer ideal of manhood, for what she had helped him to discover in himself.

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Chapter 4

ANN RUTLEDGE:

Love’s Favors Lost

Before he married Mary Todd, Abraham Lincoln loved three other women. As a child he loved Nancy Hanks, who gave him life and nine years of mothering.

As a youth he loved Sarah Bush Lincoln, who raised him and encouraged his intellect. And as a young adult he loved Ann Rutledge, who sickened and died before the two could wed.

Ann Rutledge was born January 7, 1813, in Kentucky. She moved to Illinois when her father transported the family to a place north of Springfield. There James Rutledge co-founded a village called New Salem. The main Rutledge enterprise in town was a tavern, a hewn-log building with four rooms below for food and drink, and a space above for sleep.

Over the years Ann bloomed. She was light-complected, and she had blue eyes and reddish-blond hair. She was cheerful and studious, hard-working and kind.

Ann Rutledge was admired by all. In particular, she was courted by three local men: William Berry, Samuel Hills, and John McNamar. But it was McNamar whose wooing won the lass. The two agreed to marry, though no date was set.

At the time of his promise, McNamar was going by the name of John McNeil. He claimed he did not want his family to know his whereabouts. He said he had moved from rural New York to New Salem, where he was hoping to make a fortune before asking his debt-ridden kin to join him. But until his wealth was won, he explained, he would live under a false name.

Early in August of 1832 McNamar, without a word, left for New York state. For a long while he stayed out of touch with Ann; during three years he not once wrote Ann.

It is possible that McNamar realized by then he had no prospects of getting rich quick in a faraway Illinois town. Or perchance, because James Rutledge had lately lost both his mill and his farm, McNamar knew Ann would bring no dowry to the union. Or just maybe his flame for that sweet country lass had slowly flickered out.

Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln, boarding in the Rutledge Tavern the winter of 1832-33, was smitten by Ann. At times the two studied grammar together, or strolled through the woods, or just plain talked.

This budding romance troubled Ann. She felt honor-bound to wait to hear from McNamar, for she longed to tell him she could not now be his bride. In fact, she and Abraham were making their own wedding plans. But even these vows would have to be delayed, not only because of McNamar’s strange silence, but also because Ann was about to attend a female academy in Jacksonville. And Abraham had hopes of first starting up a law practice to get a little money ahead.

Tragically, the summer of 1835 in central Illinois was one of the hottest and wettest known. For weeks it rained; water stood everywhere. In early August people in and near New Salem began getting sick. The local doctors ran ragged calling on the ill. Ann herself came down with what everyone called brain fever – most likely typhoid.

In spite of the physician’s treatments, and quite aware of Abraham sitting at her bedside, Ann on August 25 died. She was buried in the Concord Cemetery north of town.

Lincoln was beside himself with grief. He rambled aimlessly through the woods and spent afternoons mourning beside Ann’s fresh-dug grave. And when September rains fell, he could hardly abide the thought of storms dousing that raw mound.

Lincoln continued to brood, quoting solemn lines from Mortality, a little-known poem on death. Already moody by nature, the sorrowing Lincoln went almost insane. Close friends kept close watch, making sure he would not come to self-inflicted harm.

Eventually, of course, Lincoln struggled through his despair. Two years later he moved into Springfield and opened a law office. In 1842 he married Mary Todd. They shared an affectionate relationship and produced four sons.

It was not until 3l years after Ann’s death (and soon after Lincoln’s assassination) that William Herndon, Lincoln’s longtime law partner, in a public lecture first told the tale of Lincoln’s early courtship and heartbreak. Herndon’s startling news was widely published. Friends of Mary Todd Lincoln (as well as the widow herself) were indignant at the notion that Abraham had ever pursued so passionately another amour. And they were outraged that Herndon had so brazenly said as much.

Still other Americans, who by then had raised the martyred President almost to sainthood, were stunned to think that their steady-headed hero had nearly lost his reason over a girl. And there were skeptics, as well, who knew of Herndon’s sometime tendency to make up tales, and to speculate wildly about other Lincoln life events.

But as Herndon’s collection of personal letters and notes from his interviews became available for scholarly review, the truth emerged. In 1865 and beyond Herndon had asked two dozen of the young couple’s relatives, best friends, and acquaintances three key questions: Did Abraham truly love Ann? Did they agree to marry? Did Ann’s death nearly drive Abraham out of his mind? The answers from all sources to all three questions was overwhelmingly Yes.

The most convincing confirmation, though, had already been given by Lincoln himself, well before Herndon’s lengthy investigation. During his presidency, Lincoln had responded to a similar inquiry posed by Isaac Cogdal, a friend from their New Salem past. Lincoln frankly admitted the long-before romance: It is true, he said. I really did run off the track. It was my first. I loved the woman dearly and sacredly. I think often of her now.

There it was, with no uncertainty: Abraham Lincoln had deeply loved Ann Rutledge. It was a first love, a love that Lincoln in that very same way would never know again.

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Chapter 5

MARY TODD LINCOLN:

Ambition Enough For Two

The life of Abraham Lincoln, over the years, has called forth a variety of admiring reactions: for his political savvy, respect; for his commitment to the Union, gratitude; for his martyrdom, sorrow; for his marriage to Mary Todd, sympathy.

While Mary Todd Lincoln did spark her husband’s ambition, and did help shape his political career, throughout 23 years of wedlock Abraham Lincoln enjoyed Mary’s company, suffered some embarrassment at her hands, but said very little about their relationship.

In several ways Abraham and Mary were alike: both were born and raised in Kentucky; both were keen of mind and eager to learn; both were raised by stepmothers from their early years.

But while Abraham’s stepmother got the best out of him, Mary’s brought the worst out of her. Mary’s resentful daughter-mother relationship, plus an absent merchant-father, added to a houseful of rival siblings, equaled an unhappy growing up for the headstrong girl. At first chance she escaped to her sister’s home in distant Springfield, Illinois.

In that prairie town Mary took a shine to young Abraham Lincoln, a gawky country lawyer who liked politicking. Mary had plenty of hopes for a high place, for even while she was not yet wed, that flirty southern belle teased, Someday I shall be the wife of the President.

As the couple began to court, their differences started to count: he was tall and lean; she tended toward short and plump. He came rough and scruffy; she showed polish and class. He was self-taught; she had been well-schooled.

The pair’s personalities contrasted too: Abraham was humble, retiring, forgiving; Mary was proud, bossy, blunt. Lincoln had kind words for all; but his beloved squabbled with many.

Not surprisingly the engaged couple had a falling out. Who jilted whom was never quite clear. Some said that Mary’s family felt Lincoln’s status was too far below her own. Others thought that Lincoln felt himself inadequate. At any rate, Lincoln regretted the rift. Still he was determined to marry Mary.

The two were quietly wed in November of 1842, and Mary set about improving her mate’s manners and speech. She also urged him to point toward high political prizes.

As Abraham waded more deeply into state and national affairs, Mary sometimes blasted his opponents in print. She wrangled with neighbors over insults imagined and real. She was cold to Billy Herndon, 16 years her spouse’s partner at law; in all that time she never let him darken her door.

Yet, Abraham and Mary maintained a cordial and loving relationship, even while he, over many years, rode long tours on the judicial circuit, and later traveled widely to boost his political career. Mary’s letters to him as he roamed showed much generosity, gaiety and warmth. And he wrote back in kind.

Immediately after Lincoln’s 1860 election to the Presidency, Mary journeyed from Illinois to Manhattan to be seen and sewn for. One of her garments alone cost Abraham two months’ pay. Gloves she bought by the gross. Her debts soared. She seemed to be a paradox: worried about becoming poor, but driven to overspend her husband’s income.

As the nation’s First Lady, Mary made many other trips to New York City to redo the shabby White House furnishings. She managed to use up her four-year government redecorating allotment in less than one. She was rude to tradespeople, late in settling her accounts, outrageous to her peers, and jealous of other women. She even dabbled in political intrigue.

Mary’s pretensions at elegance earned her behind-the-back nicknames, such as Madam President and The Illinois Queen. She was resented by Washington society and was wrongly suspected by Congress of being a Confederate sympathizer.

The sudden death of the Lincolns’ son Willie in 1862 only further unsettled Mary’s mind. By means of seances she tried to get in touch with the spirit world. And the terrible shock of Lincoln’s assassination in 1865 triggered still more strange behaviors. Even though her financial legacy from Abraham’s earnings was a princely sum, Mary badgered Congress for a still-bigger pension. She put her fancy wardrobe up for public sale; and she paraded before the populace her many odd opinions.

For far too long Mary observed the Victorian code of mourning; she would dress in black the rest of her life. For a time she wandered through a self-imposed exile in Europe, then came back home. She was tortured by headaches, congestions, hysteria and hallucinations. Her self-pity became epic. She seemed gripped by a need to show the nation what her husband had done for the Union, and to shame some of them for what they had done to him.

Toward the end of her life she was almost alone: of her four sons only Robert, her eldest, was still alive. But Robert, dreadfully embarrassed by her irrational behavior, and put off by her outlandish demands on him, arranged for a court to commit her to an asylum for the insane.

After Mary’s release from that confinement several months later, Mary once more roamed America and Europe, vainly seeking peace. Returning to Springfield one last time, she moved in with her sister. Depressed and diseased and hiding away, she died there July 16, 1883. She was worn out at 63.

At long last Mary Todd Lincoln got the attention and sympathy she felt she was owed: Springfield’s mayor declared a day of mourning; all the stores closed; Illinois’ governor helped carry her pall; and thousands of citizens viewed the cortege. The local newspapers that had warred with her in life now warmed to her in death.

The eulogist spoke tenderly of Abraham and Mary as twin pines with roots intertwined; when lightning struck one, he said, both trees withered away.

Mary Todd Lincoln was buried beneath the tall obelisk celebrating her husband, whose long shadow she had helped to create. After a life of turmoil, tears and pain, she now lay with her own, her roaming ended and her spirit at rest.

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Chapter 6

ROBERT TODD LINCOLN:

At Odds With His Kin

Of all the sons born to American presidents over the distant past, very few attained success at all comparable to that of their famous fathers. Heading a short list would be John Quincy Adams, son of our second president, and himself elected our sixth.

On that same list would be the names of several other sons, whose achievements were notable, though not of the same kind: Ambassador Charles Francis Adams, Senator Robert A. Taft, and General John Eisenhower. And, of course, Robert Todd Lincoln, who served his country as cabinet member and ambassador.

Born August 1, 1843, in Springfield, Illinois, Robert was named to honor his mother, Mary Todd Lincoln. Throughout his life, though, he never used his middle name, choosing instead to sign himself as Robert T. Lincoln, or simply R. T. Lincoln.

Outrageously spoiled as a child by his indulgent father, Robert, along with his three younger brothers hardly ever knew discipline – unless it came at their mother’s knee. The four boys in the home were all high-spirited, active – and a handful!

During the 1850s Robert was schooled in Springfield. His performance there was decent, but never distinguished. There was nothing in his early years to suggest a later success. Still, his doting parents sent him to Harvard College.

Once there, Robert failed the entrance examination and so had to study at New Hampshire’s Exeter Academy to strengthen his academic foundation. Eventually he was accepted at Harvard, where he survived four years of instruction in the classics and graduated in the spring of 1864. He ranked 30th in a class of 99. By then the Civil War was in its last full year.

Because of his mother’s obsessive worry for her son’s physical safety, and his father’s concern for Robert’s likely inability to fight as a foot soldier, Robert went back to Harvard Law School, instead of off to war.

Although the sons of other Union notables found excuses for not joining the army during the Civil War, public criticism of Robert’s avoiding military service grew. Finally, early in 1865 President Lincoln wrote to Ulysses S. Grant: My son wishes to see something of the war before it ends. Could he, without embarrassment to you, go into your military family with some nominal rank, and I, not the public, furnishing his necessary means?

Grant responded with a captaincy for Robert and a place for him on his staff. This enabled Robert to participate at a safe distance in Grant’s last military campaign, which ended a few months later with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

Five days after Lee gave up, John Wilkes Booth shot the President. The time following the assassination were especially trying for Robert, for he had not only to handle his own grief, but also to cope with the hysteria of his mother, who for months could not be consoled.

Six years later another sadness afflicted the small Lincoln family. In July of 1871 Robert’s younger brother, Thomas (known to all as Tad), took sick of a fever and died. This brought further anguish to Mary Todd Lincoln, who by then had also lost through death her husband, her sons Eddie (in infancy in Springfield) and Willie (of typhoid in the White House).

Robert married comely Mary Harlan and settled in Chicago, where he would live many years. There he opened a law office. Even though his rise in the legal profession was in no way hindered by his well-known parentage, his colleagues spoke highly of his ability before the bench and his commitment to the law.

During the bustle and boom in Chicago beginning in the 1870s Lincoln’s law firm was hired by some of that city’s most important residents. Like his famous lawyer-father, Robert was faultlessly honest and accurate in his dealings with clients. And he acted on high moral principles.

In her later years Mary Todd Lincoln increasingly showed mental distress:

She suffered hallucinations; she spent money wildly; she unreasonably feared poverty; and she sewed into her undergarments bonds and securities worth a half-million of today’s dollars.

In an era when mental illness was a shameful thing, seldom admitted in private and never discussed in public, Robert eventually took on the humiliating job of asking the courts for an insanity hearing for his mother. After listening to testimony, a judge decreed for Mary a four-month stay in a private asylum. Mary never forgave Robert that indignity.

Throughout his adult life Robert Lincoln was a stalwart Republican, even promoting a third term for U. S. Grant, who proved to be an ineffective president. But Robert chose not to get too involved in politics.

In spite of this natural reluctance, though, at age 37 he did agree to serve as Secretary of War under James A. Garfield. And six months later, when Garfield was assassinated, Garfield’s successor, Chester A. Arthur, kept Lincoln at his post, the only cabinet member to be retained.

In 1889 Robert was named ambassador to Great Britain. Although he was not particularly interested in the position, he again took it on as a civic duty.

Robert Lincoln’s last great achievement was to serve as legal counsel to (and later, president of) the Pullman Sleeping Car Company.

Robert’s final public appearance was at the 1922 dedication of the Lincoln Memorial, which graces the Potomac shoreline in the nation’s capital. He was greatly moved by this tribute to his long-gone father.

On July 26, 1926, Robert Todd Lincoln died of natural causes. A war veteran, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The newspapers of the time spoke admiringly of his legacy: Though he went out of his way never to capitalize on the fact he was the Emancipator’s son, Mr. Lincoln was a warm-hearted, charming and lovable gentleman. He was a hard worker in his profession and rose to eminence in it. He was modest, conscientious, capable and successful, standing on his own two feet.

Surely all those were accomplishments of which any father, famous or not, would be justly proud.

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Chapter 7

DENNIS HANKS:

One Near Cousin, Living Close

It was middling cold that 1809 February day near Hodgens’ Mill, Kentucky. Nolin Creek was crusted with ice, Sinking Spring cave was rimmed with frost, and a light snow sugared the ground. Country families huddled around their evening hearths, hugging the heat, and hankering for the coming comfort of their goose-down beds.

At the Thomas Sparrow cabin the rude plank door suddenly swung open on its leather hinges and a ten-year-old boy, plumb out of breath, burst in with a whoop: Nancy Lincoln’s got herself a baby boy!

That excited herald was Dennis Hanks. Little could he have known the meaning of the event he had just announced. And even less would his neighborhood have realized who had just been birthed – Abraham Lincoln, not just another ordinary son of that southern sod.

After all, what else was that young messenger to think? I recollect I held the little feller, Dennis later recalled. I sort o’ swung him back and forth a little too pert, I reckon, for with the talkin’ and shakin’, he soon begun to cry. And then I handed him over to my Aunt Polly. He was the puniest and cryin’est little youngster I ever seen. ‘He’ll never come to much,’ says I.

Of course, young squalling Abraham did come to much. And Dennis Hanks, Abraham’s second cousin, was closer to the lad, growing and grown, than anyone else, save the Lincolns’ own cabin kin.

Dennis’s life would first be bound up with Abraham as his neighbor in Kentucky. Then he was destined to live for a time as part of the Lincolns’ Indiana household. And much later he would be close by the entire Lincoln clan, who then lived near Charleston, Illinois, the town Dennis would call home for the last 58 years of his life. It was there Abraham the lawyer would come to call as he rode his twice-yearly judicial-circuit rounds.

The beginning of life had been less star-blessed for young Dennis than for Abraham, though. Dennis was born May 15, 1799, to a lesser-known Nancy Hanks, first cousin to that other Nancy Hanks, who nearly ten years later would bear that one-day-famous Lincoln child.

Sired by unwed Charles Friend, Dennis Friend Hanks came into the world with only a fragment of his father’s name as doubtful birthright. One year afterward, when Dennis’s mother was fixing to marry Levi Hall, all fitting and proper, baby Dennis was given over to Thomas and Elizabeth Sparrow, his mother’s kin. The Sparrows raised Dennis like their own blood son.

In 1816 those Sparrows winged toward Indiana, newly admitted to the Union and bragful of cheap and rich government land. Their next-door neighbors were the Thomas Lincoln brood. At age 17 Dennis, by then living with the Lincoln family, helped Thomas work his ground.

As 1818 waned, first both Sparrows, and then Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died of the milk sick. Now that his helpmeet lay dead, Thomas Lincoln needed to marry a good woman to shepherd his young. And so he took to wife Sarah Bush Johnston (herself a widow in Elizabethtown, Kentucky) and brought her and her three fatherless young back north to Pigeon Creek, Indiana. There Abraham, Dennis, and John Johnston lived together like the blood brothers they almost were.

But the relationship among the trio changed after Dennis took a liking to Elizabeth Johnston, stepsister to Abraham and blood sister to John. In 1821 Dennis and Betsy, age 15, said marriage vows and moved into their own log house just a hollow away.

In the spring of 1829 the Pigeon Creek neighborhood was once more threatened by the milk sick. And so the families of Dennis Hanks, Thomas Lincoln and Squire Hall (he by then having wedded Abraham’s other stepsister, Matilda), decided to leave the Hoosier state. In a three-wagon train the clan, all connected by marriage or blood, journeyed in the late winter of 1830 more than 200 miles northwest into Illinois, stopping in Macon County.

But the following winter was something fierce. And so, after the spring thaw had melted the snow and muddied the roadway, the whole tribe headed back towards Indiana in search of a kinder clime. As their wagons rattled southeast, returning through Coles County, the settled family of Sarah’s sister convinced the caravan to situate nearby.

With Abraham by then off on his own, the Thomas Lincoln and Squire Hall families settled on a Coles County farm. But Dennis and his spouse chose to live in Charleston. After all, the town had just been named county seat and had more than a hundred inhabitants. And it would soon be chartered by the state legislature.

Just off the village square Dennis put his hand and home to cobbling. At it he made a decent living and an interesting life. He was known as a friendly fellow, always ready to tell a tale. But listeners weren’t always sure they could believe everything he said.

Dennis did perform one noteworthy service for his community. Following the 1864 Charleston Riot in which nine Confederate sympathizers and furloughed Union soldiers were slain, some of the culprits were imprisoned on an island in the Delaware River. Many months afterward Dennis traveled to Washington, D. C. and interceded with President Abraham on their behalf. Eventually the men were all set free.

After Abraham’s assassination, Dennis helped care for Sarah Bush Lincoln, again by death husbandless. And Dennis was sought out and quoted by biographers who were writing the life story of the Great Emancipator.

Dennis had always taken pride in having helped young Abraham with his studies. However crude and brief that instruction might have been many years before, the lanky Lincoln had apparently attended well to Dennis’s lessons. Abraham was constantly readin’, writin’ and cipherin’, Dennis said. He excelled any boy I ever seen.

Dennis died at 93, and was buried in Charleston beside his beloved Betsy, who had passed on long before. On his headstone was carved his name and life dates, and the title he most loved to claim: Tutor of the Martyred President, Abraham Lincoln.

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Chapter 8

LINCOLN FAMILY ALBUM:

Abe’s Bloodline Ceases; Photos Carry On

With the ready availability of inexpensive photographs in the 1860s, many Americans developed an interest in collecting pictures and maintaining them in albums. In this pursuit Mary Todd Lincoln participated avidly, for she not only collected images of her immediate family and her relatives, but she also followed the contemporary custom of acquiring dozens of pictures of famous persons of her times.

Even more remarkable, this album and its contents (currently in the possession of the Lincoln Library and Museum in Fort Wayne, Indiana) were handed down and maintained through three succeeding generations, until, in 1985, the Abraham Lincoln bloodline died out.

The 400 items that eventually comprised the assemblage represent a priceless visual commentary upon the principal members of the Lincoln clan; and it recorded public figures who played important roles in the lives of the Lincoln family, and in the history of this nation.

Whereas both the early daguerreotypes and tintypes produced only a single copy, by the 1860s the ambrotype process was able to supply multiple images from one exposure. With a single negative now nearly limitless in possibilities, each picture could become part of a small card, two inches by four inches, called a carte de visite.

The original purpose of this card was to serve proper Victorians who, on a Sunday afternoon, for example, ventured forth, calling upon friends and neighbors. The carte was handed in at the door to announce the caller.

Soon, however, the carte de visite, so inexpensive to produce, became an object of collecting in its own right, very much as hobbyists later cherished baseball cards. And so, a celebrity craze was born. As early as 1865 one New York firm offered cartes depicting 5,000 eminent Americans. Such images could be purchased for less than two dollars the dozen, with an album for displaying them available for as little as fifty cents.