THE COURTSHIP OF MR.LINCOLN

1 05 627

BY RUTH PAINTER RANDALL

MART LINCOLN: BIOGRAPHY OF A MARRIAGE

LINCOLN'S SONS
THE COURTSHIP OF MR. LINCOLN

The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

Kindness of William H. Townsend

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Earliest Know?! Pictures of Abraham and Mary

This is the closest one can get to the appearance of Miss Todd and
the young lawyer who courted her. These companion daguerreotypes
were taken, it is now believed, about 1846, four years after their
marriage.

The Courtship of
MR. LINCOLN

RUTH PAINTER RANDALL

With Illustrations

Boston Little, Brown and Company Toronto

COPYRIGHT, , X957 BY *OTH "INTER RANDALL

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. KO PART OF THIS BOOK IN EXCESS OF FIVE

HUNDRED WORDS MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANT FORM WITHOUT

PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 57-5515
FIRST EDITION

y in Canada

by Little, Broom fr Company (Canada) limited

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

For Jim

'who read the early chapters

of this book and asked me

to finish it

Foreword

r | ^HIS work was begun while Mary Lincoln: Biography
JL of a Marriage was in production. In that book, pub-
lished early in 1953, I attempted to show by strict his-
torical evidence the falseness of certain prevailing ideas
about the Lincoln marriage which had been launched by
William H. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner. Herndon in
his biography of Lincoln gave an elaborate description of a
wedding occasion at which Lincoln as bridegroom failed
to appear. Such an occasion has long been discredited
by scholars; it was a product of Herndon's vivid imagina-
tion and was part of his larger and basic fabrication
that the Lincoln-Todd marriage was not a love match.
This false premise with the defaulting bridegroom story
had for many years colored public thinking about the court-
ship.

In treating this period in my biography of Mrs. Lincoln
I therefore had to combat these distortions of Herndon's
and present the romance of Abraham Lincoln and Mary
Todd in an unfitting atmosphere of argument and refuta-
tion. This was necessary in attempting a definitive biog-
raphy, yet was anything but desirable as a way in which to
relate a great American love story, whose dramatic ele-

x Foreword

ments broken engagement, family opposition, secret
meetings of the lovers, and a challenge to a duel out-
strip most works of fiction.

So it was my wish when I finished the life of Mrs. Lin-
coln to write a short book in which I could concentrate on
the romance alone, doing it in larger scope and making it a
detailed and continuous narrative without the distraction
of Herndon's fabrications. The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln
presents his wooing as historical evidence shows it. In some
cases account must be taken of conflicting evidence. This
book is not fictionalized; the original manuscript in my pos-
session has full documentation. It is based to a large extent
on letters written at the time, especially letters written by
Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln themselves. Since the subject
of the courtship has been much fictionalized in plays. and
novels, some may be interested in knowing what is based
on historical evidence.

It is a purpose of biography to bring to life individuals
of the past. I have tried to recover the personalities of Abra-
ham Lincoln and Mary Todd, as they were in the days of
young manhood and womanhood. (The narrative is inter-
rupted in chapters eight and nine in order to round out
their full portraits in maturity.) I have attempted to follow
their lives in the years from 1839 to *fy 2 almost day by
day, as far as the evidence will permit, and to trace in their
letters their psychological changes in this period. In Lin-
coln's case one of the most interesting and significant ex-
periences of his religious growth was connected with his
courtship. He tells how he struggled out of an agonizing
condition in which he was "the most miserable man living"

Foreword xi

to a spiritual faith when, as he said, he was ready to "Stand
still and see the salvation of the Lord."

The book is meant to be somewhat of a period piece.
Unpublished passages from the fascinating love letters of
James C. Conkling and Mercy Levering and the appealing
letters of Matilda Edwards (all close friends of Mary Todd
whose lives became entangled in the events of the court-
ship) are like magic charms for transporting one back to the
atmosphere of the rime. It has been my wish, however im-
perfectly accomplished, that the story may seem as alive as
it has to me in the writing, that the reader may also escape
from the present-day state of things to walk the unpaved
streets of early Springfield, Illinois (taking care not to
mire down at the muddy crossings), to meet there certain
very human and lovable people, and to live with them
through strange and absorbing events which occurred more
than a century ago.

Friends, as always, have been most generous in giving
help. In the larger sense all to whom I expressed acknowl-
edgment in Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage deserve
it here also. The years of research which went into the
preparation of that book filled my files with more material
and leads than I could do justice to in that one volume.

I am especially indebted to Anna Cushman Glover for
information about her grandmother, Anna Caesaria Rodney
Cushman, bridesmaid at the Lincoln-Todd wedding.

Professor Richard N. Current, who completed Last Full
Measure, Volume IV of Lincoln the President, which my
husband, J. G. Randall, left unfinished at his death, has

xii Foreword

read the whole manuscript of The Courtship of Mr. Lin-
coln and given helpful comments. Margaret Flint, refer-
ence librarian of the Illinois State Historical Library, has
read the Bibliographical Note and has been ready to help at
all times. For all of this invaluable assistance I am most
grateful.

Tn writing this book I have again had the editorial guid-
ance of Ned Bradford of Little, Brown and Company, a
privilege which I deeply appreciate.

Many thanks are due to Lida . Voight, who stood by
in the heat of an Illinois summer to turn untidy handwrit-
ten sheets into expertly typed pages of manuscript.

In anything I have written or may write on the Lincoln
theme, my greatest debt will always be to my husband,
J. G. Randall. Such writing is the outgrowth of those
happy years when, as our friends used to say, we were
"living with the Lincolns."

R. P. R.
Urbana, Illinois

Contents

Foreword ix

1 Molly Shocks Springfield 3

2 The Coterie and "a Mighty Rough Man" 1 1

3 "I ... Made a Fool of Myself" 28

4 "This Thing of Living in Springfield" 40

5 "My Beaux Have Always Been Hard Bargains" 50

6 Various Happenings of a Romantic Nature 59

7 "Crime of Matrimony" 73

8 He Was "Mr. Lincoln" to Her 82

9 Without Her "No Variety" 97

10 "That Fatal First of Jany." 1 1 1

1 1 Mr. Lincoln "Writes a Murder Mystery 131

1 2 Tangled Emotions of Two Gentlemen 142

1 3 "That Still Kills My Soul" 15 *

14 "Stand Still and See" 162

1 5 Secret Meetings 17 2

xiv Contents

16 Challenged to a Duel 183

17 Bloody Island i9 2

1 8 "Matter of Profound Wonder" 202
Bibliographical Note 215

List of Illustratioiis

Earliest Known Pictures of
Abraham and Mary frontispiece

Two Important Structures in Springfield 70-7 1

Pertinent Information from

Mr. Lincoln and Mary 70-7 1

Proper Attire for a Wedding? 70-7 1

Proper Attire for a Dance 70-7 1

The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

CHAPTER JL

Molly Shocks Springfield

ON a certain wet Monday in the winter of 1839-40 a
passer-by on the streets of Springfield, Illinois, might
have witnessed a scene to make him rub his eyes. Along the
miry roadway where the mud was knee-deep in spots came
a spattered two-wheeled dray containing a strangely incon-
gruous pair. There was nothing remarkable about the
driver he looked very much as a drayman who did all
kinds of hauling ought to look it was the other figure
which would have engaged the bystander's astonished at-
tention.

The dray carried a passenger, a pretty, fashionably
dressed young kdy. She was becomingly plump, a little
under medium height, and had vivid blue eyes, fair skin,
and light chestnut hair. She was quite the brightest object
in the whole drab scene. Red came quickly to her cheeks
and she was doubtless flushed at this time with a feeling of
adventure and that special exhilaration which comes to the
spirited young when violating their elders' sense of pro-
priety. Her oldest sister, Elizabeth, wife of Ninian W.
Edwards, Springfield's top aristocrat, would undoubtedly
scold her for making herself conspicuous in this fashion.
The girl's name was Mary Todd; her intimate friends

4 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

called her by her nickname Molly. She was on her way to
die Edwards home, for she was living there now, and
Elizabeth might well say in the exasperated words she was
to use on a momentous day then more than two years in
the future: "Do not forget that you are a Todd." Elizabeth
never forgot she was a Todd and furthermore a leader in
Springfield's exclusive "Edwards clique." Mary well knew
no one would ever catch Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards riding
through the streets of Springfield with a common drayman.

This was how the strange spectacle had come about.
Springfield had been having a prolonged rainy spell which
made its notorious mud more impossible than ever. Women-
kind had been housebound in consequence. In the raw little
prairie town just emerging from frontier conditions, side-
walks, if a street had any at all, were apt to be boards
loosely laid down, and like as not these had been uprooted
by the hogs which had the freedom of the city. Street
crossings were so appalling that only hip boots of a future
day would have been adequate for negotiating them. But
proper Victorian females wore long trailing skirts and
would have blushed at the very thought of disclosing that
they had ankles or, worse still, "limbs"; the word "legs"
would have been too shocking to use. Polite society appar-
ently held firmly to the theory that ladies' feet were pinned
on to the bottom of their petticoats.

Mud or no mud, Mary wanted to go downtown. Then
and later, when she wanted anything, she wanted it in-
tensely and was apt to do something about getting it. She
thought of a plan. She knew where she could get a bundle
of shingles; why not take the shingles and drop them one at

Molly Shocks Springfield 5

a time in front of her and step from shingle to shingle to
keep out of the mud? She would ask her dear friend Mercy
Levering, who was spending the winter at the home of her
brother Lawrason Levering, next door to the Edwardses,
to join her in this adventure.

The two girls, "both elegantly attired," set out on their
expedition. But the plan which had seemed so clever in the
making proved to have unexpected difficulties. Shingles
were a slender defense against the depth of the mud and by
the time they had reached the downtown section, both,
girls were dreading the journey home. It was a dreary and
laborious prospect. At this moment along came a dray used
for hauling and Mary had another inspiration; they would
get the driver, a little man named Ellis Hart, to haul them
home. Mercy was shocked at the idea; her brother would
be very much displeased if she did anything so unconven-
tional and forward as that. But Molly saw no reason to
drag her skirts through the mire when she could ride. The
dray received one passenger and the story leaves Mercy,
with her propriety intact, stuck in the mud.

As the vehicle creaked and spattered its way past the
nondescript shops and modest homes with their small-town
yards and gardens, it passed a well-known gentleman of the
town with a pleasant name, Dr. Elias Merryman, who was
closely acquainted with Mary and her circle of friends. In
his astonishment he called out the obvious question as to
what in die world she was doing and received a cheerful
and spirited reply. The situation struck his sense of humor
and his bent for rhyming. He wrote a gay jingle which has
preserved the details of the story.

6 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

As I walked out on Monday last

A wet and muddy day

Twas there I saw a pretty lass

A riding on a dray . . .

Quoth I sweet lass, what do you there

Said she good lack a day

I had no coach to take me home

So I'm riding on a dray.

As it passed, the dray created a sensation:

Up flew windows, out popped heads,
To see this Lady gay
In silken cloak and feathers white
A riding on a dray.

The two big wheels left the little shops behind (some
wearing their names in the style of tavern signs, on a board
swinging in front), continued past diminishing homes,
crossed a little stream, climbed a slope, and stopped in front
of a handsome house set in a grove of trees on a hill. It was
the well-known residence of Mr. and Mrs. Ninian W. Ed-
wards. In the poem at this point, Dr. Merryman's merry
lines take on a teasing note. Molly was undeniably plump
and her friends delighted to poke fun at her about it.

At length arrived at Edwards' gate
Hart backed the usual way
And taking out the iron pin
He rolled her off the dray.

Thus ended an unconventional ride that furnished a topic
of conversation in the town for some time. Some of those
heads that popped out of the windows had strict ideas of
what constituted proper and modest behavior in a young

Molly Shocks Springfield 7

lady. There was much tut-tutring among Springfield's ma-
trons, especially those, one suspects, who were outside the
pale of die aristocratic clique and hence were not invited
to the Edwards parries. The episode added to Miss Mary
Todd's reputation for being a dashing, spirited, and im-
pulsive young woman,

It had another result. F.llis Hart did not dream he had
passed his otherwise unknown name down to posterity
that day. More than a year later Molly's future husband
would write a famous letter in which he mentioned that
little drayman as the man who once "hauled Molly home."

The girl entered the home in which she had been living
since the fall of 1839. She had come to her sister Elizabeth's
from Lexington, Kentucky, where she had grown up in
the prominent and well-to-do family of her father, Rob-
ert S. Todd. For a number of reasons the move to Spring-
field had seemed desirable. The stately home in Lexing-
ton was presided over by a stepmother whose babies had
been arriving with a frequency and regularity soon to be
exemplified by Victoria herself, the little Queen of Eng-
land who was married the winter of this dray ride. Mary
loved babies with passionate maternal instinct, but the
house was overcrowded and the stepmother's hands were
too full. Her own brood made life strenuous enough with-
out the complication of a group of high-spirited stepchil-
dren who furiously resented their father's marrying again.

It was a difficult situation with much to be said on both
sides and it had left its mark on Mary. When her own
mother died, she was a bright, sensitive, impetuous litde
girl between six and seven. She and her brothers and sisters

8 The Cowtship of Mr. Lincoln

were nervous, headstrong children and one suspects that
temper tantrums were no novelty in the household.

Mary's was a disposition that sorely needed a mother's
understanding and guidance. Instead there had come the
deep-cutting shock of loss to a child's sensitive spirit, then
an interval when the disorganized household got along as
best it could with the help of her aunt and grandmother.
Mary possibly felt under diese circumstances that she was
an unwanted complication. Then her father married a
woman who apparently did not understand Mary's feelings
at all. The grandmother, living close by, vigorously and
continuously fanned resentment in Mary against this mar-
riage. The result would naturally be that she would resist
discipline and training by that stepmother. At all events,
she grew up without learning the essential lesson of self-
control She also grew up feeling that a wrong had been
done to her, that her childhood in her father's house had
been "desolate," and this perhaps was related to the sense
of insecurity that always afterward lay beneath her cheer-
fulness, and to her conviction that she must fight hard to
get what she wanted.

It throws light on why she said that Madame Mentelle's
boarding school (where she had learned French, dancing,
and other social graces) was her real home in her girlhood.
It was a finishing school, but, in finishing her young ladies,
Madame Mentefie wished it dearly understood that she did
not neglect "a truly useful & 'solid' English education in
all its branches."

It would be wrong, however, to consider Mary a mere
fugitive from a stepmother. There were numerous excel-

Molly Shocks Springfield 9

lent reasons for going west to make her home with her
sister. Springfield had recently become the state capital of
Illinois. This meant that the legislature would meet there,
bringing many interesting people to town, and among them
would undoubtedly be eligible and desirable bachelors.
Marriage was about the only career a girl could look for-
ward to, unless she was "strong-minded" or queer, and
Mary would have shuddered to have either term applied
to her.

Men far outnumbered women in Illinois. At a party in
Springfield there were apt to be three or four hundred
gentlemen to forty or fifty ladies and like as not half of the
feminine contingent was already married or at least en-
gaged. Mary's handsome cousin, John J. Hardin, once sug-
gested with a twinkle that a cargo of girls be brought out
in the same manner that a shipload of prospective wives
had been taken to colonial Virginia. He thought the entre-
preneur could collect at least several head of cattle apiece
for his passengers.

Imagination likes to pky with this idea, picturing a cara-
van of stagecoaches moving westward with their heart-
fluttering freight, but this undertaking was not necessary:
brothers, sisters, and other relatives were attending to the
matter. Mary's sister Elizabeth had already invited their
sister Frances to Springfield for a long "visit" and with
eminent success: Frances was now the wife of a well-to-do
physician and druggist of the town, Dr. William Wallace.
Elizabeth had the oldest sister's fine sense of looking after
the younger ones and Mary was next in age after Frances.

Springfield was full of Todd relatives, all socially promi-

io The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

nent and influential, as was usual with the Todds. Outstand-
ing among the fine homes and families in town were those
of Dr. John Todd, Mary's uncle, and John Todd Stuart,
her cousin, a well-established lawyer. Even if the Todd
girls had been lacking in charm, the venture (under such
conditions of supply and demand) would probably have
been successful, but quite the contrary was true. They
were attractive and beautifully qualified socially by birth
and rearing. Miss Mary Todd, with dimples and a bright
smile, a warm and vivacious personality, and a nimble wit,
had all the proper requirements.

She had learned to speak French at Madame Mentelle's.
She could recite poetry for hours on end and could write
gay verses of her own. Literature was a matter of intense
interest to her. But almost everything in her lighthearted
young world interested her: plays or pranks, sewing circles
or sociables, bonnets or babies. In spite of being mercurial,
hers was a sunny temperament and most of die time the
sunshine could be counted upon.

She was impulsive, friendly, democratic, affectionate,
talkative, and companionable; she was also, like all the
Todds, touchy and quick to take offense, apt to fly off the
handle and say cutting things which, in the remorse that
invariably followed, she regretted with bitter tears. No one
would ever drive this girl, but she could be led by her af-
fections, which were warm and deep. The dominance of
her affections over all other considerations would in the
end set her feet upon a winding path that led to the White
House.

CHAPTER A

The Coterie and " a Mighty Rough
Man"

THE threshold Mary stepped over as she entered the
Edwards home after her dray ride was one certain to
be crossed by all the distinguished visitors who came to
town. Ninian Wirt Edwards was the son of Governor
Ninian Edwards and his home was the center for the elite
of Springfield.

The younger group who flocked there called them-
selves the "Coterie." It is a word of French origin; one
wonders whether Mary suggested it. A gayer or livelier
circle or one that included more interesting individuals
would be hard to imagine. It seethed with interest in liter-
ary and dramatic matters, in politics and all the happenings
in a young state capital in a young and growing part of the
country. The coterie went through a continual round of
exciting events: parties of various kinds, dances, sleigh
rides in winter, picnics in summer.

Among the young men of the coterie political ambitions
ran high, with plans looking toward that bright nebulous
array of thrilling possibilities which is youth's view of the
future. But none could know that fate would in time make

12 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

several of its members Senators and one of them President
of the United States. It is well to take a closer look at some
of the gentlemen who belong to the dramatis personae of
this story.

A young Kentuckian who kept a store was much in evi-
dence. He had a pleasing personality and a handsome By-
ronic face with a romantic aspect that was very appro-
priate, as he was apt to fall in love with practically every
pretty girl he encountered. It is hardly to be wondered at
that when he finally met the girl he was to many, he was a
bit confused about whether his love for her was genuine.
The problem was to plunge him into an acute case of
melancholia and a famous correspondence. His name was
Joshua Speed.

There was a personable young lawyer from the East and
a graduate of Princeton, James C Conkling, who wrote
delightfully gossipy letters brimming with humor. He was
courting that dear friend of Molly's, Mercy Levering. It
may as well be said at once that Mercy's "visit" was going
to be successful. James Conkling became her fianc6, al-
though she returned to her home in Baltimore for a while
before their marriage, which makes it possible now to
read the love letters they wrote each other, letters of won-
derful charm and warm personality. Postage at the time for
a long distance was twenty-five cents for a single sheet,
regardless of size, so the lovers wrote in one direction of
the paper, then turned the sheet and wrote across the part
already written. It was perhaps a sporting proposition to
see how much could be put on one sheet, a challenge and
a pleasant feat.

The Coterie and "a Mighty Rough Man" 1 3

In one of these letters James Conkling gave a playful
description of himself. When Mercy told her parents in
the East that she had become engaged to this unknown gen-
tleman in Illinois, he wrote: "How much did you flatter
me? I suppose you informed them that I was [a] pretty
good looking fellow, notwithstanding my sallow complex-
ion and lanthorn jaws standing about 5 ft 7^2 in my
boots. . .

A handsome figure which climbed the hill toward the
Edwards home was that of James Shields, an Irishman in
his early thirties. His broad education in the old country
had included training in fencing and his mind would turn
naturally toward dueling if his truculent Irish pride were
offended. He was witty and gallant, but his gallantry
verged on the pompous and ridiculous, so that while the
girls often laughed with him, they were apt to laugh at him
behind his back. They did not take him as seriously as he
took himself. Yet he was a man of parts and he would even-
tually go to the United States Senate. His statue would one
day stand in Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington
and he would be, strangely enough, the only member of
the coterie to achieve that distinction.

One gentleman frequently seen in the Edwards parlor
was striking enough to stand out in any crowd. There was
something arresting in the massive head, the compelling
blue eyes deep-set under dark brows, the intellectual fore-
head, the pugnacious mouth and chin. His shoulders were
square, his voice sonorous and vibrant, and the whole effect
of his personality was so suggestive of power that it made
no difference that his legs were too short for the rest of

14 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

him. The nickname of "Little Giant" suited him to per-
fection. His name was Stephen A. Douglas and some of the
other members of the coterie were beginning to couple
this name with that of Mary Todd. His was a name too
which would be written large in the nation's history.

Another caller formed a contrast to the "Little Giant"
that was almost ludicrous; he was about six feet four, a foot
taller than Douglas. Where Douglas's legs were too short
for his body, this man's legs were disproportionately long.
The head atop the long, lean figure gave no impression of
massiveness, though the dark unruly hair had, as he himself
once said, "a way of getting up as far as possible in the
world.' 1 No aggressiveness or pugnacity was in his kind
and rugged face, but the mouth showed quiet strength and
determination. The deep-set gray eyes were often lighted
with an infectious twinkle, but at times they held a look of
loneliness and sadness.

It was said that Abraham Lincoln walked "loosely"; his
movements were slow and some called them awkward, yet
others thought he managed his long bones with a natural
simplicity and economy of motion. His voice was high-
pitched and had a singular quality that one had to get used
to, but it carried well when he was speaking to a crowd.
His words among the well-educated members of the coterie
had at times a backwoods twang or flavor that set him
apart. Sometimes the homely, sensitive face showed a wist-
f ulness for approval, for a sense of belonging.

He knew die members of the coterie had the advantage

o

of him in background and training. Their parents had not
been so lowly and ignorant as his. They had mostly gone to

The Coterie and "a Mighty Rough Man" 15

academies and colleges, while his short periods of attend-
ance at primitive backwoods schools, added up, did not ex-
ceed a year. And he had had to educate himself under most
adverse circumstances.

He had been born in a log cabin in Kentucky in 1809
and had had a few weeks at a tiny school in that state before
his family moved to Indiana when he was seven. From then
until he was twenty-one he lived the bone-bare existence
of a pioneer family in the Indiana wilderness. It included
some months of rudimentary schooling, but he was sur-
rounded by people who used "whar" for where, "hearn"
for heard, "cheer" for chair, "kase" for because, and many
other expressions that would stick out like sore thumbs
in a cultured group. But there was something in the tall
and ungainly youth that made him reach out for knowl-
edge and "book-larning," as those around him might have
called it.

After his family moved to Illinois and he left his father's
log cabin to make his own way, he went to a little Illinois
village consisting of one long street on a bluff over the
Sangamon River, New Salem. There he was associated with
people who had more education than those he had known
* up to that time, which meant much in giving him standards
in the self-education he was struggling to achieve. The six
years in New Salem were years of prodigious growth. He
became village postmaster, he learned surveying, studied
grammar, and read kw. In several years, the people, liking
his qualities, sent him to the state legislature at Vandalia.
The next move was to Springfield in April 1837, when he
was twenty-eight. So much for the elements that had gone

1 6 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

into the building-up of this unusual personality which had
recently become a member of the coterie.

He was an artist at telling droll stories and his character-
istic, resounding laugh was like a tonic. There was also a
magical change when a smile lighted up the sober features.
People liked and trusted this man and enjoyed being with
him. It probably did not occur to many of die lighthearted
coterie, who were more apt to talk of his oddities, that he
had a tremendous magnetism. Many elements entered into
that magnetism: kindliness and interest in people, compas-
sionate understanding, humor and whimsicality, scrupulous
honesty, and a deep reserve of intellectual power.

Again peeping into the private correspondence of Mr.
Conkling with his betrothed, one finds a description of this
Lincoln as he appeared to the more self-assured members
of the coterie: "He used to remind me sometimes of the
pictures I formerly saw of old Father Jupiter, bending
down from the clouds, to see what was going on below.
And as an agreeable smile of satisfaction graced the counte-
nance of the old heathen god, as he perceived the incense
rising up so the face of L. was occasionally distorted into
a grin as he succeeded in eliciting applause from some of die
fair votaries by whom he was surrounded."

The Edwards circle was an excellent one in which to
hear who was who and why, and Molly undoubtedly knew
several important items about this Mr. Lincoln before she
met him. She may have heard her brother-in-law Ninian
mention that he had been a fellow member in the state legis-
lature at Vandalia; in fact, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Lincoln
had belonged to the special tall group from Sangamon

The Coterie and "a Mighty Rough Man" 17

County which had been dubbed the "Long Nine." Their
combined heights exceeded fifty-four feet and no one was
taller than Lincoln.

Mr. Edwards had been friendly to the countrified young
lawyer in his early days in Springfield, though he consid-
ered Mr. Lincoln at that time "a mighty Rough man." Lin-
coln had frequently been among those who spent Sunday
at the hospitable Edwards home. Mrs. Edwards remem-
bered later that he and Joshua Speed came out together
and "seemed to enjoy themselves in their conversation be-
neath the dense shade of our forest trees." Trees are appre-
ciated in a prairie town and it was undoubtedly pleasant
on sunny days to leave the more built-up, unshaded section
around the square and walk out to the wooded hill, espe-
cially as the unsanitary village (including the privies which
adorned the back yards), was apt on hot days to be' a bit
smelly.

Much more important than Mr. Lincoln's initial friend-
ship with Ninian was the fact that Molly's cousin, John
Todd Stuart, had taken him as his junior law partner when
he came to Springfield. It is doubtful if anyone had de-
scribed to her that humble arrival, Mr. Lincoln riding into
the center of town on a borrowed horse with all his earthly
possessions in two bags slung over the saddle, and stopping
in front of Joshua Speed's store on the west side of the
square. It had happened more than two years before she
came to live with the Edwardses.

This kw partnership meant a great deal, for "Cousin
John" occupied a position in which he could choose a part-
ner who offered excellent qualifications. Mr. Lincoln must

1 8 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

have distinct abilities. The Stuart & Lincoln law office had
an upstairs location in Hoffman's Row on Fifth Street just
north of the public square which was the heart of Spring-
field. In its center stood the new capitol, or state house,
which was still in the process of being built, as the piles of
stone and building litter scattered around it indicated. Mr.
Lincoln could feel a personal sense of pride in watching
the construction of that building; the tap of the hammers
was doubtless a pleasant sound to him. At Vandalia he had
worked hard to have the capital removed to Springfield.
This meant so much to the straggling town that there had
been wild rejoicing when the news arrived, ending in a
huge bonfire around the whipping post on the east side of
the square. One pictures the loyal citizens prancing around
it like college boys after a football victory.

Somehow the little town had a personality which re-
minds one of a growing youth, undeveloped and unpre-
dictable as yet, but full of enthusiasm, ambition, vitality,
and curiosity. In the people who walked or loitered around
the square was a great eagerness to know more, from the
least detail of gossip to wonderful new "Discoveries, In-
ventions, and Improvements," to borrow the title of a no-
table lecture Mr. Lincoln would one day deliver in the
town. It was an age which had not lost its sense of wonder.

The square was the center of Mr. Lincoln's life as well as
the center of town. He was living in the big bedroom over
Speed's store on the west side of it, 103 South Fifth Street.
When he had come to town, Joshua had taken him in as a
roommate after finding Lincoln had no money for lodgings.
(And what a congenial and affectionate friendship theirs

The Coterie and "a Mighty Rough Man" 19

had turned out to be! ) When the young lawyer started to
his office in the morning, he had only to turn to the left,
cross Washington Street, and climb the stairs at 109 North
Fifth Street to enter the Stuart & Lincoln law office. As a
matter of personal enjoyment he might have preferred to
turn right on Washington, walk along the north boundary
of the square, and cross the street to the office of the San-
gamo Journal on North Sixth. This was the newspaper of
Mr. Lincoln's own party, the Whig, and fiercely partisan,
as papers and people in Springfield were apt to be.

The furniture of the office was doubtless similar to that
of a later one on Sixth Street: "a large wood stove, which
stood in a box of sand occupying about 3x5 feet," an "edi-
torial table" (probably of the kitchen variety), and some
common wooden chairs. But when this bare interior was
Kghted on winter days by the glow of the stove and the
chairs in a circle around it were occupied by Springfield's
most resourceful Whigs exchanging lively ideas, it became
for Mr. Lincoln a forum after his own heart. A newspaper
office always has fascination for the politically ambitious
and the editor of the Journal, Simeon Francis, was one of
Lincoln's best friends, so he spent a great deal of time there.
What a glowing editorial Simeon had written after Lincoln
and the other members of the Long Nine had been victori-
ous in transferring the capital to Springfield! That editorial
of praise was a sort of introduction for Mr. Lincoln when
he came to town. The block where the Journal had its of-
fice was to be an important one for him in more ways than
one; at the end of it was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Francis,
which is to be the setting for memorable scenes in this story.

2O JL ne i^ouTismp oj mr.

In after years, according to her sister Einilie, Mary de-
lighted to tell of her first meeting with Mr. Lincoln. "He
met me at a party," she would say, "and at last came awk-
wardly forward and said: 'Miss Todd, I want to dance with
you in the worst way/ " At this point in her telling, no
doubt with her damaged slippers in mind, she would add
with a little bubble of laughter, "And he surely did."

One can well imagine the candle-lighted scene: the so-
ciety girls of more than a century ago in their billowing
wide-skirted frocks (as nearly like the prints in Godey's
Lady's Book as possible) and the stiff young gallants with
their sideburns, stocks, slim trousers, and long-tailed coats.
To Molly dainty clothes of the latest style were very im-
portant. One can be sure that her white shoulders, rounded
little figure, and bright face were set off to advantage and
well calculated to be followed by the eyes of the tall young
lawyer who was Cousin John's junior partner.

Since Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln moved in the same
gregarious circle, other meetings followed as a matter of
course. Each possibly had from the first a special awareness
of the other and an attentive ear for any chance remark
concerning the new acquaintance. Mary's friendly curi-
osity was much too lively and feminine for her not to find
out about this Mr. Lincoln.

It probably did not take her long to discover that he was
the devoted friend of Joshua Speed and that he was sharing
Joshua's rooms over the store. A couple of clerks also slept
in the big room and in the winter evenings the young men
often gathered with other friends around the potbellied
stove in the store below to argue, tell robust stories, and

The Coterie and "a Mighty Rough Man" 2 1

discuss men, politics, philosophy, and the universe in gen-
eral. It was a roughhewn man's environment of which
Molly knew little; its conversations were far removed from
her chattered feminine confidences with other girls in the
Edwards home. The division between man's world and
woman's world was much more sharply defined in the
eighteen-hundreds than it is today.

It is doubtful whether she knew that Joshua had taken
Mr. Lincoln in and given him free lodging because he was
so poor and in debt to boot. A loyal friend and thorough
Kentucky gentleman like Joshua was not apt to mention
such a subject.

\5Fhis Mr. Lincoln had a way of giving and inspiring gen-
uine friendships. William Butler, an older friend and also
a Kentuckian, helped him out by giving him free board.
When he was ready to eat, he had only to walk a few
blocks northwest of the square to the Butler home, where
the kindly Mrs. Butler would attend to the matter. He went
when he was ready, which was often late, for Mr. Lincoln
was never to be regimented into keeping regular meal
hours. But the Butlers found that even so "his company
was worth his keep." The Butler offspring loved him and
would run to meet him when he came. He would lift one
of the youngsters high in the air, toss him over his shoulder,
and laugh and romp with all the children.

Early in that year when Mary came to Springfield a
sharp incident had shown William Butler what a good man
Mr. Lincoln was to have around when one's hotheadedness
got out of hand. William, hearing of certain political moves
in which Lincoln and their mutual friend Edward D. Baker

22 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

had had a part, jumped to the conclusion that he had been
badly treated by them and, without waiting to get all the
facts, went off half cocked and wrote each of them a fiery
letter. (Both men were out of town at Vandalia.) Lincoln
kept his temper when he received his and answered frankly
but without heat: *Tou were in an ill-humor when you
wrote that letter, and, no doubt, intended that I should be
thrown into one also; which, however, I respectfully de-
cline being done." He then carefully explained all the facts,
showing Butler that no wrong had been done to him, and
ended die letter "Your friend in spite of your ill-nature
Lincoln."

But Air. Baker did not take the letter he received with
so much detachment. He promptly fired back at Butler a
hot answer, saying among other things: "If you believe the
charges you make to be true, I say most flatly you are a
fool." A serious altercation was in the making.

Lincoln gave sincere affection to both men. One gets a
close-up view of certain qualities of his in learning how he
went about patching up the difficulty between what he
called "two of my most particular friends." He wrote But-
ler calmly and reasonably: "There is no necessity for any
bad feeling between Baker & yourself. Your first letter to
him was written while you were in a state of high excite-
ment, and therefore ought not to have been construed as
an emulation of deliberate malice. Unfortunately however
it reached Baker while he was writhing under a severe
tooth-ache. . . ." Lincoln pointed out that Baker's tooth-
ache letter should not be taken too seriously either, such an
ailment tending to warp patience and judgment, and con-

The Coterie and "a Mighty Rough Man" 23

tinued: "It is always magnanamous to recant whatever we
may have said in passion; and when you and Baker shall
have done this, I am sure there will no difficulty be left
between you." (One has here examples of how Mr. Lin-
coln would occasionally slip up on the spelling of a word,
a fact not to be wondered at when it is remembered that he
was at this time still very much in the process of educating
himself.)

It was a skillful settling of a quarrel that conceivably
could have developed into a duel. Lincoln was a reliable,
agreeable, and helpful fellow to have around, a good-
neighbor sort of person.

Molly could sense that Mr. Lincoln was older than she
was. As a matter of fact, he had had his thirtieth birthday
the February before he met her and she was twenty-one in
December 1839, so the difference in ages was nearly ten
years. He may have seemed even older, for hardship had put
lines and hollows in his lean face.

He seems to have been drawn toward girls much younger
than himself. An attractive member of the coterie was
Anna C. Rodney, a pretty, brown-eyed girl who was even
younger than Molly. She was mentioned in both a letter of
Miss Todd's and one of Mr. Conkling's, but they did not
happen to tell that Mr. Lincoln, according to the tradition
which has come down in Anna's family, sometimes called
on her, inquiring for her in his quaint fashion: "Is Miss
Rodney handy?" Anna, who was from the East, was an-
other of those marriageable girls who had come to Spring-
field to "visit" an older sister.

Miss Todd probably read some articles Mr. Lincoln was

24 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

writing for the local papers that fall One dealt with a mat-
ter of state banks on which Democrats and Whigs were
not in agreement. Mary could not know that before long
a dispute involving the two political parties and state banks
was destined to put Mr. Lincoln in actual physical danger
and result in a fearful experience for both of diem, one for
which each took a measure of blame.

Mary knew that Mr. Lincoln, thank heaven, was as
ardent a Whig as she was, and worked at it. In fact he was
a rather busy man in his slow, unhurried way. That was a
soothing quality of his: never to be hurried, but always to
be deliberate in thinking things out before acting. She
tended to rush into speech and action without due consid-
eration. Still, slowness can sometimes be exasperating to
one of her impatient temperament. He in turn may have
found her quick decisiveness very attractive compared with
his slow groping toward decisions.

That fall of 1839 Mr- Lincoln had the entire responsibil-
ity of the Stuart & Lincoln law office after Cousin John left
for Washington to take a seat in Congress. When he de-
parted early in November, the junior partner wrote a whim-
sical memorandum in the firm's fee book: "Commence-
ment of Lincoln's Administration." (There was nothing in
the humble fortunes of this self-doubting man to suggest
that one day the term Lincoln's Administration" would
assume a nationwide significance.)

After the legislature met early in December their first
meeting in Springfield it is easy to follow Mr, Lincoln's
activities in that body. People talked a bit about a speech
he made the day after Christmas; it was so powerful and

The Coterie and "a Mighty Rough Man" 25

logical that one newspaper called it "a speech which no man
can answer. . . ." Molly read political articles in the pa-
pers, though she had a half-guilty feeling in doing it, and
she probably knew of this speech and perhaps also of a re-
markable lecture he had given before she came to live with
her sister. The gentlemen of Springfield took their intellec-
tual betterment very seriously. Such improvement was the
aim of the organization known as the Young Men's Ly-
ceum, which Lincoln had addressed on the subject "The
Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions." He might be
weak on spelling, but it was a speech which showed deep
thinking and a power of putting complex matters into lan-
guage that was wonderfully effective in its clarity and sim-
plicity. It also had a certain poetic quality, a verve which
was apparent in its opening words: "In the great journal of
things happening under the sun, we, the American People,
find our account running, under date of the nineteenth cen-
tury of the Christian era."

Mary could recognize that this man, though he was
sometimes ill at ease in society, was very much at home in
working out political problems and presenting them aptly.
Brains and good literary expression always delighted her.
After she had visited Mrs. Edwards in the summer of 1837,
she returned to Lexington and continued her studies under
the guidance of dear Dr. Ward, who taught both boys and
girls in Ward's Academy. It was not enough that she had
been "finished" at Madame Mentelle's school; she wanted
to do what might be called postgraduate work. Dr. John
Ward, Episcopal minister and a cultured, learned gentle-
man who ahead of his time believed in coeducation, could

26 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

lead an eager student far in the literary kingdom of the
eighteen-thirries.

It is likely that Mary's older sisters, centered in the do-
mestic duties which were supposed to encompass woman's
sphere, sniffed a bit at her excursions into literary matters
and called her a "bluestocking" or, as Mary herself used
the term, "a regular blue." Any settled Victorian matron
knew a woman's interests should be purely domestic and
that she should leave all kinds of intellectual activities to
her husband, after she had accomplished another para-
mount feminine duty by acquiring one.

If Mary came quickly to an appreciation of Mr. Lin-
coln's intellectual power, her two sisters living in Spring-
field were unimpressed. Mrs. Edwards was quick to detect
the gaps in his education and as far as she was concerned,
he was uninteresting. Mary's sister Frances, now success-
fully married to Dr. Wallace, took an equally dim view
of Cousin John's junior partner. When she had had the role
of the visiting sister at the Edwards home before Mary
came, Lincoln had taken her out on one or two occasions,
but assuredly no intangible forces of attraction went into
operation between the two. Quite the contrary. Frances's
verdict, given years later, was that ". . . he was not much
for society. He would go where they took him, but he was
never very much for company." This certainly does not
sound as if she enjoyed going out with him and one doubts
whether Mr. Lincoln had a good time either. An interest-
ing comparison between Frances and Mary Todd as young
girls was given by their cousin Elizabeth Humphreys; she
liked Frances but thought she "was taciturn and seemed

The Coterie and "a Mighty Rough Man" 27

cold & reserved," while Mary "was bright and talkative &
warm hearted."

The chilly- appraisals of her sisters did not influence Mary
in her interest in her new friend. Meanwhile "what was he
discovering about her?

It was no trouble at all for Mr. Lincoln to find out
about that attractive little Miss Todd. She was much in ev-
idence and took a lively part in all the activities of Spring-
field's top social circle. He heard about the dray ride, prob-
ably with warm liking for the girl's spunk and defiance of
convention, not to mention her natural democracy in rid-
ing with a drayman. It is possible he even saw the incident.
Anyhow, Dr. Merryman's verses about it circulated in the
coterie and Mr. Lincoln must have read them, doubtless
with a twinkle that broke into a laugh at the line "He rolled
her off the dray." Some day he would enjoy teasing Mary
himself.

At parties he could see her as Mr. Conkling once de-
scribed her to his fiancee: "She is the very creature of ex-
citement you know and never enjoys herself more than
when in society and surrounded by a company of merry
friends." She usually was so "surrounded," as a gay and en-
tertaining girl who loves people is likely to be.

CHAPTER ?

"I ... Made a Fool of Myself"

r I "iHERE was no doubt that Miss Todd was good com-
JL pany. But Mr. Lincoln found that her conversa-
tion had learning and substance as well as sparkle. In this
she may have reminded him of the young woman he had
been courting back in New Salem the year before he came
to Springfield to live. Her name was Mary too Mary
Owens. That courtship was a closed incident by the time
he met Miss Todd, but it was still fresh and uncomforta-
ble in his memory.

Miss Owens also had had an excellent education and so-
cial background and was an entertaining and intelligent
conversationalist. And, like Miss Todd, die had a certain
sprightliness (not to say sauciness) of retort, a sort of pro-
vocative coquetry that was very attractive. Lincoln liked
the light verbal fencing of repartee and was good at it him-
self in a pleasing and whimsical way. It was an era when
the snappy comeback was well thought of.

His wooing of Miss Owens, however, had been a tepid
affair, one that left him feeling as if he should make a wry
face at himself. That is practically what he did when, after
it was all over, he wrote a full account of it to a good
friend, Mrs. Orville H. Browning, whom he had come to

"/ . . . Made a Fool of Myself 29

know well when he was at Vandalia. Her husband had been
his friend and fellow Whig in the legislature there. Mrs.
Browning was a woman of kindliness, humor, and consid-
erable force of mind. (One is beginning to note that Mr.
Lincoln preferred intelligent women.) She was understand-
ing, or he never would have written her this letter which
ended on the note that he had "made a fool" of himself. He
may have selected April Fool's Day (April i, 1838) as the
date on which to write it with an eye to its appropriateness.

As his pen unfolded the comedy to Mrs. Browning, one
can picture him writing with alternate twinkle and gri-
mace. He had been greatly pleased with Miss Owens when
he had first met her back in 1833 at New Salem, where she
was visiting her sister Mrs. Bennett Abell. Lincoln was fond
of Mrs. Abell and sometimes stayed at the Abell home;
those had been good friends and neighbors in and around
New Salem, though they did not live in the style of some
of the people of Springfield.

Three years later, in the fall of 1836, Mrs. Abell told him
she was going back to her old home in Kentucky for a
visit and added as a gay challenge that she would bring
back an attractive sister of hers if he would promise to
marry her; or, as Lincoln himself expressed it, "upon con-
dition that I would engage to become her brother-in-law
with all convenient dispach." Of course, as a gallant gentle-
man he had to meet the challenge and agree to the proposi-
tion, but there was more to it than this: he remembered
well how very desirable he had considered Miss Owens
when she had visited her sister before.

She had perhaps the best educated feminine mind he had

30 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

encountered up to that time. Furthermore, her mind could
do some thinking of its own. That she rebelled against the
narrow bounds set down for female conduct is evident in
a letter she wrote from Kentucky in 1835 to Thomas J.
Nance, an old friend who had gone to Illinois. She boldly
broke the rule that a lady must not write to a gentleman un-
less he first has written to her. "You are well aware
Thomas," she said, "that in writing you this letter, I am
transgressing the circumscribed limits, laid down by tyr-
ranical custom, for our sex." She defended herself vigor-
ously: 'Wherein consists the impropriety of my corre-
sponding with an absent Friend, and admiring at the
same time, that Friend to be a Gentleman? We are beings
formed for social intercourse, and I hold it admissable for
us, to draw pleasure from what ever source we can, pro-
vided, it be an innocent one." She did not care if narrow-
minded individuals did criticize her: ". . . if I am con-
demned by the cold, unfeeling and fastidious of either Sex,
I care not, for I trust, my Heart, has learned to rise superior
to those groveling feelings, dictated by bosoms, that are
callous to every refined emotion." She had learned that
Thomas was coming to Kentucky and proper maidenly re-
serve went so far out of bounds as to allow her to write him
she was "much pleased" about his coming and to make this
leading statement: ". . . you have many Friends here,
whose Hearts beat high, at the thought of seeing you again,
for my own part, I frankly acknowledge, that to me, it
would be a treat of no every day occurence, to see Thomas,
and talk about days of Auld lang Sine."
The unconventional and liberal-minded Mr. Lincoln

"7 ... Made a Fool of Myself 31

could have stimulating conversation with such an independ-
ent thinker. They could discuss politics and books and she
could satisfy in a way his hunger for intellectual compan-
ionship. He thought there was much to be said for Mrs.
AbelTs proposition. "I was most confoundedly well pleased
with the project," he wrote. "I had seen the said sister some
three years before, thought her inteligent and agreeable,
and saw no good objection to plodding life through hand
in hand with her."

The conversation with Mrs. Abell had been half in fun,
of course, a matter of banter between them. Lincoln was
twenty-seven at this time and had a natural interest in girls
and the thought of getting married, but he also had a mar-
riage shyness that is sometimes encountered in sensitive
young men. Then, too, ever since he had left his father's
backwoods cabin five years before, he had been engaged in
that difficult task sometimes described as "pulling himself
up by his bootstraps" and so far it may have seemed to him
that there had been more pulling than elevation. He was
having a hard enough time taking care of himself without
assuming any additional responsibility in the shape of a
wife and possible family.

He was therefore considerably startled when word came
to his ears that Mrs. Abell had returned from Kentucky
and had brought her sister Mary with her. This seemed too
much like pinning him down. It was one thing to jest with
Mrs. Abell about marrying her sister and another to have
that sister here in the flesh.

"Flesh" is just the word! When he came face to face
with Miss Owens, he discovered she had gotten fat! Three

32 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

years of good Kentucky fare in her well-to-do home in that
state had added poundage that was not conducive to ro-
mance, and besides, she had lost some teeth. It made her
look much older and, as a matter of fact, she was about a
year older than he was. A ' Veather-beaten appearance in
general," to use his own words, put "a kind of notion" in
his head "that nothing could have commenced at the size of
infancy, and reached her present bulk in less than thirtyfive
or forty years. . . ."

He probably would not have noted these changes so crit-
ically if it had not been for that commitment to her sister
which now hung heavily on his conscience. Of course, Miss
Owens still had her fine mind and was as intelligent and en-
tertaining to talk with as ever. And she would have been
quite handsome if she had not put on so much weight. No
one could deny that she had a very fine face. "I also tried to
convince myself, that the mind was much more to be val-
ued than the person," wrote Lincoln describing his dis-
turbed cogitations.

His extreme conscientiousness was always to cause him
mental anguish. If Miss Owens had already reached an age
when she was considered an old maid and he himself failed
to find her physically attractive, perhaps no other man
would want her either and he was her last chance. A far-
flung conjecture arises here. If her unmaidenly intimation
to Thomas Nance that her heart "beat high" at the thought
of seeing him again had indicated romantic leanings on the
part of Miss Owens toward that gentleman, it is possible
she had had a disappointment when he married another
lady in September of that very autumn when Mrs. Abell

"/ . . . Made a Fool oj Myself 33

made her proposition to Mr. Lincoln. It is even possible
New Salem gossip had suggested such a thing to him. Was
the married sister sympathetically hoping Mr. Lincoln
would console Mary Owens? At all events, he felt he had
committed himself to marry her. "Through life I have been
in no bondage, either real or immaginary from the thraldom
of which I so much desired to be free." He spent his time,
he said, in planning "how I might procrastinate the evil
day for a time, which I really dreaded as much perhaps
more, than an irishman does the halter." (Part of this feel-
ing was a wariness about marriage itself.)

So the courtship which was missing on a number of cyl-
inders limped along. Miss Owens was not finding Mr. Lin-
coln entirely satisfactory either. By great good fortune one
has her account of the affair as well as his. Lincoln had been
mistaken in thinking it her destiny to become an old maid:
later another gentleman was found who saw no objection
to plodding through life hand in hand with the lady. She
had long been a wife and mother when she described her
feeling about Mr. Lincoln. Posterity encounters no reti-
cence about this courtship; it has very frank statements
from both of the parties concerned, and nowhere does one
intrude upon a deep or tender sentiment.

Miss Owens felt that Lincoln "was deficient in those lit-
tle links which make up the great chain of womans happi-
ness." She apparently missed in him social niceties and gal-
lantries that had been no part of his background or training
up to that time.

There was one occasion when a number of New Salem's
younger set were riding on horseback from the little vil-

34 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

lage to a party at "Uncle Billy Greens." Mr. Lincoln was
Miss Owens's escort. They came to "a very bad branch to
cross" and all the other gentlemen solicitously saw to it that
their ladies made the crossing in safety, but Lincoln rode on
ahead without looking back and left Miss Owens to shift
for herself. She was piqued and, riding up beside him, said
tardy: ". . . you are a nice fellow; I suppose you did not
care whether my neck was broken or not." Lincoln laughed
and defended himself with a rather forced compliment, say-
ing he knew she was "plenty smart" enough to take care of
herself.

But he was sensitive and self-doubting and that sort of
criticism would only add to his marriage shyness. It was
not the only time she made a critical remark. There was
another occasion when they were in a little group which
was climbing the hill to Mrs. AbelPs home. One of the ma-
trons was carrying her baby, a large and heavy child, and
Miss Owens thought that Lincoln should have helped her.
Looking to the future in a realistic way, she decided he
would not make a thoughtful husband and she bluntly told
him so. The detached reasoning and plain speaking that
characterized this romance on both sides is very impressive.

And yet Miss Owens did comprehend Mr. Lincoln's sen-
sitive kindness of heart. She remembered how he told her
once of an incident when this quality of his worked to his
undoing. He had been crossing the prairie one day, he said,
"fixed up" rather better than usual, when he saw a pig
mired down in the mud and unable to free itself. He knew
he would ruin his appearance if he undertook the messy
task of rendering aid, so he steeled himself to pass on by.

"/ . . . Made a Fool of Myself 35

But he was drawn irresistibly to look back and he could not
endure the hopeless look in the animal's eyes. Back he went,
got down in the mud, and worked the prisoner free, ruin-
ing his clothes in the process but leaving his tender con-
science unhaunted.

Miss Owens admitted he was sensitive almost to a fault.
She conceded his good points and he conceded hers. They
saw eye to eye in politics, which was an important factor
with Mr. Lincoln. The trouble plainly was that while there
were mutual interest and a degree of congeniality between
them, neither could succeed in falling in love with the
other. But there was his commitment to Mrs. Abell, and no
other feminine interest was in sight, so the wooing pro-
gressed in an uninspired fashion.

While he was attending the meeting of the state legisla-
ture at Vandalia in December 1836, he wrote Miss Owens
a dispirited letter. He had been sick, he said, and there was
nothing to write about anyway and furthermore he had
not received the expected letter from her. He had gone to
the post office a number of times and had been mortified at
finding nothing. "You see I am mad about that old letter
yet," he wrote. "I dont like verry well to risk you again.
I'll try you once more any how." Here is the first glimpse
of this man's tendency to have the "blues" (or "hypo," as
he usually called it), especially when his vitality was low
after an illness. For all his long brawn, he did have occa-
sional illnesses, his skin was sallow and he was thin. Perhaps
the unbalanced diet with the exposure and hardship of his
growing years had contributed to this.

His letter went on to give Miss Owens in halfhearted

36 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

fashion news of what was going on in the legislature. He
mentioned his interest in getting the capital transferred to
Springfield. His sentiments toward Vandalia as the meeting
place were apparent; various things, he wrote, "have gotten
my spirits so low, that I feel that I would rather be any
place in the world than here. I really can not endure the
thought of staying here ten weeks." Would she write back
as soon as she got this letter and say something to cheer him
up? He ended by admitting his letter was so dry and stupid
"that I am ashamed to send it," and he signed himself non-
committally "Your friend Lincoln." It can hardly be called
a loverlike epistle.

By the spring of 1 837 it had been decided that the capital
would be removed to Springfield and Lincoln went to live
in that town. Apparently by this time the courtship had
progressed somewhat and he had broached the question of
marriage to Miss Owens without getting any definite an-
swer. From Springfield he wrote "Friend Mary" two nota-
ble letters which present a veritable lawyer's brief of rea-
sons why she had better not marry him! He explained at
length how drab the prospect would be for her if she did.

He was so poor and could offer a wife so little. The styl-
ishness of Springfield made him realize this acutely: "I am
often thinking about what we said of your coming to live
at Springfield. I am afraid you would not be satisfied. There
is a great deal of flourishing about in carriages here, which
it would be your doom to see without shareing in it. You
would have to be poor without the means of hiding your
poverty. Do you believe you could bear that patiently?"

If she decided to take die risk, however, he would do his

"/ . . . Made a Fool of Myself 37

best to make her happy. He would be very unhappy him-
self if he failed in this, but "I much wish you would think
seriously before you decide. . . . My opinion is that you
had better not do it. You have not been accustomed to hard-
ship, and it may be more severe than you now immagine."

He hoped she would write him a "good long letter." He
needed it for "company" in this "busy wilderness." In all
his letters to Miss Owens there is great loneliness between
the lines.

A little over three months kter he wrote her again. In
the meantime he had seen her, but apparently the situation
between them remained as unsettled as ever. In fact, the
interview had been so unsatisfactory that he wrote her later
"on the same day on which we parted," trying to clarify
matters. She must know that he could not see her or think
of her "with entire indifference." (One can imagine Miss
Owens's reaction to that anemic compliment.) "I want in
all cases to do right," he wrote, "and most particularly so,
in all cases with women. I want, at this particular time,
more than anything else, to do right with you, and if I
knew it would be doing right, as I rather suspect it would,
to let you alone, I would do it."

She was free to drop the whole matter, and leave his let-
ter unanswered, if that was what suited her best and would
make her happiest; their further friendship depended upon
her, but, "Do not understand by this, that I wish to cut your
acquaintance." His greatest wish was to consider her hap-
piness, and "to make myself understood, is the only object
of this letter."

If their friendship was to continue, he wanted to know

4

CHAPTER

"This Thing of Living in Springfield"

LINCOLN'S cautious letters to Miss Owens make one
smile, but they are also pathetic. They reveal between
the lines his loneliness, his reaching out for intelligent com-
panionship, his man's need for a woman's interest and sym-
pathy, his longing for love and for the giving of love. To
one who had been knocking about in such homeless fash-
ion, there was perhaps the unconscious wish for a home.

It is possible that the mental congeniality with Miss Ow-
ens had served to whet his desire for feminine companion-
ship, that she awakened a longing that she did not satisfy.
He found her lacking in sympathetic understanding and in
physical appeal.

How different it was with little Miss Todd, with her
pretty figure, her vivid, animated face, her quick little ges-
tures of dainty hands! She had the excitability, the enthusi-
asms, and the joyousness of a child. Miss Owens had been
older than Lincoln and everything about her heavy figure
had suggested maturity to him; Miss Todd, nearly ten years
younger, aroused the paternal instinct that was always so
strong an element in his make-up.

He was about a foot taller than Molly; the head with
bright chestnut hair hardly came to his shoulder. When she

"This Thing of Living in Springfield" 41

stood beside him, he could look down on that bright head
and see the sweep of long lashes against the pink curve of
her cheek. She was responsive; his playfulness and whimsi-
cality would bring a quick answering smile and the smile
in turn would bring a dimple. Like Miss Owens, Miss Todd
had a keenly intelligent, well-furnished, and scintilkting
mind. But with her he did not have to make a reasoned ef-
fort to convince himself "that the mind was much more to
be valued than the person"; the "person" had all the quali-
fications too.

Miss Owens had been self-sufficient; she was "plenty
smart" enough to take care of herself. One doubts that she
was excitable. Miss Todd, with her impulsiveness and her
quick tongue that was apt to get her into trouble, undoubt-
edly needed a slow, balanced, deliberate person like him-
self to look after her. This dependence makes a paternal
man feel necessary and important, where feminine self-
sufficiency can make him feel inadequate. For it is one of
nature's tricks on young people at the mating age that a
man finds a girl's childishness charming and a boost to his
masculine sense of protectiveness, when the same quality in
a wife of some years' standing may be a problem and an
exasperation.

Both of these girls who had caught the attention of
young Mr. Lincoln had the appeal of wearing attractive
clothes. Miss Todd's daintiness and furbelows were part of
her charm for him. In that future unknown married life
that destiny held in store for him, he was to notice when his
wife wore a new dress and was to admire her when she
was arrayed for a party in hoopskirt splendor. Up to the

42 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

time of his going to live in Springfield, most of the girls he
had known had been living in log cabins, cooking over open
fireplaces with water carried laboriously from springs.
Daintiness, even cleanliness, under such conditions was dif-
ficult, and Lincoln's awareness of the contrast between
these rural maidens and the style-conscious belles of Spring-
field was apparent in what he once exclaimed as he entered
a ballroom: "Oh boys, how clean those girls look."

It is hard to picture young Abraham Lincoln in a candle-
lit ballroom, to imagine that lanky figure, whose long legs
seem more suited to steady striding across the prairie, en-
gaged in the dances of the eighteen-hundreds. It is easy to
accept the statement that he was "rather clumsy at danc-
ing." Yet there is concrete proof of his interest in dances
by the end of 1839. There exists today a quaintly formal in-
vitation to a "Cotillion Party" given in December at the
American House, Springfield's most pretentious hotel
which stood on the southeast corner of the square. This
dance was being arranged by sixteen "Managers" who are
listed on the invitation itself. The name of "A. Lincoln"
appears in this list as well as those of other friends already
introduced: Stephen A. Douglas, the "Little Giant," James
Shields, the blarney-tongued and truculent Irishman, and
Joshua Speed, the frequent lover. This invitation makes it
plain that by the end of 1839, over two years after he came
to Springfield, Lincoln was established in the social whirl
of the coterie and was stepping out in society.

He had come so far that he had even, shortly before the
cotillion, joined several other enterprising men in sending
out an SOS for more girls! With the demand so far exceed*

"This Thing of Living in Springfield" 43

ing the supply, the lonely gentlemen of Springfield had to
resort to desperate measures. Lincoln was a ringleader in
the writing of a whimsical appeal to Mrs. Browning, who
had been his confidante concerning the affair with Miss
Owens. This joint letter "respectfully" informed Mrs.
Browning that the undersigned were in great need of her
society in Springfield "and therefore humbly pray that
your Honoress will repair, forthwith to the Seat of Gov-
ernment, bringing in your train all ladies in general, who
may be at your command; and all Mr. Browning's sisters in
particular." The "faithful & dutiful Petitioners" made ex-
travagant promises: if her "Honoress" would grant their
request, they would render due attention and faithful obe-
dience to all her orders, whatever they might be. The letter
is about half in Lincoln's hand (and indubitably in his play-
ful manner) and is signed by him. The remainder of the
letter seems to be in the handwriting of John J. Hardin,
Mary's cousin, who also signed it, as did E. B. Webb. (How
that Don Juan of Springfield, Joshua Speed, failed to be in
on a project like this remains a mystery.) Edwin B. Webb
was a widower and his eyes, like Mr. Lincoln's, were be-
ginning to follow the pleasing little figure of Miss Todd.

This letter to Mrs. Browning was enclosed with another
in the same vein written by John J. Hardin; the two epis-
tles together take one directly into the intimate, bantering,
funmaking atmosphere of the younger set. One can pic-
ture the grins with which these friends put their heads to-
gether to concoct their urgent appeal. Mr. Hardin's letter
promised Mrs. Browning even greater privileges: "In con-
sideration of our distressed situation Mr Butler [at whose

44 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

home Lincoln boarded] has promised to give you up his
parlor, but if there is any difficulty on that point I promise
as a gallant knight to give you the privilege of hanging up
on a peg in my closet, whenever it may suit your con-
venience. . . . We trust therefore to have your Honoress
here by the 25th inst, as a living Chirstmas present as large
as life, twice as natural & three times as agreable."

It takes time to become part of an intimate group.
Though he was now in the coterie, it had been a hard strug-
gle for Mr. Lincoln to make the grade socially at first. He
had been just as "blue" during his earlier days in Spring-
field as he had at Vandalia. He had mentioned it in one of
those gloomy letters to Miss Owens written shortly after
he arrived: "This thing of living in Springfield is rather a
dull business after all, at least it is so to me. I am quite as
lonesome here as [I] ever was anywhere in my life. I have
been spoken to by but one woman since Fve been here, and
should not have been by her, if she could have avoided
it." There could hardly be a plainer expression of the wish
for a woman's sympathy. But he had been timid about seek-
ing occasions and places where he might meet people. He
stated his self-doubt plainly: "I've never been to church yet,
nor probably shall not be soon. I stay away because I am
conscious I should not know how to behave myself ."

That not knowing "how to behave" himself in society
was the trouble; he was feeling keenly his lack of social
and cultural background. He was at home in front of the
fireplace of a log cabin, telling droll homey stories that held
the attention of all But being in the sophisticated crowd
that gathered in the luxurious parlor of the Edwardses

"This Thing of Living in Springfield" 45

was another matter. Not but what Springfield still had log
cabins sprinkled in among the better homes. The combi-
nation seems like a symbol of two attitudes which were at
war in the little town. On one side was the extreme class
consciousness of the age, which seems in some cases like
ridiculous snobbery now; on the other the leveling democ-
racy of the near frontier. The perfect representatives of
the aristocratic attitude would have been Ninian W. Ed-
wards and his wife; of the second, Abraham Lincoln. This
dramatic conflict of ideals was to blow like an icy wind
upon the budding love of Abraham and Molly.

One can rarely recover the exact time at which a ro-
mance begins. Even the two parties most intimately con-
cerned can seldom put their fingers upon the precise mo-
ment at the time and this love story occurred more than a
century ago. It is possible to follow the record of Lincoln's
outward life in early 1840 but not his inner thoughts and
feelings about little Miss Todd.

Mr. Lincoln was busy in the legislature early in the year,
attending to public affairs as a good Whig should. There is
no doubt he was up to his ears in politics and so were some
of his intimate friends. One notes, for example, Joshua
Speed's name along with his signed to a campaign circular
in January and the signatures include also another person
destined to come intimately into this tangled story of a
courtship, Dr. Anson G. Henry. This kind-faced physician,
five years older than Lincoln, had a warm, sympathetic
personality as well as strong Whig convictions. Lincoln
loved and depended upon him. Down the long years ahead
the skein of his life would cross those of Lincoln and his

46 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

wife and always there would be understanding and affec-
tion among the three.

Lincoln's stream of letters to his absent law partner, John
Todd Stuart, kept him in touch with legal and political hap-
penings in Springfield. Occasionally there was a street fight
in the red-hot politics of the town. Once the junior part-
ner wrote how the "Little Giant," Stephen A. Douglas,
who was a leading Democrat, tried to cane Lincoln's friend
Simeon Francis, editor of the Whig Sangamo Journal, be-
cause Douglas considered himself insulted by something
that had been printed in the Journal. "Francis caught him
by the hair and jammed him back against a market-cart;
where the matter ended by Francis being pulled away from
him," wrote Lincoln. "The whole affair was so ludicrous
that Francis and everybody else (Douglas excepted) have
been laughing about it ever since." So much for his light
account, but Lincoln before long would find out that poli-
tics could involve danger to his own person that was no
laughing matter.

The political pot, always bubbling in lively fashion, was
boiling furiously in 1840 because it was election year. The
Whig candidate was William Henry Harrison, with whom
is associated the slogan "Log cabin and hard cider 9 ' and
that phrase of irresistibly jaunty rhythm 'Tippecanoe and
Tyler too." It is not possible to separate courtship and pol-
itics in this story; they are tangled together.

In March the Sangamon County Whig convention nom-
inated candidates for the legislature. Lincoln was nomi-
nated for another term, but Molly's brother-in-law, Mr.
Edwards, was not. "Ninian was verry much hurt at not be-

"This Thing of Living in Springfield" 47

ing nominated," wrote Abraham, adding, "I was much,
verry much, wounded myself at his being left out." There
was unalloyed friendship in the young lawyer's remark, but
one wonders, when one considers the feeling of superiority
which Ninian and his wife later had toward Lincoln,
whether they resented this episode. The Edwardses were
always to find it hard to understand why honors came to
him. When he was finally nominated for President, some of
the family connections met the announcement with
shocked unbelief.

In the many letters which Lincoln wrote his partner,
Molly's Cousin John, he gives no information as to whether
he was seeing much of her. To be sure, he was away from
Springfield a good deal that spring, going from town to
town to give political speeches or to attend court on the
semiannual round of the judicial circuit. Undoubtedly the
coterie had its usual gay get-togethers, and they possibly
saw each other occasionally at these parties.

Focusing again for a moment on the coterie, one finds a
delightful description of a picnic that summer of 1840 in
one of James Conkling's letters to Mercy. One of the host-
esses for this outing was Anna Rodney and surely, if Mr.
Lincoln was in town, he was invited. Today a young man
writing his fiancee about a picnic might say briefly that
the weather was fine, the food good, and after the lunch
they danced. But James presented the subject in Victorian
language that made it much more glamorous: " 'Twas re-
ally a delightful scene. The branches of some of the tallest
trees formed a canopy over our heads to screen us from
the rays of a cloudless sun." The lawn, of course, was "vel-

48 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

vet" and the table "was loaded with a profusion of delica-
cies which our ladies know how to prepare so well. The
graces flew while daylight lasted and as the dim twilight
gathered around us the Graces and the Muses both tripped
it *on the light fantastic toe/ . . ."

With her enthusiasm for the Whig party it would have
been the natural thing for Molly to read about the speeches
Mr. Lincoln -was making in various places in Illinois. She
may also have noticed that he had become a member of the
board of trustees of the town of Springfield.

He was a rising man and she enjoyed talking with him,
but she enjoyed talking to certain other gentlemen too.
There was that dynamic Mr. Douglas. A highly gifted per-
sonality looked out from those remarkable blue eyes of his.
She always delighted in people of talent and intellect. Ex-
cept that he was not much taller than herself, she consid-
ered him a handsome figure and, as she herself said later,
she "liked him well enough." But as an ardent Whig, she
did not agree with him politically.

A bright-colored story gives a picture of these two on
the streets of Springfield, a picture one wishes one could
see in a painting. She was sitting on a porch, weaving a
wreath of roses, perhaps for decoration for a party or per-
haps for the crowning of her own rich hair, when Douglas
appeared and asked her to walk with him. Gaily teasing,
she agreed on condition he would wear the wreath. Doug-
las entered into the spirit of the thing, the roses were placed
incongruously on that massive and powerful head, and off
they went, probably to the accompaniment of girlish gig-
gles.

"This Thing of Living in Springfield" 49

There may have been times when Molly wondered
whether it was her fate to be paired off with a short man.
That widower who had signed the plea to Mrs. Browning,
Mr. Edwin B. Webb, was far from tall. He was much
older than Molly and had two children and he was to make
it very clear that he had selected her for his second wife.
It is not possible to find out exactly when this romance be-
gan either. But it is clear that in the early summer of 1840
Mary Todd was living lightheartedly in the gay, sweet
young world of a popular belle with a number of beaux.
Just how much her friend Mr. Lincoln figured in her
thoughts and whether he had much of a lead over the oth-
ers at this time is hard to determine.

CHAPTER J

"My Beaux Have Always Been Hard
Bargains"

MOLLY'S eager spirit always delighted in travel and
visiting. She had an uncle living in Columbia, Mis-
souri, Judge David Todd, whom she had never seen. Like
most of the Todds, he held a substantial position in his com-
munity. There was a special attraction in his home in the
fact that he had a daughter Anne who was not far from
Mary's age. As a Southern girl, Mary had great interest
in and loyalty to her relatives and visiting one's kinf oik
was in the proper Southern tradition; she would visit Un-
cle David and Cousin Anne. So she set out for Columbia,
Missouri, in the early part of the summer of 1840.

She probably went to St. Louis by stagecoach (a trip of
two days or more and a rough one) and there boarded a
paddle-wheel steamboat or packet. This would have had to
churn its way up the great Mississippi for a short distance,
then push into the muddy Missouri River, and continue
moving against the current until it reached Boonville or
Rocheport. From either town Mary could be taken by
horse-drawn conveyance across to Columbia, or she could
even have gone on horseback, as she had grown up a good

"My Beaux Have Always Been Hard Bargains" 5 1

Kentucky horsewoman. On this trip she undoubtedly had
some escort or protector, as young females did not go
traveling alone in the eighteen-forties.

While Mary unquestionably liked the opposite sex and
had a great deal of coquetry, it speaks well of her person-
ality that she quickly formed affectionate and unselfish
friendships with other girls. All her life she was to have
deep, devoted friendships with other women. Now she
promptly took her cousin Anne Todd to her affectionate
heart and they became constant and congenial companions.

Returning for a moment to a survey of Lincoln's day-
by-day activities as they have been traced through letters
and other contemporary documents, one finds a blank be-
tween July 2 and July 13, 1840. A possible explanation is
that Lincoln was away from Springfield during that time
and this gap may have special significance. A well-defined
tradition that has come down among the descendants of
Judge David Todd says he came to Columbia to see Molly.
One is wary of tradition; it is apt to be affected by hind-
sight and increase like a rolling snowball as it passes from
generation to generation. One must regard it as a court of
law does hearsay evidence, seek confirmation of it in con-
temporary letter or document, and check whether it is con-
sistent with established facts.

Unfortunately the brief visit of an unknown lawy er to a
little town in Missouri in 1 840 would not have been impor-
tant enough to be recorded; at least, no contemporary rec-
ord of it has yet come to light. But the tradition does fit as
perfectly as a piece of jigsaw puzzle into the picture formed
by otherwise known facts. There is a letter which Molly

52 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

wrote from Columbk on July 23 and certain cryptic re-
marks in it leap into meaning if one accepts this tradition.
Also the period of Lincoln's apparent absence from Spring-
field makes the timing correct.

The rime element enables one to throw out one detail
which has been attached to this story. It has been said the
occasion of Mr. Lincoln's coming up the Missouri River
was a great Whig rally at Rocheport. There was such a
rally between June 18 and 20, 1840, but turning to the
record of Lincoln's day-by-day existence, it is found he
appeared in court at Springfield on June 18 and signed a
document there on June 22. If this is the rally meant, he
could hardly, under the slow conditions of travel by steam-
boat and horsepower, have had time to make the trip and
return between those dates. The tradition had it that he
came to Rocheport on business. Perhaps somewhere along
the line of the tradition's transmission someone thought the
rally made a most plausible reason for such a good Whig as
Lincoln to come to Missouri, put two and two together and
got five. But this in no way conflicts with the basic family
tradition that Mr. Lincoln came to Columbk to see Molly,
which does fit into the known facts.

This family story says that he went to the Presbyterian
church with Molly the Sunday he was in Columbia, sitting
in the Todd family pew. One likes to let one's imagination
play on the idea of those two figures sitting side by side in
a little church near the frontier the tall lawyer whose
earnest rugged face perhaps showed a little of the uncer-
tainty and self-consciousness of a man who is courting but
whose gray eyes when they rested on the uplifted, bon-

"My Beaux Have Always Been Hard Bargains" 53

neted face at his side had a special light in them; and Molly,
sweetly reverent, her vivacity hushed in devout worship.
It could have done much to bring them close together, to
deepen a dawning love, that sitting side by side in the little
church contemplating the serious meanings of life.

And now at long last Molly can speak for herself. She
wrote from her uncle's home in Columbia a long letter
which still exists, a confidential letter glowing with person-
ality, giving an account of the gay happenings in which she
was taking part. It also contains certain shy, intriguing
hints about topics of deeper import. It is possible to go into
the thoughts and feelings of Mary Todd as she herself set
them down on the twenty-third day of July in the year
1840. The nearest one can get to a personality of the past
is to read the letters of that person. Here Mary talks to one
naturally, unrestrainedly, and directly; there is no interme-
diary and no long stretch of decades between.

The letter was to that beloved friend Mercy Levering
with whom she had spent so many intimate and companion-
able hours during the past winter. Mercy had recently left
what Molly called "these western wilds" to return to her
home in the East. Molly's heart was desolate at the loss of
her running mate; the letter is filled with overflowing af-
fection as well as being a narrative of her activities. What
would she do without her "Dearest Merce" when she re-
turned to Springfield?

Molly's happy and responsive spirit viewed scenes and
people in Technicolor. Her time had "been most delight-
fully spent," the Missouri country was "most beautiful,"
and never had she "encountered more kindness & hospi-

54 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

tality." The day before, she and her cousin Anne had "re-
turned from a most agreeable excursion to Boonville, situ-
ated immediately on the river and a charming place. We
remained a week, attended four parries, during the time."

There is a suggestion of the small-town girl's liking for
larger horizons and more pomp and circumstance as she
writes that one party "was particularly distinguished for
its brilliancy & city like doings." The dancing lasted "with
untiring vigor 99 until three o'clock in the morning (though
she and Cousin Anne left earlier) and the tempo was so
fast and furious that she "felt exhausted after such desperate
exertions to keep pace with the music." Apparently Spring-
field did not hurry through the figures in such "rapid man-
ner," the speeding up of the dancing seemed to change
gracefulness into jerkiness, and Molly saw the funny side
of the spectacle. She expressed her amusement to Mercy in
the stilted language which was then popular: "Your risibles
would have undergone a considerable state of excitement,
were you to have seen the 'poetry of motion* exercised in
the dance." Later in the letter she made a further remark
about happenings to which she seemed unaccustomed and
she showed that even then Illinoisans had their present-day
nickname: "Our Sucker friends would have opened their
orbs, at such strange doings."

In writing she also incidentally revealed her awareness of
the Southern antecedents of her relatives and friends.
Speaking of the music for the dance, she continued thought-
fully: "Had our grandfathers been present in the festive
halls of mirth, they would undoubtedly have recognized the
familiar airs of their youthful days, all the old Virginia

"My Beaux Have Always Been Hard Bargains" 55

reels that have been handed down to us by tradition, were
played."

There was no doubt she was having a glorious time on
her visit. Molly had that most appealing quality, the gift
of natural and contagious enjoyment; to be with her was
to share in her pleasure as one does with a happy child. Her
enthusiasms were as ever-present as the underscored words
in her letters. She loved Missouri. She would love to live in
Boonville. "A life on the river to rne has always had a
charm, so much excitement, and this you have deemed nec-
essary to my well being; every day experience impresses
me more fully with the belief."

There was a vogue at that time for soul searching and
for writing letters in which one analyzed and moralized
over one's emotions. Mr. Lincoln is to have a heavy dose of
such torturing introspection in the progress of this story.
Innocent enjoyment of life was apt to be labeled wicked
frivolity in the eighteen-f orties and conscientious Mercy
Levering had evidently scolded Molly about her lightheart-
edness.

The letter becomes introspective and gives a hint that
something is causing the writer to think seriously about the
future and what she wants in that future. It could be that
Mr. Lincoln had come to Columbia and Molly had real-
ized that here was a suitor who was in earnest and she must
face a far-reaching decision. She had been taking stock of
her own qualities. She was sorry she loved excitement and
parties so much. "I would such were not my nature, for
mine I fancy is to be a quiet lot and happy indeed will I be,
if it is, only cast near those, I so dearly love." She was see-

56 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

ing clearly here: all her life, affection, both the giving and
receiving of it, was to be the most important thing. There
is also a hint that already her heart was inclining toward
the impecunious Mr. Lincoln. If she was pondering
thoughts of becoming his bride, the prospect seemed to of-
fer "a quiet lot" indeed.

She continued her self-analysis with a sort of realization
that sooner or later her soaring young spirit would have to
come down to earth. And, after all, gaieties did not com-
pletely satisfy her. "My feelings & hopes are all so san-
guine that in this dull world of reality tis best to dispell our
delusive day dreams as soon as possible. Would it were in
my power to follow your kind advice, my ever dear Merce
and turn my thoughts from earthly vanities, to one higher
than us all. Every day proves the fallacy of our enjoy-
ments, & that we are living for pleasures that do not recom-
pense us for the pursuit."

Molly turned for a moment to the subject of the letters
and newspapers that had followed her from Springfield, a
flood of mail that is good evidence of her popularity. The
arrival of the mail, she says prettily, finds her "on the wing
of expectation." Knowing her intense interest in the po-
litical campaign, some of her friends or beaux had been
sending her die local newspapers, the Sangamo Journal,
the Old Soldier (the Whig campaign newspaper), and
some daring person had even sent a Democratic newspa-
per, probably the campaign one called Old Hickory. "This
latter," continued Molly, "rather astonished your friend,
there I had deemed myself forgotten." Did that italicized
"there" refer by any chance to Mr. Douglas?

Beaux Have Always Been Hard Bargains" 57

Having played around the bush for a number of pages,
Molly reached, via the topic of mail, the most intriguing
part of her letter: "When I mention some letters I have re-
ceived since leaving S you will be somewhat surprised,

as I must confess they were entirely unlocked for" Could
Mr. Lincoln have written her? She plainly had a far-reach-
ing matter on her mind and longed for a confidante but
was afraid to commit too much to paper. She continued:
"This is between ourselves, my dearest, but of this more
anon. Every day I am convinced this is a stranger world
we live in, the past as the future is to me a mystery." If only
Merce were with her so she could talk to her: "How much
I wish you were near, ever have I found yours a congenial
heart. In your presence I have almost thought aloud, and
the thought that paineth most is, that such may never be
again. . . ."

Her mood lightened and she returned to her spicy ac-
count of events and persons. One is pleased to find a couple
of puns, although rather anemic ones, and a bit of the slang
of more than a century ago. Molly, partly because of her
intense interest in all the people she knew, enjoyed a bit of
feminine gossip. Her tongue was rather too apt at ticking
off the foibles of her friends. One cannot get the full im-
plication of her comment that one "Martha Jane" now has
"an opportunity of making dead sets at the youngsters," but
one suspects it was a remark that Martha Jane would not
have appreciated. Then followed the first of her puns: "To
change our subject to one of a still warmer nature, did you
ever feel such oppressive weather as we have had of
late "

58 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

After many pages Molly wrote that Cousin Anne "won-
ders what I am scribbling so much about." Apropos of the
length of the letter caine the second pun: "Though I can
fancy you pale and exhausted so in Mercy will spare
you." In various letters it is found that Mercy had to put up
with considerable punning on her name. Even her fianc
liked to tease her by saying "Oh Mercy!"

But there was one more thing she must tell Merce, be-
cause it was on the ever-absorbing subject of beaux. One
suspects she made a wry little grimace as she wrote: "There
is one being here, who cannot brook the mention of my re-
turn, an agreeable lawyer & grandson of Patrick Henry
'what an honor f I shall never survive it I wish you could
see him, the most perfect original I ever met." Then came
another statement which might have hidden meaning: "My
beaux have always been hard bargains at any rate." Did
Mercy know that young Mr. Lincoln was wont to use that
expression "hard bargain" even as his backwoods father had
done before him? The young lawyer was to be regarded
by Mary's relatives in Springfield as matrimonially a "hard
bargain" for the eligible belle that she was. There is great
significance in the comment on Patrick Henry's descend-
ant which follows: "Uncle and others think, he surpasses
his noble ancestor in talents^ yet Merce I love him not, &
my hand will never be given, where my heart is not."
Molly could have come far enough in her romance with
Mr. Lincoln to know that love and congeniality should be
the essential elements in the marriage she might make in
that mysterious future. Sometimes it takes the beginning of
genuine love to bestow that bit of wisdom.

CHAPTER U

Various Happenings of a Romantic
Nature

r I ^HE rest of the summer and up to November of 1 840
J_ Lincoln was in and out of Springfield helping elect
President Harrison by making political speeches over the
state and attending to his legal duties on the fall round of
the judicial circuit. Then the meeting of the legislature late
in November kept him at home. Mary too was deeply ab-
sorbed in the political campaign, though she had a guilty
feeling about it. After the election she wrote Merce: "I
suppose like the rest of us Whigs . . . you have been re-
joicing in the recent election of Gen Harrison," and contin-
ued rather apologetically: "This fall I became quite a poli-
tician, rather an unladylike profession. . . ." She excused
herself on the ground that the cause was "one of such vital
importance to our prosperity," and it was a time of "crisis"
The two girls were in a dilemma about their interest in
politics. Such interest was genuine in a matter which so vi-
tally concerned the gentlemen of their thoughts, but to be
considered unwomanly by these same gentlemen would be
dreadful. Perhaps politics had a special fascination because
it was forbidden fruit. Mercy, who was the soul of propri-

60 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

ety, wrote her fianc6 kte that fall, making her attitude plain.
She mentioned listening to speeches "upon a subject which
the narrow capabilities of my sex can understand but little,"
but she felt that women should not "be totally ignorant of
the great, and important questions pending upon the gov-
ernment of her own happy country." Lest that statement
be considered too radical she continued: "But by engaging
her mind in the things that belong exclusively to your sex
she is liable to become perplexed and bewildered in thing [s]
that are incompatible with the more retired sphere of use-
fulness which a kind and beneficent Providence has seen fit
in his all wise disposal to allot to her. So soon as she goes
beyond that sphere she does I think lose her dependence and
ceases to be the amiable, and attractive creature she is
sometimes called." That statement should have convinced
young Mr. Conkling that he was in no danger of marrying
a strong-minded female.

Peeping further into the private correspondence of these
delightful Victorian sweethearts and going back to the
month of September, one finds James Conkling reporting
that he saw Molly after her return from Missouri. "It was
on a Saturday evening at the [Sangamo] Journal Office
where some fifteen or twenty ladies were collected together
to listen to the Tippecanoe Singing dub." If Mr. Lincoln
was in town, it is a safe guess that he was there. It is evident
what a social and political center that little newspaper office
just off the square was, as Mr. Conkling continued: "It has
become lately quite a place of resort, particularly when it
is expected there will be any speeches." The subject of
speeches being thus gracefully introduced, he told his fi-

Various Happenings o] a Romantic Nature 61

anc6e the really important item in this passage: "I had the
honor of being called on myself that evening and made a
few brief remarks."

But Mr. Conkling had a topic even more interesting to
an engaged couple. He seems to have been a popular
groomsman at weddings, just as Mary Todd was a frequent
bridesmaid. "Well," wrote James to Mercy, "I had no idea
I should ever be instrumental more than once again, in
changing the name of a lady. But last evening Miss Todd
and myself, (standing partners you perceive) with the as-
sistance of Parson Bergen in his usual dignified manner
passed through the usual ceremonies of such an occasion."
He told how, about ten o'clock, he and Miss Todd helped
pack the newlyweds, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Abell, into a
stagecoach and sent them off to Chicago. "Peace and Hap-
piness be with them," was his benediction.

James Conkling walked home with Molly after the wed-
ding. A girl needed an escort at night in Springfield. There
were no street lights and only an occasional window square
was dimly lit by candlelight or oil lamp. One was like as
not to stumble over a pig.

The two young people strolled along the well-known
path that crossed a little bridge and led up the hill to the
Edwards mansion. Next door to it stood the home of Mer-
cy's brother, to which James had so often seen Mercy her-
self home after a party. He wanted to talk of her to Molly;
they both missed her so much. He did very well in putting
his lover's longing into his letter: "The same heavenly stars
shone . . . but not your bright and starry eyes the same
gurgl[ing] of the brook, was heard, but I listened in vain

6z The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

for the tones of your silvery voice. The light streamed
from your brother's window . . . but it did not guide me
to your presence. And for the first time, I think, I accom-
panied a lady home, upon that hill, without having the sat-
isfaction of reflecting upon my return that it was yourself."
This lover well deserved his nickname of "Jacob Faithful"

In contrast to this nostalgic mood he gave a gay and
teasing description of his "blooming partner [at the wed-
ding] who has just returned from Missouri." Alas for Mary,
all that abundant hospitality she had so enjoyed on her
visit had increased her weight! He made the most in humor-
ous fashion of that fact: "Verily, I believe the further West
a young lady goes the better her health becomes. If she
comes here she is sure to grow if she visits Missouri she
will soon grow out of your recollection and if she should
visit the Rocky Mountains I know not what would be-
come of her." But for all his teasing he had a fellow feeling
with Miss Todd, who like himself regretted Mercy's ab-
sence so much and felt so lonesome.

As always in a young part of the country there was much
marrying and giving in marriage. Bachelors in large num-
bers, as a rhyme of the day said, were being "strung in
Hymen's noose." Miss Todd is found attending another
wedding less than a month later that of James Campbell
and Harriet Huntington. She was the only lady present un-
connected with the family. Her liveliness and warm inter-
est undoubtedly made her a welcome addition to any wed-
ding occasion. James Conkling, of course, wrote Mercy
about it. Meantime he had had an answer from her, appar-
ently, warning him about the danger of officiating at so

Various Happenings of a Romantic Nature 63

many weddings, for he replied: "And so you thought that
a word of caution might be necessary for me for if Miss T.
and myself were partners much of tener, we might stand up
once too often." But another girl had been his partner on
this occasion and apparently a very attractive one too, for
he teasingly asked Mercy what she would think if she knew
that he had been "subjected to a very strong temptation"
to follow the groom's "most brilliant example," had he not,
he added tenderly, "been under the influence of a power
more firm than destiny."

So much for scraps of mention, mere side glimpses, of
Mary in ancient, yellowing letters. Sometime in the latter
half of 1840 young Conkling might have written his fian-
c6e some very interesting news that was getting around:
that Mr. Lincoln was frequently seen among the other
young hopefuls adorning the slippery horsehair sofas in the
Edwards parlor, that he, as well as Edwin B. Webb, was
paying particular court to Miss Todd. It could be noticed
that Air. Lincoln was not calling her "Miss Todd" any more
but was using the nickname that somehow seemed to suit
her, "Molly." One can imagine some member of the roman-
tic-minded and Shakespeare-quoting coterie that fall sud-
denly assuming a knowing expression and saying: " 'Sits the
wind in that corner?' Has Mr. Lincoln fallen in love with
Molly?"

Elizabeth Edwards, experienced in such matters, before
long became aware of what was taking place. She began to
notice the expression on Mr. Lincoln's face when he looked
at Mary. Elizabeth would enter the room where the girl
was entertaining her caller and mark with an older sister's

64 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

keen appraisal how the young lawyer sat listening to the
girl as if hypnotized his eyes glued on her glowing and
expressive face. Her letters show how much of interest the
younger sister had to tell and how well she told it and it is
easy to accept Elizabeth Edwards's statement that Mr. Lin-
coln "was charmed with Mary's wit and fascinated with her
quick sagacity her will her nature and culture."
When this sparkling flow of conversation was delivered in
a soft voice with a decided Southern accent, and with
pretty little gestures, and dimples that came and went, Mr.
Lincoln found the effect irresistible.

He did not have much to say himself, according to Eliz-
abeth's account; he "could not hold a lengthy conversation
with a lady was not sufficiently educated & intelligent in
the female line to do so." One wonders whether there was
special emphasis on the word "lady." Before Mary came to
live in Springfield and for a time afterwards, Mrs. Edwards
had done her hospitable duty in regard to her husband's
colleague in the legislature. But the time was approaching
when the hospitable attitude at the Edwards home would
cease. At some point Elizabeth Edwards, perhaps becoming
better informed about Mr. Lincoln's poverty and hard-
scrabble beginnings, began to wear a disapproving expres-
sion.

But wooing was going on with Mr. Lincoln's calls that
fall at the Edwards home on the hill. He and Mary un-
doubtedly met and had their moments at the coterie's con-
tinual round of parties and outings. In that slow-motion age
before automobiles, telephones, or moving pictures, court-
ing couples in Springfield took long walks together on the

Various Happenings of a Romantic Nature 65

black and overgrown paths that wound their way out from
the straggling town into the edge of the prairie. It was a
prairie that bloomed with countless flowers in season and
gathering these provided a wonderful objective for two
young people who wished to be together.

Again those subsidiary lovers, James and Mercy, give a
close-up view. Young Conkling was writing his fiancee that
fall of 1840: "I ... recollected those happy hours when
we strolled together on the prairies when arrayed in all
their splendor and decked with the gaudy hues of sum-
mer. . . ." So full was the assortment of blossoms that in
another letter he mentioned gathering thirty varieties. He
continued, loverwise: ". . . and I looked forward to those
still more happy hours, when I trust we may wind our paths
across those same prairies, under a clear and cloudless sky
and regaled by the fragrance of their millions of flowers."

So it may well have been that Mr. Lincoln and Molly
walked together on the prairie that fall, finding companion-
ship and congeniality and thinking of a future in which
that companionship would become permanent. If the paths
were ankle-deep in mud or dust, it did not matter in that
radiant and iridescent world which surrounds two young
people falling in love.

James Conkling, devoted fiance that he was, had with-
drawn from society and may have been slow in becoming
aware of Lincoln's shy courting. Other personalities and
events in the latter part of 1840 were much more in the
public eye. The gossips very likely were speculating about
whether Miss Todd would become Mrs. Webb or Mrs.
Douglas. They all knew that Mr. Webb was courting her

66 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

and he was a man of experience in such matters, being, as
Mary herself put it, "a widower of modest merit/' In De-
cember, writing Merce of doings in the coterie, she men-
tioned that Mr. Webb "is our principal lion, [and] dances
attendance very frequently."

The "Little Giant," Stephen A. Douglas, was also in evi-
dence. He was quite a ladies' man, skillful in the little at-
tentions dear to their hearts and master of give-and-take in
banter and jest. His dramatic and self-assured presence was
apt socially to eclipse that of the slow, unobtrusive, and
sometimes wistful Lincoln.

It could have been about this time that one of Mary's
friends asked her pointedly which she "intended to have,"
Lincoln or Douglas. The girl turned aside such undue in-
quisidveness with a light answer: "Him who has the best
prospects of being President." It has been said that a for-
tuneteller once predicted she would marry a future Presi-
dent and any buoyant girl would like to dwell on that
pleasant subject. (After she was married, her boundless
faith in her husband made her predict his future greatness
in earnest, even to the point of sometimes embarrassing
him.) Literal-minded biographers of Lincoln later inter-
preted this parrying remark as a statement of cold-blooded,
scheming ambition, building up a case against an affection-
ate woman who was asking only at this time that her lot be
"cast near those, I so dearly love."

In November, Mary, still lonesome for Mercy Levering,
joyfully welcomed a new companion. The stagecoach
brought from Alton a pretty, sparkling, conscientious girl
of eighteen, Matilda Edwards, a cousin of Ninian's, to spend

Various Happenings of a Romantic Nature 67

the winter at the Edwards home. Molly had undoubtedly
made the last part of her return trip from Missouri by just
such a journey as Matilda's and one is now able to get a
dose-up view of the ruggedness of stagecoach travel.

Matilda wrote her brother a short time after she reached
Springfield that she had had a hard trip with two overnight
stops. "The first day was the most unpleasant one I ever
passed," ran her account. "Crowded as I was up in one cor-
ner with the weight of all three of the gentlemen upon me
as I supposed you can immagine what I really suffered.
When we alighted for the night I was quite lame." To make
matters worse, one of the three gentlemen who formed her
abundant masculine escort was a suitor, Mr. Strong, so in
spite of discomfort, as she said: "... I was compelled
through the day to sit looking and acting my very prettiest
which you know was to me a difficTilt task." She was evi-
dently successful in her endeavor, for she added at once:
"Mr S was very agreeable as you may suppose."

Stopping overnight at inns where one was lucky to have
a room to oneself often had its element of the unexpected.
Matilda's sprightly narrative continued: "The first night we
stopped I had a very nice room to myself with the excep-
tion that the floor above was rather too thin for one of my
glib tongue. As soon as the gentleman retired the landlady
came in and I to win her good will, exclaimed ''what dirty
creatures these men are they have spit all over your nice
floor. 9 " This speech Mr. Strong "had the kindness to re-
peat to me the next morning which of course was very
mortifying. . . ."

Travel on the second day proved much more comf orta-

68 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

ble than on the first "and when we halted for die night,"
wrote Matilda, "I was in so fine a humor, that either f or this
or some other reason I was supposed to be a young wife
taking a bridal tour. The good landlady and all her house-
hold had very Strong suspicions." It seems to have been
an age of punning.

At Ninian's home Matilda and Mary were delighted with
each other from the first. The newcomer wrote her brother
at once that Mary Todd was "a very lovely and sprightly
girl." Within a month Mary was writing enthusiastically to
Mercy about Matilda as her welcome companion, "a con-
genial spirit I assure you ... a lovelier girl I never saw."
Matilda referred to "dear Molly" in her letters, but one can
only guess that Mary used her friend's appealing nickname
"Tid." It was a devoted friendship that was to last to the
end of Matilda's too brief life.

Of course the arrival of an attractive and eligible girl
"on the hill" created quite a stir among what Mary called
the "marriageable gentlemen" in the coterie. In no time at
all the susceptible Joshua Speed, to use her words, was of-
fering his "ever changing heart" and "young affections" at
Matilda's shrine. Judging from certain references in Mr.
Lincoln's letters to Speed later, it is likely that this new de-
votion resulted in quite a heartache for sixteen-year-old
Sarah Rickard, sister-in-law to Lincoln's friend William
Butler. Sarah had apparently looked too much upon Josh-
ua's handsome and romantic countenance and had fallen in
love with him.

The crosscurrents of love affairs in the coterie, as always
with a group of young people at the marrying age, were

Various Happenings of a Romantic Nature 69

complicated. When these affairs were occurring simultane-
ously with Abraham's wooing of Mary, the record was
likely to become mixed up. Sarah's name has at times been
pulled, somewhat ridiculously, into the story of Lincoln's
courtship.

Sarah lived for a time with her sister, Mrs. William But-
ler, at whose home Lincoln was a boarder and later also a
roomer. Sarah herself said afterwards she regarded him as
an older brother, just as the Butler children did. He liked to
play with them, as he did with all children, and to delight
their young imaginations with whimsical remarks. One day
he teasingly told Sarah that since in the Bible Abraham mar-
ried Sarah and since his name was Abraham and hers Sarah,
the logical conclusion seemed to be that they should be
married. Again a light statement has been repeated with
cold seriousness in later years by those who had lost the
playful setting. The result was an impression that Lincoln
had proposed marriage in earnest to a girl with whom he
was only being playf ul and whom he undoubtedly regarded
as a mere child.

"We see a great deal of company," wrote Matilda shortly
after her arrival. Mary mentioned that "some others" in ad-
dition to Joshua were much attracted to the visiting girl.
Within two months gossiping tongues of Springfield were
speculating about Mr. Lincoln's feeling toward this new
charmer, whose gaiety and humor in her recently found
letters peep shyly out through the heavy sense of duty
which oppressed her.

Matilda, like so many of these letter writers, was much
concerned with the state of her soul. As was the case with

70 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

Mercy Levering, she did not wish to indulge in wicked fri-
volity. "I have received an invitation to a ball since I came,"
she wrote, "but of course did not accept it. No my brother
however inconsistant my life may be as a Christians I hope I
shall ever have strength to resist those worldly fascinations
which if indulged in bring a reproach upon the cause of
religion."

Ninian, eying his pretty young cousin, urged her to go,
saying she "would appear to advantage" at the ball and us-
ing other arguments likely to appeal to eighteen-year-old
femininity. But Matilda could not be shaken from her lofty
resolutions. Congenial as she and Mary were, they evidently
did not agree about balls and dancing, and presumably
Molly went gaily to the party while Matilda stayed at home
wrapped in virtuous thoughts.

Since lively young Springfield is in effect one of our
dramatis personae, one should perhaps, before laying Ma-
tilda's letter aside, notice her impressions of the town. Be-
fore leaving Alton she had looked forward enthusiastically
to visiting the wonderful new state capital. "You are I sup-
pose," she wrote her brother, "anxious to know how the
city which haunted both my daily and nightly dreams ap-
pears when divested of all except reality. The truth that
'distance lends enchantment to the view' is now . . . fully
realized. Alton has doubled in attractions while this garden
of Eden is fast losing the charms with which my fancy
decked it. The . . . dazling mantle woven by your imag-
inative sister finds not the wearer in the fascinations of
Springfield."

The raw aspect of the town gave some newcomers that

Courtesy of Illinois State Historical Library

Courtesy of Illinois State Historical Library

Two Important Structures in Springfield

Above, home of Mr. and Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards as it appeared at a later period.
The porch was not there at the time Abraham courted Mary. Below, Illinois State
Capitol in public square. This view from the west side, taken probably in 1859, is
very much the same view Lincoln saw daily from his abode over Speed's store. At
the far right is the American House, where the "Cotillion Party" took place.

&

II

^ t^ _,

*** K"* ^2

-

.<; ? 't
1 * M

O

8
I

^

02

-a c

S.B
co ^

s ts

.fi"S

^
-- 5

Godey's Lady's Book, November 1842

Proper Attire -for a Wedding?

The latest style at the time of the wedding. Mary's dress was undoubtedly
fashioned on such lines.

Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society

Proper Attire for a Dance

Detail of a men's fashion plate of 1837. The costumes at the cotillion in 1839
would have been very similar to these. Notice the long sideburns and compare
with Mr. Lincoln's in frontispiece.

Various Happenings of a Romantic Nature 7 1

impression at first until they became acquainted with its
neighborly people. Matilda finished her letter some days
later and toward the close of it referred to her "first im-
pressions" on arrival and then continued: "But since then
I can say that a change has come over the spirit of my
dreams. I am now beginning to like Springfield and enjoy
myself very much."

Early in December, Mary and Matilda doubtless heard
much chatter about a rather comical incident in the legis-
lature. That body, the state house being not yet ready for
its sessions, was meeting in a church. For party reasons the
Whigs wished to prevent an adjournment and therefore did
not want a quorum to be present to vote on the matter. Most
of the Whigs accordingly stayed away, but Lincoln and a
couple of his friends, overconfident, attended the session to
see what was going on. When a roll call was taken and to
their great surprise a quorum was announced, they were
filled with dismay and hastily made an exit through the
window. The meeting being on the ground floor of the
church, the feat was not difficult for a person with Lin-
coln's long legs, but of course it was too late to prevent
the adjournment. The undignified departure accomplished
nothing except to arouse the glee and sarcasm of the Demo-
crats. Their newspaper, the Illinois State Register, sug-
gested that the state house be raised another story so that
Mr. Lincoln, even with his long legs, when he wished to
make such an exit, would have to climb down the water
spout!

It is no wonder the episode was a painful subject to Mr.

7 * The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

Lincoln afterwards. It is a hard thing for a man struggling
to rise out of humble beginnings and to make a place for
himself to be put in a ridiculous position. It has already been
seen how the affair with Miss Owens wounded his pride.
The years centering around Lincoln's courtship of Mary
Todd 'were to involve the most searing humiliations and
one of the deepest depressions of his life.

CHAPTER /

"Crime of Matrimony"

FOR the fall months of 1840 there are only a few casual
references to Molly. But in December it is possible to
stand confidently upon a broad expanse of solid evidence, a
long letter which she herself wrote Mercy Levering.

Molly, the lively conversationalist, can be counted upon
to give all the current news and bring things up to date.
Here is a good narrative of happenings from the best source
possible. But as to certain thoughts in her mind she is not so
forthright; she merely throws in some tantalizing hints.

It has been "very many weary days" since she had heard
from her "ever dear Merce." Molly apologized for not an-
swering her friend's last letter sooner, but she and Mrs.
Edwards had been busy for several weeks in the fall with
"a formidable supply of sewing, necessary to winter com-
fort." The last words conjure up visions of flannel petti-
coats and allied underthings, for houses heated only with
stoves and open fires are cold. Sewing was underscored in
the life of most women in those days when one could not
buy clothes ready-made, as now. Molly could not foresee
how much of it fate had in store for her in the next twenty
years: baby clothes, patches for little boys' pants, and
dresses to make herself pretty for her husband and bring
a light to his eyes.

74 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

After the fall sewing, the social whirl, which Matilda
had mentioned, began. Again Molly described Matilda
with great enthusiasm: "A most interesting young kdy, her
fascinations, have drawn a concourse of beaux & company
round us." She piled up her praises of the visiting girl and
her affection for her without any signs of jealousy.

The legislature being in session, bringing what Molly de-
scribed as "birds of passage," she continued: "We expect a
very gay winter, evening before last my sister gave a most
agreeable party, upwards of a hundred graced the festive
scene." Mr. Lincoln was probably among the dressed-up
gentlemen who climbed the hill that evening and perhaps a
certain gathering storm was already making itself evident
in a few preliminary flashes of disapproval in Mrs. Ed-
wards's eyes.

But Mary was seeing him frequently. She went on to tell
Mercy of a pleasant jaunt that she was looking forward to
very much. A little group led by Mr. Hardin and Mr.
Browning and including Matilda and herself, Mr. Webb,
and Mr. Lincoln was going to Jacksonville to spend a day
or two. She added longingly: "We are watching the clouds
most anxiously trusting it may snow, so we may have a
sleigh ride. Will it not be pleasant?" It is at least pleasant
to contemplate such a sleighload of interesting people, to
picture Molly with her red cheeks and vibrant joyousness
and Mr. Lincoln slow and deliberate with his face perhaps
lighted by a whimsical twinkle. That expedition opened up
distinct possibilities for stolen moments between two lovers
and it could be that much of importance took place on it.

Mary gave the local news. The state house was not yet

"Crime of Matrimony" 75

completed but sufficiently so to allow the legislature to
meet within its walls. From other sources it is known that
two days after Lincoln stepped out of the convenient win-
dow of the church which had been the meeting place, the
august body did meet in the state house.

"Springfield has improved astonishingly," she continued,
"[we] have the addition of another bell to the Second
Church. It rings so long & loud, that as in days past we can-
not mistake the trysting hour." One likes to imagine here
the tones of those church bells of a Sunday morning ringing
out over the scattered homes calling to worship the quaintly
dressed ladies and gentlemen of more than a century ago.
Among them one can picture Mary in her best bonnet and
billowy skirt hurrying down the hill and across the bridge
to enter the church door and sit among her friends. Her re-
ligion, her belief in the goodness of God, was unquestioning
and church was to her a place of comfort and peace. The
time would come when, as the President's lady, she would
write back to Springfield in homesick fashion, asking that
"our particular pew? in which she and her husband had sat
for many years, would be theirs again when they returned.

Mercy had written in her last "kind, soul cheering epis-
tle" to Mary that "time has borne changes on its wing." In
answer Mary reported on these changes in men's attire; cer-
tain gentlemen had been getting new clothes: "Speed's
'grey suit 5 has gone the way of all flesh, an interesting suit
of Harrison blues have replaced his sober livery, Lincoln 9 s
lincoln green have gone to dust. . . ." Mr. Webb, in spite
of his courting, wore something to indicate he was in
mourning.

7 6 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

Naturally, Molly reported the state of Mercy's pining
fiance, who "seems to have given up all, when deprived of
his 'own particular star.' " She, Molly, had not seen him for
a good chat since they walked home together after attend-
ing the Abell wedding in September. She added with
friendly concern: "I have often wished for the sake of his
society & of your dear self he would be more social." This
passage served to introduce the topic of marriages and
Mary seized the opportunity to expand on it. Evidently
it was a subject which was very much occupying her
thoughts.

Her letter gave a report of the two autumn brides whose
weddings she had attended. Harriet Campbell, married in
October, "appears to be enjoying all the sweets of married
life," but Martha Jane Abell, September bride, was not seen
about very much and "her silver tones, the other evening
were not quite so captain like as was their wont in former
times." Mary asked a very thoughtful question: "Why is it
that married folks always become so serious?"

Another friend of them bcith, it was rumored, was
soon to be married, continued Mary. "I am pleased she is
about perpetrating the crime of matrimony ... I think
she will be much happier." Did this peculiar choice of the
word "crime" have any connection with what her family
were saying about a marriage which she was contemplating?
Something was worrying Mary. She was losing weight: "I
still am the same ruddy pine knot ^ only not quite so great an
exuberance of flesh, as it once was my lot to contend with,
although quite a sufficiency." The words "ruddy pine-

"Crime of Matrimony" 77

knot" suggest her warm coloring and her glowing health
and vitality.

Apparently Mercy had been counseling her friend again
to think more solemn thoughts. Molly answered: "You bid
me pause, in your last, on the banks of 'Lionef & there
glean a useful lesson, by marking the changes, the destroy-
ing hand of time has written on all." ("Lionel" seems to be
the name the girls used in referring to the little stream whose
bridge one crossed on the way downtown from the hill;
more matter-of-fact citizens commonly referred to it as
"Town Branch.") Standing in imagination beside the
brook, as Mercy had directed, Molly gave her instinct for
poetic expression full fling: "The icy hand of winter has
set its seal upon the waters, the winds of Heaven visit the
spot but roughly, the same stars shine down, yet not with
the same liquid, mellow light as in the olden time. Some
forms & memories that enhanced the place, have passed
by "

Toward the end of this lengthy letter, in apologizing for
the behavior of her "stump of a pen," she used an expres-
sion found often in her letters and one showing a certain
characteristic: "Pass my imperfections lightly as usual, I
throw myself on your amiable nature, knowing that my
shortcomings will be forgiven." She could with confidence
have said these same words in her future married life to her
indulgent husband. But one day, as First Lady of the land,
she would find that the public does not pass imperfections
lightly by.

Molly's letter was written around the middle of Decem-

78 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

ber 1840; she did not give die exact day. It is known that
by the end of that month, before the catastrophe of Janu-
ary i, 1841, certain events and emotional experiences had
taken place. The attraction between Mary and Mr. Lin-
coln had grown stronger and stronger and had revealed to
them increasingly important discoveries of pleasure and sat-
isfaction in each other's company.

To Molly the rugged face that Springfield called homely
had grown more and more dear until it had become the one
face in the world that mattered most. For her there was ten-
derness around the sensitive mouth and a special light in
the earnest gray eyes. Mrs. Edwards, experienced match-
maker that she was, had diagnosed that look:* "Mr. Lincoln
loved Mary."

He had diagnosed his feeling himself. He is shortly to tell
of a certain test he had thought out to determine whether
a gentleman was in love with a girl and he had evidently
applied it. This was definitely the girl with whom he wished
to plod life through hand in hand. He may have wondered
how he ever could have thought that about Miss Owens.
How pallid his feeling toward her had been, compared to
the vitality of this attraction. Life would seem less plod-
ding with the companionship of Molly, so joyous and in-
tensely alive.

This was an age when fathers and guardians had much
to say about the marriage of a girl, when they had certain
heavy-handed rights in the matter. A proper gentleman of
the period, when his intentions became serious, must ask
permission to pay his addresses to the lady of his choice.
Ninian Edwards considered that Mary Todd, living under

"Crime of Matrimony" 79

his roof in Springfield, was his ward. But apparently* Mr.
Lincoln took the approach of writing Mary's father, "Mr.
Robert S. Todd, at Lexington instead of consulting Mary's
brother-in-law. Whereupon Mr. Todd wrote Ninian ask-
ing about this Mr. Abraham Lincoln and whether he was
qualified to become the husband of Mary Todd. Knowing
Ninian's settled aristocratic notions, one speculates about
his reply.

Of course the many reasons why Lincoln was not in a
position to marry which he had so painstakingly pointed
out to Miss Owens still existed. Molly, unused to hard work,
accustomed to luxurious living, to the assurance that comes
from prominent connections, Molly, who loved the trim-
mings of life and took the essentials (for which he was still
struggling) for granted, whose family considered their
aristocracy more or less a divine right, was not the logical
choice for him. He was shortly to remember all these fac-
tors with intense force. He was to state later with the voice
of experience that reason has nothing to do with falling in
love, that it is a matter of the heart and not the head, of the
appeal of a girl's personality and her bright eyes. Swept
away by the most powerful emotion of a young man's life,
Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd.

It is remarkable how these lovers managed to leave a rec-
ord in their own words of their feeling and attitude toward
marriage. It was a subject to which, first and last, they gave
deep consideration. They were not in their impulsive teens.
Mary at the end of 1840 had just had her twenty-second
birthday and Lincoln was within less than two months of
his thirty-second. What did Mary say about marriage?

8o The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

It has been seen that she declined the descendant of Pat-
rick Henry because she did not love him and she would not
marry a man she did not love. She is soon to tell of her re-
fusing another earnest suitor because, as she said, he was not
congenial and she would not marry a man with whom she
was not congenial

Most important of all was her clear-cut statement that
she "would rather marry a good man a man of mind
with a hope and bright prospects ahead" than marry all the
wealth and gold in the world. There is no trace here of die
class consciousness of the Edwardses. For Mary the require-
ments in a husband were goodness, brains, congeniality, and
love. In this she stepped into the fundamental democratic
American attitude on which the nation prides itself today.

What was Lincoln's approach to marriage? A small
pointer is in that self -mocking account of his courtship of
Miss Owens: once a woman was his wife, he said, he would
use all his powers "in search of perfections in her, which
might be fairly set-off against her defects." This is a whole-
some attitude as far as it goes, but there is something more
far-reaching in the advice he was before long to give to a
friend who had just acquired a wife: "You owe obligations
to her, ten thousand times more sacred than any you can
owe to others; and in that light, let them be respected and
observed."

Another clue, though not from his own pen, is in a book
which Lincoln is said to have marked and presented to his
wife later. The book exists today and one finds among the
marked passages one on marriage: "This union, so sacred
that it even supercedes that which exists between parent and

"Crime of Matrimony" 8 1

child, should be entered upon only from the highest and
purest motives."

But the most appealing evidence of Lincoln's approach to
his marriage lies in the words he chose to have engraved in
the wedding ring he -was finally to place upon the hand of
his bride.

It is not known at what rime the two became engaged,
what tender words were spoken between them, or with
what touch of arms and lips the agreement was sealed.
These were two people of warm, affectionate natures. Very
soon there will be a close-up view of Lincoln gathering the
girl into his arms, seating her on his lap as if she were a
child, and kissing away her tears. The promptness with
which he took these measures may indicate it was not the
first time he had employed them.

The details of their formal troth are hidden. One knows
only that when the New Year of 1841 was welcomed in,
Mary and Abraham had confessed their love to each other,
were engaged, and were planning to be married.

CHAPTER O

He Was "Mr. Lincoln" to Her

WHAT did Mary Todd see in this Mr. Lincoln to
whom she had just become engaged? He was always
"Mr. Lincoln" to her until in time she would call him "Fa-
ther" to their children. It was not her habit to address him
as "Abe" or "Abraham"; conventional Victorian fiancees
and wives did not lighdy use first names to the gentlemen
of their choice.

For that matter, his friends in Springfield did not call him
"Abe" either. He preferred to have them call him simply
"Lincoln." He had a certain inner dignity that held off too
great a degree of familiarity. It was a quality in him that
many were to notice and some thought it was rooted in his
essential goodness and integrity and his reserve of intellec-
tual strength.

Mary was asked years later, after many great events had
occurred, to give a full description of Mr. Lincoln and the
result was a portrait which still remains one of the best and
most understanding. In addition, after he became the center
of her life and because of her great pride in him, she wrote
much about him in her letters. She gave ample and indis-
putable evidence of what she thought of him later. It is
perhaps legitimate to use hindsight here, taking her sum-

He Was "Mr. Lincoln" to Her 83

ming up of his qualities after years of intimate life with him
as a key to what she instinctively recognized in the man
who had courted her and won her love.

Furthermore, though this is the story of Abraham Lin-
coln and Mary Todd in the period of their courtship, one
has a wish to know how these young personalities devel-
oped, to see them whole, to look into their future and rea-
son back from subsequent events and statements about their
incipient attitudes toward each other at this time. If this
affords glimpses of what their marriage will be like, that
will give one the satisfaction of those unregenerate indi-
viduals who peep at the end of a book to see how the story
is going to turn out.

How did the tall, ungainly Mr. Lincoln look to Molly?
His expressive face with its appealing combination of gen-
tleness and strength had grown inexpressibly dear to her,
but in an age which liked its masculine beauty smooth and
conventional and did not appreciate ruggedness, it was con-
sidered anything but handsome. He was gaunt and homely
in the eyes of Mary's sisters and, for that matter, in his own.
The hardships, exposure, and unbalanced diet of his early
years had made his skin sallow and wrinkled. As he once
expressed it whimsically: "In my poor, lean, lank face no-
body has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out."
His appearance was not helped by the fact that he had nei-
ther the knowledge nor i$sources to dress himself to ad-
vantage. One suspects that the disproportionate length of
arms and legs was often emphasized by sleeves and trousers
that were too short

To one who gave such careful thought to clothes as

84 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

Mary Todd, this unawareness must have had peculiar force.
It was true that he had advanced a long way in taste since
he had come to Springfield, had bought new clothes and
lost some of his countrified look, but in New Salem a very
few years before, he had presented anything but a roman-
tic appearance. A friend there noted that "there was one
half foot space between bottom of pants and top of socks."
Another friend went into details: "His pants were made of
flax and tow, cut tight at the ankle his knees 'were both
out. Was the toughest looking man I ever saw poor tyoy,
but welcomed to every body's house." The appealing mag-
netism of the young Lincoln won out even over these
handicaps; the description concludes that he "had nothing
only plenty of friends' 9

Any woman, especially one with Mary's motherly in-
stinct, could see that he needed taking in hand with regard
to dress. It may have hurt her pride a litde that he did not
resemble the current fashion plates as much as did the other
gentlemen in the coterie, but she knew this was not a vital
matter. The time would come when, as his wife, she would
see that he had the proper clothes, when she would spend
long hours making him fine shirts by hand in order that he
might be as well dressed as others. It was also a matter of
sentiment with her: she could not endure the thought of
her husband's wearing shirts made by any hands but her
own. ,

She was to learn that she would have to give him an all-
over, searching look before he left the house to see that he
had not forgotten anything essential, and to supply the um-
brella or warm shawl the weather required.

He Was "Mr. Lincoln" to Her 85

Mary herself, when she had been married less than half a
dozen years, said that Mr. Lincoln was "not pretty." But
then something of her feeling for the quality of that rough-
hewn face flashed out in her choice of adjective as she
added with wifely pride and confidence: "Doesn't he look
as if he would make a magnificent President?" It was writ-
ten of her that "she was inordinately proud of her tall and
ungainly husband. ... If to other persons he seemed
homely, to her he was the embodiment of noble man-
hood. . . ." If this was true after years of marriage, one
is safe in assuming it was true with the romantic girl in
the first glow of their engagement.

Lack of assurance in dress possibly contributed to his
trouble in adjusting himself to Springfield society, though
he was never to have too much awareness of clothes, and
suits of the most impeccable stylishness soon assumed a rum-
pled and casual air when he put them on. The personality of
the man dominated what he wore and one has difficulty im-
agining the tall, loose figure stiffened into the straight lines
of a uniform or adjusted to the elaborateness of a colonial
costume.

The girl who never failed to respond to longing or dis-
tress in the eyes of a child must surely have sensed his un-
sureness of himself at parties, his not knowing how to be-
have, his need for a woman's help, his wistfulness for the
advantages he had missed in early life.

That this feeling of lack stayed with him is shown by an
incident which occurred many years later. It was related by
a fellow lawyer who traveled with Mr. Lincoln on the ju-
dicial circuit. One evening at Danville, Illinois, after the

86 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

day's legal work was over, Mr. Lincoln disappeared. His
friends and roommates (for they often slept many to a
room at the crowded inns) were puzzled at his absence and
searched for him. Without his interesting companionship
and funny stories, the evening seemed very dull and they
finally went to bed without him.

When the latch of the bedroom door was raised and Mr.
Lincoln tiptoed in, one of his friends exclaimed: 'Why Lin-
coln, where have you been?" "I was in hopes you fellers
would be asleep," was the answer and then he explained he
had been to a little country show, given chiefly for school
children. He disappeared the next night too, for the show
was still in town, and on his return described the features
of the entertainment, which had included a magic lantern.
His friend who related the story remarked that he had seen
all these sights at school. "Yes," replied Lincoln, "I now
have an advantage over you in, for the first time in my life,
seeing these things which are of course common to those,
who had, what I did not, a chance at an education when
they were young."

He always kept that attitude of trying to acquire more
knowledge, partly perhaps to catch up with what he had
missed, partly because of the eager intellectual curiosity by
which he continued to grow. Once, as President, at a
White House reception, he held up the long line of people
waiting to shake his hand while he explained to Judge Da-
vid Davis, the very judge who had traveled with him on
the judicial circuit, that he had just learned to spell the
word "maintenance." In pleased and boyish fashion he
spelled it out, syllable by syllable surely unique behavior

He Was "Mr. Lincoln" to Her 87

in a formally attired President greeting guests at a presi-
dential reception.

By that time Lincoln had developed inner strength to the
point where he dared to be his natural self under all circum-
stances. But that was a long way from the time when, as a
young man, he was trying to adjust himself to Springfield
society. In his earliest photograph, taken perhaps four years
after he was married, one sees an expression of strain and
uncertainty, and a somewhat pathetic look in the eyes. That
may well have been due to the long, trying minutes of hold-
ing still which were required by the then new and wonder-
ful daguerreotype process, but this is the nearest one can
get to the face of the young man who courted Mary Todd
and there may be here something resembling that wistful
look that she had seen in her lover's face.

What quality of Mr. Lincoln's did Mary mention first
when she in later life was asked to describe him? He was
the "kindest man" in the world, she said, and the "most lov-
ing." She spoke of his great indulgence for those he loved,
his praise for the good in them, his dislike of imposing his
will or restraint upon them. The emotionally unstable girl
may unconsciously have sensed that here was one who
would pass her "imperfections lightly by," who would deal
gently, understandingly, and paternally with her undisci-
plined and often headstrong spirit. He was in the future to
call her his "child-wife" and excuse her faults as he would
those of a child. And in the end she was to recognize and
put it into writing that he had spoiled her with his indul-
gence.

But to Molly in love at the end of 1840, who perhaps felt

88 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

that since the death of her mother she had not been vitally
important to anyone, it was doubtless sweet and gratifying
to receive this gentle spoiling that was part of a paternal
man's love for her. His uncritical attitude may have seemed
a welcome relief after living with die various Todds, who
were very outspoken about her failings. And to the affec-
tionate and love-starved Lincoln it meant everything to
have someone of his very own to pet and humor.

Her letters later are starred with mention of his "great
tenderness 9 ' and "gentleness of character," just as their life
together was filled with incidents which illustrated these
qualities. One can safely say that she found them also in
his lovemaking.

Molly and Mr. Lincoln could laugh and have fun to-
gether. He could playfully call her "Puss." They used the
language of light imagining, of fanciful make-believe. He
could be irresistibly whimsical and droll. When she sought
for words to describe this dear playfulness, she spoke of his
being "cheery, funny," "in high spirits," and "almost boy-
ish in his mirth."

She was not the only one to observe and label this boyish-
ness. A friend who knew him well thought that Lincoln
had three characteristic moods. The first was a business
mood when he gave strict attention to the matter in hand
and what to do about it, grappled with the problem, and
worked his way logically to its solution. The second was
the melancholy mood, the "blues" already encountered in
his letters to Miss Owens. Mary perhaps had not become
fully acquainted with this failing of his yet, but she was
shortly to leara about it in perhaps its worst manifestation,

He Was "Mr. Lincoln" to Her 89

to come up against a crushing, all-out melancholia in the
man she loved.

The third mood, continued Lincoln's friend, was a "don't-
care-whether-school-keeps-or-not" one, in which he had
the appealing recklessness of an irresponsible small boy.
When in this humor, he would tease and play pranks. He
carried this trait far into his later life and one finds an in-
cident of it in the year when he was forty-seven and even
being mentioned as a possible candidate for Vice-President.
Traveling on the judicial circuit, he had stopped at an inn
in Urbana where the landlord delighted to beat with great
vigor upon a particularly loud and obnoxious dinner gong.
Lincoln watched his chance to seize and hide this offending
object. Then, while the landlord searched distractedly, the
prankster sat awkwardly in a chair tilted up in the usual
fashion, "looking amused, silly and guilty, as if he had done
something ridiculous, funny and reprehensible."

Equally characteristic was his creeping into the dining
room a little later and, while his friend held the doors fast
against intruders, restoring the gong to its accustomed place.
Then "he bounded up the stairs, two steps at a time. . . ."

Perhaps a certain boyishness is part of the fundamental
simplicity which one so often finds in the truly great. At all
events, a maternal woman delights in this quality in the man
she loves.

As to "his mirth" which she spoke of, it was irresistible.
A gentleman was to remark about Mr. Lincoln: "He was
. . . wise, but O Lord wasn't he funny?" Doubtless in the
gay assemblies of the coterie that fall Mary's ear had become
especially attuned to hear that ringing, inimitable laugh

90 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

which was to become so famous. He wrinkled his nose as
he laughed and his body shook all over with merriment.
Its forerunner was a twinkle in the gray eyes, a twinkle so
infectious that years later his little son Tad was to start
laughing uproariously as soon as he saw it. Mary may have
learned in the months of courtship to watch eagerly for
that fun light in Lincoln's eyes. Her gaiety gave quick re-
sponse to it, though her sense of humor was a different and
lesser thing. It is to be doubted whether her eyes ever twin-
kled with tolerant amusement in the way his did, though
they could sparkle with mischief, flash blue fire in anger, or
light up with joyousness.

Her humor was apt to concern itself with the individual
or the present moment. In its maturity his was the great
type of humor whose reverse side is a terrible, crushing pity
for the sorrows of mankind. His ear was attuned to hear
"the still, sad music of humanity." This man of torturing
sensitivity could laugh, but he could also weep, and some-
times he laughed in order not to weep.

But this is looking ahead to the time when Lincoln en-
tered history. To the engaged couple it was enough that
they could laugh, be playful, use their imaginations, and
have fun together.

One doubts whether the young girl had discovered at the
end of 1840 all of Mr. Lincoln's characteristics. Marriage '
properly should contain a few surprises. She was to learn
that he to use her own words "was a terribly firm man
when he set his foot down," that no one, including herself,
"could rule him after he had made up his mind." The out-
ward sign that he had arrived at an immovable decision, she

He Was "Mr. Lincoln" to Her 91

said, was that "he pressed or compressed his lips tightly,
firmly, one against the other." One can see this firm closing
of the lips in later photographs, but it is not so apparent in
the earliest one. Young Mr. Lincoln is shortly to be seen in a
frantic state of indecision, one that almost tore him apart.
His firmness, like some of his other qualities, was to develop
under the circumstances life would bring to him.

Certainly in the tender world of their new betrothal she
had not discovered what she did discover later: that he
could sometimes speak "crabbedly to men" (her own
words) and could even boot an insolent rascal out of his
office in righteous anger. He would at times in the future
become impatient with her, but it would never get very far
past his tenderness. She was to speak of him as being "so
gentle and easy" and of his having "peaceful nerves." Again
this is a glimpse of later development, for not long after this
time of their engagement, he was to make a statement indi-
cating he thought he had "defective nerves." They were
anything but peaceful in the crisis that was about to over-
whelm these two.

She was also to say that, with all his "deep feeling, he was
not a demonstrative man, when he felt most deeply, he ex-
pressed the least." This calmness was to be a foil to her
excitability, but this too was a self-control achieved later;
he is soon, in this story, to give most immoderate expres-
sion to his suffering.

This couple had a broad and congenial meeting ground in
their love of literature. She had grown up with the riches of
her father's library; she had studied with the cultured Dr.
Ward; she had so much stored-up literary treasure to share

92 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

with him. In his future busy life she was to go through
books in which they were interested and give him the gist
of them.

Anyone who said the word "poetry" to either Mr. Lin-
coln or Mary was sure to meet with an immediate and re-
sponsive interest. It was an age that allowed itself to enjoy
uncomplicated poetry in a natural way as something fine
and beautiful. Most of the coterie were poetry conscious.
Mr. Lincoln had a remarkable memory and Mary an excel-
lent one; both knew many favorite poems by heart. One
can imagine them repeating these verses to each other, each
enjoying the feel and rhythm of the beloved lines anew in
the other's responsive delight. Passages from Shakespeare
were stored up like keepsakes in their minds and the repeti-
tion of them led into the subject of drama, which was also
a mutual delight. Neither was ever to miss a play or show
of any kind if it was possible to attend it, until that last fa-
tal theater-going when they sat hand in hand gazing in-
tently upon the lighted stage while an assassin crept up in
the shadows behind them.

Burns was another favorite with both. That Lincoln felt
a kinship for Robert Burns was natural; the Scots poet too
in youth had known poverty, hard labor, and an aching de-
sire for books and he expressed the sympathy for lowly peo-
ple that Lincoln felt so strongly. It was part of his great
democracy. Mary also was so devoted to Burns that in
later life she made a reverent pilgrimage to his birthplace.
As for the ideas in his poems, she was soon emphatically to
demonstrate her own conviction that, in spite of snobbish

He Was "Mr. Lincoln" to Her 93

expressions to the contrary being dinned in her ears, "a
man's a man for a* that."

It meant much to this couple that they could enter the
same poetic moods together, always a precious employment
to young people in love. It was a congeniality that ran
deep. He was working toward a literary style of his own,
striving for the beauty of clarity, simplicity, and essential
truth. He had a feeling for the incantation of words, for
the enchantment of language. Each in writing was guided
by a mental cadence that tested the rhythm and flow of the
sentences. Hers was the femininely ornate, involved style of
the Victorian age, with an excess of commas used like small
frills; his was to attain a majestic simplicity that, like the
Bible, belongs to no one era but is timeless.

Both attempted to write poetry, of course. Before long
in this story certain rather too clever verses of Mary's com-
posing will result in serious trouble for Mr. Lincoln and
herself. They were personal and witty, as one would ex-
pect, but his poetic efforts tended toward somber and phil-
osophic thoughts. When he visited the scene of his Indiana
home about fifteen years after he left it, he tried to put his
emotions into verse:

My childhood-home I see again,

And gladden with the view;
And still as mem'ries crowd my brain,

There's sadness in it too.

It was a very sad revisiting, for his mother and only sis-
ter lay buried there, and the many verses are melancholy.
Lincoln's "Bear Hunt" makes much more lively reading;

94 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

it is a narrative by a master storyteller. In the following
stanza one gets a picture of him as a young boy in Indiana
awakened from sleep in the cabin at night and cringing at
the terrifying sounds of the dark and savage world outside.

When first my father settled here,

9 Twas then the frontier line:
The panther's scream, filled night with fear

And bears preyed on the swine.

It is not surprising to learn that these two poetry-loving
people would one day have a son who, as a child, wrote
verses.

Two people cannot share literary interests without each
discovering the intellectual caliber of the other. Mary
plainly liked brainy people. She said herself she preferred a
man of mind. She had found him. In their married life it
was a subject on which she loved to dwell. Referring to
the Lincoln-Douglas debates, she said with shining eyes that
Mr. Lincoln was an intellectual giant and in this regard tow-
ered above Douglas as much as he did physically, that
Douglas was " a very little, little giant" beside her husband.
Again mentioning these two, she added that Mr. Lincoln's
heart "is as large as his arms are long," thus making her
wifely boasting include the two fundamental qualities of
his personality. Her confidence in his talents was to rise
above momentary disappointments and be a prop to his
not too hopeful spirit; she was to look forward trium-
phantly to his future greatness and when that greatness was
finally achieved, no one was to speak of it in more glowing
and superlative terms than herself. She wrote after his death

He Was "Mr. Lincoln" to Her 95

that some in his own generation "were only beginning to
comprehend the nature and nobility of the great, good man,
who had accomplished his work, and before his Judge, it
was pronounced complete."

She sensed that he reached the full measure of his states-
manship by a process of growth. Describing his struggle in
the wartime Presidency, she said: "When we first went to
Washington many persons thought that Mr. Lincoln was
weak, but he rose grandly with the circumstances of the
case, and men soon learned that he was above them all. I
never saw a man's mind develop itself so finely."

One wonders whether the engaged couple touched upon
the subject of religion. lit was probably a grief to Mary's
married life that Mr. Lincoln never joined a church, though
he attended church with her and paid rent on their family
pew. He could not accept some of the narrow orthodoxy
that prevailed a century ago and his joining would have im-
plied an acceptance that was not true. He could not act a
falsehood. Mary said of him justly that he "was truth itself"

When asked about his church membership, she answered
simply: "He was a religious man always. . . ." She quoted
what Lincoln had often said to her when her spirit blazed
in hot defiance of those who schemed against him: "Do
good to those who hate you and turn their ill will to friend-
ship." He believed, as he said, in loving God and one's
neighbor, and lived by this belief.

It was perhaps her recognition of a certain mystic quality
of his faith that she had in mind when she made that most
understanding statement about him: He "had a kind of
poetry in his nature."

96 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

*Mary Todd saw in MX. Lincoln a man who needed her
and her care and love. It is fulfillment to a woman to give
these things^She saw a man who was congenial, with whom
she enjoyed herself, a man who had a powerful intellect
combined with tenderness, one in whose future she could
have supreme confidence. But in the multitude of things she
said and wrote about him, expressions of love for him pre-
dominateNHe was her "darling," her "beloved," her "idol-
ized," her "dearly loved one." She said of herself and her
children: ". . . we never felt, notwithstanding our great
love for him . . . that we could love him sufficiently." Un-
like Lincoln she was and remained demonstrative and gave
full outlet to her emotions. As that understanding and be-
loved friend and physician, Dr. Anson G. Henry, said:
". . . she loved him as women of her nervous sanguine
temperament, only can love. . . "

In her bright but ill-balanced nature there was not the
promise of building up to greatness as in his but the menace
of breakdown under strain. She would not be able to rise to
meet the circumstances of her case; the shadow of her
downward trend -would fall poignantly upon him as he
"rose grandly" to meet his. But her devotion to him and her
faith in him would never waver. The sum of her qualities
did not add up to greatness, but she had a great love.

9

CHAPTER

Without Her "No Variety"

WHAT did Mr. Lincoln see in Molly, his fiancee at
the end of 1840? What did he learn about her as he
sat listening to her sparkling chatter in the spellbound fash-
ion described by Mrs. Edwards? One doubts very much
whether the role of listener was always his, as Mrs. Edwards
thought. Mary had her own role as listener to play in the
future. Years later when, as First Lady, she was away from
Washington on a trip, she explained her anxiety to get back
to her husband, saying "with much feeling" that he was
lonely when she was away and needed her to laugh at his
jokes and funmaking at table. Then she added with that
wifely pride that was always to be in evidence that no mat-
ter how hard he worked during the day or how tired he
was, he was always lively, sociable, and agreeable. So per-
haps he managed, when Mrs. Edwards was not present, to
contribute something to their conversations.

The topics they chose to talk about are necessarily a mat-
ter of guesswork, but it is known that certain experiences
and memories were in the minds of both. In their conversa-
tions Lincoln doubtless learned much of the background of
this girl, 'with all that that background implied in her
make-up and her views. She would naturally tell him some-

98 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

thing of her girlhood in Kentucky, especially as they had
that state in common as a birthplace. He may have felt
keenly the contrast between the log cabin which witnessed
the grim birth of a man child to his pioneer mother, a
"granny woman" perhaps assisting, and the stately South-
ern home into which she came, to be ministered to by a
whole staff of Negro slaves and surrounded by parents and
relatives of assured prominence.

A favorite topic with Mary was Mammy Sally, who had
"raised" her, a jewel of a black mammy whose quaint words
and accent came to life on the girl's lips. Mary's gift for
drama and mimicry was irresistible; she could hold a room-
ful of people spellbound, as well as a bashful suitor. As her
brother-in-law Ninian once remarked, while he chuckled
over her ludicrous imitations: "Mary could make a bishop
forget his prayers."

There were so many rich stories to tell about Mammy.
She had been determined to raise Mary and her brothers
and sisters right; she gave them instruction of a special fla-
vor and dramatic power. She impressed upon them the om-
inous fact that jay birds went to hell every Friday night to
tell the "debil" all the bad things they had done during the
week. Mr. Jay would twitter in "ole man Satan's ears"
such items as: "Mary hid Mammy's slippers when po' old
Mammy was tryin' to res' her foots in the garden after
lopin' 'roun' all day after bad chil'en."

"Ole man Satan" was a formidable individual who, ac-
cording to Mammy Sally, had horns and a pea-green tail.
Little Mary had liked to argue about this, saying the tail
would naturally be black, not green, but Mammy would

Without Her "No Variety" 99

put that heresy down with a "No, chile, you must not de-
moralize the holy word which I heared out'en the preach-
er's own mouth, right at your pa's dinner table."

The jay birds sometimes had a heavy lot of iniquities to
report. Mary was a little prankster and Mammy occasion-
ally got an annoying surprise, such as finding salt instead of
sugar in her coffee. Such a surprise was apt to be followed
by an emphatic remark about that "limb of Satan." In the
end little Mary was likely to make amends by the gift of a
red and yellow bandanna handkerchief or something
equally desirable.

In this playful prankishness Mary's sense of humor met
Mr. Lincoln's. Any friend who knew the engaged couple
intimately might well have predicted that if there were
children of this marriage, they would be full of mischief, a
prediction that was to be abundantly fulfilled.

For all her love of Mammy Sally, Cheney the cook, and
old Nelson, who, clad in a blue swallowtail coat with big
brass buttons, ceremoniously served mint juleps to her fa-
ther's visitors, Mary had seen the dark and cruel side of
slavery. Floggings at that black-locust whipping post in the
center of Lexington were public and accompanied by heart-
rending screams. Slave traders drove their chained gangs of
slaves, manacled two abreast, past the front door of the
Todd home on Main Street. Revolting cases of cruelty had
occurred in Lexington which litde Mary, with white face,
talked about in shocked whispers.

She was a tenderhearted girl. Pain and injustice to others
hurt her and aroused her indignation, just as they did that
of Mr. Lincoln. If the engaged couple talked of slavery's

ioo The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

cruelties, they felt alike about it. Both at that time believed
in the abolition of slavery by gradual emancipation with
compensation to slave owners. In the future, as slavery be-
came a burning issue in the country, their views about it
were to undergo change and expand, but always they would
move forward in the same direction and be united in the

;

way they looked at the subject.

A part of the belated but liberal education which Lin-
coln was so rapidly absorbing in Springfield was enlighten-
ment as to the Southern views on slavery. Through Mary
he came to know how a Southern family loved its house
servants, who tyrannized in paradoxical fashion over a
home that was only a few steps from a slave pen and not
far from the auction block and whipping post on Lexing-
ton's square. He doubtless found out much too in his dis-
cussions with Joshua Speed, who came from a plantation in
Kentucky; in fact, an impressive number of the people in
the social circle at Springfield had a Southern background.
This knowledge of the Southern viewpoint was to be use-
ful to Lincoln later; when civil war came, he would know
how to keep a border state like Kentucky in the Union.

In believing in gradual emancipation, Mary was follow-
ing the lead of her adored idol, the great Whig chieftain,
Henry day, who lived in her home town, Lexington. He
was a topic on which she and Mr. Lincoln undoubtedly
talked glowingly, for, by what the lovers doubtless con-
sidered a beautiful arrangement of Providence, Henry
day was also Mr. Lincoln's "beau-ideal" of a statesman.

Mr. Lincoln had worshiped Henry day and his ideals at
a distance, but Mary had known and loved him as her fa-

Without Her "No Variety" 101

ther's friend. She could tell her fiance how Mr. Clay looked
when he visited in her home in Lexington, could describe
the tall, slender figure, the high forehead and gray eyes,
the engaging voice, and the grace with which he took snuff
or perchance accepted a mint julep from old Nelson. In
the years of Lincoln's Presidency there would be those who
compared his tall, spare figure to that of Clay and the ro-
mantic girl may well have thought of such a welcome re-
semblance. She, as a young girl, had been completely cap-
tivated by Mr. Clay's magnetism, and thereby hangs a
story which one hopes she told Mr. Lincoln, for he would
have enjoyed it.

At the age of thirteen she had one day mounted a just-
acquired white pony and ridden out to Mr. Clay's to show
him her proud new possession. A pretty word picture has
been drawn of this little girl, with her vivid rosy face and
flying light brown curls framed in a sunbonnet, racing along
the road to Ashland, Mr. Clay's home. There she was kindly
invited to dinner and had the bliss of listening to much talk
of politics between Mr. Clay and several visiting gentle-
men of prominence. Such a topic with such a listening-in
constituted one of her greatest delights when important pol-
iticians came to her father's house to dine. It was well for
their congeniality that she had grown up in an atmosphere
of Whig politics, the party to which Mr. Lincoln was so
devoted.

They could talk about this absorbing subject of politics
without the intrusion of that cramping idea that females
should not strain their feeble mentalities with weighty
questions fit only for masculine intellects. Mr. Lincoln in

102 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

regard to this notion, as in so many others, seemed un-
touched by the stilted thought patterns of his age. This may
have been one of the reasons why Mary, impatient of re-
straint, was drawn to him. Even if she did wish to be
thought appealingly feminine, no girl of the Victorian age
could have enjoyed being thought too dumb to grapple
with weighty subjects about which all the while she was
sure she knew just as much as the gentlemen themselves
and probably had more resourceful ideas.

In the future ahead of them he was to keep her in touch
with each political move he made, tell her about his
speeches, and talk things over with her, getting her quick
reactions. She would bolster his morale in his self-doubting
moments. It was said of him that "his ambition was a little
engine that knew no rest." Her little engine of ambition
was to run side by side with his.

He would respect her shrewdness, her "sagacity/* to use
his own word, and profit by it, but he was also to recog-
nize that she was "too suspicious" and "disposed to mag-
nify trifles." And she would answer to the charge that she
was suspicious that he was too confiding, "too honest for
this world," that he "should have been born a saint." All of
which was wholesome give and take of discussion and apt
to lead to a balanced consideration of the subject in hand.
She thought he "had not much knowledge of men." Her
suspicions, growing out of her instinct to protect him from
his own goodness, were meant to safeguard him.

One wonders whether Molly and Mr. Lincoln touched
upon a certain dark topic, an event of deep pain and lasting
scar which both had experienced in childhood. There was

Without Her "No Variety" 103

a place in the mind of each, perhaps walled off from too cas-
ual entrance, which was filled with the memory of the same
tragedy. Lincoln had lost his mother when he was nine,
Mary when she was going on seven. He had seen still and
sunken in death the face to which he, up to that time, had
looked as the center of his child life, had witnessed the
lowering of the homemade coffin without religious cere-
mony into a lonely grave in the backwoods. Ever after,
death was to cast him into gloom far more than normal;
ever after, the sight of a loved dead face was to throw Mary
almost into convulsions. He was to find that the poem which
asked, "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"
expressed the melancholy questioning that arose from such
overpowering pain and grief. The sadness that entered the
eyes of that young boy in the wilderness was to reappear
in the eyes of the grown man who was subject to terrible
spells of melancholia. Death laid another scar on his sensi-
tive spirit when he was nineteen; his only sister died in a
peculiarly cruel way, in the primitive, unattended childbirth
of the frontier.

Death was always terrible to Mr. LincolnHEven in the
White House, strong and self-controlled as he had become
by the time he entered it, he was to weep man tears over
the deaths of certain dear friends killed in the war, was to
break down over the mere mention of their names and be
unable to speak. His love for his friends ran deep, but per-
haps his reaction to the tragedy of death, especially of the
young, involved something of the vast pity for mankind
with which he was obsessed.

Death had struck frequently in the hard frontier condi-

104 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

dons under which he had grown up. The helplessness, grief,
and questioning of bereaved people were almost more than
he could bear. He had been deeply depressed over the case
of a young woman who had been a member of the friendly
family with whom he boarded for a while in New Salem.
She had been engaged to a friend of his whom he called

O

"Mack" (John McNamar) and she died of a fever while
her anc was far away. He had returned shortly after her
death expecting to be married to her. In his sorrow John
McNamar, as he told himself later, went to the lonely grave
of the girl he had loved and carved the initials A.R. on a
headboard, for the name of the girl was Ann Rutledge.
Lincoln had grieved deeply, as did the whole community,
over the pity and sadness of this death.

He never mentioned this incident to Mary. Nor is it
known how much he told her about his mother at the time
they became engaged, but it is certain that ultimately he
painted for her a loving picture of the mother he had lost.
Mary later wrote: "He had often described to me, his no-
ble mother" and how she had told him stories from the Bi-
ble and prayed that he would "become a pious boy & man."
For Lincoln's mother and his loved stepmother both Mary
had great tenderness. A loving letter she wrote Sarah Lin-
coln, his stepmother, exists today, saying: "If I can ever be
of any service to you in any respect I am entirely at your
service." It is a letter appropriately signed "Affectionately
yours."

For all her vitality and buoyancy Mary was occasionally
ill. By his own statement Mr. Lincoln learned early in their
acquaintance that she was subject to devastating headaches,

Without Her "No Variety" 105

the kind that laid her low in an agony of pain that made any
noise or even a jarring step on the floor pure torture. Now-
adays these are called migraine headaches and they often go
with just the type of personality Mary Todd had.

A doctor at the Mayo Clinic is said to have told his
classes of young men getting ready to go into medical prac-
tice, where a good wife would be a most valuable asset: "I
say to you, go and find yourself a fine migraine patient and
marry her!" He meant that these headaches go with a defi-
nite personality type which the doctor described as fol-
lows: "When she isn't sick, she's likely to be a lot of fun
and far more keen and interested than the average woman."
Lincoln's initial interest in Mary Todd perhaps commenced
with his finding her just that: "a lot of fun" and "keen and
interested."

In spite of being in love with Mary, Lincoln (whose let-
ters of this time show that he had learned a lot about human
nature in the rough school of his upbringing) probably had
some inkling of her weaknesses: her impulsiveness which
was often imprudence, her quickness to fly into anger or
panic and to be irresponsible in both, her lack of restraint
in using her tongue. He really liked the sauciness of that
tongue; it was, as he said later with a chuckle, a Todd trait,
it ran in the family. In the future he was to joke, as others
did, about the temper and spunkiness of the Todds and one
gathers that Mary and her relatives did not mind this too
much but rather enjoyed the distinction.

Once in later years when Mr. Lincoln was traveling on
the circuit with various other lawyers, including Mary's
cousin John Todd Stuart, an affable landlady at the inn

io6 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

where they were stopping greeted them thus: "Stuart, how
fine and peart you do look!, but Lincoln, whatever have
you been a doing? you do look powerful weak." Mr. Lin-
coln answered with a droll face: "Nothing out of common,
Ma'am, but did you ever see Stuart's wife? or did you ever
see mine? I just tell you whoever married into the *Todd'
family gets the worst of it."

In the merriment which followed, the other lawyers
joined in the banter and began naming over the various ones
in Springfield who had married Todds. They found to their
glee that all except portly William Wallace, husband of
Mary's sister Frances, were thin enough to prove the point.
One can almost hear Mr. Lincoln's booming laugh at this
winning of his case.

One finds him kter teasing his wife to "get a rise" out of
her, to enjoy a tall, tolerant man's amusement at the retorts
of a spirited little woman.

At those rimes when she was under strain and not well
and her tongue lashing went to extremes he would say qui-
etly: "It does her lots of good and it doesn't hurt me a
bit." He knew he could always count on her being sorry
when she was herself again. He was to meet her emotional
immaturity paternally. "Will you be a good girl in all
things," he was to write her later, if he would consent to
let her have her own way in a certain matter.

Lincoln recognized that he had to choose his wife from
among imperfect human beings* that being the only kind
available, and that what he was offering her was an imper-
fect human. In his own mind his shortcomings were
printed in capital letters and hers in tiny type.

Without Her "No Variety" 107

The sentimental writing of the rime laid stress on lovers
who were wedded and "lived happily ever after" in a
rather impossible state of bliss as stiff and artificial as the
contemporary prints which have the title "Married." In
any age a man of common sense knows that the matrimonial
menu cannot consist of sweets alone. There should be the
appetizer of physical attraction, the bread and meat of mu-
tual endeavor in building up a life together, the tart salad
of differences (which may have considerable pepper and
vinegar without spoiling the flavor), the dessert of deep-
rooted companionship, and the joy of parental pride. All
these things the Lincoln marriage was to have in full
measure.

What Mr. Lincoln saw in Mary was a young woman he
found desirable, the one he wanted for his wife.JBy her
own statement, he told her, both before and after marriage,
she was the only one he ever really loved. What did a diffi-
cult temperament amount to against the force of this? Her
aristocratic background did not fit her for the wife of a
poor man who was in debt, but on the other hand it did fit
her to teach him social usages that had been no part of his
growing up. She would one day make a gracious and cul-
tured hostess for him when his political ambitions material-
ized. Because she was at one with him in his ambition he
would always be eager to tell her of his triumphs, small or
great, to double his pleasure in them by her joy^When
the message came that he had been nominated and when
the dispatch came that he had been elected President, he
hurried away from excited, rejoicing friends to tell "a little
woman" at home the news.

io8 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

She was to furnish the color of his life, for by nature his
thoughts ran to grays and black and white. He was to give
this away in what he wrote her later when she had gone on
a visit in 1848 and he missed her. He said that when she
had been with him (he was then in Washington in Con-
gress), she had taken his time away from his business, but
now that she had gone and he had "nothing but business
no variety" it had grown "exceedingly tasteless" to him.
Her response to living was vibrant, his philosophic.

They felt alike in ways of friendship; it constituted one
of life's great values to each. They gave deep affection to
their friends and grieved at parting from them. When
Mercy left Springfield, Molly wrote her forlornly: "To me
it has ever appeared that those whose presence was the sun-
light of my heart have departed separated far and wide,
to meet when?" Joshua Speed was to leave Springfield and
Lincoln was to write him in strangely similar mood: "How
miserably things seem to be arranged in this world. If we
have no friends, we have no pleasure; and if we have them,
we are sure to lose them, and be doubly pained by the loss."
In the future these two, giving thus richly of friendliness,
would know how, as a couple, to be good neighbors in
Springfield.

It foretold a supreme joy of their future marriage that
both Mary and Mr. Lincoln had a signal love for children.
He had doubtless seen the softness in her eyes as she looked
down at a child or tenderly lifted a baby in her arms; she
the delight in his face as he tossed a little boy high in the
air, as he often tossed the Butler children at the home where
he was boarding.

Without Her "No Variety" 109

Lincoln himself said that the first attraction that led to
falling in love began with a man's liking the girFs personal
appearance and manner. He liked Molly's prettiness, her
dainty dress, her quick gestures of small white hands, her
femininity. He was to be proud of his wife's looks; one can
get a glimpse of this by borrowing an incident from their
married life in Springfield. He had come home from his of-
fice to find her arrayed in a new dress she had made herself,
a white silk with little bunches of blue flowers scattered
over it. She loved to make herself pretty for him and he re-
sponded with a shining in his eyes and a smiling remark
about her "fine feathers." Then he added while she bridled
with delight: "Those posies on your dress are the color of
your eyes."

Molly was a born flirt. She could use to perfection the
Victorian brand of coquetry of tossed head, of toying fan,
and of sprightly retotf without for a minute compromising
her helplessness, her "weak woman's" need for masculine
protection. Such coquetry is apt to seem outmoded and a
bit silly now, but one may be sure it was just what the Vic-
torian man wanted or the Victorian girls would not have
employed it. Each generation has its own methods to at-
tract; it is the attraction between man and maid that re-
mains perennially the same.

Mr. Lincoln liked Mary's coquetry, though there is rea-
son to believe that shortly after they became engaged there
was an example of it he did not like, and this led to trouble.
He would play up to her coquettishness in the future. One
catches the flavor of this playf ulness in one of his letters to
her after their marriage when he wrote whimsically: "I am

1 10 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

afraid you will get so well, and fat, and young, as to be
wanting to marry again."

He was always in their married life to want her with him.
"I hate to stay in this old room by myself," he wrote her
when she was away. He was to seek her out in those all too
few moments of relaxation which were his in the White
House. Their friends were to notice the light in his eyes
as he gazed at her and one was to describe it as "the pleas-
ing look of Abraham Lincoln for her whom he so loved."

What Mr. Lincoln saw in Alary Todd, to whom he was
engaged at the end of the year 1840, is summed up in a few
words of his more than twenty years later. A friend chat-
ting with them in the great East Room of the White House
noticed how the President's eyes followed his wife. Sud-
denly realizing that he was caught in the act; Air. Lincoln
laughed pleasantly and said: "My wife is as handsome as
when she was a girl, and I, a poor nobody then, fell in love
with her.

"And what is more," he continued, "I have never fallen
out."

CHAPTER 1 U

"That Fatal First of Jany."

ON Friday, New Year's Day 1841, an event occurred
which seared Lincoln's very soul. At the Edwards
home that night there were tears on Mary's pillow. Rumors
began to fly from tongue to tongue in the coterie. Mr. Lin-
coln's friends in the legislature could notice that his face
was tragic in its sadness. He did not attend the session on
Monday though he was present each day for the rest of the
week. On the Friday following New Year's someone evi-
dently twitted him on that sore point, the jumping-out-of-
the-window episode of the month before. Mr. Lincoln an-
swered with uncharacteristic testiness that "as to jumping,
he should jump when he pleased and no one should hinder
him." The tall lawyer was not himself at all; he was sunk
in melancholia, he looked terrible and as if he were "coming
down" with an illness, which indeed he was.

He managed to attend the legislature up to January 13,
then he was confined to his room and word went to his
loved friend and physician, Dr. Henry, to come and take
charge of the case. A vivid description of the way he looked
when he reappeared in public is given in a letter of the in-
valuable Mr. Conkling to Mercy: "Poor L! how are the
mighty fallen! He was confined about a week, but though

1 1 2 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

he now appears again he is reduced and emaciated in ap-
pearance and seems scarcely to possess strength enough to
speak above a whisper." Mr. G>nHing continued: "His case
at present is truly deplorable but what prospect there may
be for ultimate relief I cannot pretend to say. I doubt not
but he can declare That loving is a painful thrill, And not
to love more painful still* but would not like to intimate
that he has experienced That surely 'tis the worst of pain
To love and not be loved again/ " The news was out; the
engagement between Mary and Abraham had been broken.

About the only help Mr. Lincoln could get in his agony
of spirit came from the kind and understanding Dr. Henry.
And at this time there was danger that he would leave
Springfield, depriving his patient of that one comfort. On
January 20 the lawyer wrote his partner John Todd Stuart
asking that the physician be given the Springfield postmas-
tership as an inducement for staying: *Tou know I desired
Dr. Henry to have that place when you left; I now desire
it more than ever. I have, within the last few days, been
making a most discreditable exhibition of myself in the way
of hypochondriaism and thereby got an impression that
Dr. Henry is necessary to my existence. Unless he gets that
place he leaves Springfield." Emphasizing that his heart was
"verry much set" upon the appointment, Lincoln apolo-
gized for not writing a longer letter as he had not "suffi-
cient composure" to do so.

Hypochondria was an ailment much talked of at this
time. Its chief characteristic was a severe and distorting de-
pression of mind and die word also carried the connotation
of a morbid anxiety as to one's own health. Psychiatrists

"That Fatal first o] Jany." 1 1 3

now get many patients who would have been pronounced
hypochondriacs in the middle eighteen-hundreds.

Three days later the junior partner wrote to Mr. Stuart
again, giving a striking description of his "blues." Mr. Lin-
coln had entered upon a strange and terrible psychological
experience. Certain letters of his in the months ahead were
to contain a remarkable unbosoming of inmost feelings. The
emotional climate of the time was different from that of
today; it was the style for people to analyze and express
their sensations with a freedom from which one now shies
away. Mr. Lincoln certainly had no reserve or inhibition
when he wrote: "I am now the most miserable man living.
If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human
family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.
Whether I shall ever be any better I can not tell; I awfully
forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must
die or be better, it appears to me."

One can imagine the reaction of Mr. Stuart, who had left
the law office in charge of his junior partner, as he read on:
"The matter you speak of on my account, you may attend
to as you say, unless you shall hear of my condition forbid-
ding it. I say this, because I fear I shall be unable to attend
to any bussiness here. . . ." Lincoln ended the letter be-
cause he could "write no more."

Various letters defining the situation went traveling back
and forth. Mercy's sister-in-law, Mrs. Lawrason Levering,
wrote to her "particulars about Abraham, Joshua, and Ja-
cob. . . ." Mercy made answering comment in a letter to
her lover: "Poor A I fear his is a blighted heart! per-
haps if he was as persevering as Mr. W. he might be sue-

1 14 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

cessful." Mr. W. was, of course, Mr. Webb, who was assid-
uously courting Mary himself and probably took delight in
this sudden and mysterious break between her and Abra-
ham.

"Jacob Faithful" replied to Mercy on March 7 giving a
not too sympathetic account of Mr. Lincoln to date: "And
L., poor hapless simple swain who loved most true but was
not loved again I suppose he will now endeavor to drown
his cares among the intricacies and perplexities of the law."
The next sentence suggests that Lincoln in social gatherings
had been gratified (as is humanity in general) by a hearty
response to one of his witticisms or stories: "No more will
the merry peal of kughter ascend high in the air, to greet
his listening and delighted ears. . . . alas! I fear his shrine
will now be deserted and that he will withdraw himself
from the society of us inferior mortals." Mr. Conkling was
right; Mr. Lincoln was attending strictly to his own af-
fairs and was not seen at the Edwards home and the gay
assemblies of the coterie.

There were no private matters in a small prairie town in
the eighteen-f orties or, as far as that goes, in a small town
today. People were talking at a great rate about Mr. Lin-
coln's extraordinary state of depression. Some used the
word "crazy" as applied to him. A slangy gentleman wrote
John J. Hardin, on January 22: "We have been very much
distressed, on Mr. Lincoln's account; hearing that he had
two Git fits and a Duck fit since we left."

Gossiping tongues were clicking excitedly, turning the
choice morsel of the shattered love affak over and over
again, elaborating on it, supplying out of imagination added

"That Fatal First of Jany." 1 1 5

details to make a good story. The engagement was broken.
Why? Mr. Conkling thought Molly had jilted Mr. Lin-
coln; the gossips figured it out differently. Could Mr. Lin-
coln have fallen in love with another girl? There was that
lovely Matilda Edwards who was visiting at the Edwards
home; that must be it; Mr. Lincoln must have fallen in love
with Matilda and jilted Miss Todd!

Such a satisfactory and delicious explanation went
around, increasing in details, until it was a well-filled-out
story. It is presented full blown in a letter written by a
chatty young lady to a friend in Kentucky on January 27.
One learns first that Mary is keeping her chin up: "Miss
Todd is flourishing largely. She has a great many Beaus."
Evidently the news of the Lincoln-Todd romance had pen-
etrated into Kentucky, as the letter continues: "You ask me
how she and Mr. Lincoln are getting along. Poor fellow, he
is in a rather bad way. Just at present though he is on the
mend now as he was out on Monday for the first time for a
month dying with love they say." The week of illness had
increased to a month, but that is a slow rate of growth for
gossip. "Dying with love" was a popular theme with the
sentimentalists of the time. "The Doctors say he came
within an inch of being a perfect lunatic for life. He was
perfectly crazy for some time, not able to attend to his busi-
ness at all. They say he don't look like the same person."

Then comes the story: "It seems he had addressed Mary
Todd and she accepted him and they had been engaged
some time when a Miss Edwards of Alton came here, and
he fell desperately in love with her and found he was not
so much attached to Mary as he thought. He says if he had

1 1 6 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

it in his power he would not have one feature of her face
altered, he thinks she is so perfect (that is, Miss E.) He and
Mr. Speed have spent the most of their time at Edwards
this winter and Lincoln could never bear to leave Miss Ed-
ward's side in company. Some of his friends thought he was
acting very wrong and very imprudently and told him so
and he went crazy on the strength of it so the story goes
and that is all I know. . . ." It can be determined later
from a precious recently found letter written by Matilda

herself whether what the writer "knew" about this f ailing
. , 5

in love was true.

These are the scattered references to the break in the en-
gagement which were written down at the time. In an
event such as this very few people know exactly what hap-
pened,, perhaps only the two lovers themselves. It is a diffi-
cult task over a century kter to turn detective and hunt out
dues and scraps of evidence, to sift out the false from the
true and reconstruct the emotional crisis that occurred on
what Lincoln himself called "that fatal first of Jany. '41."

The most desirable account of an event is that written
down at the time. Many years later, after Lincoln had be-
come a great President and a martyr, questions were asked
about this interruption in his love affair and the answers
were jotted down. Ninian and Elizabeth Edwards were in-
terviewed in their old age. Joshua Speed, portly and
bearded, was asked to tell what he had known about it
when he was a slender, romantic-faced young man. The
information thus obtained is as likely to have undergone
change as die appearance of the narrators; recollections are
affected by the dimming of the years between, by the tricks

"That Fatal First of ]any." 1 1 7

that human memory plays upon itself, and by strong per-
sonal slants. These recollections come secondhand, through
another mind and imagination, which always constitutes a
hazard. From this mass of material certain explanations
emerge which are consistent and fit into and are substanti-
ated by the known facts.

In Lincoln's letters to Miss Owens there is indisputable
evidence of his feeling that he had no right to marry be-
cause he had so little to offer a wife. Now appears a factor
that affected that sensitive feeling like a dentist's instru-
ment striking an exposed nerve. This was the opposition of
Mary's family to the marriage. Mrs. Edwards stated defi-
nitely that she and her husband at first encouraged the
friendship between Mary and Mr. Lincoln, then changed
their minds and told them they should not marry.

In saying this, Mrs. Edwards gave as the reason for the
opposition that the two were so different in their natures
and rearing that they could not be happy together. It is
true that Mary and Mr. Lincoln were complete opposites
in a great many of their traits, but Mrs. Edwards was not
exactly the one to understand the congeniality between
them. The difference in the natures of the two was not
the whole basis of Mrs. Edwards's objection. By the time
she was asked for her account of the broken engagement,
many events had occurred and many changes had come.

It would have been very embarrassing for her to admit,
after Lincoln had reached the highest position in the land,
that she had once opposed his marrying her sister on the
ground that he was poor and had no prospects. Later her
niece was more frank; she said plainly that the family re-

1 1 8 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

garded his future as "nebulous" and that it was also a matter
of Lincoln's being "on a different social plane," of his hav-
ing "no culture," of his being "ignorant of social forms and
customs." Ninian, son of Governor Edwards, and Eliza-
beth, daughter of the Lexington Todds, looked down on
Air. Lincoln as a matter of class distinction. It was said of
Ninian by one who knew him well that he "was naturally
and constitutionally an aristocrat, and he hated democracy
... as the devil is said to hate holy water." In general, the
dan of Mary's relatives felt that in marrying Mr. Lincoln
she would be marrying beneath her, a point of view which
was handed down in the family to some extent in succeed-
ing generations. In addition to the question of social in-
equality the dan for the most part held fundamental opin-
ions which differed from those of Mr. Lincoln, their social
and political philosophy clashed with his, they considered
him a radical.

It is difficult to put one's finger upon the exact time when
the Edwardses dedded to reverse themselves and oppose
the marriage. This disapproval may have developed and be-
come evident gradually and may have been predpitated
into active opposition by some special event. One knows
from a letter of Mr. Conkling's that in October of 1840
Mary "did not appear as merry and joyous as usual," and
from her own letter in December that she was losing weight
and writing suggestively of "the crime of matrimony?

Albert Edwards, the son of the Ninian Edwardses, made
some statements that prove helpful on this point. His testi-
mony too comes long delayed and secondhand. He said that
up to the time of die courtship his father and mother had

"That Fatal First of Jany." 1 19

made Lincoln welcome and encouraged his visits, but when
his mother saw Mr. Lincoln was becoming serious, she
treated him coldly and invitations to call "were not
pressed." This, however, he added, did not have the effect
intended. Albert Edwards said positively that during 1841
and 1842 his mother did what she could to break up the
match. He thought that the opposition of his parents greatly
influenced the breaking of the engagement.

Mrs. Edwards's remarks when she was being questioned
about the love affair vibrate with disapproval and misun-
derstanding of Mr. Lincoln: he "was a cold man had no
affection was not social." She admitted what the whole
nation was saying by that time, that "he was a great man
a good man & an honest one," but he was, she said, "a little
ungrateful," and "loved nothing." Ninian agreed that this
"mighty Rough man" was not "warm hearted." It was only
human nature that Mr. Edwards thought that any man who
differed from him as radically as Lincoln did lacked mental
capacity, or, to use Ninian's own words, was "not capable."
Others in the family felt the same way; as one of them said
later: "When he was nominated it seemed impossible that
this should ever be," he was not "fitted for the position."

In setting forth the opposition of his parents to having
Mr. Lincoln as a brother-in-law, Albert Edwards threw the
emphasis on his mother's part. He believed that for years
Mary resented the tactics which her sister Elizabeth had
used "to discourage the engagement."

As mistress of the house where Mary was living, Mrs. Ed-
wards could have had ample opportunity to make her dis-
approval evident to the sensitive young lawyer who socially

120 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

was already suffering from an inferiority complex. One can
easily imagine the cold and distinct greeting, the ignoring
of his presence, the stony face following one of his humor-
ous remarks. Any woman of the Todd family was apt to be
good at showing her displeasure. Perhaps Mr. Lincoln, who
was self-doubting at best, had been made uncomfortable
for some time before the actual break in the engagement
occurred.

One would give much to know what Ninian wrote
Mary's father in answer to that letter inquiring as to the
qualifications of Mr. Lincoln as suitor to Mary. Ninian at
least knew Lincoln in the man's world of politics and busi-
ness where he commanded respect, Mrs. Edwards only in
die social setting where to her eyes he appeared to very
poor advantage.

Apparently an incident involving a misunderstanding be-
tween the lovers preceded the actual breaking off of the en-
gagement, an episode in which Mary hurt Mr. Lincoln's
feelings by flirting ostentatiously with one of her other
beaux. Later a niece of Mrs. Edwards and Mary, to whom
die family account was handed down, dramatized this
eventr^Mr. Lincoln, in modern phrase, forgot his date with
Mary. He was to take her to a party, but, going into one of
his characteristic periods of abstraction (in which he suf>-
posedly was meditating on all die reasons why it would not
be f air to any girl for a man in his circumstances to marry
her), he did not remember his appointment until after the
hour had passed. Hurrying to the Edwards home, he, found
Mary had already gone to the party. When he followed her
there, she, ignoring his presence, paid him back in true

"Tto Fatal First of Jany." 1 2 1

feminine fashion by an ostentatious flirtation with Mr.
Douglas. Lincoln, deeply hurt, left the house without
speaking with her. So runs the story and at least this drama-
tization is in character and it will be seen that Mary had a
guilty conscience by a remark she made later.

With the background of the family disapproval of him,
all the items which he had so carefully written out to Miss
Owens as to the sad fate of any woman who would be
"block-head" enough to marry him would naturally come
flocking back to his mind. Mary had apparently done some-
thing to wound him and make him jealous; her family
looked down on him and did not want to add him to the
circle. Lincoln was deeply hurt. Ninian had been his friend;
now he had joined his wife in advising against Lincoln's
marrying into the family. They did not think he could sup-
port Mary in the manner to which she was accustomed and
of course they were right; he could not. The girl herself
was immature and ruled by her feelings; he must not take
advantage of her or go against the judgment of those who
were her natural protectors.

There was one ironic feature connected with the family
opposition. If the Todd-Edwards clan did not want Lin-
coln as an in-law, in one sense he did not want them either.
He was a man who believed in the people and in democ-
racy. Politically he wanted the support of the common man.
He foresaw that if he married into the aristocracy, he would
have to defend himself against the accusation of sharing
their views. That was just what happened to him in the
end; less than five months after he was married he was, as
he wrote from Springfield in some disgust, "put down here

122 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

as the candidate of pride, wealth, and anistocratic family
distinction." That, he said, would astonish, if not amuse,
those who twelve years before "knew me a strange, friend-
less, uneducated, penniless boy, working on a flat boat at
ten dollars per month. . . ." His words point up the oppo-
site points of view that were basic in the family opposition
to the marriage.

According to Joshua Speed's account told about a quarter
of a century later, Lincoln decided to write Mary a letter
asking to be released from the engagement. One guesses that
Joshua had been something of a guide to him in social
usages and matters of taste as well as the close friend to
whom he confided his inmost thoughts. An added element
of Lincoln's great depression in early 1841 was the fact that
Joshua was leaving Springfield. He sold his store on that
same "fatal first" of January, a calamitous day for Lincoln's
emotions in every respect, and he was to leave early in that
year. They had shared the big room over that same store for
four years. They had talked over the personal problems and
matters that perplex young men. They had discussed reli-
gion and die institution of marriage and had raised skeptical
questions about both, a skepticism that seems to have been
shared by others in their group. At least, "Is the Married
Life More Happy Than the Single" was the subject of an
address (and doubtless much lively discussion) at a meeting
of the Young Men's Lyceum. Lincoln felt bereft at Joshua's
leaving.

He showed Joshua the letter he had written Mary asking
to be released from the engagement. Joshua advised him
not to send alerter but to go to Mary and explain the matter

"That Fatal First of Jany." 1 2 3

face to face. Lincoln accepted this advice and called upon
Mary and presumably this call took place on that fatal first
of January.

One can imagine that scene in the Edwards parlor: the
tall young man with pained face and hairing speech begin-
ning to tell the pretty, happy-faced girl that their romance
and dreams were at an end, explaining to her why it was
best for the engagement to be broken. Possibly he re-
proached her for her light behavior in flirting with another
man that may have been the fuse which set off his vast
accumulation of misgivings. One can picture the dawning
incredulity in her blue eyes, the commencing quiver of her
lips. According to Joshua's account, she sprang from her
chair, burst into tears, and cried out brokenly: ". . . the
deceiver shall be deceived wo is me." Her words seem to
indicate that something she had done in the flirting line was
on her conscience.

What does any man do when he sees the woman he loves
in tears and anguish of spirit? With his own eyes wet, Mr.
Lincoln took Mary into his arms and drew her upon his lap
to kiss away those tears. His dark shaggy head bent con-
tritely above the bright chestnut hair, his weathered cheek
was close to hers, soft and tear-stained. It is a rare and in-
timate picture of the lovers at that dramatic moment when
their new-found and tender love was crossed by fate.

The response of passionate arms and lips does not go well
with a man's using cold logic to explain to the girl sitting
on his lap the reasons why they should not get married. Lin-
coln comforted his little Molly as best he could and then
abruptly took his departure, leaving the situation between

124 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

them up in the air. It is possible they were interrupted. For
all that is known, sister Elizabeth may have heard Mary's
startled outcry and walked in. At all events, Mrs. Edwards
soon knew what had happened and seized her opportunity
and used her older-sister influence to make sure that the
estrangement was complete and permanent.

It was said that she insisted that Mary write Mr. Lincoln
a letter releasing him from the engagement. The girl could
hardly do otherwise, but she put one thing in that letter
which one may be sure was not authorized by sister Eliza-
beth: she wrote Mr. Lincoln that her feeling for him re-
mained unchanged and she stood ready to renew the en-
gagement. It was a remarkable admission for a proud young
woman of the Victorian era. That she could do so shows
that Mr. Lincoln's reasons for asking to be released did not
offend her. If he had told her he did not love her or that he
loved another, she would have cut off her hand before she
would have written this. But if he told her that he was poor
and could not take care of her as she was used to being
taken care of and that die Edwardses (including Ninian,
who considered that he had certain rights because she was
his ward) were against the marriage, her love and pride
would not have been offended. If he mentioned her flirting,
she doubdess realized die had been wrong in deceiving him
about her true feelings. Mary could be counted on in die
end to acknowledge her own f aults.

As to his love for her, that quick embrace and his kisses,
his tenderness at her tears told her more eloquendy than
words all she needed to know about that. She had too often
seen that light in his eyes when he looked at her. Any giii

"That Fatal First of Jany" 125

knows by a dozen unspoken evidences whether she has a
man's heart when she has been engaged to him. It is pos-
sible Mary had even more positive assurance. One garbled
account of the incident does say that *Dr. Henry, devoted
friend of both the lovers who was tending Mr. Lincoln in
his agonized state, went to Mary and explained the condi-
tion Lincoln was in, and that it was then that the girl wrote
him the letter telling him she still loved him.

Lincoln's feelings were tearing him to pieces. He was
caught in a cruel dilemma from which he saw no honor-
able way out. He had won Mary's love and entered into an
agreement to marry her. His lawyer's training as well as his
scrupulous conscience made him respect a contract and yet
he had asked that it be broken. On the other hand, fathers
and guardians had their recognized rights. How could he
marry the girl when her family thought he would make her
unhappy? He had so few things upon which to pride him-
self, but among these things was his integrity. Yet no course
of action was open to a man with his torturing conscience
that left that integrity unviolated.

There was another factor. It is recalled that hypochon-
dria involves the idea of exaggerated anxiety over one's
health. Joshua Speed wrote later that Lincoln was so wor-
ried over his physical condition at this time that he wrote
an eminent physician in another state describing his ailment
and asking advice. The physician refused to prescribe with-
out a personal examination. A conscientious man filled with
dark doubts about his health does not feel it would be fair
to a girl to marry her until he knows what is the matter and
can be assured of getting over it.

126 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

So much for reason and conscience, but the emotional
agony was even worse. No one questions what it means to
a man to find the woman he loves and wishes to marry: life
takes on a joyous new focus and vitality. This was espe-
cially true of Mr. Lincoln, whose early meager existence
had contained little demonstration of affection. When this
chosen woman, young, pretty, desirable, gives him ardent
love in return and promises to marry him, he walks in a
golden haze. Suddenly this sweet, newly discovered world
was shattered. Mr. Lincoln had barely tasted the joy of
having someone of his very own to love when that
joy was taken from him, leaving him in a gray and flavor-
less world.

The gossiping tongues were right insofar as they said
Mr. Lincoln was lovesick. It is a malady akin to but even
more devastating than homesickness. He was missing Mary
terribly. Through all their married life ran evidences that
he wanted her with him. Again Mr. Gmkling gives a close-
up view, a new bit of evidence. The April after the Lincoln
marriage when the lawyers went on their semiannual pil-
grimage of the judicial circuit Mr. Conkling journeyed to
Bloomington. From there he wrote Mercy: "Found Lin-
coln desperately homesick and turning his face frequently
toward the south." South to Springfield, where his bride
was then living in one room at the Globe Tavern and look-
ing forward to the birth of their first baby.

He was homesick now for Molly, Molly who was inter-
ested in all die little tilings that happened to him, who met
his self-doubting with buoyant confidence, who had made
him the center of her world. She had furnished the color

"That Fatal First of Jany." 127

and "variety" of life without which it had suddenly become
"exceedingly tasteless" to him.

There was no thought to which the tormented man could
turn for comfort. Mary had given him her love and he had
made her unhappy. As he was to write shortly, that thought
killed his very souL He could not even wish to be cheer-
ful when she was unhappy. In such mental perturbation
thoughts go in circles; how could he, poor and in debt,
make her happy if he married her? All die reasons he had
given Miss Owens as to why she should not marry him
applied doubly to Mary, who loved die trimmings of life.
And he could remember Miss Owens had told him blundy
that he would not make a kind and considerate husband.
That lady had contributed to his self -doubting. All the old
humiliation of that fiasco of a wooing would naturally come
back to lacerate his sensitized feelings.

So one may interpret the dioughts of "die most miser-
able man living." Mrs. Edwards, even if she did not under-
stand Mr. Lincoln, seems to have understood the situation
very well. "Mr Lincoln loved Mary," were her words, "he
went crazy in my own opinion not because he loved Miss
Edwards as said, but because he wanted to marry and
doubted his ability & capacity to please and support a wife."

A person who feels he has enough mental misery to dis-
tribute to the whole human race is not in a healthy mood to
see matters straight. Lincoln began to question die institu-
tion of marriage itself, as to whether it was die Elysium pic-
tured by the sentimentalists of die day. He questioned his
own love for Mary; was it great enough to surmount all the
problems, the delicate adjustments, and basic changes in liv-

128 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

ing that marriage would bring? Traces of the marriage
shyness he had shown in regard to Miss Owens came back
to him.

On January 19, the crisis of his illness over, Mr. Lincoln,
pale, weak, and emaciated, appeared in the legislature and
from then on attended faithfully, taking an active part in
its work. On February 5 he tried to give a boost to his rival,
Mr. Webb, by writing a letter suggesting him for District
Attorney. One wonders whether he was nobly trying to do
his rival a good turn in case this suitor of Molly's were able
to console her and thus wipe out her unhappiness.

On March 5 Mary's cousin and Lincoln's kw partner,
Mr. Stuart, recommended that he be appointed Charg6
d'Affaires at Bogod. Again questions arise: was Mr. Stuart
trying to get his unhappy partner a change of scene or was
he trying to get the man whom the family considered unde-
sirable for Mary away from Springfield? He could have had
both motives. Certainly the fact that the moody Mr. Lin-
coln could get into a state of such utter misery that he was
"unable to attend to any bussiness" was not calculated to
increase in Mr. Stuart's mind his desirability either as a kw
partner or as a prospective husband. Somehow one is not
too surprised to find that in the spring of '41 die Stuart &
Lincoln partnership was dissolved and Mr. Lincoln moved
what legal equipment he had over to tie office of Ste-
phen T. Logan. Again he was the junior partner. Mr. Stuart
consolidated tKe family forces by taking Ninian's brother
Benjamin S. Edwards in with him.

April as usual brought the spring round of the Illinois

"Tto Fatal First of Jany." 1 29

towns on the judicial circuit. Probably never before or aft-
erward was Mr. Lincoln so glad to leave Springfield and
start out. It was a way of life he loved: crossing the prairie
by horseback or homemade vehicle, putting up at lonely
farmhouses or village inns where the lawyers slept two in a
bed and perhaps eight in a room, holding court in the little
towns to match wits over small legal and human problems,
exchanging news and funny stories in man's talk on side-
walk or in tavern. The little villages, isolated because of the
lack of railroads and other means of communication, wel-
comed the travelers with open arms and held carnival for a
day or two, giving parties and entertainments for the
visitors.

It is difficult today to picture what was involved in those
lonely journeyings across the wild land between towns. As
a fellow lawyer and friend of Mr. Lincoln said, the prairies,
later under cultivation and teeming with a busy life, were
"then quite as desolate and almost as solitary as at Crea-
tion's dawn." Mr. Conkling also traveled the circuit and he
wrote to his beloved Mercy a fascinating description of
such a journey. To meet another traveler was such a rare
event that the stranger, in the emotional release of hearing
a human voice again, was apt to feel an undue sense of in-
timacy and ask questions about one's income, occupation,
residence, present business and future prospects. If you did
not answer, continued Mr. Conkling, you might be sus-
pected as a horse thief.

Losing one's way was a common experience and night
sometimes overtook one far from human habitation. James
told Mercy of a "provoking situation" in which he once

130 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

found himself: "in a small house on the edge of a ...
prairie with a plenty of cold, without fire, tea without
cream and bread without butter [perhaps it was corn
dodger], with some two or three crying noisy children
about you and by no means a prepossessing landlady."
When he looked out, all he saw was the road stretching be-
fore him as far as eye could reach "and a dark heavy cloud
extending directly over it and pouring down the rain for
hours upon it."

At another stop he was treated more hospitably; a fire
was made up "in the parlor, decorated with festoons of yarn
and arranged in the most approved sucker style with its
creaking bedsteads, broken chairs and cracked tables." Here
the food was good and James, with his "chin just at edge
of the table," had no difficulty scraping it directly into his
mouth "with the blade of a broken knife." He slept in the
loft that night, though just why he did not rate one of those
creaking bedsteads in the parlor one does not know. Doubt-
less in either place he would have had plenty of sleeping
company.

Conditions like these, along with miserable roads, deep
sloughs in which a buggy mired down, broken shafts and
lost linchpins, spring floods, swollen streams, drenching
rains (perhaps at times an unseasonable blizzard), and high
winds, were what Lincoln encountered when he went trav-
eling on the circuit. One hopes he had die company of fel-
low lawyers as he rode across the prairies in the spring of
1841; their loneliness and dreariness were too much in har-
mony with his own melancholy thoughts.

CHAPTER 11

Mr. Lincoln Writes a Murder Mystery

QPRINGFDELD was full of faithful correspondents who
O kept absent friends informed of the news. By May Mrs.
William Buder, who took a kind and affectionate interest
in Mr. Lincoln as a motherly woman would with a lov-
able young man who ate his meals daily at her table had
written to Joshua Speed that her boarder was "on the
mend." He was also her lodger now, as he had moved over
to the Butler home after Joshua left town. Joshua wrote
back to her husband how glad he was that Lincoln was get-
ting over his melancholia and then it is revealed that he,
Joshua, was also subject to hypochondria: "Say to her
[Mrs. Buder] that I have had one attack since I left Spring-
field. ... I am not as happy as I could be and yet so much
happier than I deserve to be that I think I ought to be satis-
fied." Joshua was soon to rival Lincoln as the most miser-
able man living; his introspection was destined to give him
a terrible time with himself. But this letter shows that Lin-
coin was coming out of his "blues."

Providentially for the enjoyment and stimulation of
Springfield, as the talk about die broken engagement and
Mr. Lincoln's acting "crazy" died down, a new and thrill-
ing topic arose. Early in June the town was electrified by a

132 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

murder mystery. One can picture little groups of men talk-
ing excitedly on die four streets that bounded the square
and housewives equally wrought up speculating about it
over the back fence.

Mr. Lincoln, with no sign of mental depression but with
humor and consummate storytelling skill, wrote on June 19
a full account of it to Joshua. He was in a position to know
what he was talking about, as he was one of the lawyers
who defended the accused.

"We have had the highest state of excitement here for a
week past that our community has ever witnessed . . ."
began his letter to "Dear Speed." "The chief personages in
the drama, are Archibald Fisher, supposed to be murdered;
and Archibald Trailer, Henry Trailer, and William
Traflor, supposed to have murdered him." The three Trail-
ors were brothers living at some distance from each other,
Archibald at Springfield, Henry at Clary's Grove, about
twenty miles northwest, and William in Warren County,
more than a hundred miles distant in the same direction.
Fisher, a carpenter and odd-job man without a family, had
been living at William Traitor's home.

The four men came to Springfield one Monday to stay
overnight When die brothers assembled for supper that
evening after touring the metropolis, Fisher was unaccount-
ably missing. Search was made for him without success and
on Tuesday Henry and William Traitor had to start back to
their homes without him. Henry and his neighbors, how-
ever, were worried and came back to Springfield to search
again and finally advertised his disappearance in the paper.

Mr. Lincoln Writes a Murder Mystery 1 3 3

The town became aware of the case of the missing car-
penter.

Some days went by and then the postmaster at Spring-
field received a startling letter from the postmaster in War-
ren County stating that William had arrived home "and was
telling a verry mysterious and improbable story about the
disappearance of Fisher, which induced the community
there to suppose that he had been disposed of unfairly."
William was boasting that Fisher was dead and had willed
him his money.

When this letter was made public, as Lincoln wrote, it
"immediately set the whole town and adjoining country
agog. . . ." Everybody began to search for the body with
great thoroughness, cellars and wells were examined, dead
dogs and horses were dug up, fresh human graves were
pried into. A deputy sheriff was dispatched to Watten
County to arrest William.

At this point the plot thickened. Henry was fetched from
Gary's Grove by a deputy sheriff "and showed an evident
inclination to insinuate that he knew Fisher to be dead, and
that Arch: & Wm. had killed him." Henry "guessed" the
body could be found in Spring Creek not far from "Hick-
oxes mill" "Away the People swept like a herd of buffa-
loes," continued Mr. Lincoln, "and cut down Hickoxes mill
dam nolens volens, to draw the water out of the pond; and
then went up and down, and down and up the creek, fish-
ing and raking, and ducking and diving for two days. . . ."
Everyone except Mr, Hickox had a wonderful time, but no
dead body was found.

134 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

In the meantime a place in the brush had been found
where there were signs of a struggle. "From this scuffle
ground, was the sign of something about the size of a man
having been dragged to the edge of the thicket, where it
joined the track of some small wheeled carriage which was
drawn by one horse, as shown by the horse tracks." One
can imagine the excitement when it was discovered that the
carriage tracks led off toward Spring Creek

Near this "drag trail" Dr. Merryman, in true Sherlock
Holmes fashion, "found two hairs, which after a long sci-
entific examination, he pronounced to be triangular human
hairs. . . ." Like a true scientist he went thoroughly into
the subject of how many kinds of human hair there were
and came up with the judgment "that these two were of the
whiskers, because die ends were cut, showing they had
flourished in the neighborhood of die razor's opperations."

Matters progressed to the point where all three of the
Trailor brothers had been arrested and put in jail On Fri-
day, June 1 8, a legal examination was held before two jus-
tices at which Mr. Lincoln with his new senior law partner
Mr. Logan and another lawyer friend defended die ac-
cused.

Much evidence was listened to which pointed more and
more to a dark crime. Henry Trailor was introduced by the
prosecution and gave a most circumstantial account of what
had happened when he and his brothers left Springfield.
When they got out of town, he, Henry, was placed as sen-
tinel to watch diat no one approached while William and
Archibald "took die dearborn out of die road a small dis-
tance to die edge of the thicket, where they stopped, and

Mr. Lincoln Writes a Murder Mystery 135

he saw them lift the body of a man into it; that they then
moved off with the carriage in the direction of Hickoxes
mill, and he loitered about for something like an hour when
William returned with the carriage, but without Arch: and
said that they had put him in a safe place. , . ." One can
imagine the excitement of the listeners and their glances at
Mr. Lincoln and others of the defense at this damaging evi-
dence. Henry proved more and more satisfactory to the
prosecution as he continued: "William told him, that he and
Arch: had killed Fisher the evening before; that the way
they did it was by him (William) knocking him down with
a club, and Arch: then choking him to death."

That seemed to settle it and doubtless thoughts of mob
violence were seething in the minds of some of the listen-
ers. Then the defense produced an unexpected witness and
a great deflation followed. This star witness was a physi-
cian from Warren County, a Dr. Gilmore, and his evidence
proved the "murderee" was not dead! Dr. Gilmore in-
formed the court that on the very day on which William
Trailer was arrested, Fisher had appeared at his house, ap-
parently very unwell and unable to account for his move-
ments. The physician explained that Fisher had once re-
ceived a head injury which made him subject to occasional
temporary derangements. The man was still so sick that
Dr. Gilmore had not dared bring him along to Springfield.
The witness had made a hurried and strenuous journey,
"riding all evening and all night," in order to get to the trial
in time; his patient could not have stood the rigors of such
traveling.

The prosecution, of course, did not take this demolishing

136 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

of their case lying down; they raised questions whether die
doctor's story was not a fabrication. Unimpeachable wit-
nesses, however, swore to die physician's "good character
for trudi and veracity." The defense won and the Trailers
were discharged. There had been no murder. On die fol-
lowing Monday, Fisher, as Lincoln wrote elsewhere, ap-
peared in Springfield "in full life and proper person."

So what happened remains a mystery and one is left free
to speculate. Did a talent for tall tales and vivid imagination
run in the Trailor family? Did Archibald and William go
through the pantomime of hiding a body with a dummy as a
sort of rough joke to fool their brother Henry? He was
"about forty yards distant" from them. At all events, right
after die trial "Henry still protested that no power on earth
could ever show Fisher alive," while die other two brothers
were sure he would be found living, as testified, at the doc-
tor's. Archibald and William never offered an explanation
and Henry later would not speak of the subject.

An elaborate theory as to what happened has been sug-
gested: Fisher, owing to his head injury, might have had a
seizure or fit which left him in an unconscious state resem-
bling death. Archibald and William, either being with him
or finding him, might have been fearful that they would be
accused of murder and therefore tried to conceal the body.
It is even suggested that they took him in their carriage to
die millpond and dumped him in, where the cold water re-
vived him and he climbed out. But if diis theory is correct,
why did the two brothers tell Henry diey had killed Fisher,
going into circumstantial details? Would they not instead
have told him of dieir fear of being accused of murder, so

Mr. Lincoln Writes a Murder Mystery 137

as to put him on his guard in what he said? So much for
speculation.

Mr. Lincoln in his letter to Joshua did full justice to the
comical effect when the idea of a murder was exploded.
"When the doctor's story was first made public," he wrote,
"it was amusing to scan and contemplate the countenances,
and hear the remarks of those who had been actively en-
gaged in the search for the dead body. Some looked quizi-
cal, some melancholly, and some furiously angry." One
man who had been very active swore that he knew all along
that Fisher was not dead "and that he had not stirred an
inch to hunt for him;" another "who had taken the lead in
curing down Hickoxes mill dam, and wanted to hang
Hickox for objecting, looked most awfully wo-begone; he
seemed the 'vwctim of hunreqwted haffection* as repre-
sented in the comic almanic we used to laugh over; and
Hart, the little drayman that hauled Molly home once, said
it was too damned bad, to have so much trouble and no
hanging after all."

This letter shows not only that Mr. Lincoln was able to
attend to business (and storytelling) in a most competent
manner, but also that he had come out of his melancholia
and recovered his sense of humor. Underneath, however,
he continued to be in a distressed and worried state of mind.

Perhaps it should be added that for all its excitability
Springfield's heart was in the right place. Shortly after Lin-
coln's letter was written the citizens held a meeting to ex-
press to their fellow townsman, Archibald Trailer, their
apologies and regrets that they had believed him involved
in a murder. Yet, as Lincoln himself pointed out, if Fisher

136 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

of their case lying down; they raised questions whether the
doctor's story was not a fabrication. Unimpeachable wit-
nesses, however, swore to the physician's "good character
for truth and veracity." The defense won and the Trailers
were discharged. There had been no murder. On die fol-
lowing Monday, Fisher, as Lincoln wrote elsewhere, ap-
peared in Springfield "in full life and proper person."

So what happened remains a mystery and one is left free
to speculate. Did a talent for tall tales and vivid imagination
run in the Trailor family? Did Archibald and William go
through the pantomime of hiding a body with a dummy as a
sort of rough joke to fool their brother Henry? He was
"about forty yards distant" from diem. At all events, right
after die trial "Henry still protested that no power on earth
could ever show Fisher alive," while die other two brothers
were sure he would be found living, as testified, at the doc-
tor's. Archibald and William never offered an explanation
and Henry later would not speak of die subject.

An elaborate theory as to what happened has been sug-
gested: Fisher, owing to his head injury, might have had a
seizure or fit which left him in an unconscious state resem-
bling death. Archibald and William, either being with him
or finding him, might have been fearful that they would be
accused of murder and therefore tried to conceal the body.
It is even suggested that they took him in their carriage to
the millpond and dumped him in, where the cold water re-
vived him and he climbed out. But if this theory is correct,
why did the two brothers tell Henry they had killed Fisher,
going into circumstantial details? Would they not instead
have told him of their fear of being accused of murder, so

Mr. Lincoln Writes a Murder Mystery 137

as to put him on his guard in what he said? So much for
speculation.

Mr. Lincoln in his letter to Joshua did full justice to the
comical effect when the idea of a murder was exploded.
"When the doctor's story was first made public," he wrote,
"it was amusing to scan and contemplate the countenances,
and hear the remarks of those who had been actively en-
gaged in the search for the dead body. Some looked quizi-
cal, some melancholly, and some furiously angry." One
man who had been very active swore that he knew all along
that Fisher was not dead "and that he had not stirred an
inch to hunt for him;" another "who had taken the lead in
curing down Hickoxes mill dam, and wanted to hang
Hickox for objecting, looked most awfully wo-begone; he
seemed the Victim of hunrequited haffection* as repre-
sented in the comic almanic we used to laugh over; and
Hart, the little drayman that hauled Molly home once, said
it was too damned bad, to have so much trouble and no
hanging after all."

This letter shows not only that Mr. Lincoln was able to
attend to business (and storytelling) in a most competent
manner, but also that he had come out of his melancholia
and recovered his sense of humor. Underneath, however,
he continued to be in a distressed and worried state of mind.

Perhaps it should be added that for all its excitability
Springfield's heart was in the right place. Shortly after Lin-
coln's letter was written the citizens held a meeting to ex-
press to their fellow townsman, Archibald Trailor, their
apologies and regrets that they had believed him involved
in a murder. Yet, as Lincoln himself pointed out, if Fisher

138 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

had not been found alive, "it is difficult to conceive what
could have saved the Trailers from the consequence of hav-
ing murdered him."

Once again die story arrives at a rich oasis of evidence in
a letter written by Mary herself which was mailed to Mercy
Levering the day before Lincoln composed his story of tie
murder mystery. One can go into the Edwards home on
the hill and find out how Miss Todd was holding up in this
estrangement from her lover and what thoughts were occu-
pying her mind*

She shows much more restraint in expressing her mood
than Mr. Lincoln did, but the letter opens in a minor key
and she admits that she has a "sad spirit." She apologizes for
not writing her "own dear Merce" sooner, but she feared
she would inflict a letter that was "flat, stale & unprofit-
able/' She almost indulges in the prevalent soul searching
when she says: "Why I have not written oftener appears
strange even to me, who should best know myself, that most
difficult of all problems to solve."

If Mr. Lincoln missed Mary and was homesick for her,
was she likewise homesick to see him? "The last two or
three months have been of interminable length," she wrote.
"After my gay companions of last winter departed, I was
left much to the solitude of my own thoughts, and some
lingering regrets over the past, which time can alone over-
shadow with its healing balm." That time's balm had not
accomplished much yet is suggested by several disclosures
in the letter* She continues: "Summer in all its beauty has
again come, the prairie land looks as beautiful as it did in

Mr. Lincoln Writes a Murder Mystery 1 39

the olden time, when we strolled together & derived so
much of happiness from each other's society this is past &
more than this."

If one has been wondering what were Mr. Webb's
chances of getting Molly on the rebound, here is the an-
swer: "The inning widower" she says, is not seen around
anymore. Nor was he "winning" as far as she was con-
cerned. Merce had been under the wrong impression: "In
your last, you appeared impressed with die prevalent idea
that we were dearer to each other than friends. The idea
was neither new nor strange, dear Merce, the knowing
world, have coupled our names together for months past,
merely through the folly & belief of another, who strangely
imagined we were attached to each other."

That last sentence gives one pause. Could "another" refer
to Mr. Lincoln? Could he have resented Mr. Webb's atten-
tions to Mary and misinterpreted the situation between
them? There was evidently a case of flirting on Mary's con-
science. Was the torture of jealousy added to the other fac-
tors contributing to Mr. Lincoln's great distress of mind?
Was there hidden meaning in what his wife was to write
him before the decade of the forties was over: a teasing
threat to "carry on quite a flirtation" with Mr. Webb? She
added that he (Mr. Lincoln) knew "ive, always had a
penchant that way." It is an interesting speculation.

One knows conclusively from what follows in Mary's
letter to Merce that Air. Webb earnestly wooed Mary and
what her answer was: "In your friendly & confiding ear
allow me to whisper that my heart can never be his. I have
deeply regretted that his constant visits, attentions &c

140 The Courtship oj Mr. Lincoln

should have given room for remarks, which were to me un-
pleasant.'* There was a "difference of some eighteen or
twenty summers" in their ages and Mary had learned what
the companionship of a congenial man could mean to her;
with Mr. Webb she did not have that "congeneality of
feeling, without which I should never feel justifiable in re-
signing my happiness into the safe keeping of another, even
should that other be, far too worthy for me, with his two
sweet little objections." Mary loved children, but it was not
her plan to be a stepmother.

Of course she reported to Merce on "Jacob Faithful"
She had seen him at a neighbor's one evening recently "and
in one quiet sequestered nook in the room he was seated,
sad & lonely. No doubt his thoughts were busy with you &
the past."

It appears that the lovely Matilda Edwards who had ar-
rived at the Edwards home for a "visit" the November be-
fore was still there in the middle of June. With such warm
mutual affection between them, one wonders whether
Mary was as confidential with Matilda as she was with
Mercy. Mary needed a confidante to talk to during these
lonely months of separation from the man she loved and it
emphatically could not be her sister Elizabeth.

Another bit of news was that Mr. Speed was still in Ken-
tucky and occasionally he wrote to her. With the mention
of Joshua the girl reached the subject which was nearest her !
heart It was so sensitive a topic she could not bring herself
to write Mr. Lincoln's name; he is brought into the letter
by way of Mr. Speed: "His worthy friend, deems me un-
worthy of notice, as I have not met him in the gay world

Mr. Lincoln Writes a Murder Mystery 141

for months. "With the usual comfort of misery, [I] imagine
that others were as seldom gladdened by his presence as my
humble self, yet I would that the case were different, that
he would once more resume his station in Society, that
'Richard should be himself again,' much, much happiness
would it afford me." Shyly and delicately she has revealed
her own heart, its "misery" and longing for her lover, her
yearning that he could be his old self again, that things
could be restored to the time when they two had walked
together in the sweetness and glory of their first betrothal.

CHAPTER

Tangled Emotions of Two Gentlemen

Tl /TR. Lincoln had concluded his murder-mystery letter
jLVAto Joshua with die statement: "I stick to my promise
to come to Louisville." After four years of affectionate
companionship, separation was hard on these two friends
and a plan for Lincoln to visit Speed in Kentucky and for
Joshua to return to Springfield with him had been afoot for
some time.

But the lawyer had his living to make and it was difficult
for him to take time off for mere visiting. Legal business
kept him busy until he left for the South the second week
in August. The slow-motion journey by horse and steam-
boat took approximately a week.

At the end of that journey was a way of living new to
the man who had grown up in a log cabin. The fact that the
plantation of the Speed family, situated a few miles out of
Louisville, had its own name, Farmington, gives some indi-
cation of its character. The dignified red brick house with
beautiful portico and doorway stood on a slight rise of
ground. From the rear veranda, where perhaps the two
friends were to sit together in the summer evenings, one
could view a long peaceful sweep of Kentucky acres. For
die first time in his life Lincoln became acquainted with

Tangled Emotwm of Two Gentlemen 143

luxurious leisure and with what must have been equally im-
pressive to him, the Southerner's aptitude for enjoying lei-
sure. The slave quarters, set far back in the rear, furnished
servants for every household task, including bringing coffee
to a visiting gentleman's bedroom in the mornings. To this
particular visitor that must have seemed a strange height of
luxury. Perhaps some things in this visit were to make him
understand better Molly's background and pleasure-loving
temperament.

Joshua undoubtedly met Lincoln when his boat docked
at Louisville. One likes to imagine the reunion between
these two, their fervent handclasps and glowing faces (with
more said by the young men's eyes than their lips), and the
arrival at the plantation, where Joshua introduced his guest
to his mother, his sister Mary, and others of the family.
They were wholesome and delightful people and soon grew
fond of the appealing young lawyer from Illinois.

He is shortly found doing very well for a gentleman who
had felt repressed and ill at ease with some of Springfield's
fine ladies, like Mrs. Edwards. He and Mary Speed soon
became, to use his own words, "something of cronies" and
once there was a bit of romping and teasing between them
that went to the point where, as he wrote her afterwards,
"I ... was under the necessity of shutting you up in a
room to prevent your committing an assault and battery
upon me. . . ."

At Joshua's Old Kentucky Home Lincoln found all the
desirable features mentioned in the wistful lines of the song:
'Twas summer, the darkies were gay, the corn-tops were
ripe and the meadows were in bloom. The days unfolded

144 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

pleasantly for die visitor. He rode to town in the Speed
carriage, he visited the law office of Joshua's brother James
(whom he one day as President would appoint Attorney
General of the United States), he played with Eliza Davis,
a litde girl of the family who was visiting at Farmington.
Best of all he could resume with Joshua those intimate, con-
fidential discussions about people, religion, marriage, and
things in general.

Joshua, one is not surprised to learn, had fallen in love
again, this time with a beautiful dark-eyed girl named
Fanny Henning. She lived with her uncle, a gentleman who
took his politics seriously, not to say violently. The result
was that when Joshua called for the purpose of wooing the
niece, he found himself instead forced to talk politics with
Uncle. Lincoln, learning the situation, undertook an assign-
ment after his own heart. He went with his friend to see
Fanny and one can imagine the grave face and huge enjoy-
ment with which he took issue with Uncle on certain
touchy matters of politics. In the ensuing prolonged and
heated argument Joshua had ample opportunity to devote
himself to die girl

Lincoln was pleased with Fanny; he thought she was
"one of die sweetest girls in the world." There was only
one thing he could wish otherwise about her; he thought
she had "something of a tendency to melancholly." One can
understand why he who suffered so much from "the blues"
would not enjoy a similar indulgence in anyone else. It was
certainly to be said in Molly's favor that she was by nature
cheerful, inclined to look on the bright side of things, and

Tangled Emotions of Two Gentlemen 145

Though he had himself well in hand, he still suffered at
times from extreme depression. It did not help matters that
he developed a terrific toothache and had to go to the city
to have the offender removed. The crude dentistry of the
time failed to get the tooth out after efforts which must
have been excruciating. Pain had largely to be taken raw in
that rugged age. (After he returned to Illinois a more
strong-armed operator tore out the tooth, "bringing with it
a bit of the jawbone," as he wrote Mary Speed later, "the
consequence of which is that my mouth is now so sore that
I can neither talk, nor eat. I am litterally 'subsisting on
savoury remembrances' that is, being unable to eat, I am
living upon the remembrance of the delicious dishes of
peaches and cream we used to have at your house.")

Lincoln was never to know peace of mind during the
estrangement from Mary. Joshua's mother gave him a Bible,
saying it was "the best cure for the 'Blues' . , ." and he in-
tended "to read it regularly," he wrote later. He carried
out that intention the rest of his life. In the White House
during the Qvil War at a moment when the military out-
look for the Union seemed unutterably dark, he reached for
the Bible and read in the Book of Job to recover his poise
and courage to go on.

He appreciated Mrs. Speed's present. Twenty years later
when he was President he sent her his picture with an in-
scription over his signature reminding her of this gift she
had given him so long before, a thoughtful act in an over-
worked man and one that does not jibe very well with
Mrs. Edwards's description of him as one who "was a little
ungrateful ... for the want of recollection."

146 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

Leaving the Speed family was hard. Lincoln, whom Mrs.
Edwards thought so cold he could love nothing, gave all
the household at Farmington his warm affection. In his let-
ter to Mary Speed he mentioned each one: "Is little Siss
Eliza Davis at your house yet? If she is kiss her 'o'er and
o'er again* for me.'* He remembered the "happy face" of
one of the sisters, he put in a message for Joshua's mother,
he sent his "verry highest regard" to Fanny Henning.

Joshua kept his promise to return to Springfield with his
friend. "We got on board the Steam Boat Lebanon, in the
locks of the Canal about 12. o'clock. M. of the day we left,"
Lincoln wrote back to Joshua's sister. That was at Louis-
ville on Tuesday, September 7, and it was evening the fol-
lowing Monday when they reached St. Louis. The Lebanon
was a comparatively small boat and Lincoln was vexed at
the delays caused by getting stuck on sand bars.

But one scene on board was etched on his mind. He
watched with deep thought and compassion a group of
twelve Negro slaves who were being taken to work in the
fields of the deep South. They were chained together "pre-
cisely like so many fish upon a trot-line," he wrote, and
"were being separated forever from the scenes of their
childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers . . . and
going into perpetual slavery where die lash of the master is
proverbially more ruthless and unrelenting than any
other. . . " And yet he observed: "They were the most
cheerful and apparantly happy creatures on board." One
"played the fiddle almost continually, and the others
danced, sung, cracked jokes. . . ."

The sight of these victims of slavery was a "continual

Tangled Emotions of Two Gentlemen 147

torment" both to his moral sense and his tender pity. It
made him miserable. He tried to console himself with the
reflection that " 'God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,'
or in other words, that He renders the worst of human con-
ditions tolerable, while He permits the best, to be nothing
better than tolerable." There is a bit of growing-up here.
Human happiness is never a perfect thing; one must give
up the thought of achieving the ideal by a forced compro-
mise with things as they are. This is a discovery it is always
hard for young idealism to take.

Lincoln and Joshua were both having great difficulty ad-
justing themselves to the status quo in religion and mar-
riage. Joshua, who remained in Springfield until the begin-
ning of the following year, 1842, was in a dither over his
love affair. He poured out all his fears, his melancholia, and
nervous sensations to his friend. Lincoln, who had passed
through just such a period of mental misery a few months
before and had at least got hold of himself, though he had
not solved his own problem, was making a passionate ef-
fort to bolster up Joshua through his mental funk. In effect
he was turning himself into a psychiatrist in order to help
his friend.

There had evidently been much discussion between these
two self-analytical young men when Joshua, his visit to
Springfield over, departed for Kentucky to continue his
courtship and winning of Fanny Henning. Lincoln wrote a
letter for him to take along with him as a sort of treatment
when he got into the depths of depression.

Now comes that remarkable group of letters, those in
which Abraham Lincoln in his young manhood laid bare

148 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

his inmost feelings and those of Joshua Speed. One can
go into the troubled minds of these two at the high peak
of emotional life when both had fallen in love and with
the aid of considerable introspection and ratiocination
had succeeded in tying themselves up into psychological
knots.

The letter Lincoln handed Joshua as the latter left for
Kentucky began: 'Teeling, as you know I do, the deepest
solicitude for the success of the enterprize you are engaged
in, I adopt this as the last method I can invent to aid you, in
case (which God forbid) you shall need any aid.' 9 He ex-
plained that if he had merely said these tilings orally, he was
afraid Joshua would forget them at the very time he needed
them most. "As I think it reasonable that you will feel verry
badly some time between this and the final consummation
of your purpose, it is intended that you shall read this just
at such a time."

Joshua's low state of mind is indicated in Lincoln's ex-
pressions describing it: "present affliction," "melancholly
bodings," "agony of despondency." Something "indescrib-
ably horrible and alarming" haunted Joshua and Lincoln
feared his friend would die if he did not get some relief
from this "immense suffering." These expressions might
have been used for Abraham exactly one year before. As he
advises his friend and analyzes his condition, one gets Lin-
coln's description in retrospect of his own thoughts and rea-
soning when he had been "the most miserable man living."
There is also a suggestion of die methods by which he
worked himself out of his depression to the point of resum-
ing a normal life.

Tangled Emotions of Two Gentlemen 149

As was characteristic of him in approaching a problem,
he went into it thoroughly and logically. Joshua felt so
"verry badly . . . because of three special causes, added to
the general one" which was that he was "naturally of a
nervous temperament. . . ." He was so sensitive that things
affected him with far more than average force. "It is out of
this, that the painful difference between you and the mass
of the world springs."

Lincoln's letter continued: "The first special cause is,
your exposure to bad weather on your journey, which my
experience clearly proves to be verry severe on defective
nerves." There is a significant admission in the last two
words. Lincoln considered that he also was one of those
nervous or sensitive ones to whom the pressures of living
are at times unbearable. There is also a hint of the fatigue
and frazzling which he had often experienced from the
roughness and exposure, the long-drawn-out hardship of
the traveling he was forced to do.

The second special cause of Joshua's trouble was "the
absence of all business and conversation of friends" which
might divert his mind. Lincoln knew what he was talking
about; in the melancholia which followed his broken en-
gagement he had found it hard to attend to business and had
avoided social assemblies.

The third special cause was "the rapid and near approach
of that crisis on which all your thoughts and feelings con-
centrate" Joshua was heading toward marriage and was
beset with doubts and fears about love and the state of
matrimony. Lincoln was just the man to deal with that sub-
ject: "I know what the painful point with you is, at all

150 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

times when you are unhappy. It is an apprehension that you
do not love her as you should."

Lincoln had suif ered from that same apprehension. It had
been one of those painful doubts which had beaten a track
round and round in his sore and tortured mind. Perhaps it
was this he meant when in this same letter he spoke of "that
intensity of thought, which will some times wear the
sweetest idea thread-bare and turn it to the bitterness of
death." It is a sentence which shows that the prairie lawyer
was becoming a literary artist.

He had learned how to answer Joshua's apprehension
that he did not sufficiently love Fanny. "What nonsense!"
he exclaimed. "How came you to court her? Was it because
you thought she desired it; and that you had given her rea-
son to expect it?" That reason would apply to "at least
twenty others of whom you can think. . * ." Had Joshua
courted her for her wealth? "Why, you knew she had
none. But you say you reasoned yourself into it. What do
you mean by that? Was it not, that you found yourself un-
able to reason yourself out of it? Did you not think, and
partly form the purpose, of courting her the first time you
ever saw or heard of her?" What had reason to do with it at
that early stage? Joshua knew very little about her then
except "her personal appearance and deportment; and these,
if they impress at all, impress the heart and not the head."

Had not Abraham's eyes followed the pretty figure of
Molly when first he met her, had he not gazed as if fas-
cinated on her sparkling face? He had not been reasoning at
those moments that a girl with her background was hardly
a suitable match for a poor man like himself.

Tangled Emotions of Two Gentlemen 151

"Say candidly," continued this man of experience to
Fanny's suitor, "were not those heavenly black eyes, the
whole basis of all your early reasoning on the subject?"

Lawyerlike he piled up his arguments to prove Joshua's
love for Fanny. "What earthly consideration would you
take to find her scouting and despising you, and giving her-
self up to another?" Again one wonders if Mr. Lincoln had
not suffered the pangs of jealousy of Mr. Douglas or Mr.
Webb as he added: "But of this you have no apprehension;
and therefore you can not bring it home to your feelings."

Such was the letter of psychiatric advice which Lincoln
handed Joshua when he left Springfield at the beginning of
1 842, a year which was to be a momentous one. The lawyer
concluded with intense concern and affection: "I shall be
so anxious about you, that I want you to write me every
mail/'

150 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

times when you are unhappy. It is an apprehension that you
do not love her as you should."

Lincoln had suffered from that same apprehension. It had
been one of those painful doubts which had beaten a track
round and round in his sore and tortured mind. Perhaps it
was this he meant when in this same letter he spoke of "that
intensity of thought, which will some times wear the
sweetest idea thread-bare and turn it to the bitterness of
death." It is a sentence which shows that the prairie lawyer
was becoming a literary artist

He had learned how to answer Joshua's apprehension
that he did not sufficiently love Fanny. 'What nonsense!"
he exclaimed. "How came you to court her? Was it because
you thought she desired it; and that you had given her rea-
son to expect it?" That reason would apply to "at least
twenty others of whom you can think. . . ." Had Joshua
courted her for her wealth? "Why, you knew she had
none. But you say you reasoned yourself into it. What do
you mean by that? Was it not, that you found yourself un-
able to reason yourself out of it? Did you not think, and
partly form the purpose, of courting her the first time you
ever saw or heard of her? " What had reason to do with it at
that early stage? Joshua knew very little about her then
except "her personal appearance and deportment; and these,
if they impress at all, impress the heart and not the head."

Had not Abraham's eyes followed the pretty figure of
Molly when first he met her, had he not gazed as if fas-
cinated on her sparkling face? He had not been reasoning at
those moments that a girl with her background was hardly
a suitable match for a poor man like himself.

Tangled Emotions of Two Gentlemen 151

"Say candidly," continued this man of experience to
Fanny's suitor, "were not those heavenly black eyes, the
whole basis of all your early reasomng on the subject?"

Lawyerlike he piled up his arguments to prove Joshua's
love for Fanny. "What earthly consideration would you
take to find her scouting and despising you, and giving her-
self up to another?" Again one wonders if Mr. Lincoln had
not suffered the pangs of jealousy of Mr. Douglas or Mr.
"Webb as he added: "But of this you have no apprehension;
and therefore you can not bring it home to your feelings."

Such was the letter of psychiatric advice which Lincoln
handed Joshua -when he left Springfield at the beginning of
1 842, a year which was to be a momentous one. The lawyer
concluded with intense concern and affection: "I shall be
so anxious about you, that I want you to write me every
mail."

CHAPTER

"That Still Kills My Soul"

npHIS is the love story of Mary and Abraham. But die
JL searchlight turned on diem has caught in the outer cir-

O w

cle of illumination some other lovers of most endearing
qualities. Considering how helpful they have been, it is die
least one can do to inquire whether "Jacob Faithful" and
his '*Dear Mercy" were finally married to live happily ever
after.

Miss Levering became the bride of Mr. Conkling in Sep-
tember 1841. Mary probably had mingled feelings about
die event, affectionate joy and interest in their happiness
and secret pain at the contrast in fortune between herself
and her friend. Mercy was being united to the man she
loved while she, Mary, was not even seeing the one to
whom she had given her heart.

If friends at die wedding festivities repeated die wish
which Mr. Conkling himself had expressed at the Abell
wedding, **Peace and Happiness be widi diem," a letter
written joindy by the ConMings, apparently about a year
and a half after their marriage, answers the question as to
whether that wish came true. The picture this letter pre-
sents takes one into Springfield on a winter night "as dark
as a cloudy sky and black soil can make it." Mr. and Mrs.

"That Still Kills My SouF* 1 5 3

James Conkling were cozily at home, where Mercy was
writing a letter to her mother. The hour arriving when she
had planned to go to a sewing society, she asked her hus-
band to finish the letter for her. He dutifully took up the
pen and wrote: "I have just deposited Merse in the bottom
of a large farm waggon and seated her as comfortably as
circumstances would permit in a bundle of hay where sev-
eral of the members were already partly hid." As he con-
tinued, it is seen how youth and gaiety made a frolic of
primitive conditions, mud, and cold. "They drive on to the
next house, where they pick up a few more passengers and
so on in succession, till they cluster together as thick as bees
in a hive." The young husband continued delightfully: "I
fancy now I can see them piled across each other and
stowed as close as crockery ware, while with their merry
peals of laughter and merriment they are carried on to the
'Society 9 Here if not dumped miscellaneously in the mud
yet, in the scramble & effort to disentangle themselves and
approprkte to their own use the members that properly be-
long to each, they come as near to it as comfort and con-
venience will permit."

James confesses that this is the first time Mercy has ever
deliberately left him to spend an evening alone. Heroically
he says he does not mind this too much once in eighteen
months, but adds the hope that she will come home early.
He proves himself a tactful son-in-law; he tells Mercy's
mother how faithfully the girl "carries into practice the
wise old maxims" she has been taught at home. "That 'Ma
does so and so 9 is indisputable authority and what 'Pa used
to tell us gals' is at once adopted as a rule."

154 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

James gives an appealing description of his young wife.
According to his gaily boasting account; she can do every-
thing much better than anyone else; no one can design a
costume, fit a bonnet, arrange a supper table, "fit a stock so
neatly and rig it up with a litde bow," or cook as expertly
as she can. "The lover of chicken salad knows not when to
stop his attention to her dishes and an epicure would surfeit
himself over her delicious preserves."

One begins to suspect he is writing more for Mercy's pe-
rusal than for her mother's. The suspicion grows as he con-
tinues: <r Withal she is blessed with a considerable share of
that characteristic and commendable modesty which always
accompanies true merit, genius and talent and I have no
doubt in the world that when she returns and reads this
panegyric upon her virtues, she will attempt to blush most
deeply, and declare that I have spoiled her letter." He added
with a twinkle: 'We shall see " At this point Mercy re-
turned, blushed pinkly on reading what he had written, and
declared it was all "a downright story."

Lincoln's next letter to Joshua was written early in Feb-
ruary 1842. In the meantime Fanny had become ill and
Joshua, in terrible anxiety, had written his adviser Lincoln a
frantic letter of "melancholly bodings as to her early death."
Lincoln answered it on the very day it came: "You well
know that I do not feel my own sorrows much more keenly
than I do yours . . . and yet I assure you I was not much
hurt by what you wrote me of your excessively bad feeling
at the time you wrote. . . . because I hope and believe, that
your present anxiety and distress about her health and her

"That Still Kills My SwF 9 1 5 5

life, must and will forever banish those horid doubts, which
I know you sometimes felt, as to the truth of your affection
for her."

Lincoln almost considered, he said, that the Almighty had
sent this present affliction to Joshua for the express purpose
of removing those doubts. He hoped that Fanny, by the time
his letter arrived, would be much improved. "It really ap-
pears to me that you yourself ought to rejoice, and not sor-
row, at this indubitable evidence of your undying affection
for her. Why Speed, if you did not love her, although you
might not wish her death, you would most calmly be re-
signed to it." He added with that great sensitivity of his:
"Perhaps this point is no longer a question with you, and
my pertenacious dwelling upon it, is a rude intrusion upon
your feelings. If so, you must pardon me. You know the
Hell I have suffered on that point, and how tender I am
upon it. You know I do not mean wrong."

Lincoln reported cheerfully on his own condition: "I
have been quite clear of hypo since you left, even better
than I was along in the fall." He wanted an immediate an-
swer to this letter.

He got it and it contained good news. Joshua and Fanny
were to be married February 15. Since letters, like travelers,
moved very slowly, by the time Lincoln could get an an-
swer back to Kentucky, the wedding would have taken
place. It gave him a queer pang that the relation between
Joshua and himself would be changed now; there would
never again be the cherished companionship of bachelor
days. "You know my desire to befriend you is everlasting
that I will never cease, while I know how to do any thing.

156 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

But you will always hereafter, be on ground that I have
never ocupied, and consequently, if advice were needed, I
might advise wrong."

But he "fondly" hoped that Joshua would never again
"need any comfort from abroad." If, however, he at times
found himself in "the agony of despondency," he must re-
member he would shordy feel well again. Lincoln had ap-
parently learned that moods tend to go in cycles. "I am now
fully convinced, that you love her as ardently as you are ca-
pable of loving. Your ever being happy in her presence, and
your intense anxiety about her health, if there were noth-
ing else, would place this beyond all dispute in my mind."
He advised Joshua to avoid "being idle" when he felt de-
pressed; it helped to engage in business and keep busy.
Again one feels that Lincoln was tracing the course of
his own experience and the methods by which he had
worked himself out of his morbid doubts to clear himself
of "hypo."

"I hope with tolerable confidence," he continued, "that
this letter is a plaster for a place that is no longer sore. God
grant it may be so."

Although Lincoln was not yet married, he had insight
enough to realize that his letter was not one to be read by
Joshua's bride, so he put in a word of caution on that. Rec-
ognizing also that he could no longer demand an immediate
answer from Joshua the married man, he ended: "Write me
whenever you have leisure."

February brought Washington's birthday and in the cel-
ebration of it Mr. Lincoln delivered a temperance address in
the Second Presbyterian Church. Reading it, one is struck

"That Still Kills My SauT' 157

(as so often with Lincoln) by its modern tone. The drunk-
ard was not to be treated as "utterly incorrigible" and
"damned without remedy," but encouraged to overcome his
personal difficulty. Lincoln apparently did not care for the
holier-than-thou approach. "In my judgment, such of us as
have never fallen victims, have been spared more from the
absence of appetite, than from any mental or moral su-
periority over those who have."

There is excellent advice on how to win and influence
people. "When the conduct of men is designed to be influ-
enced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever
be adopted. It is an old and true maxim, that a 'drop of
honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men.
If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him
that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey
that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great
high road to his reason. . , ." Do not dictate to or despise
the one you wish to win; it is "not much in the nature of
man to be driven" to anything.

One finds Lincoln's characteristic device of bringing a
point home by a down-to-earth illustration: would the man
who said he doubted the power of moral influence or public
opinion care "to go to church some Sunday and sit during
the sermon with his wife's bonnet upon his head?"

Mary could read that speech three days later in the San-
gamo Journal and reflect more than ever that she had found
her "man of mind," with promise of a future. Knowing her
confession that her love remained unchanged and that she
missed him, one can imagine the hungry interest with which
she read the words that he had spoken. Perhaps as she read

158 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

she could hear in her mind the tones of the dear, familiar
voice.

On die day that the speech appeared in the paper, Feb-
ruary 25, Lincoln wrote again to Speed; in fact, in his wis-
dom, he sent two letters, one for Speed to read by himself
and one for him to show his wife. In the letter which was
just between the two men, he described the "intense anxiety
and trepidation" with which he had opened the first letters
received from Joshua after his marriage. Joshua had written
that he was still subject to periods of doubt and being mis-
erable, but his friend was sure he saw signs of improvement
even in his "tone and handwriting" "When your nerves
once get steady now, the whole trouble will be over for-
ever." Lincoln, who had come out of his mental funk with
some good, common-sense, down-to-earth conclusions,
summed up matters in one sentence: "I tell you, Speed, our
forebodings, for which you and I are rather peculiar, are
all the worst sort of nonsense."

He continued: ". . . you say you much fear that that
Ely&im of which you have dreamed so much, is never to
be realized" (Decidedly it was wise not to let Fanny read
this.) Perhaps the meaning here is that in the mind of every
young person there is an ideal picture of what married life
should be like, a picture viewed through the bright-colored
windows of youth, love, and inexperience which take no ac-
count of the adjustments required by the friction of daily
existence and by human inability to live forever on the
peaks of emotion. Mary had shown something of this in-
nocent viewpoint two years before in her wondering why
married folk always become so serious. Lincoln was sure

"That Still Kills My Soul" 1 59

that any such disillusionment would not be the fault of the
girl Joshua had married: "I now have no doubt it is the pe-
culiar misfortune of both you and me, to dream dreams of
Elysium far exceeding all that any thing earthly can real-
ize. Far short of your dreams as you may be, no woman
could do more to realize them, than that same black eyed
Fanny."

An enclosed letter was to be shown to Fanny "because,
she would think strangely perhaps should you tell her that
you receive no letters from me; or, telling her you do,
should refuse to let her see them." (Mrs. Edwards had cer-
tainly missed it when she said Lincoln was not "intelligent
in the female line.") It was a safe letter for Joshua's wife to
read, though Lincoln did not conceal his feeling that Josh-
ua's marriage shut out the old intimate relationship between
them. "I have no way of telling how much happiness I wish
you both; tho' I believe you both can conceive it. I feel
som[e] what jealous of both of you now; you will be so ex-
clusively concerned for one another, that I shall be forgot-
ten entirely." He ended by sending Fanny "a double recip-
rocation of all the love she sent me."

Springfield was all agog again that spring; the magic word
"railroad" was being heard on all sides. The first train of
the Northern Cross Railroad had run into town on Febru-
ary 15. A wonderful new means of transportation had been
built which enabled one to go to Jacksonville on cars that
ran on rails and were drawn by engines. What an improve-
ment over the slow-moving stagecoach that mired down in
mudholes or overturned in streams! Of course Springfield

160 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

celebrated this great modern improvement with proper
gusto.

A large party of its citizens, accompanied by a stirring
band, boarded the short, primitive cars and seated them-
selves on the benches which ran lengthwise along the sides.
With no handholds a sudden jolt was likely to land the pas-
sengers in a heap on die floor. Since the little engines burned
wood with amazing appetite, the men passengers ran the
risk of having to get off and help saw a new supply at the
wood stations. Conveniences which one takes for granted
now were not even thought of. Yet in that enthusiastic and
laughing crowd there were doubtless many who marveled
at this modern progress and wondered what would be in-
vented next.

Mary went along with that party on the cars that jolted
their way over the bumpy tracks from Springfield to Jack-
sonville. There they were hospitably received and feasted,
for towns as well as their citizens were neighborly. A few
weeks later Jacksonville returned the call and was enter-
tained with a sumptuous repast at the American House in
Springfield. One likes to imagine the crowds and air of fes-
tivity around the square that day.

With her usual joyous responsiveness Molly had a won-
derful time on the expedition and word of this came to Lin-
coln's ears. All he knew of her these days was what mutual
friends told him. Molly's enjoyment of the trip was good
news to the unselfish man, and about that time he received
other good news. His psychiatric patient was getting better.

On March 27 he answered a letter from Joshua: "It can
not be told, how it now Arilh me with joy, to hear you say

"That Still Kills My Sour 161

you are 'far happier than you ever expected to be? ... I
say, enough, dear Lord. I am not going beyond the truth,
when I tell you, that the short space it took me to read your
last letter, gave me more pleasure, than the total sum of all
I have enjoyed since that fatal first of Jany. '41." He will
soon be found reasoning from Joshua's story to his own;
perhaps he felt that Joshua's happy ending was a good sign
for him. Self-consciously avoiding the use of her name, just
as she had shied away from using his in her letter to Mercy,
he revealed his thought of Mary as he continued: "Since
then ["the fatal first] , it seems to me, I should have been en-
tirely happy, but for the never-absent idea, that there is one
still unhappy whom I have contributed to make so. That
still ^ills my soul. I can not but reproach myself, for even
wishing to be happy while she is otherwise. She accom-
panied a large party on the Rail Road cars, to Jacksonville
last monday; and on her return, spoke, so that I heard of it,
of having enjoyed the trip exceedingly. God be praised for
that."

He told Joshua and Fanny about his temperance speech
and asked them to read it on the ground that "I can not
learn that any body else has read it, or is likely to." Fanny
had enclosed a sweet violet in Joshua's last letter to him. It
was mashed flat, Lincoln said, but he -would cherish the
stain which the juice of it had made on the letter "for the
sake of her who procured it. . . ."

How unashamedly sentimental these people were!

14

CHAPTER

"Stand Still and See"

AS spring with its cycle of unfolding leaf and bloom
came to Illinois in 1842, it found Mr. Lincoln in much
healthier mood than that of the year before. Men always
sought his companionship and he was doubtless very good
company when he traveled on the judicial circuit in April
and May. He had nursed Joshua through his emotional cri-
sis to a happy conclusion and perhaps in the process had
come nearer to clarifying his own feelings and situation in
regard to Mary.

It is possible that certain devoted friends were taking
note of the fact that "Richard" was seemingly himself again
and, judging by subsequent events, they decided the time
was ripe to take action in regard to the estranged lovers.

Mary probably wrote almost as many letters as Lincoln
during the first half of that year, but unfortunately none of
them seems to have been preserved. To find out what she
was thinking and doing, the best one can do is to pick up
bits of information about her from the letters of others.
Here that lovely girl, Matilda Edwards, proves helpful
again. In a recently discovered letter which she wrote her
brother Nelson, there is an item which, in consideration of
a certain erroneous idea, is of great importance.

"Stand Still and See" 163

It was in May that Matilda wrote Nelson as follows: "I
received a letter from dear Molly this eve pressing me much
to visit her. . . ."

Springfield gossip had said that Mr. Lincoln wished to
break his engagement with Molly because he had fallen in
love with Matilda. If that had been true, Molly, who by
her own statement continued to love Mr. Lincoln and stood
ready to renew the engagement, would never have invited
Matilda to return to Springfield for a visit; the very idea
would have sent her into a panic. That should settle for all
time the question as to whether Lincoln fell in love with
Matilda, but in addition there is her own statement on the
subject. Mrs. Edwards once asked her point-blank whether
Mr. Lincoln "ever mentioned the subject of his love to
her" and the girl answered emphatically: "On my word,
he never mentioned such a subject to me: he never even
stooped to pay me a compliment."

So at long last it is found that Matilda's name, like that of
Sarah Rickard, is a stray thread woven into the tangled
knot of the Lincoln love story. When these threads are
worked loose from their turns and overlappings, they are
found to be detached at each end and not to belong in the
knot at all. They were caught into it only by the accident
of propinquity.

Lovely, sprightly, conscientious Matilda! Perhaps her
brief story should be rounded out too. In the same letter in
which she mentioned Molly's invitation for her to visit
Springfield (which she declined because "I think I have du-
ties which demand my time at home") she spoke of "Mr S,"
adding: "I do admire and esteem him very much" Gradu-

164 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

ally one gathers from her letters that her beloved brother
Nelson was using his influence in behalf of Mr. Strong's
suit, the gentleman being a friend of his and a man of prop-
erty to boot. One also finds Matilda's resistance to the mar-
riage. In a letter a few months later she states her side of it:
"Tis hard, tis hard to school the affections. To admire and
love where you are not suited nor destined to love. Indeed
it is impossible. I may respect, esteem and like but that per-
son is not the one to win my love. I would that I were a very
different girl."

Mr. Strong, it is interesting to learn from her letters, was
also a victim of "hipo." The ailment seemed almost epi-
demic among gentlemen who were courting. His recital of
his gloom bothered Matilda, or, judging by the way she
spoke of it, perhaps "bored" would be the better word.

Either she had a change of heart or was finally convinced
that it was her duty; at all events she married Newton D.
Strong two years later. Her time with him was brief; the
family Bible records her death early in 1851 when she was
not yet twenty-nine years old. She and Molly remained af-
fectionate friends as long as she lived and Mr. Lincoln was
to mention her in terms indicating this friendship in a let-
ter to his wife written when he was in Congress in 1848.

In inviting Matilda to visit her in May 1842, Molly had
evidently given the impression that she was very lonesome.
But there is further evidence of this fact. Sarah Edwards of
Alton did visit Springfield in the late spring of that year
and with her help one can cross the little bridge and walk
up to the Edwards home on the hill to take a dose look at
Molly. Sarah found Springfield lacking in its usual gaiety,

"Stand Still and See" 165

"but," she wrote, "I spent my time delightfully in a quiet
way at home most of the time & when I did not want to see
any one of the villagers, would stroll over to Cousin Nin-
ians where it is quite as quiet as any country seat at a dis-
tance from town. They see v[ery] little company & since
Cousin Elizabeth, united with the church they have given
up parties entirely. Molly is as lonesome as a gay company
loving, girl, could be so situated. . . ."

Then comes a significant sentence. Sarah, seeing how for-
lorn the girl was, urged her to come for a visit to Alton but
found "we cannot induce her to come down to see us. . . ."
Molly made some excuse and Sarah was probably puzzled at
her declining the invitation, but Springfield was the place
where Mr. Lincoln was and there was the chance that
sooner or later she would meet him. Perhaps even then cer-
tain events were in the making.

It is worth noting also in Sarah's letter that Elizabeth Ed-
wards, like Matilda, had come to think that parties and
dances were inconsistent with religion. Truly she was the
last person to understand her gay and sociable sister Molly.

Mr. Lincoln sent another long letter to Joshua early in
July. The lawyer had written his friend in April, but the
letter dealt mainly with legal and political matters and con-
tained only one item which relates to this story. Lincoln
listed the names of the candidates nominated by the Whig
county convention and the name of Ninian Edwards was
not among them. The letter continued: "Edwards is a little
mortified tho' he is quite quiet and has permitted no one
but me to know his feelings. . . ." So the lawyer and
Mary's brother-in-law were meeting on good terms in a

1 66 The Courtship oj Mr. Lincoln

man's world away from the Edwards home. Mrs. Edwards
said her husband opposed the marriage with her, but their
son laid the emphasis on his mother's opposition.

Ninian Edwards's attitude toward the Lincoln-Todd
wedding is, like his feeling toward Abraham Lincoln
through the years, a tangled subject with conflicting evi-
dence. With his mind conditioned by his ideas of aristoc-
racy, Ninian has already been quoted as saying Lincoln was
a "mighty Rough man" and "not capable." There is ample
evidence, however, that he was friendly toward Lincoln
and wanted to help him when he first came to Springfield,
even offering to buy him a law library, an offer the new-
comer refused, saying he was too poor and did not wish
to involve himself.

Opinions and fortunes underwent changes with the years.
In the Civil War Edwards lost his prosperity, while Lin-
coln had become President. Two letters in the Lincoln Pa-
pers, both written in 1 863, contain some retrospective infor-
mation about Ninian's position in regard to the marriage.
The first of these, which is to Lincoln from William Yates
of Springfield, mentioned Ninian Edwards's going to Wash-
ington to "beg" Lincoln for an appointment. Mr. Yates
quoted Ninian as saying ". . . that you must do something
for him, that he had greatly befriended you, when you
were poor and unknown. Had helped you to get your wife
& that unless you did, He would [be] ruined."

The second, a long letter from Ninian himself to Lin-
coln, is in the same vein. Ninian reminded Lincoln of his
"devoted attachment" to him in early days. "I would like
to ask you," continued this letter, "if when you were a

"Stand Still and See" 1 67

young man I was not your most devoted friend in more
ways than one. Let . . . your own recollection, and a let-
ter of yours written to me in 1842 before your marriage
answer." The mention of this letter of Lincoln's to Ninian
at such a time is almost unbearably intriguing, yet this
reference to it is all one has today.

Lincoln's telling Joshua in 1842 that Ninian permitted no
one but himself to know he was mortified indicates a close
degree of friendship that year. It is possible Ninian had
become reconciled to the marriage and that he did assist
"in more ways than one." It should be taken into account,
however, that Ninian desperately wanted Lincoln's help
when he expressed such devoted attachment to him in
1863.

In Lincoln's letter to Joshua in July one learns that their
roles have been reversed: Joshua was now advising Lincoln
about his state of mind and love tangle. Lincoln replied that
the subject was painful to him and nothing could make him
forget it. "I acknowledge the correctness of your advice
too; but before I resolve to do the one thing or the other, I
must regain my confidence in my own ability to keep my
resolves when they are made. In that ability, you know, I
once prided myself as the only, or at least the chief, gem
of my character; that gem I lost how, and when, you too
well know." He had not yet regained it and until he did,
he could not trust himself in any matter of much impor-
tance. "I believe now that, had you understood my case at
the time, as well as I understood yours afterwards, by the
aid you would have given me, I should have sailed through
clear; but that does not now afford me sufficient confidence,

1 68 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

to begin that, or the like of that, again." If one only knew
what Joshua had advised!

Joshua had expressed in his letter his obligations to his
friend for helping him achieve his "present happiness." Lin-
coln was greatly pleased with this acknowledgment, "but a
thousand rimes more am I pleased to know, that you enjoy
a degree of happiness, worthy of an acknowledgement."

Then comes one of the most significant passages in all
the letters to Joshua, a passage which brings into focus both
the stage at which Lincoln had arrived in his long-drawn-
out mental conflict and the nature of his religious feeling.
He explained to Joshua that in advising him he felt he was
being used by the divine will: "The truth is, I am not sure
there was any merit, with me, in the part I took in your dif-
ficulty; I was drawn to it as by fate; if I would, I could not
have done less than I did. I always was superstitious; and
as part of my superstition, I believe God made me one of
the instruments of bringing your Fanny and you together,
which union, I have no doubt He had fore-ordained." A
new note follows, an uplift of spirit, of hope for himself.
"Whatever he designs, he will do for me yet. *Stand still
and see the salvation of die Lord* is my text just now."

It often happens that people who have come through a
long, baffling, exhausting siege of the spirit, grappling with
problems that seem to have no solution, unable to decide
which course of action to take, cease struggling to turn to
their religious faith and rest their weary souls in waiting for
a revelation of divine guidance. Such was Lincoln's state
now. He was a man of deep religious feeling. All the rest of
his life one finds incidents in which he placed his reliance

"Stand Still and See" 169

on the will of God. In the dark days of the Qvil War Presi-
dency, at a meeting of his Cabinet in the fall of 1862, he was
to say to that grave and troubled circle of men: "When the
rebel army was at Frederick, I determined, as soon as it
should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a Proclamation
of Emancipation. . . . I said nothing to anyone; but I made
the promise to myself, and (hesitating a little) to my
Maker. The rebel army is now driven out, and I am going
to fulfill that promise." He was to say simply at the perplex-
ing and tragic time when he was re-elected for the second
term: "I will put my trust in God."

Just as he had asked a sign of the divine will in regard to
the Emancipation Proclamation, he was, early in July 1842,
waiting for Providence to indicate what he should do about
his love affair and whether his union with Mary Todd also
was "fore-ordained." Providence was to give him an un-
mistakable answer very shortly; it is possible that its chosen
"instruments" had already made their warmhearted little
plot.

It had been a year and a half now since the engagement
had been broken, eighteen sad and perplexed months. In
them Lincoln had learned a great deal. He had not been
able to get Mary out of his mind. The thought that she was
unhappy killed his very soul. He had written to Joshua in
his newly acquired wisdom that one does not reason him-
self into falling in love, neither is one able to reason oneself
out of it. He had found out in misery and loneliness that
one great test of love is whether one is happy in the pres-
ence of the beloved and always anxious about her well-
being. He had expressed to Joshua his belief that it is pos-

170 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

sible for a man to have grave doubts as to his love for a girl
and still love her as ardently as he is capable of loving. He
had emerged from his dark questionings and fears into the
healthy conclusion that his peculiar forebodings were "all
the worst sort of nonsense."

Mr. Lincoln had apparently not seen Mary during those
months. He could not go to the Edwards home and he had
avoided gatherings which she was likely to attend. Mary, as
a restricted Victorian female, was not apt to frequent the
common haunts of men. And Mr. Lincoln was away from
Springfield a great deal of die time on the judicial circuit.
Perhaps at times she had seen a tall, thin figure on the
streets of Springfield, a distant glimpse that stirred deep
longing; perhaps similarly Mr. Lincoln had caught sight of
a girlish form with the result that his sensitive face had be-
come charged with emotion. One wonders whether there
were not times at night when he walked southwest through
the dark streets in the direction of the little bridge and
looked up the hill to the big house where an upstairs win-
dow was dimly outlined by candlelight. Did he picture
Molly behind that square of light and wonder whether her
face was gay and happy, as he had loved to see it, or stained
with tears as on that fatal New Year's Day?

In the minds of each of them was the image of the other
bound up with the memories of a time of happiness and af-
fection followed by a long-drawn-out desolation.

It might have been predicted that friends would try to
bring them together again. All the world delights to help
lovers in distress; it is a nice human trait. Here were two
popular, fine young people who inspired devoted friend-

"Stmd Still and See" 1 7 1

ship in others and both were dissatisfied and lonely. It was a
state of affairs that any warmhearted, motherly woman
with a normal feminine instinct for matchmaking would
find impossible to resist. Such a woman was Mrs. Simeon
Francis, wife of the publisher of the Sangamo Journal, who
was devoted to Lincoln. Mrs. Francis was a warm friend of
Mary Todd's. It is recorded that Dr. Henry also had part
in bringing the lovers together; perhaps he knew what was
going to happen at the Simeon Francis home.

The details of the little conspiracy, whether Mr. Lincoln
was asked casually to drop in at that home at a certain day
and hour or how the coming of Mary was arranged, are
not known. One only knows that the tall lawyer unex-
pectedly found himself in a room with a girl whose bright
chestnut head would scarcely come to his shoulder, a girl
who lifted startled blue eyes to meet his own. Mrs. Francis
had succeeded at last in bringing Mary Todd and Abra-
ham Lincoln face to face without either having warning of
what was to happen. Sympathetically and simply she told
them to be friends again.

Providence had pointed the way to Mr. Lincoln with a
vengeance.

CHAPTER JL 5

Secret Meetings

npiHERE is no record of the details of that meeting. One
_I_ can only imagine Mary's questioning and hungry
searching of Mr. Lincoln's rugged face, noting perhaps that
it appeared a little more lined than she remembered it. It
may have seemed more dear to her on account of this. That
face must have pictured deep emotion as he looked down at
the fresh prettiness of the girl whose color and aliveness
made any mental image of her seem pale by comparison.
What are remembered impressions against the warm vital
surge of attraction between two young people who love
each other and meet again after a long desolate separation?
The first difficult and halting words that each said at
that meeting cannot now be recovered; but the result is
known. With the devoted encouragement of Mr. and Mrs.
Simeon Francis, it was arranged that the two should con-
tinue to have secret meetings at the Francis home. Eliza-
beth Edwards, trying in every possible way to prevent a
marriage between her sister Mary and Mr. Lincoln, must
know nothing of what was going on. There was an addi-
tional motive for concealment. When two people have had
a broken engagement involving deep emotions and that very
private matter has become the talk of the town, they natu-

Secret Meetings 173

rally want to keep the renewal of their attachment hidden
until they are sure of themselves. When Mrs. Edwards fi-
nally did find out about the meetings (after it was too late
for her to interfere), Mary explained to her "that the world
woman & man were uncertain & slippery and that it was
best to keep the secret courtship from all eyes & ears."

A new period now began, a time of delightful plotting
for these stolen visits together when the tall lawyer could
again glue his eyes on the glowing face of Mary, when they
could laugh and talk, and indulge in repartee and whimsical
make-believe as they had in the golden days when they
were falling in love and were first engaged. To use the
pleasant little name "Molly" was again easy and natural to
Mr. Lincoln; there was no more constrained reference to
her as "one still unhappy."

But both had gained in maturity in the many months of
separation. They had pondered the serious questions of mar-
riage in general and between themselves in particular. Mary,
against the barrage of family advice as to the mistake of tak-
ing a husband who lacked family background and early ed-
ucation, in short the mistake of marrying beneath her, had
never wavered in her love for and confidence in Mr. Lin-
coln. She had found her man of talent with what she, in
spite of belittling comments by relatives, considered a
bright future.

She had come through the long ordeal with more poise
than he had. Later in their lives these roles would be re-
versed, she would be the one who suffered from emotional
instability and he would be the one to keep his balance. She
would then lean on his strength. The sensitiveness and the

174 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

understanding of a nervous temperament which he had re-
vealed in his letters to Joshua would stand him in good stead
in his marriage to a nervous, excitable girl

Mr. Lincoln's whole life was a process of growth and de-
velopment. This was especially true of the hard period
through which he had just passed. He had undergone great
humiliation and emerged from it with added strength. (An-
other supremely humiliating experience was just ahead of
him, but he could not foresee that.) He had had lessons in
self-discipline, had learned to reason himself out of the
dark moods with which he would always have to struggle.
He had developed in his religious faith. He had learned
earlier perhaps than most that there are times to stand still
and await the revelation of divine will.

One wonders whether Mrs. Edwards noticed that Mary's
spirits were better and that she no longer wore the forlorn
aspect noted by the visiting cousin, Sarah Edwards. The
secret of the meetings with Mr. Lincoln seems to have
been well kept from Mary's sister, though necessarily a few
intimate friends knew of them. With such things as tele-
phones undreamed of, the lovers had to have go-betweens
who would carry notes and messages back and forth. Dr.
Henry may well have served in this way as he could see
both Mary and Mr. Lincoln without any suspicions being
aroused. At least it is said that he helped the reconciliation
along in some way and the Lincolns always loved him. The
time was to come in the far future when he would visit the
White House and in the quick emotion of old friendship re-
newed would impulsively greet the First Lady with a kiss.

It is also part of the record that one of Mary's friends,

Secret Meetings 175

Julia Jayne, was in the secret and was sometimes present in
the little group at the Francis home.

One cannot tell exactly when the engagement was re-
newed. But with Mr. Lincoln following the direction indi-
cated by Providence, and continuing to meet Mary again
and again, one does not need the wisdom of Providence to
know that a renewed engagement was a foregone conclu-
sion. The basic fact was that these two genuinely loved
each other and all that was needed was the opportunity to
meet.

Mary with her love of drama undoubtedly got many
thrills from the whole intriguing situation and delighted in
every detail connected with arranging the secret meetings.
No longer were the days to her "flat, stale & unprofitable"
and "of interminable length"; they were highlighted by
those precious rendezvous. Mr. Lincoln was his old self
again, in happy spirits and the best of company. What had
he said about the test of love being happiness in the pres-
ence of the loved one? Some of those dark problems which
had weighed him down had dissolved; others were dissolv-
ing in the satisfaction of being with Molly again. They had
gaiety and laughter with those wonderful friends Mr. and
Mrs. Francis and with the few others who were in the
delightful secret.

There were two most important topics discussed at those
stolen meetings love and politics. The first will be left
exclusively to Abraham and Mary, but the second involved
Mr. Francis, editor of that staunchly Whig newspaper the
Sangamo Journal, and a certain sniping conflict between
Whigs and Democrats late that summer. This love story, as

176 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

has been seen, was destined to be entangled with politics
in an amazing fashion. Having brought the lovers together,
fate was preparing for them a most dramatic and fearful
surprise. Both of them were to act impulsively and with a
lack of balanced consideration and to face, as a result, some
startling consequences.

It must be remembered that, following the panic of 1837,
the year 1842 was one of financial difficulty. Hard times
were contributing much to the prevailing "hypo." The
state banks at Springfield and Shawneetown both failed and
their notes were passing at large discounts. The State of Il-
linois did not want its taxes paid in these depreciated bank
notes and the people had practically nothing else with
which to pay them. Nearly all good money had been driven
out of the state.

To protect its government from loss the state auditor is-
sued a proclamation ordering collectors to suspend the col-
lection of revenue and not, under any conditions, to accept
state bank paper at more than its current, depreciated value.
The state auditor happened to be that striking Irishman
James Shields, already introduced as a member of the co-
terie. Being a Democrat, he was a political opponent of Lin-
coln, Simeon Francis, and other Whigs. People were dis-
mayed at the proclamation which put them in an almost
impossible position in regard to their taxes and Mr. Shields,
though his action was justified in itself, was being bom-
barded with unfavorable comment.

The Whigs, of course, seized the chance to make politi-
cal thunder and tear down a prominent Democrat. Mr.
Shields was an especially choice target because his over-

Secret Meetings 177

elaborate manners made him a bit pompous and because he
took himself so seriously. There was undoubtedly much
talk of this action of Mr. Shields's at the gatherings at the
Francis home and, one suspects, much jesting and laughter
at the Irishman's foibles. Imagination even pictures Mary,
with her flare for mimicry, giving a lively imitation of his
elaborate gallantry. Apparently there was generated at
those meetings a contagious spirit of making fun of Mr.
Shields.

Not long before this, Mr. Francis's newspaper, the Sm-
gamo Journal, had printed an anonymous letter which pur-
ported to come from "Rebecca," an appealingly countri-
fied woman who lived in the "Lost Townships." "Rebecca"
discussed current questions in humorous backwoods dia-
lect, the letter thus serving as an engaging way of getting
certain ideas across. It has been suggested that this letter
was written by Simeon Francis. But shortly after Shields's
unpopular proclamation, Mr. Lincoln seized on this device,
probably after a chuckling conference with Simeon, to pre-
sent some Whig remarks on the state tax question with
much humorous lampooning of Mr. Shields. Subsequent
events suggest that Mary too was in this scheme to poke
fun at the state auditor. It is quite possible the whole thing
was laughingly planned at one of tie meetings at the Fran-
cis home. At all events, Lincoln wrote a letter signed "Re-
becca" and headed "Lost Townships" which was published
in the Sangamo Journal on September 2.

Reading it one is assured that Mr. Lincoln was in fine fet-
tle and brimming over with twinkling humor. Backwoods
dialect was no problem to him he had grown up with it

178 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

his problem had been to get rid of it "Rebecca" tells
how, after cleaning up the dinner dishes, she stepped over
to the cabin of her neighbor, Jeff, "to see if his wife Peggy
was as well as mought be expected, and hear what they
called the baby." When she got there, she found Jeff "set-
ting on the door-step reading a newspaper."

In the words of "Rebecca's" letter: " 'How are you Jeff,'
says I, he sorter started when he heard me, for he hadn't
seen me before. "Why,' says he, Tm mad as the devil, aunt
Becca.'

" *What about,' says I, 'aint its hair the right color? None
of that nonsense, Jeff there aint an honester woman in the
Lost Township than '

" 'Than who? ' says he, 'what the mischief are you
about?'

"I began to see I was running the wrong trail, and so says
I, *O nothing, I guess I was mistaken a little, that's all. But
what is it you're mad about?' "

What Jeff was mad about was what a great many other
people were mad about, the fact that he had worked very
hard "to raise State Bank paper enough" to pay his taxes
and now he had just read in the paper that tax collectors
were forbidden "to receive State paper at all." If he sold
"all the plunder" he had, he still would not have enough
cash to pay his taxes.

Aunt Becca was much startled at this news herself, but
the chance for an argument was too good to be missed: "I
saw Jeff was in a good tune for saying some ill-natured
things, and so I tho't I would just argue a little on the con-
trary sidej and make him rant a spell if I could."

Secret Meetings 1 79

With the aid of a little profanity Jeff presented his ar-
guments and then the two, examining the newspaper again,
found that the author of the proclamation was James
Shields. Jeff, of course, disagreed violently with Shields's
statement of the object of the measure. " 'I say its a lie, and
not a well told one at that. It grins out like a copper dollar.
Shields is a fool as well as a liar. With him truth is out of the
question, and as for getting a good bright passable lie out
of him, you might as well try to strike fire from a cake of
tallow. I stick to it, its all an infernal whig lie.' "

Jeff, of course, was a Democrat but had no intention of
admitting that Shields was one too. Aunt Becca, being a
Whig herself, at once challenged him as to calling Shields a
Whig. Jeff stood his ground: " 'I tell you, aunt Becca,
there's no mistake about his being a whig why his very
looks shows it every thing about him shows it if I was
deaf and blind I could tell him by the smell/ " One can al-
most see the deepening twinkle in Lincoln's eyes as his pen
continued with Jeff's words: " 1 seed him [Shields] when
I was down in Springfield last winter. They had a sort of
gatherin there one night, among the grandees, they called a
fair. All the galls [gals] about town was there, and all the
handsome widows, and married women, finickin about, try-
ing to look like galls, tied as tight in the middle, and puffed
out at both ends like bundles of fodder that hadn't been
stacked yet, but wanted stackin pretty bad.' "

Jeff described the fair: " 'And then they had tables all
round the house kivered over with baby caps, and pin-cush-
ions, and ten thousand such little nicknacks, tryin to sell
'em to die fellows that were bowin and scrapin, and kun-

i8o The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

geerin about 'em.' " Among these attentive gentlemen was
" 'this same fellow Shields floatin about on the air, without
heft or earthly substance, just like a lock of cat-fur where
cats had been fightin ... his very features, in the ex-
static agony of his soul, spoke audibly and distinctly
"Dear girls, it is distressing, but I cannot marry you all Too
well I know how much you suffer; but do, do remember, it
is not my fault that I am so handsome and so interesting." ' "
Jeff clinched his argument: " 'He a democrat! Fiddle-sticks!
I tdl you, aunt Becca, he's a whig, and no mistake: nobody
but a whig could make such a conceity dunce of himself.' "

It was all very clever and funny but not exactly the thing
to say about a fight-ing Irishman, especially one who had
been trained in swordplay. If, as suspected, the letter had
been discussed in one of those hilarious meetings at the
Francis home when Mary, Mr. Lincoln, and Simeon Fran-
cis were all present and one mirthful sally led to another,
the possible reaction of Mr. Shields had not been consid-
ered as carefully as it should have been.

But writing humorous anonymous letters to ridicule a po-
litical foe was apparently lots of fun. In the next step Mary
decided to try her hand at a "Rebecca" letter. She and her
friend Julia Jayne put their heads together and, doubtless
with many girlish giggles, concocted another letter in the
same vein which was published in the Sangamo Journal on
September 9. One learns from it without surprise that Mr.
Shields had not liked the "Rebecca" letter written by Mr.
Lincoln: ". . . the man what Jeff seed down to the fair"
was "threatnin' to take personal satisfaction of the writer."
In Mary's and Julia's letter, "Rebecca" says that when she

Secret Meetings 1 8 1

heard this, "I was so skart that I tho't I should quill-wheel
right where I was."

She is ready to make apology rather than fight and first
offers Mr. Shields the "satisfaction" of squeezing her hand.
"If that ain't personal satisfaction, I can only say that he is
the fust man that was not satisfied with squeezin' my hand."
But if Mr. Shields still wants to fight, rather than "get a
lickin" she, being a widow, offers to marry him. "I know
he's a fightin' man, and would rather fight than eat; but isn't
marryin' better than fightin', though it does sometimes run
into it? And I don't think, upon the whole, that I'd be sich
a bad match neither I'm not over sixty, and am just four
feet three in my bare feet, and not much more around the
girth. . . ."

If, however, Mr. Shields insists on fighting: "Jeff tells
me the way these fire-eaters do is to give the challenged
party choice of weapons, etc., which bein' the case, I'll tell
you in confidence that I never fights with anything but
broomsticks or hot water or a shovelful of coals or some
such thing. ... I will give him choice, however, in one
thing, and that is, whether, when we fight, I shall wear
breeches or he petticoats, for, I presume that change is suf-
ficient to place us on an equality." The two girls were
rather letting their instinct for f unmaking run away with
them. Molly characteristically was plunging into action that
she would later regret.

At this point in the love story of Abraham and Mary
there appears a strange and quaint document which is now
a collector's item. It is a prosaic document on the face of it,

1 82 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

yet it is laced with pink ribbon and stirs the imagination in
its sentimental meaning. In Lincoln's own handwriting,
which is larger than usual, is a list of all candidates for the
state legislature from the time he first ran until his last can-
didacy, with the number of votes for each. Examining it,
one finds a striking demonstration of his increasing political
strength and popularity; he rises from a vote of something
over six hundred in 1832 to the very top of the list with a
vote of more than seventeen hundred in 1836. He had pre-
pared this list, playfully had it certified by his friend
N. W. Matheny, the county clerk, tied it with pink ribbon,
and presented it to Mary on the very day her **Rebecca" let-
ter appeared in the Sangamo Jounud. Tlie cautious bachelor
had come a long way by this time; he was evidently prov-
ing to his girl that he was an increasingly important man po-
litically. But she did not need this gay, whimsical, lawyer-
like proving; her faith in him was always to be boundless.
That Mary kept and treasured this sentimental document
is made clear by the fact that it exists today, an appealing
bit of evidence of the fun, banter, and lovemaking that was
going on at those secret meetings of the lovers in the Fran-
cis home.

CHAPTER -Lt)

Challenged to a Duel

A S Mary remembered it years later, she and Mr. Lin-
XJL coin were engaged again by the time of the "Rebecca"
letters. With these meetings going on and a number of peo-
ple necessarily knowing about them, rumors were floating
around connecting their names. She was carrying off her
part beautifully and doubtless enjoying it tremendously,
now that all was well between her and her lover. A relative,
speaking later of this period, told how other girls, perhaps
hoping to get some information on the subject, tried to
tease her about her "tall beau." (That adjective certainly
identified him, as both Mr. Douglas and Mr. Webb were
decidedly of the short variety.) Mary "bore their jokes and
teasings good naturedly but would give them no satisfac-
tion, neither affirming nor denying the report of her en-
gagement to Mr. Lincoln." It will be seen that sister Eliza-
beth was unaware of what was brewing.

Mary was acting with unusual discretion in keeping her
secret, but she was about to make a move she would later
regret. "Writing an anonymous piece to appear in a Spring-
field paper where it would be read by all her friends was so
exhilarating that she had another bright idea. She would do
a poem on Mr. Shields. She would pretend that he had ac-

184 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

cepted that ridiculous marriage proposal by "Rebecca"
which she and Julia Jayne had impudently put into their
letter. Since she wanted to use "Rebecca" in the third per-
son, she signed this effusion "Cathleen."

One can imagine the red-faced indignation of Mr. Shields
(who had already been brought to the boiling point) when
he read in the Sangamo Journal on September 16:

Ye jews-harps awake! The [ Auditor] 's won
Rebecca the widow has gained Erin's son;
The pride of the north from the Emerald isle
Has been woo'd and won by a woman's sweet smile.
The combat's relinquished, old loves all forgot:
To the widow he's bound, Oh! bright be his lot!

Marrying Mr. Shields to the short, stout, elderly, countri-
fied "Rebecca" was insult enough, but the verses also paid
their respects to his excessive gallantry, a theme Lincoln had
treated so devastaringly in his "Rebecca" letter.

Happy groom! in sadness far distant from thee
The FAIR girls dream only of past times of glee
Enjoyed in thy presence; whilst the soft blarnied store
Will be fondly remembered as relics of yore,
And hands that in rapture you oft would have prest,
In prayer will be clasp'd that your lot may be blest.

Mary confessed years later that she wrote these lines,
adding with the perspective (and regret) which time had
brought:". . . and very silly verses they were . . . said to
abound in sarcasm, causing them to be very offensive" to
Mr. Shields. One suspects die jingle had been the subject of
animated discussion and laughter at one of the meetings in
the Francis home, as her account continued: "A gentleman

Challenged to a Duel 185

friend, carried them off, and ... one day, I saw them,
strangely enough in the daily papers." The gentleman friend
presumably was Simeon Francis, editor of the Sangamo
Journal.

At some point the infuriated Shields communicated with
Mr. Francis and demanded the name of the person who was
writing these insulting contributions. As Mary understood
it, Simeon asked for a short delay and in that interval got
in touch with Mr. Lincoln, who had written only the one
letter published on September 2. The lawyer at once re-
plied: ". . . say to Shields, that 1 am responsible.' " He
thereby took the blame for what Mary had written as well
as for his own letter.

The day "Cathleen's" effusion appeared Mr. Shields went
into action. The only reason he had not done so sooner, as
he took care to explain, was that he had been unavoidably
absent from Springfield on public business. Now, sizzling
with the additional insult of the verses, he could hardly
wait to setde accounts with Mr. Lincoln. Learning that the
lawyer was at Tremont, Illinois, about sixty-five miles from
Springfield, attending court, and that he was likely to be
out on the judicial circuit for several weeks, Mr. Shields,
with his friend General John D. Whiteside (who would act
as his second, if necessary), started to that town to catch up
with Lincoln. Trained in fencing and swordplay, the audi-
tor was thinking in terms of a duel.

The startling news of Shields's departure and intentions
quickly reached those devoted friends of Mr. Lincoln's,
William Butler and Dr. Merryman. They departed post-
haste for Tremont, hoping to reach Mr. Lincoln before

1 86 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

Shields arrived, warn him, and offer their assistance. They
did not trust him to know the "diplomacy" of dueling as
they did, though judging by subsequent events, diplomacy
was the last word one would associate with these two hot-
heads. They seemed more concerned that negotiations
should be conducted according to the "code duello" than
with any desire to avoid the fight itself.

Apparently they traveled on horseback. According to
Dr. Menyman, he and Butler followed Shields and White-
side so quickly that they were able to pass them during the
night and get to Mr. Lincoln first. There was exciting drama
in that night journey, with the rapid hoofbeats on the dark
road that carried the menacing news nearer and nearer to
the unsuspecting Mr. Lincoln asleep at Tremont. He had
not realized that the f unmaking had gotten so out of hand.
One can imagine his grave face and whirling thoughts when
his friends revealed to him he was facing die prospect of a
duel with Shields. He told them, related Dr. Menyman,
that he was completely opposed to the practice of dueling
and would do anything to avoid it that would not lower
him in his own estimation and that of his friends, but he
would fight rather than be thus degraded.

Shields opened negotiations with the stiff formal note of
a man accustomed to the dueling code. It was written on
Saturday, September 17, at Tremont and was properly de-
livered to Mr. Lincoln by Shields's representative, General
Whiteside. The auditor informed "A. Lincoln, Esq." (with-
out salutation) that he regretted "die disagreeable nature"
of his communication; he had, he said, endeavored "to con-
duct myself in such a way amongst both my political friends

Challenged to a Duel 187

and opponents" as to "avoid any difficulty with any one in
Springfield. . . ." But "whilst thus abstaining from giving
provocation, I have become the object of slander, vitupera-
tion and personal abuse, which were I capable of submit-
ting to, I would prove myself worthy of the whole of it."

Referring to the objectionable articles in the Sangamo
Journal, he continued: "On enquiring I was informed by
the editor of that paper . . . that you are the author of
those articles. ... I will take the liberty of requiring a
full, positive and absolute retraction of all offensive allu-
sions used by you in these communications, in relation to
my private character and standing as a man, as an apology
for the insults conveyed in them."

The letter ended on an ominous note: "This may prevent
consequences which no one will regret more than myself."
He was "Your ob't serv't, Jas. Shields."

It is possible that if the tactful Mr. Lincoln, who deeply
regretted the length to which the matter had gone and who
had no real enmity toward Mr. Shields, could have talked
to him directly and told him these things, the quarrel would
have been patched up then and there. But negotiations had
to go through the zealous friends who were determined that
this affair of honor should be properly conducted, no mat-
ter who got killed. And it is also true that at this time Mr.
Lincoln himself had a very sensitive dignity. At all events,
and perhaps after a stiffening conference with Dr. Merry-
man and Mr. Butler, he answered Mr. Shields's note on that
very Saturday in much the same tone the auditor had used.

As to the articles in the paper, wrote Mr. Lincoln,
". . . without stopping to enquire whether I really am the

i88 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

author, or to point out what is offensive in them, you de-
mand an unqualified retraction of all that is offensive; and
then proceed to hint at consequences."

His phrasing was as stiff-necked as Shields's as he con-
tinued: "Now, sir, there is in this so much assumption of
facts, and so much of menace as to consequences, that I
cannot submit to answer that note any farther than I have,
and to add, that the consequence to which I suppose you
allude, would be a matter of as great regret to me as it pos-
sibly could to you." He was "Respectfully, A. Lincoln."

There was still time on that crowded Saturday at Tre-
mont for Air. Shields to write another note. In this he asked
Mr. Lincoln the direct question whether he was the author
of the "Rebecca" letter which had appeared on September
2 (which of course he was) or any other article over the
same signature. If Mr. Lincoln had not written any of these
contributions, his denial would be sufficient, but if he had,
Mr. Shields repeated his "request of an absolute retraction
of all offensive allusion contained therein. . . ."

This was not delivered to Mr. Lincoln that day. Accord-
ing to Dr. Merryman's account, General Whiteside con-
ferred with William Butler, who told him that Mr. Lincoln
could not receive any communication from Mr. Shields un-
less it were a withdrawal of his first note or a challenge to a
duel. However, on the following Monday General White-
side delivered this same note to Mr. Lincoln, who read it
and returned it to the General saying he did not think it
consistent with his honor to negotiate for peace with Mr.
Shields unless he would withdraw his former offensive let-
ter.

Challenged to a Duel 189

The next step was that Mr. Shields notified Mr. Lincoln
that General Whiteside was to be his second. Mr. Lincoln
at once answered designating Dr. Merryman as his. The
duel was on. The two seconds then had a conference to see
whether they could patch up the quarrel, though Whiteside
declared that if Shields knew of this attempt on his part to
restore peace without fighting, the overwrought Irishman
would be apt to challenge him next or would as soon cut his
throat as not.

Mr. Lincoln was in a most harrowing position. All his
sense of justice and humanitarianisin was revolted by the
brutal practice of dueling, which in some cases amounted to
murder with due ceremony. He could have had little taste
for the elaborate etiquette and ritual by which the deadly
combat was conducted. But there was no cowardice in this
man; it was not his nature to dodge an issue or a fight where
either should be squarely met. When he had been living in
New Salem, he had engaged in rough wrestling matches
with a certain good-natured gusto. But duels were a matter
of pistols or the cold steel of swords, of wounds and bleed-
ing and, too often, death. Nevertheless, his fighting blood
and a certain stubborn resistance were aroused. He was
once more in a position which left no completely satisfac-
tory course of action open to him, but he would fight.

How could he do otherwise? There was a special angle to
his situation. Only a "gentleman" could fight a duel; it was
a method of settling disputes between "gentlemen," not
used by the lower classes. By the "code duello," if a man
refused a challenge, he was considered a coward and not a
gentleman. Lincoln was having to do his courting secretly

190 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

at this time because Mary's relatives regarded him as on a
lower social level. It seemed as if they did not consider that
he had the standing of a gentleman. If he failed to accept
Shields's challenge, he would expose himself to their ridi-
cule as well as the scorn of political opponents and all who
accepted the usual ideas associated with dueling. He had
said he would not submit to "such degradation." It would
have injured him gravely in the fields of both love and
politics.

He could not let Mary down. He had assumed responsi-
bility for what she had done. In a contagious spirit of fun
the Ughthearted girl had gone further than she should have.
But so had he and he had started the whole thing. There
was an unhappy train of thought in that direction too.
Upon sober reflection, away from the stimulation of a fun-
loving little group, this thing of writing anonymous letters
in order to ridicule did not seem exactly a fair or right-
minded thing to do.

Lincoln had missed more than book training in his early
years in a rude environment; he had missed learning certain
intangible standards of a cultured society. In many respects
he had had no chance to learn "how to behave." Anony-
mous ridicule had been considered "smart" among the log-
cabin folk with whom he had lived in his teens back in
Indiana. At twenty he had written anonymously "The
Chronicles of Reuben," a strongly flavored narrative making
fun of two sons of the Grigsby family into which his sister
Sarah had married. It had circulated briskly and made a tre-
mendous hit among his unlettered neighbors, whose collec-
tive sense of humor was constructed on robust lines, and he

Challenged to a Duel 191

had doubtless received many a hearty backslapping of ap-
probation. But heaven knew he had provocation enough in
that case, knew what bitterness lay back of that biting ridi-
cule, remembering that the Grigsbys had not been good to
Sarah and she had died in childbirth as the result, he
thought, of their neglect. One is not apt to care how rough
the weapon when one is striking back for a hurt like that.

But Mr. Shields was an honorable man who had merely
done his public duty and had been subjected to a cruel be-
littling in regard to it. He had no way of restoring his dig-
nity except by the challenge to a duel according to the code
by which he had been trained. Mr. Lincoln's sensitive con-
science was to hurt him; never again would he stoop to use
anonymous ridicule. He had learned out of humiliating ex-
perience to restrain his great and devastating gift of wit and
mimicry while he considered its effect upon its human tar-
get. It was not the mature Lincoln who wrote that anony-
mous letter but a Mr. Lincoln who was still growing up.
The courtship period usually furnishes a liberal education
for any man, but he was getting all the required courses
plus some extra ones.

CHAPTER J-/

Bloody Island

Lincoln and Dr. Merryman returned to Spring-
from Tremont by buggy, arriving late Monday
night after a long; tiring journey. They found the town in
a fever of excitement over the proposed duel. One can
imagine the agitated little groups of men that gathered
around the square to discuss the matter, the flushed faces
and anxious eyes of Mr. Lincoln's friends, the violent dis-
agreements over a situation which originated in the antago-
nism between the two political parties. Dueling itself in Il-
linois was startling enough and certainly no one would ex-
pect Springfield, politically red-hot as it was, to be calm
over a duel where one principal was a leading and popu-
larWhig and the other a prominent Democrat. The
town had not been so aroused since the murder mystery.

And murder this might well turn out to be. One can al-
most hear the people talking. Mr. Shields was trained in the
art of dueling, but who could imagine Mr. Lincoln with a
sword or pistol in hand? He was a good wrestler and could
hold his own in a rough and tumble fight, which was the
good old American way of settling a quarrel around these
parts. But what chance had that slow, awkward figure of a
man against the skill and agility of a trained duelist? And
didn't they know dueling in Illinois was a penitentiary of-

Bloody Island 193

f ense? Mr. Lincoln was sure to be arrested. And Mr. Shields
and General Whiteside had better look out too, or they
would lose their important jobs, because a man could be de-
prived of the right to hold public office and subjected to a
big fine for even sending a challenge or acting as a second in
a duel. So, one imagines, ran the comments on the streets
and in the homes of Springfield.

The coterie, to which the principals both belonged, was
in a dither. One can picture the apprehensive faces of James
and Mercy Conlding, of Julia Jayne, who had had a part in
one of the "Rebecca" letters, of all to whom the personali-
ties of Mr. Shields and Mr. Lincoln were so familiar. One
can also imagine the Edwards-Todd group of relatives re-
marking that it was just like Mr. Lincoln to get himself into
a scrape like that. They probably knew nothing of Mary's
part in the anonymous publications or that he had taken the
responsibility for what she had done.

And what were the thoughts and emotions of the girl
who loved Mr. Lincoln and was partly responsible for get-
ting him into this situation? Years later she wrote her full
account of the dueling incident and revealed in so doing
her tender pride at his protection of her and her regret for
her own thoughtlessness. Like girls in general and especially
like the girls of that sentimental era, she loved the romantic
and dramatic and delighted in stories of the age of chivalry.
(She would one day read those stirring tales to her little
sons.) She thought of Mr. Lincoln as her gallant knight,
"my champion," as she proudly wrote it, and the chivalry
of his championship remained precious to her through all
the years.

194 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

But along with her loving pride at this tense moment
went remorse and fear. She was always one to acknowledge
her faults in the end and, writing of this period later and
mentioning Mr. Lincoln's devotion to her, she said con-
tritely: "I doubtless trespassed, many times & oft, upon his
great tenderness & amiability of character." Added to this
was fear for the man whose life was always to be dearer to
her than her own.

She had learned full well about duels back home among
the hotheaded Kentuckians. The year before she came to
Springfield to live, a political duel had involved three of
her father's intimate friends and resulted in the death of
one of the parties. She could remember the furor about it,
and the horror of the tragedy. She doubtless knew also that
Mr. Shields was a skilled swordsman. In the Edwards home
on the hill Mary's head must have tossed feverishly on her
pillow that night of Monday, September 19, and one doubts
whether Mr. Lincoln ever got to bed at all at the Buder
home.

He, an upright lawyer of the town, was in danger of ar-
rest for violation of the law. He would have to leave Spring-
field immediately. But first he must write out instructions
for Dr. Merryman, who would represent him. (As a matter
of fact, Dr. Merryman was violating the law also in acting
as go-between for a duel and would shortly have to leave
town himself.)

One can read today Lincoln's instructions, which were
perhaps drawn up in the dark hours of that Monday night.
He first told Dr. Merryman to offer a full apology to
Shields if the auditor would withdraw his first note and

Bloody Island 195

substitute another which was "without menace, or dicta-
tion." If Shields did this and asked without offense whether
Lincoln was the author of the articles, Merryman was to
read him Lincoln's answer: "I did write the TLost Town-
ship' letter which appeared in the Journal of the znd Inst.
but had no participation, in any form, in any other article
alluding to you." Lincoln continued that he wrote the let-
ter "wholly for political effect," that he had no intention of
injuring Shields's standing as a gentleman, and that he did
not think the letter had produced that effect. If he had an-
ticipated such an effect, he said, "I would have forborne to
write it. And I will add, that your conduct towards me, so
far as I knew, had always been gentlemanly; and that I had
no personal pique against you, and no cause for any."

If, however, Shields would not withdraw his first note,
the lawyer gave Dr. Merryman instructions for the duel it-
self. Fortunately Lincoln, as the challenged party, had the
choice of weapons. One has to smile a little over the shrewd-
ness of his selection and at the conditions he specified for
the duel, if duel there must be. The weapons were to be
"Cavalry broad swords of the largest size, precisely equal
in all respects." Such an enormous sword plus Lincoln's
height and almost abnormal length of arm would add up to
a reach that Shields, a shorter man, could not possibly
achieve.

To make this reach an advantage, however, there had to
be something to prevent Shields from getting too close to
Lincoln. The conditions specified that a certain space was
to be set off for the duel and in the middle of this space a
plank was to be set on edge in the ground "as the line be-

196 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

tween us which neither is to pass his foot over upon forfeit
of his life." As Lincoln said later, he did not want to kill
Shields and believed that he, having practiced somewhat
with the broadsword, could disarm him, but he added: "I

didn't want the d d fellow to kill me, which I rather

think he would have done if we had selected pistols."

Mr. Lincoln left Springfield early Tuesday morning and
went to Jacksonville, where, one suspects, he put in a good
deal of time at broadsword practice. It brings a strangely
un-Lincolnian picture to mind to think of that tall, angular
figure with enormous sword in hand going through the mo-
tions and learning the technique of sword fighting.

It is not necessary to follow the ins and outs of the vari-
ous meetings and arrangements between the two seconds,
Dr. Merryman and General Whiteside. Both by this time
wanted to settle the quarrel without the fight, but one trou-
ble was that Whiteside hesitated even to make a pacific
suggestion to the infuriated auditor; he would as soon think
of asking Shields to butt his brains out against a brick wall
as to ask him to withdraw his first note. And withdrawing
that first note was the only condition under which Lincoln
would apologize. The difficulty of any peaceful solution
was increased by the stiffness and exaggerated dignity of
communication required by the dueling code. In fact, Dr.
Merryman and General Whiteside did not agree later about
the details of what took place at this time; each subsequently
published his own version of what occurred, fell out over
the differences in their stories, and prepared to fight a duel
themselves! By that time dueling was threatening to become
an epidemic in Springfield.

Bloody Island 197

Arrangements moved forward in a tangled fashion with
the result that on Thursday, September 22, 1842, two
groups of grim-faced men repaired by boat to the chosen
dueling ground, "Bloody Island," about three miles from
Alton, Illinois, but on the Missouri side of the Mississippi
River. They thus removed themselves from the jurisdic-
tion of the State of Illinois into a state whose laws did not
forbid dueling. Lincoln's party included Dr. Merryman,
William Butler, Albert T. Bledsoe (another good friend),
and the devoted Dr. Henry, who, by his own account later,
hoped he could help make peace. This party arrived first
and when Shields and Whiteside appeared, they found Mr.
Lincoln engaged in clearing away the underbrush which
covered the ground.

Various recollections describing the scene at Bloody Is-
land have been handed down. One account tells how
Shields, after the clearing was made, solemnly sat down on
a fallen log at one side of it and Lincoln sat down on a log
opposite, while the seconds busily marked off the lines of
the dueling space. Instead of the "plank ten feet long, &
from nine to twelve inches broad to be firmly fixed on edge"
which Lincoln's duel instructions had specified, they pre-
pared and used a pole set in the crotches of two forked
stakes. This done, the seconds soberly passed notes back
and forth.

Shields's doctor, who was opposed to the duel, argued
until he lost patience and angrily threatened to chastise the
stubborn Irishman. At one point Lincoln stood up and,
raising his great sword toward a tree, clipped off a twig at
an almost unbelievable height above him, thus giving a

198 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

graphic demonstration of the distance attained when his
length of arm was added to that of the sword.

Meanwhile the news of the impending duel had reached
Mary's cousin John J. Hardin, who had been away from
Springfield attending court in another town. He, with an-
other mutual friend of both principals, hurried to Bloody
Island with the purpose of reconciling the antagonists. Ac-
cording to a newspaper account written many years later,

Mr. Hardin told the two men they were "both d d fools"

and made some other salutary remarks as to the ridiculous-
ness of the whole affair. Mary later gave her cousin credit
for effecting the reconciliation. At all events, with all these
resourceful men doing their best to prevent the fight, some-
how the matter was adjusted. Without Shields's knowledge
his friends withdrew his first note, whereupon Lincoln's
friends read his apology. The seconds did not agree after-
wards as to which of the two principals gave in first. Peace
was restored and the parties embarked to return to Alton.

American humor is irrepressible. The story goes that a
practical joker was on board. As the craft approached Al-
ton the anxious spectators on the bank were horrified to see
a figure lying in the boat covered with blood while another
figure bent over it vigorously plying a fan. Not until the
boat was quite dose could it be seen that the prone figure
was a log of wood and the "blood" a red flannel shirt. The
practical joker dropped his fan, stood up, and grinned de-
lightedly at the expression on the faces of those who had
been taken in.

But the dueling affair was one that Lincoln could never
joke about. It remained the most Humiliating experience of

Bloody Island 199

his life. He could never endure to have the subject men-
tioned. He "was always so ashamed of it," wrote Mary
later, that "we mutually agreed never to speak of it our-
selves." It was not safe for anyone else to speak of it either.
Mary told of an incident which happened late in the Lin-
coln Presidency. She and her husband were standing to-
gether talking to their guests in the drawing room of the
White House when an officer said playfully to Lincoln:
"Mr. President, is it true, as I have heard that you, once
went out, to fight a duel & all for the sake of the lady by
your side." Mr. Lincoln, his face flushed painfully, replied:
"I do not deny it, but if you desire my friendship, you will
never mention it again."

Mary herself did not enjoy thinking back to what she
described as "the foolish and uncalled for rencontre, with
Gen Shields." It was, she said, "so silly" and a "very unnec-
essary episode." There was a hint of wifely apology in her
account of Mr. Lincoln's accepting the challenge and going
to Bloody Island: she said he did it "scarcely knowing what
he was doing," It was an understanding and charitable com-
ment; the whole situation had been strange and unprece-
dented to the man who had grown up in a log cabin and
had to learn belatedly the standards and customs of more
sophisticated environments. Out of the episode he came to
realize the unfairness of anonymous ridicule and the wis-
dom of balanced consideration before taking action. He was
not to forget these lessons.

It is pleasant to record that neither Mary nor Abraham
cherished any resentment toward Mr. Shields. On Janu-
ary i, 1862, as President and Mrs. Lincoln stood in the great

200 The Courtship oj Mr. Lincoln

East Room of the White House receiving the long line of
guests at their New Year's reception, there appeared before
them the same James Shields (now a General) who more
than nineteen years before had gone to Bloody Island to
fight lawyer Lincoln. The presidential pair greeted him
with unusual graciousness and cordiality and made him the
object of their special attention.

Mr. Lincoln wrote to Joshua on October 5 to inform him
"that the duelling business still rages in this city. Day-
before-yesterday Shields challenged Butler, who ac-
cepted. . . ." Arrangements, however, proved difficult and
they called it off because of the law. "Thus ended, duel
No. 2," continued Mr. Lincoln, but "yesterday," White-
side "chose to consider himself insulted by Dr. Merryman,
and so, sent him a kind of quasi challenge. . . ."Dr. Merry-
man made Lincoln his representative and now the roles
were reversed: Lincoln had to carry notes back and forth
while the former seconds of his duel tied themselves up in
knots trying to make arrangements for theirs. The matter
was still unsettled, wrote Lincoln, "while die town is in a
ferment and a street fight somewhat anticipated." The
Whiteside-Merryman duel, like No. 2, failed to eventuate
and one can at last abandon this much ado about duels
without actual bloodshed.

Telling Joshua about the dueling business was not the
main purpose of Lincoln's letter to his friend at this time;
he wanted to ask Speed, a married man of nearly eight
months' standing, an important question: how did he feel
about his marriage now? How that marriage turned out,

Bloody Island 201

incidentally, is an interesting matter. One cannot possibly
leave Mr. and Mrs. Speed without knowing whether all
those agonizing doubts proved in the end to be what Lin-
coln finally called them: "all the worst sort of nonsense."

A complete and moving answer is found in a letter which
Joshua sent to Fanny of the "heavenly black eyes' 7 after
they had been married many years: "I wrote to you yester-
day, and to-day, having some leisure, I will write again
upon the principle, I suppose, that where your treasure is
there will your heart go. My earthly treasure is in you; not
like the treasures only valuable in possession; not like other
valuables acquiring increased value from increased quan-
tity; but, satisfied with each other, we will go down the hill
of life together as we have risen."

So they lived happily ever after in the fair land of Ken-
tucky.

18

C H A P ,T E R

"Matter of Profound Wonder"

AN ordeal shared by two lovers is apt to make clearer
to each the genuineness and depth of feeling of the
other. The intense emotions of those six days when the duel
was threatening had drawn Mary and Abraham even
closer together. This thing of seeing each other only at a
few secret meetings could not go on forever; the ultimate
purpose of getting engaged was to get married.

There were many plans and decisions to make. Where
should they live? Where should the wedding take place?
They had to face the fact that Elizabeth Edwards was go-
ing to be up in arms when she learned that, in spite of all
her efforts to the contrary, her younger sister was going to
marry, as she thought, beneath her.

At what time these problems were worked out between
the two is not clear. It may have seemed providential to
them that the sister of Mary's cousin John J. Hardin (the
one who had rendered such good service at the dueling
ground) was to be married in Jacksonville on September 27.
If they both attended the wedding of Martinette Hardin,
what opportunities the trip would afford for stolen moments
of being alone with each other when they could give ex-
pression to their affection and talk about future plans!

"Matter of Profound Wonder" 203

It is said that they attended that marriage and doubtless
never before had the words of the wedding ceremony
seemed so beautiful and full of meaning. It is an emotional
experience for an engaged couple to witness the joining to-
gether of two other young people "in holy matrimony." It
usually works as a stimulus.

Mary may have felt some bitterness that the opposition
of her family made it impossible for her to plan her wed-
ding with her sisters in the usual way, making it the occa-
sion of rejoicing, feasting, and merriment. She would have
loved such preparations down to the least detail of dress,
decoration, and wedding cake. Elizabeth Edwards had
given their sister Frances an elaborate wedding when she
married Dr. Wallace; it had been quite an affair and
Frances had worn a white satin wedding gown. But she,
Mary, must wear whatever she had and be married without
any festive trimmings.

It is to be hoped that they were able to make some of
their plans on the Jacksonville trip, because Mr. Lincoln
had to be out of town on the judicial circuit much of Octo-
ber. It was early in that month he had written his letter to
Joshua, telling incidentally of the dueling fever, but mainly
to ask an important question. Apparently having a last
mild qualm of doubt and reluctance to give up his bachelor-
hood, Abraham wanted a final boost of encouragement
from Joshua the married man. Mr. Lincoln wrote that he
knew his friend was happier now than when he was first
married nearly eight months before, because Joshua had
told him so. "But I want to ask a closer question " he con-
tinued. " 'Are you now, in feeling as well as judgement,

204 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

glad you are married as you are?' From any body but me,
this would be an impudent question not to be tolerated; but
I know you will pardon it in me. Please answer it quickly as
I fed impatient to know." Joshua doubtless answered this
appeal with the proper reassurance.

Mary and Abraham worked out their plans. They would
board for a while and live in one room because it was
cheaper. They could get room and board at the Globe
Tavern for only four dollars a week. It was conveniently
located about a block and a half from the public square.
Such living would be quite a comedown for Mary after
being at one of the most aristocratic homes in Springfield,
but she was not afraid of that. She would face poverty and
hard work cheerfully and they would improve their condi-
tion together. With his brains and big heart Mr. Lincoln
was going to be a great man some day.

What minister should they ask to marry them? Since
coming to make her home in Springfield Mary had been
attending the Episcopal church to which her sister Eliza-
beth belonged, but in Lexington she had grown up a Pres-
byterian like her Scottish ancestors. Mr. Lincoln did not
belong to any church, but he was always friendly to and co-
operative with the ministers of the town and was well liked
by them. The couple decided to ask Dr. Charles Dresser,
the Episcopal minister, who lived in a story-and-a-half
brown cottage at the corner of Eighth and Jackson Streets.
(They did not know then they would buy that house and
spend in it the happiest years of their lives.)

As to the place, perhaps the simplest way would be to go
to Dr. Dresser's house and have die ceremony performed

"Matter of Profound Wonder" 205

there. One presumes that those loyal friends Simeon Francis
and his wife would gladly have offered the home which had
sheltered the secret meetings, but most accounts agree that
they planned to be married at the minister's.

At some point Mary and Abraham must have had a con-
ference on a matter of deep sentiment: what should be en-
graved in the wedding ring? Perhaps at the same time the
measurement for that ring was taken. Mary had lovely
hands, small and white; her quick, pretty gestures with
them were a part of her personality. It is always a ten-
der occasion when the prospective bridegroom takes the
measurement of the finger which is to wear his wedding
ring.

One imagines them talking over that inscription together,
considering this or that tender phrase, and finally making
their decision. It was a choice which reflected the attitude
of both in this fundamental step they were about to take.
Lincoln's attitude toward marriage, with his concept of its
sacred obligations, has been seen. He was scrupulously
truthful and careful that his words should always express his
exact meaning. It was said of him that he would not use the
conventional greeting "I am delighted to see you" unless he
meant it literally.

Both prospective bride and groom were approaching this
union with an earnestness and depth of feeling that had
overridden obstacles that would have blocked a less genu-
ine attachment. That they felt their love was sacred and
lasting is suggested by the words they selected to be en-
graved in that small gold circle: "Love is eternal."

Mr. Lincoln paid a visit to Chatterton's jewelry shop,

ip6 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

which he had passed so often, as it was dose to Joshua's old
store on the west side of the square. The ring was bought
and instructions given, doubtless with a caution as to se-
crecy, for the inscription and date to be engraved therein.
That date was November 4, 1842. It came on a Friday, and
when it dawned, the plans of Mary and Abraham were
complete.

Early that morning Mary announced to her sister Eliza-
beth that she was going to many Mr. Lincoln that day.
Storm broke out in the Edwards mansion on the hill One
suspects that Elizabeth was not only somewhat inclined to
believe in the divine right of the Todds, she was perhaps
touched also with a belief in the divine right of eldest sis-
ters. She protested, scolded, gave dire warnings. How
could she let her headstrong younger sister ruin her life by
marrying a plebeian? "Do not forget that you are a Todd,"
she cried vehemently. Mary stood her ground and could be
trusted to give back words as hot as those she received. The
eyes of the two sisters undoubtedly flashed, while stinging
retorts went back and forth.

But Mary and Mr. Lincoln had made their plans so well,
with complete independence of the Edwardses, that Eliza-
beth found she was powerless to stop the marriage. At the
end of the quarrel die firm fact remained that Mary was
going to marry Mr. Lincoln that very day.

Meanwhile that gentleman had dropped around to the
brown house on Eighth Street, where he found the Dresser
family still at breakfast. "I want to get hitched tonight," he
told the minister. That arrangement completed, he met
Ninian Edwards on the street and announced to him that he

"Matter of Profound Wonder" 207

and Mary were to be married that evening. Ninian made
the decision that since Mary was his ward she must be
married at his house. Here Ninian was siding with Lincoln,
giving his consent as guardian to the marriage, and in that
sense helping him "get his wife."

Elizabeth, defeated as to stopping the marriage, was
further upset by that. How could she, model housekeeper
and correct hostess that she was, prepare a suitable marriage
feast on such short notice? How could she bake a wedding
cake in time? There was only one bakery in Springfield
Dickey's and the best that it could offer was ginger-
bread and beer. Elizabeth needled her sister by remarking:
"I guess I will have to send to old Dickey's for some of his
gingerbread and beer." Mary, stung by the terms used in
the quarrel, flashed back hotly: 'Well, that will be good
enough for plebeians, I suppose."

But Ninian's opinion prevailed and in the end it was de-
termined that for the sake of appearances and propriety the
wedding should take place in the Edwards home. This de-
cision was not agreed to without some discussion; too much
indignation had been aroused by the conflict of that morn-
ing, which was a culmination of those months of talking
Mr. Lincoln down, months when he could not even come
to the house. Probably Mary finally agreed because she so
loved festivities. It would be wonderful to have a real wed-
ding after all, with guests and a wedding cake. One suspects
the decision was not to Mr. Lincoln's liking: he could
hardly feel comfortable in the home from which he had
been frozen out so long. This thing of getting married was
a nervous enough business without having one's prospec-

2p6 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

which he had passed so often, as it was dose to Joshua's old
store on the west side of the square. The ring was bought
and instructions given, doubtless with a caution as to se-
crecy, for the inscription and date to be engraved therein.
That date was November 4, 1842. It came on a Friday, and
when it dawned, the plans of Mary and Abraham were
complete.

Early that morning Mary announced to her sister Eliza-
beth that she was going to marry Mr. Lincoln that day.
Storm broke out in the Edwards mansion on the hill One
suspects that Elizabeth was not only somewhat inclined to
believe in the divine right of the Todds, she was perhaps
touched also with a belief in the divine right of eldest sis-
ters. She protested, scolded, gave dire warnings. How
could she let her headstrong younger sister ruin her life by
marrying a plebeian? "Do not forget that you are a Todd,"
she cried vehemently. Mary stood her ground and could be
trusted to give back words as hot as those she received. The
eyes of the two sisters undoubtedly flashed, while stinging
retorts went back and forth.

But Mary and Mr. Lincoln had made their plans so well,
with complete independence of the Edwardses, that Eliza-
beth found she was powerless to stop the marriage. At the
end of the quarrel the firm fact remained that Mary was
going to marry Mr. Lincoln that very day.

Meanwhile that gentleman had dropped around to the
brown house on Eighth Street, where he found the Dresser
family still at breakfast. "I want to get hitched tonight," he
told the minister. That arrangement completed, he met
Ninian Edwards on the street and announced to him that he

"Matter of Profound Wonder" 207

and Mary were to be married that evening. Ninian made
the decision that since Mary was his ward she must be
married at his house. Here Ninian was siding with Lincoln,
giving his consent as guardian to the marriage, and in that
sense helping him "get his wife."

Elizabeth, defeated as to stopping the marriage, was
further upset by that. How could she, model housekeeper
and correct hostess that she was, prepare a suitable marriage
feast on such short notice? How could she bake a wedding
cake in rime? There was only one bakery in Springfield
Dickey's and the best that it could offer was ginger-
bread and beer. Elizabeth needled her sister by remarking:
"I guess I will have to send to old Dickey's for some of his
gingerbread and beer." Mary, stung by the terms used in
the quarrel, flashed back hody: "Well, that will be good
enough for plebeians, I suppose."

But Ninian's opinion prevailed and in the end it was de-
termined that for the sake of appearances and propriety the
wedding should take place in the Edwards home. This de-
cision was not agreed to without some discussion; too much
indignation had been aroused by the conflict of that morn-
ing, which was a culmination of those months of talking
Mr. Lincoln down, months when he could not even come
to the house. Probably Mary finally agreed because she so
loved festivities. It would be wonderful to have a real wed-
ding after all, with guests and a wedding cake. One suspects
the decision was not to Mr. Lincoln's Hiring! he could
hardly feel comfortable in the home from which he had
been frozen out so long. This thing of getting married was
a nervous enough business without having one's prospec-

zo8 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

tive sister-in-law looking on with tight-lipped disapproval.

Once the decision to have the wedding at the Edwardses'
was made, feverish activity commenced. Friends must be
invited, Mary must do some last-minute shopping (trust
her for that), the wedding cake and other refreshments
must be prepared. She must ask several of her friends to be
bridesmaids. Air. Lincoln was to drop in and ask Air. Math-
eny to be his best man; how he must have longed for Joshua
instead!

"Cousin Lizzie" Todd, looking out of the window of her
father's home that day, was surprised to see Mary running
down the street with the air of one who has important news.
Arriving breathless, Mary exclaimed: "Oh Elizabeth, I'm
going to be married tonight to Mr. Lincoln and I want you
to stand up with me!" Elizabeth made the eternally femi-
nine answer: "Fve nothing to wear." Mary, having already
overcome seemingly immovable obstacles, brushed that off
with: "You must get something." The two girls decided
that Elizabeth's best white dress would do after she had
washed and ironed it.

It is said that Mary asked Elizabeth's father, her uncle,
Dr. John Todd, to go and break the news to her sister
Frances Wallace. Without the use of telephones and with
time so short, a sort of relay system of notifying the rela-
tives was almost necessary. Dr. Todd received the news
calmly and was helpful. In fact, the men of the family seem
to have accepted the marriage, now that it was inevitable,
more philosophically than the women. Frances was notified
and hurried to the Edwards home to help with the house-
hold preparations. Someone by that time had doubtless

"Matter of Profound Wonder" 209

looked up the recipe for wedding cake and the wedding
supper was prepared in frantic haste.

It is impossible to tell exactly what Mary wore as a bride.
All the details of the wedding day must be taken from
recollections told long after the event and recollections are
as fallible as human nature itself. One is variously informed
that the bride wore "one of her lovely embroidered white
muslin dresses," a "dress of white satin," and one made of
"delaine, or something of that kind." Nobody knew that a
future President of the United States was being married
that night and wrote down such details at the time; it was
only lawyer Lincoln and Molly Todd and weddings like
that were taking place in Springfield all the time.

But it is certain that the girl who so loved beautiful
clothes and was always careful to set off her daintiness ac-
cording to the latest style print from Godey's Lady's Book
took pains to dress herself prettily for her wedding. If one,
by a sort of time machine, could be taken back to that No-
vember evening in the year 1842 and see her when she,
after giving a last adjusting touch to the shining chestnut
hair, was ready to emerge from her maiden chamber, one's
heart would go out to her as it does to a bride in any gen-
eration. Imagination pictures the full skirt, the drawn-in
curve of the girlish waist, a dainty bodice, and above it the
vivid face with its rare coloring tremulous with emotion.

In getting dressed, Mary probably had help from some
of the other girls. At least the groom had assistance in the
matter and undoubtedly needed it. Mr. Lincoln in his
room at the William Butler home was struggling with the
final details of arraying himself in apparel appropriate for a

2 io The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

groom, when the motherly Mrs. Butler, already attired in
her best party dress, walked down the hall to tie his tie for
him. She well knew he would never get it tied properly
himself. A couple of the children followed her but found
Mr. Lincoln was not in the mood for banter and romping.
He was probably at that moment more convinced than
ever that he had "defective nerves." Nervousness at this
stage is normal for bridegrooms and he had to face the bat-
tery of Mary's relatives instead of going quietiy to Dr.
Dresser's.

A line of hastily invited guests had climbed the hill to
the Edwards mansion; now they were assembled in the
parlor, about thirty in all. The long dining table, whose
cover had a turtledove design deemed very appropriate for
such occasions, stood ready for the wedding supper. Femi-
nine industry and culinary skill had triumphed: the wed-
ding cake was ready. But it had been a dose thing and when
it was placed before the guests, the cake was still warm
from the baking.

The audience ceased its rustling as the wedding party
formed the tableau: Dr. Dresser in ministerial robes stand-
ing in front of the fireplace, his prayer book lighted by the
two oil lamps on the mantel, the bride and groom facing
him, best man and bridesmaids grouped around. The eyes
of the onlookers noted handsome "Cousin Lizzie" in her
freshly ironed white dress, pretty, brown-eyed Anna Rod-
ney, and Julia Jayne, who had had a part in Mary's "Re-
becca" letter.

The main attention was naturally focused on the back
view of the two central figures, the tall lank man with dark

"Matter of Profound Wonder" 2 1 1

hair doubtless a little shaggy and out of control as usual,
the pretty form of the girl who looked so amusingly short
by contrast as she stood beside him, her bright head up-
lifted. Perhaps guests standing to the side could get a
glimpse of her piquant profile with its pleasing tilt of nose.

In the hush that fell as the minister prepared to speak,
rain could be heard beating against the windows. Dr.
Dresser gave the opening lines of the Episcopal marriage
service: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in
the sight of God, and in the face of this company, to join
together this Man and this Woman in holy Matri-
mony. . . ."

The minister's voice went on with the words of the cere-
mony. He joined their right hands, that of the woman, so
small and white, almost lost in the mighty fist that had
wielded an ax in the forest.

The voice that was to speak immortal words at Gettys-
burg repeated after the minister: "I Abraham take thee
Mary to my wedded Wife, to have and to hold from this
day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in
sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do
part . . . and thereto I plight thee my troth." The girl's
soft voice repeated the vows in her turn.

Mr. Lincoln then placed the wedding ring on Mary's
finger, repeating after the minister: "With this Ring I thee
wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow." One of
the guests, standing close behind the bridal couple, caused
a moment's unseemly interruption here. Roughhewn Judge
Thomas Browne, who was apparently unfamiliar with this
wedding ceremony and whose mind ran more to legality

2 1 2 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

than sentiment, with a mouth-filling oath ejaculated audibly
that the statute fixed all that. The voice of Dr. Dresser
flickered a moment as he struggled to overcome his amuse-
ment and then resumed. The raindrops were still splashing
against the windowpanes. "Forasmuch as Abraham and
Mary have consented together in holy wedlock, and . . .
have given and pledged their troth ... I pronounce that
they are Man and Wife. . . ."

Then, as always at home weddings, hushed solemnity
broke suddenly into animated merriment, congratulations,
and joviality. In the feasting that followed with the cutting
of die wedding cake, the nervous bride is said to have
spilled coffee on her bodice. Added to the usual nervous-
ness of brides in general had been the conflict and tension
in the Edwards home that day. But after all it had been a
pretty and appropriate wedding.

The moment arrived for die departure of bride and
groom. Mr. and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln went out from the
richly illuminated scene of fine home, friends in gala attire,
and gay festivity to proceed through the dark and rain to a
room in an ordinary boardinghouse. Its door closed behind
the two in whose ears still rang the strange, sweet words of
the minister: "Man and Wife."

Each generation of young people discovers anew the
marvel of marriage. A few days later Abraham Lincoln
found his own simple words to express it; his marriage, he
wrote, was to him "matter of profound wonder."

On the white, untouched pages of their future certain
words were to be recorded which show how this couple

"Matter of Profound Wonder" 213

kept the vows which they had taken. They had been joined
"for better for worse, for richer for poorer," and life gave
them its usual mixture of all these states of being. There
were those happy years in Springfield when the children
were small, years of kind neighborliness, peaceful small-
town living, and increasing prominence for Mr. Lincoln.
They were "the happiest stages of life," wrote Mary. Then
came the pomp and circumstance of the Presidency. But it
was their lot to weep together over the still dead faces of
two little sons and to live through war and bloodshed in a
divided country. Yet always they would be united in their
troubles and their purposes: ". . . our deep & touching
sorrows," said Mary, "were one & the same. . . ."

"To hold ... in sickness and in health." Mary remem-
bered how, when their first baby was born, "my darling
husband, was bending over rne, with such love and tender-
ness. . . ." "He was never himself when I was not per-
fectly well," she wrote and again she mentioned his care of
her in her frequent illnesses, the "loving eyes watching
over me ... so filled with his deep love."

"To love and to cherish." "It was always," wrote Mary,
"music in my ears, both before & after our marriage, when
my husband, told me, that I was the only one, he had ever
thought of, or cared for." "I ... fell in love with her,"
said Abraham, "and ... I have never fallen out."

"Till death us do part." To Mary, when he was taken
from her, that was not the end. Her letters reiterate her
unwavering belief that she would see him again: ". . . the
only consolation left me, is the certainty, that each day
brings me nearer my 'loved & lost.' " "I shall not much

The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

longer be separated from my idolized husband, who has
only 'Gone before' and I am certain is fondly watching and
waiting for our re-union, nevermore to be separated."

She had the comfort of a deep religious faith. And Mr.
Lincoln had placed upon her finger a wedding ring 1 with
his promise of eternal love.

Bibliographical Note

To a large extent this book has been written from con-
temporary letters. Lincoln's letters are, of course, contained
in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols.),
edited by Roy P. Easier with assistant editors Marion Do-
lores Pratt and Lloyd A. Dunlap (1953). Especially per-
taining to this study are Lincoln's letters to Mary Owens,
his account of his courtship of her in his letter to Mrs. Or-
ville H. Browning, April i, 1838, his "Rebecca" letter of
August 27, 1842, his letter to James Shields on September
17, 1842, and his "Memorandum of Duel Instructions" to
Elias H, Merryman two days later. Lincoln's letters to
Joshua Speed in 1841 and 1842 are of supreme importance
in tracing his thoughts and emotions about his courtship,
and his letters to his wife in later years show the affection
and unity of their marriage.

Mary Todd's letters to Mercy Levering in 1840 and
1841, which are so essential in tracing her thoughts and
emotions for this period, are to be found in "The Docu-
ments" of Carl Sandburg's and Paul M. Angle's Mary Lin-
coln: Wife and Widow (1932). Her accounts of the
Shields duel in her letters to Dr. J. G. Holland, December 4,
1865, and to F. B. Carpenter, December 8, 1865, are both

216 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

also in "The Documents." In writing Mary Lincoln: Biog-
raphy of a Marriage, I assembled an extensive collection of
photostats of her letters during her whole life and these
have been used here and there in The Courtship.

The original letters of those whom I call the subsidiary
lovers in this story, James C. Conkling and Mercy Levering,
are in the Illinois State Historical Library. Certain passages
in these letters pertaining to the Lincolns are well-known,
but I have dipped into their richness of human interest and
period flavor for material which has not, to my knowledge,
been published before.

The letters of Matilda Edwards (which I used for the
first time in Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage
through die courtesy of their owner, Colonel Edwards M.
Quigley) are essential to rule out the erroneous idea that
Lincoln ever loved Matilda. I have used additional material
from them in this book. Two letters of Mary Owens (Mrs.
Mary S. Vineyard), written May 23 and July 22, 1866, to
William H. Herndon, telling of Lincoln's courtship of her,
are in the Herndon- Weik Manuscripts at the Library of
Congress. Mary S. Owens's letter to Thomas J. Nance,
Green City, Kentucky, April n, 1835, which has come to
attention somewhat recently, is published in the Journal of
the Illinois State Historical Society, Spring 1955. The letter
is in the article ''New Salem Community Activities: Docu-
mentary/' edited by Fern Nance Pond.

The Herndon- Weik Manuscripts also contain the state-
ments of Mr. and Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards, Joshua Speed,
and others about the Lincoln-Todd courtship which Hern-
don took from them after Lincoln's death. This evidence

Bibliographical Note 217

has been analyzed in Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Mar-
riage to prove the falseness of some of the ideas set forth by
Herndon.

The Robert Todd Lincoln Collection of the Papers of
Abraham Lincoln in the Library of Congress contains the
two letters relating to the attitude of Ninian W. Edwards
toward the Lincoln-Todd marriage: William Yates to Lin-
coln, Springfield, Illinois, May 22, 1863, and Ninian W.
Edwards to Lincoln, Springfield, June 18, 1863.

The following articles have been useful: "A Story of the
Early Days in Springfield And a Poem," in the Journal
of the Illinois State Historical Society, April-July 1923 (for
the dray ride); "Miss Todd Is Flourishing," Lincoln Her-
old, December 1948-February 1949 (for the gossiping
letter about Lincoln and Matilda Edwards) ; Roy P. Basler's
"The Authorship of the 'Rebecca' Letters," Abraham Lin-
coln Quarterly -, June 1942; Mary Edwards Brown's "Abra-
ham Lincoln Married 78 Years Ago Today," Illinois State
Register, November 4, 1920; Eugenia Jones Hunt's "My
Personal Recollections of Abraham and Mary Todd Lin-
coln," Abraham Lincoln Quarterly , March 1945; Octavia
Roberts's "We All Knew Abr'ham," Abraham Lincoln
Quarterly, March 1946; Mary Edwards Raymond's Some
Incidents in the Life of Mrs. Benj. S. Edwards, privately
printed pamphlet in the Illinois State Historical Library;
Mrs. Frances Todd Wallace's Lincoln's Marriage: News-
paper Interview . . . Springfield, 111., Sept. 2, 189?, pri-
vately printed leaflet, also in the Illinois State Historical
Library.

Granddaughters of two bridesmaids at the Lincoln-Todd

2 1 8 The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln

wedding have personally supplied details: Mis. Mary
Grimsley Donaldson, granddaughter of Elizabeth Todd
Grimsley, in interviews, and Miss Anna Cushman Glover,
granddaughter of Anna Rodney Cushman, in interviews
and a long letter giving a full account of her grandmother.

The Smgamo Journal for September 2, 9, and 16, 1842,
has been used for the "Rebecca" letters and the poem
signed "Cathleen." A few items have been taken from later
newspapers.

Among the books used, Paul M. Angle's "Here I Have
Lived": A History of Lincoln's Springfield, 1821-186$
(1935) has been indispensable for portraying the early
Springfield. Katherine Helm's Mary, Wife of Lincoln
(1928), which contains recollections and extracts from the
diary of her mother, Eniilie Todd Helm, Mrs. Lincoln's
half sister, has been important. Herndoris Life of Lincoln,
edited by Paul M. Angle ( 1942), Harry E. Pratt's Lincoln,
1809-1839 (1941) and Lincoln, 1840-1846 (1939), both
giving the day-by-day activities of Lincoln, and William H.
Townsend's Lincoln and His Wifefs Home Town (1929)
have all given valuable material. Mr. Townsend's larger
and more recent volume, Lincoln and the Bluegrass ( 1955) ,
also contains the material used from Lincoln and His Wife's
Home Town. Joshua Fry Speed's Reminiscences of Abra-
ham Lincoln and Notes of a Visit to California (1884) con-
tains his letter to his wife in later life. Dr. Anson G. Henry's
account of the Lincoln-Shields duel is in Francis B. Car-
penter's The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln: Six Months at
the White Home (1883). Elizabeth Keckley's Behind the

Bibliographical Note 219

Scenes (1868), Ward Hill Lamon's Recollections of Abra-
ham Lincoln, edited by Dorothy Lamon Teillard (1895),
and Henry C. WTiitney's Life on the Circuit 'with Lincoln,
edited by Paul M. Angle (1940), have all contributed side-
lights.