The Sad, Chaotic Life of Mary Todd Lincoln

She was born into a large, slave-owning Kentucky family.   Well-educated, Mary was courted by politician Stephen Douglas before marrying an Illinois prairie lawyer.  Her parents disapproved of her choice.  Abraham Lincoln was nine years older, poor, with not much formal education.  Later Douglas and Lincoln would debate each other in their run for President.

Mary and Abe had four sons.  Only one would outlive his mother.  In 1850 they lost their first, four-year old Eddie to tuberculosis.   Mary was inconsolable.  It began a long series of losses.

Mary and Abraham had a loving relationship, sharing a passion for politics and literature.  With her help, he rose from lawyer to congressman and eventually President.  Upon his election, eleven southern states announced they were seceding.  Lincoln vowed he would not let that happen.

Mary was an unpopular First Lady.  Addicted to buying expensive clothes, she was criticized for lavish spending.  Coming from a western state, she was uncomfortable in Washington's southeastern culture.  Hostesses called her ‘coarse and pretentious.’  Enemies accused her of being a spy.  She suffered from migraines, mood swings, fits of temper and loud outbursts.  Doctors today think she might have been bi-polar.   As First Lady, Mary spent much of her time visiting wounded soldiers, fresh from the battle fields.

In 1862, she lost her second child to typhoid fever, twelve-year old Willie.  Her grief was so intense Abraham Lincoln worried she might collapse into madness.  She started consulting with spiritualists and regularly held séances in the White House to try and contact her son. 

Three years later in 1865, the civil war ended, Lincoln was re-elected and Mary looked forward to being First Lady to a peaceful nation.  On April 14^th, she sat next to her husband at Ford Theater to see the comedy, “Our American Cousin.”  Her husband was shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. 

Lincoln was brought across the street to the Petersen House where the cabinet was assembled.  Mary became so overwrought she was ordered from the room by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.  Lincoln died the next morning.  Over the weeks, condolences poured in from around the world, including England’s Queen Victoria who had lost her own husband four years back.  Like Victoria, Mary would wear only black the rest of her life.

After her husband’s assassination, Mary moved to Chicago with her two remaining boys.  When her third child, Thomas (Tad) died at the age of 18 from pleurisy, Mary snapped.  Robert, her only surviving son and rising attorney, embarrassed by his mother’s outbursts, had her committed to an insane asylum.  After being released a year later by her sister, Mary lived in France, afraid Robert would try and re-commit her.  She finally returned home and reconciled with him before her death in 1885 at the age of sixty-two.   She was buried alongside her husband in Springfield, Illinois.