Mary Todd Lincoln

Mary Todd Lincoln

Mary Todd Lincoln

Mary Ann Todd Lincoln (December 13, 1818 – July 16, 1882) was the sixteenth First Lady of the United States when her husband, Abraham Lincoln, served as the sixteenth President, from 1861 until 1865.

Born in Lexington, Kentucky, she was the daughter of Robert Smith Todd and Eliza Parker, prominent residents of the city. They were slaveholders, as were most of her relatives. At the age of twenty, Mary Todd moved to Illinois where her sister Elizabeth was living. Elizabeth introduced Mary to the young lawyer who would later become her husband; she was also courted by Stephen A. Douglas. Abraham and Mary Lincoln were married on November 4, 1842.

Their children were:

1. Robert Todd Lincoln : Springfield, Illinois August 1, 1843 – July 26, 1926 in Manchester, Vermont
2. Edward (Eddie) Baker Lincoln : Springfield March 10, 1846 – February 1 1850 in Springfield
3. William (Willie) Wallace Lincoln : Springfield December 21, 1850 – February 20, 1862 in Washington, D.C.
4. Thomas (Tad) Lincoln : Springfield April 4, 1853 – July 16, 1871 in Chicago, Illinois.

The Lincolns deeply loved one another, but it was a troubled marriage at times. Of their four sons, only Robert and Tad survived into adulthood, and only Robert outlived his mother.

Of Robert's children, Jessie Harlan Lincoln Beckwith (1875 - 1948) had two children (Mary Lincoln Beckwith ["Peggy," 1898 - 1975] and Robert ("Bud") Todd Lincoln Beckwith (1904 - 1985), neither of whom had children of their own. Robert's other daughter, Mary Todd Lincoln ("Mamie") (1869 - 1938) married Charles Bradley Isham in 1891. They had one son, Lincoln Isham (1892 - 1971). Lincoln Isham married Leahalma Correa in 1919, but died without children.

The last person known to be of direct Lincoln lineage, Robert's grandson "Bud" Beckwith died in 1985. Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1982 (ISBN 0-07-046145-7).

Mary Lincoln was well-educated and interested in public affairs, and shared her husband's fierce ambition. However, she was high-strung and touchy, and sometimes acted irrationally. She was almost instantly unpopular upon her arrival in the capital.

Newspapers at the time criticized her for using taxpayers' money to refurnish the White House (which had become quite worn and shabby) as well as to fund her personal shopping sprees. During the Civil War, there were persistent rumors that she was a Confederate spy (several relatives served in the Confederate forces). Popular legend states that President Lincoln, upon hearing the rumors, personally vouched for her loyalty to the United States in a surprise appearance before the Committee on the Conduct of the War.

After the President's assassination in April 1865, her reputation was further besmirched as former Lincoln aides and Cabinet members openly attacked her for being a spendthrift, difficult and arrogant (Lincoln's wartimes aides John Nicolay and John Hay privately referred to her as "the hell-cat").

The deaths of her husband and her sons, Willie and Thomas (Tad), in time led to an overpowering sense of grief and the gradual onset of depression.

Mary Lincoln became the sole owner of the Lincoln estate and her "spend-thrift" ways concerned her son Robert. To gain possession of the estate, Mary Lincoln was committed by her son Robert to an insane asylum in Batavia, Illinois in 1875, but she was free to move about the grounds and was released three months later.

She never forgave her eldest son for what she regarded as his betrayal, and died at the Springfield, Illinois home of her sister Elizabeth on July 16, 1882, aged 63.

• Mary Todd Lincoln House (National Park Service)
• Mary Todd Lincoln House (Official Home Page)
• Mary Todd Lincoln Research Site
• Mary Todd Lincoln in 1862 Harper's Weekly Newspaper
• Especially for students - An Overview of Mary Todd Lincoln's Life
• Mr. Lincoln's White House: Mary Todd Lincoln
• "Wet with Blood," Research Project on Mary Todd Lincoln's Cloak, Chicago History Museum (formerly Chicago Historical Society)