{"id":267676,"date":"2021-06-05T22:51:26","date_gmt":"2021-06-05T19:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/mary-todd-lincolns-temper-may-have-hastened-abrahams-murder\/"},"modified":"2021-06-05T22:51:26","modified_gmt":"2021-06-05T19:51:26","slug":"mary-todd-lincolns-temper-may-have-hastened-abrahams-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/mary-todd-lincolns-temper-may-have-hastened-abrahams-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"#Mary Todd Lincoln’s temper may have hastened Abraham’s murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Mary Todd Lincoln’s temper may have hastened Abraham’s murder<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

Growing up as a child in Lexington, Ky., Mary Todd used to say:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI am going to be the president\u2019s wife.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When she finally met and married Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer who rose through the Illinois state Legislature and the House of Representatives, she continued to make her goals clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMary insists . . . that I am going to be Senator and President of the United States, too,\u201d Lincoln told journalist Henry Villard in 1858.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJust think,\u201d Lincoln said, with a roar of laughter, \u201cof such a sucker as me as President!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Honest Abe never won a place in the US Senate, he did indeed clinch the presidency in 1860 \u2014 and his strange and painful relationship with Mary would change the course of the country, writes historian Michael Burlingame<\/a> in \u201cAn American Marriage\u201d<\/a> (Pegasus), out now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLincoln may never have become president if his wife had not turbocharged the restless engine of his ambition,\u201d Burlingame writes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, he reveals, Mary\u2019s madness would also open the door to her husband\u2019s assassin in 1865.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Born in 1818, Mary Todd grew up in material comfort yet called her childhood \u201cdesolate.\u201d Six years old when her mother died, she felt rejected by her merchant-politician father and the stepmother he quickly married.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe came to think of herself as unloved and unlovable,\u201d Burlingame writes. \u201cOut of those feelings, it would app<\/a>ear, grew a hunger for . . . power, money, fame \u2014 and a subconscious desire to punish her father.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition, Mary appears to have suffered what today would be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, a condition that cropped up repeatedly in her extended family.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"As
As Mary\u2019s alternative father figure, Abe bore the brunt of her unresolved rage. <\/figcaption>
Alamy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Abe Lincoln, nine years Mary\u2019s senior, was also scarred by the early loss of his beloved mother. For him, the experience resulted in a persistent melancholy \u2014 and a deep need to be needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their 1842 marriage scratched a psychological itch for both of them. \u201cNothing pleased her more than having her husband pet and humor her, and call her his \u2018child-wife,\u2019\u2009\u201d one sympathetic biographer found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But as Mary\u2019s alternative father figure, Abe bore the brunt of her unresolved rage. Neighbors, friends and colleagues witnessed her verbal and physical abuse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe seemed to take a special delight in contradicting her husband, and humiliating him on every occasion,\u201d recalled Maria Biddle, their neighbor in Springfield, Ill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPoor Abe, I can see him now running and crouching,\u201d Lincoln\u2019s law partner William Herndon remembered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mary regularly assaulted her husband with household objects \u2014broomsticks, potatoes, pieces of stove wood, cups of hot coffee \u2014 sometimes striking him hard enough to draw blood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And her ambitions were equally as fierce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1860, she imperiously rejected the idea that the Republicans might give her husband the vice presidential nomination: \u201cIf you cannot have the first place,\u201d she said, \u201cyou shall not have the second.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"First
Mary (behind Abraham with supporters at his reelection inauguration reception in 1865) was jealous of other women getting too close to her husband.<\/figcaption>
Alamy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She got her way, and Lincoln topped the party\u2019s ticket that November. He learned he was the nation\u2019s president-elect at the Springfield telegraph office, but quickly dashed for home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a little short woman there that is more interested in this matter than I am,\u201d he told supporters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Lincoln\u2019s victory did little to calm Mary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fact, as first lady under the impossible strain of the Civil War, the cracks in her psyche became more obvious.\u00a0<\/p>\n

John Nicolay and John Hay, Lincoln\u2019s main White House secretaries, called her \u201cthe Hell Cat\u201d and \u201cHer Satanic Majesty\u201d in their private correspondence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

I will not repeat Mrs. Lincoln\u2019s remarks. They can only be attributed to an unbalanced mind.<\/p>\n

Navy Capt. John S. Barnes, on Mary Todd Lincoln<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

Friends remarked on the way Lincoln tolerated his wife\u2019s attacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you knew how little harm it does me and how much good it does her,\u201d he once said, \u201cyou wouldn\u2019t wonder that I am meek.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Mary indulged in manic spending sprees as she redecorated the White House and stocked her wardrobe, then locked Washington, DC, in months of public mourning after the death of 11-year-old Willie Lincoln in 1862. Her eagerness to accept extravagant gifts from office-seekers \u2014 furs, diamonds, a luxuriously appointed coach \u2014 caused repeated scandals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her hysteria peaked when Lincoln made an extended battlefield visit as the Union Army prepared its final assault on Richmond, the Confederate capital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mary insisted on accompanying her husband on the journey in late March of 1865 \u2014 more, it seemed, to keep a jealous eye on him than to encourage the weary Union troops.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Julia Grant, the wife of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, was both witness to and target of Mary\u2019s outrageous behavior during her agonizing eight-day stay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At one point, Mary scolded her as an empress would a commoner for sitting down while the first lady stood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"John
John Nicolay (left) and John Hay (right), Lincoln\u2019s main White House secretaries, called the first lady \u201cthe Hell Cat\u201d and \u201cHer Satanic Majesty\u201d in their private correspondence.<\/figcaption>
Alamy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHow dare you be seated until I invite you!\u201d she barked, a journalist recounted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The spirited Mrs. Grant \u201creplied that if Mrs. Lincoln was the wife of the President, she was the wife of the General<\/a> in Command of the armies of the United States,\u201d Navy Capt. John S. Barnes wrote later, \u201cand that she would sit down anywhere if she thought it more agreeable than to stand in any one\u2019s presence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mary was left seething. From then on, she treated Mrs. Grant with an icy disdain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt this deeply and could not understand it,\u201d the general\u2019s wife wrote later in her memoirs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\"Gen.
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and wife Julia might have been at Ford\u2019s Theatre the night of Lincoln\u2019s assassination, if not for Mary Todd\u2019s poison tongue.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

During the visit, Julia Grant tried repeatedly to intervene as Mary turned her rage upon other officers\u2019 wives and on the close-knit men of Grant\u2019s staff. But nothing she said could placate the president\u2019s perpetually irate wife.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In one incident, Mary exploded at Maj. Adam Badeau, a Grant aide who escorted her on a battlefield tour, when he mentioned that the wife of Gen. Charles Griffin had received a presidential permit to remain at the front when the fighting began.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you mean to say that she saw the President alone?\u201d Mary shrieked at him. \u201cDo you know that I never allow the President to see any woman alone?\u201d She ranted until Gen. George Meade convinced her that it was the secretary of war, not the president himself, who had issued Sallie Griffin\u2019s pass.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the same tour, Mary Mercer Ord \u2014 the wife of Gen. E.O.C. Ord and an accomplished horsewoman \u2014 elected to ride with the men rather than in the cramped ambulance carriage with the first lady.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Mary caught sight of Mrs. Ord\u2019s horse prancing alongside the president\u2019s steed, \u201cher rage was beyond all bounds,\u201d Badeau recalled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does the woman mean by riding by the side of the President? and ahead of me?\u201d she screeched. \u201cDoes she suppose that he wants her by the side of him?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mary Ord, with Julia Grant\u2019s help, attempted to apologize for her unintended affront, but the first lady \u201cpositively insulted\u201d her, Badeau wrote: \u201ccalled her vile names in the presence of a crowd of officers, and asked what she meant by following the President. The poor woman burst into tears . . . but Mrs. Lincoln refused to be appeased.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"On
On April 14, 1865, the Lincolns went to Ford\u2019s Theatre without the Grants \u2014 and without the general\u2019s battle-hardened security detail at the door of the presidential box, where John Wilkes Booth (right) carried out his fateful act.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images; Alamy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI will not repeat Mrs. Lincoln\u2019s remarks,\u201d wrote Capt. Barnes, another witness to the tantrum. \u201cThey can only be attributed to an unbalanced mind.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The furor continued. At supper that night, \u201cMrs. Lincoln berated General Ord to the President, and urged that he should be removed,\u201d Badeau wrote. \u201cHe was unfit for his place, she said, to say nothing of his wife.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For days thereafter, the major witnessed Mary \u201crepeatedly attack[ing] her husband in the presence of officers because of Mrs. Griffin and Mrs. Ord.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI never suffered greater humiliation and pain . . . than when I saw the Head of State . . . subjected to this inexpressible public mortification,\u201d Badeau maintained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Julia Grant never publicly aired her grievances over the first lady\u2019s belligerent visit. But her actions a few days later spoke volumes \u2014 and had momentous effects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Robert E. Lee\u2019s Confederate army surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Va., on April 9, Washington, DC, erupted in days of celebration. Gen. Grant, hailed as a hero, joined Lincoln there to share the acclaim.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While in the nation\u2019s capital, Grant received an unexpected invitation from Mary Lincoln, who asked him and his wife to join her and her husband at a festive performance of the popular comedy \u201cOur American Cousin.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\"An<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cLincoln urged Grant to accompany him to the theater, hinting that the nation expected to see the victorious president and general united at such a moment,\u201d Grant biographer Ron Chernow wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Julia wanted no part of it. She \u201cobjected strenuously to accompanying Mrs. Lincoln,\u201d she later confided to a friend. Grant made an excuse to the commander in chief, saying that he and his wife were setting off for a long-overdue visit with their four young children in Burlington, NJ, that evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So on Friday, April 14, the Lincolns went to Ford\u2019s Theatre without the Grants \u2014 and without the general\u2019s battle-hardened security detail at the door of the presidential box.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In April 1865, the Secret Service did not yet exist. No presidential protector was in place to intercept the assassin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Grant had attended Ford\u2019s Theatre on the night of April 14, it is entirely possible that John Wilkes Booth would have failed to carry out his murderous plan,\u201d Burlingame writes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Along with the likely presence of Grant\u2019s deputies, the general\u2019s \u201cown self-protective instincts, honed by his battlefield experience, would have made it unlikely that Booth would have succeeded.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he did.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Mary Todd Lincoln’s temper may have hastened Abraham’s murder” Growing up as a child in Lexington, Ky., Mary Todd used to say:\u00a0 \u201cI am going to be the president\u2019s wife.\u201d\u00a0 When she finally met and married Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer who rose through the Illinois state Legislature and the House of Representatives, she continued to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":267677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/Wife-and-Death-Mary-Todd-Lincoln.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[108407,74202,17209,5378,74164,70989],"class_list":["post-267676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-6-5-21","tag-abraham-lincoln","tag-books","tag-history","tag-marriage","tag-mental-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}