A Fresh Look at the Events of 1875-1876, Pt. 2

Mary Lincoln's allegedly erratic mental health was common knowledge among journalists in their readers by 1875.

Robert Lincoln’s biographer Jason Emerson found it “ironic that the currently prevalent conception of him and his actions in 1875 is that of an utterly ruthless, rapacious, and heartless son, while at the time of the trial the support and understanding of his position and actions were nearly unanimous around the country.”[i]

It is true almost no one saw Robert as heartless in 1875, though a few pretended to do so for political reasons. Most were indeed sympathetic. But quite a few had questions, none of which presupposed Robert was malicious or unjustified—little of the controversy had to do with being “rapacious,” or money at all. The press coverage usually focused on her store of useless possessions—hardly something one would try to wrest. Following the insanity trial, the press was in agreement as to the sadness of the matter and Robert’s duty. It was viewed as a horrible situation for him, his mother, and their friends. Where they were very much split, however, was on whether her eccentricities were news to anyone.[ii]

The assassination had wrecked her mind, the more popular modern story tends to go, and in 1875 all the misunderstandings caused by her much-criticized behavior were finally explained and entitled her to public sympathy.

As applied to the newspaper world, this was, in the main, ridiculous—neither ignorance nor good faith were the problem. They’d long known that she’d had “issues” going back to before the assassination. But some journalists were transparently eager to grab the lifeline thrown to them, which absolved them of all responsibility while requiring them to reckon with nothing.

Others could not help but refuse the alibi, seeing good material for a political attack. “The New York World dishonestly, and furtively, like a cat, endeavors to show that Mrs. Lincoln’s terrible fate was caused by exiting the wife of a ‘Country Attorney’ to be mistress of the White House,” wrote a republican paper. Actually, “her calamity came from the bullet of the Democratic assassin who removed the ‘country attorney’ from the White House to his martyr’s grave.” [iii] "There is no doubt but she has been thus afflicted at least from the time of her husband's elevation to office . . . she was eccentric, if nothing more,” wrote the combative Brick Pomeroy, who had only pity for the unfortunate woman who “grew giddy at her elevation, and whose mind toppled and fell into the ruin created by the party her husband so disastrously led.”[iv]

Others, while mostly approving in tone, seemed to feel a general uneasiness, because they knew it was not the assassination that was the problem. One argued that Robert’s motives were beyond question specifically because “the matter of her mental aberration has been frequently the subject of discussion and surmise heretofore, and it will not be a surprise that she would be authoritatively pronounced insane.”[v]

A sample of the comments from major papers: “There is nothing new in this testimony of the idiosyncrasy of Mrs. Lincoln”[vi]; “Mrs. Lincoln was always more or less under mental hallucinations”;[vii] “There is nothing surprising in this painful story . . . even before President Lincoln's death her eccentricities of manner occasionally suggested to many persons a suspicion that her mind was unsound”; [viii] “It must be admitted, however, that Mrs. Lincoln acted as though not of sane mind,” [ix] when her husband was president;^⁠ Her commitment “will surprise but few who are familiar with her career,” as “society in Washington” had “knowledge of her many eccentricities;”[x] “It was always believed here [Washington],”, that she had a ‘weak mind.’”[xi]^⁠ “Washington” probably meant less the residents of the city than the major players on the political scene at that time, now spread throughout the country.

In fact, “Probably most people were prepared for the telegraphic announcement,” as her conduct “even before the assassination of her husband, has been exceedingly eccentric, to say the least, and during her occupancy of the White House was a subject of frequent remark.”[xii] The Idaho Statesmen commented that her conduct as first lady had “to our mind, and those who knew her best, could only be accounted for ,” by accepting that “she was laboring under some degree of partial insanity.”[xiii] It is abundantly clear that most people of consequence understood the situation, and that public opinion worked against her is far from clear.[xiv]

The major players knew well what the situation was, and the decent ones recognized and grieved that the real problem was that he wasn’t around to redirect and shield her. “To screen her was his ever present thought,” commented one. The New York Evening Post put it best: "During her husband’s life, his force of character and warm sympathetic nature held in check her abnormal tendencies, and though society in Washington knew of the skeleton at the White House, there were few who could point accurately to any very pronounced breach of propriety. With his death however, her eccentric nature found full sway.”[xv]

In 1876, Swett had asked what Lincoln would do if faced with the situation of his wife going after his son. He did not answer his rhetorical question, and the question is impossible to answer because that showdown would not have happened had he lived. The fact is, he had allowed her to compromise him rather than take action, and everyone knew this.

Comments were often made along the lines of: “Her conduct during Mr. Lincoln’s administration was a source of the deepest pain and mortification, to his friends certainly, and it was believed to himself.”[xvi] There were incidents in which her behavior “visibly and deeply mortified him,” however, he “bore his own as well as other people’s sorrows with a smiling face, and I doubt if either Mrs. Lincoln or anybody else ever heard a word of reproach or complaint from him on the subject.”[xvii]

It is possible that a major issue was captured in one editorial: ““To defend her acts was to acknowledge that she was committing wrong, and that was beneath the dignity of a pure man. And while all Washington gossiped about her, coupling her name with shameful adventures and misconducts, he seeing, saw not, and hearing, heard not. To screen her was his ever present thought; yet, if he did not talk to her of his grief, he did not to others; for on the subject of his wife no fine courtier was ever so strict in reserve and etiquette as was this rough mannered, kind hearted Westerner.”[xviii] This may have been her expectation. In fact, she wrote Myra, of the contrast between Robert and her other sons, and her husband, who “often . . . said that I was his weakness.” As in, he compromised himself for her. She probably found that thrilling.

This may also explain part of her sense of betrayal by Robert. She probably was aware of her tendency toward spells and certain troubles, but Lincoln stood by her publicly even when she behaved in an embarrassing manner, not commenting, interfering, defending, or apologizing. This was a type of chivalry some men practiced—it was wrong to comment on or acknowledge mental instability in women, or flaws in one’s wife. This was also his general approach—he offered no explanations for Tad’s speech problem, or for much of anything else—he just made it clear by his presence that it was not up for discussion. He enjoyed being a stabilizing figure for an orbit of unstable people, which has been called having “a weakness for things with weaknesses,”[xix] and “a fondness for slightly damaged characters.”[xx] This was more like declining to privilege certain weaknesses over others, and his appreciation of the entire spectrum of human nature was one of his strongest attributes.

In any event, he was, morally and legally, obligated to stand by her—Tad was not, but his personality was such that he probably would have. Robert was not a fit for this role, and few people were. He had his own family. It was no one’s fault. Maybe she had gotten worse, but it felt dishonest to declare that there had been a sudden change due to the blow. Yet they were at a loss as to what to do, because there was no good way of handling it. A London paper was not impressed with America. “How it could have been otherwise we do not pretend to say; but somehow or other Abraham Lincoln’s wife should not have been allowed to end her days as the inmate of a lunatic asylum.”[xxi]

Some were also disturbed by the fact that they knew that she knew what was going on. Don Piatt probably made this point best when he said, “The language . . . was full of intelligent appreciation and melancholy pathos . . . when a mother’s love and sacrifice . . . are summed up, or attempted to be summed up, the case must be hard or the heart must be hard that would consign her to a madhouse, though that mother be a Mrs. Lincoln.”[xxii] Most knew that it was the case that was hard.

One paper felt this would finally cause the “republican journals” to let up on her, “in respect to those very eccentricities of character and more marked peculiarities which made her so offensive at one time, if not during the whole period her reign at the White House, to the radical party of the country.”[xxiii] Unsurprisingly, it was a democratic paper.

In 1875, her pastor explained that “Mrs. Lincoln's mind is liable to spells of sinking and rising.”[xxiv] He tried to soften the blow by saying it sometimes “seems different from ordinary in being better than the average brain,” but “times do come when a strong arm should be near her by day and night to stand guard until the intellectual tide should rise again.” He was right—but, unfortunately for her, there was no one to devote themselves to doing this. Perhaps more accurately, there was no one who could devote themselves to doing it in a way that kept up with her activity and that kept it out of the eager newspapers. She required more shielding than most. The thing is, I think most people understood that, if they held him responsible at all. Anyone the least familiar with her—let alone both of them—would know this. None of this was inherently a reproach on him. But he got enough of that message to be, understandably, quite bothered—even transparent jabs stung.

It did not help that his defenders, asked or unasked, approached the matter in the worst possible way. In 1867, during what would become known as the old clothes scandal (discussed in chapter 6), The Chicago Journal deemed it “proper” to provide an update on how things were going for Robert—written in the most unnatural way possible:

“Captain Robert T. Lincoln is one of the most promising of the young men of the West. He devotes nearly all of his time to the business of his profession and to literary studies—is a quiet, unassuming and courteous gentleman, and enjoys the personal esteem of his fellow citizens. Resembling his father in modesty of demeanor, simplicity of character, generosity of heart, strict integrity of principle and practical powers of intellect, those who know him best pronounce him a true ‘chip of the old block.’ He has private apartments at one of the most respectable boarding houses of the city, and lives a quiet, studious and retired life.”[xxv]

It practically invited responses like, “A Western paper is comforting itself by the reflection that the shining merits of Robert Lincoln make up for the peculiar conduct of his eccentric mother. Mrs. Lincoln is selling old clothes through an auctioneer, threatening this minister and that, with condign vengeance, and promising an expose of the mysteries of the White House. Robert Lincoln, who is scarcely twenty-five, is master of a handsome law practice, a practitioner in the Supreme Court of the United States, and “an industrious, quiet, courteous gentleman.”^⁠[xxvi]

The overdone defenses coming from Chicago in 1867 may not have been quite representative. An 1881 Chicago correspondent remarked, “Of course the wicked, gossiping busybodies say that this friendly zeal [banker Jacob Bunn’s possession of her bonds in what was presented as a “pseudo-conservatorship” arrangement after the 1875 conservatorship expired] amounts to the personal self-interest of residuary legatees.”

The national press did not harp on this theme, however—some wondered if commitment had been necessary, but expressed bafflement, even apologizing for questioning it. I get the sense that there was little belief that Robert was after an inheritance—except in Chicago, in which she “chanced to have the friends.” Leonard Swett, who attended Swing’s church and defended him at his heresy trial, suggested the same thing. In 1887, Leonard Swett gave an interview in which he referred to the events of 1875. He spoke of the injustice of writers who attacked her for her insane behavior, and lamented that “Still another faction, including a number of prominent persons in this city, have blamed the son for the course he pursued with his mother.”^⁠1

I do not know the significance of this, but it would not surprise me, far more than anywhere else, he had detractors among a certain class of Chicagoans. The awkward list of adjectives in praise of Robert Lincoln was a far less powerful defense than the words of Professor Swing or James Bradwell. They ran in different circles, and hers had a lot of people who joyfully courted controversy and practiced radical independence to the point of heresy. Bradwell, as she put it, was a lover of truth. It may be that much of the criticism, or perhaps it would be better to say questioning, that he faced came from other lawyers in Chicago, and elsewhere, because they could not help but notice that their top criminal defense attorneys Swett and Arnold evinced remarkably little lawyering in such a serious matter, and that Robert must have known this.

As it became clear Mary would be leaving the asylum, the noble and eloquent Prof. Swing spoke out about the situation, attempting to diplomatically defuse the situation. Swing was a prominent Chicago preacher and city leader who knew Mary well, and he could hardly have done better in laying it out. “The daily papers have, to say the least, awakened a large amount of inquiry regarding the lawfulness and humanity of Mrs. Lincoln's imprisonment,” he began. “Many who read the evidences of her sanity, as brought forward by parties so high in character as Judge Bradwell, are ready now to declare that the durance at Batavia was the result of fear and suspicion on the part of the son about property.”[xxvii]

Properly, it defines the question as a matter of “lawfulness and humanity,” not prudence, and identifies the papers as having awakened an “inquiry,” which he believes will be taken up. Property had not come up much in the discussion, however—even then, it does not say greed. “There is room in this matter for an immense amount of injustice to be done Robert Lincoln,” he declared, quite accurately, “and we hope the public will decline accepting the opportunity.” It also said Arnold and Swett would never try and do the wrong thing to her. In fact, “there may be a few days or weeks in a year when her present home in Batavia would be the best possible place for her, but the rights to liberty and to be treated as a sane human being are so immense and so tender, that release should come the moment the mind straightens up again. Mrs. Lincoln's condition last spring was wholly new, and we think only temporary . . . No doubt upon the return of her son he will have the devoted mother removed to the house of some friend. He loves her more than the public does, and will do what is right as rapidly as the right shall make itself manifest." It sounds like a defense, but the thrust of it, broken down, is sharp. Whatever may have been the case, and all embarrassing eccentricities aside, society demands that she be released immediately, and it would be unjust to suppose Robert would do anything else, given his devotion to his mother. It worked.

Coincidentally, the 1881 Chicago correspondent, happening to be at the courthouse, had witnessed her inanity trial: “I remember that the testimony before the jury of conspicuous citizens ran chiefly to her vast accumulation of unmade dress goods within her rooms.” His take? “Mrs. Lincoln retains her passion for accumulating, or rather saving already accumulated stores of old clothing. It was this peculiarity which first led to her being suspected of insanity.”[xxviii]

“It will be remembered,” echoed the Inter Ocean, “that Mrs. Lincoln’s extravagant purchases in Chicago first excited the suspicion of her friends that her brain was affected.” This was just not the case—while there had been many signs, the main one, the old clothes scandal, and her fear of poverty, involved just the opposite. But now, the Inter Ocean emphasized, she had her trunks full of clothing, and “frequently takes it out and repacks it.”[xxix]

Forget justice or a plot to get her money--all anyone could remember, apparently, was the erratic shopping. Amidst the discussion in 1875, The Hartford Post noted this had brought forth a “reminiscence of Mrs. Lincoln.” It was a classic: “In 1861 Mrs. Lincoln ran up a dry-goods and furniture bill at New York for $25,000, greatly to Mr. Lincoln’s embarrassment.”[xxx]

Related reading:

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[i] Jason Emerson, introduction to Mary Lincoln’s Insanity Case: A Documentary History (Urbana:

University of Illinois Press, 2012.) Kindle.

[ii] One democratic paper, after giving a scandalous account of her life, mostly focusing on allegations of corruption, stated “She is quite as rational now as she has ever been, and the plea of her insanity is a put up job by her son to control her property.” State Gazette, quoted in San Antonio Daily Express, June 1, 1875. This is the only such comment I have found, and it was more of an attack than a belief. The Express wrote below the quote: “Comment upon the above seems like dwelling upon the characteristics of the hyena.” San Antonio Daily Express, June 1, 1875. In contrast, another democratic paper commented “nearly every one has thrown pitch on her as she passed, but little did they dream that her eccentricities and seeming unwomanliness were the precursors of insanity.” Sedalia Democrat, May 22, 1875.

[iii] Harrisburg Telegraph, June 1, 1875.

[iv] Pomeroy’s Democrat, May 29, 1875.

[v] Philadelphia Inquirer, May 21, 1875.

[vi] State Gazette, quoted in San Antonio Daily Express, June 1, 1875.

[vii] New York Evening Post, May 20, 1875.

[viii] Sydney Evening News, August 6, 1875. Even an Australian paper pointed this out, on receiving the American reports. “It was shown that Mrs. Lincoln had for some time been labouring under extraordinary and painful delusions,” but there was “nothing surprising in this painful story.” While it noted that the assassination, “must, of course, have terribly shattered her mental system,” it continued “but even before President Lincoln's death her eccentricities of manner occasionally suggested to many persons a suspicion that her mind was unsound. The unvarying patience and sweetness with which Mr. Lincoln bore and humoured her oddities and her trying ways was peculiarly characteristic of the rugged, humorous, half- melancholy, and wholly gentle man.” This account did not mention any financial behavior!

[ix] Boston Transcript, May 20, 1875.

[x] New York Evening Post, May 20, 1875.

[xi] “Teddy O’Trix,” Washington Correspondence, Rochester Evening Express, June 23, 1875.

[xii] Star Tribune, May 21, 1875.

[xiii] Quoted in Idaho Statesmen, June 6, 1915.

[xiv] Illinois probably had the strongest public feeling against her, particularly Springfield, but during her pension battle, Senator Dick Yates claimed he was going against his constituency by voting against the bill. He was probably highly intoxicated, but whatever her feelings were about Chicago, she seemed to get along quietly there.

[xv] New York Evening Post, May 20, 1875.

[xvi] New York Correspondence, Daily News, quoted in “Mrs. Lincoln’s Peculiarities,” South London Press, November 23, 1867. It is interesting that in Behind the Scenes, he is portrayed as pointing at the asylum, but Keckley herself does not directly address the issue. There was undoubtedly strategy in this, but I do not know the aim. I think it is questionable that this incident happened, but it is quite likely that he expressed concern that if she kept doing things like rip out her hair, she may end up insane. Like most things in that book, it was probably a dramatic representation of actual events.

[xvii] New York Correspondence, Daily News, quoted in “Mrs. Lincoln’s Peculiarities,” South London Press, November 23, 1867. For all the Springfield gossip and remarks recorded by William H. Herndon, which may well have been true, if exaggerated, it is very hard to find good evidence of reproach on either side, as Herndon pointed out about Mary’s letters.

[xviii] Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 20, 1875. This is undoubtedly Mary Clemmer Ames, the tell being her repetitive, indignant dismay that Mary failed to fulfill an obvious and heroic role that she never gives the least description of. It is truly fascinating to see the fixation on this mysterious role which was both an unprecedented opportunity and something successfully accomplished by every first lady but Mary Lincoln. From this piece: “It was a sad, though the most fitting ending, under the circumstances, of her most unfortunate and unhappy career--a career which, had she been different, could have made the most memorable known to an American woman. All the outside elements necessary to the making of a truly great and heroic name were placed in her way, but, to the amazement of the world and the regret of a great people, she chose a lesser part . . . Of all the ladies of the White House, none have ever had such opportunities as fell to the lot of Mrs. Lincoln, yet she alone of all of them has fallen short of the requirements of her high position . . . When in an hour of great National peril the country chose Abraham Lincoln to stand at the helm of affairs, the people of the country turned with pride and affection to his wife--the daughter of the South--to do in social circles for her country, what he in his public one was sworn to do--and at the supreme moment she stood higher in place and opportunity than any woman of her country, had ever stood or may stand again. That she utterly failed to comprehend the position she held, or to maintain it, is a part now of the facts recorded of her time.” And who recorded those facts? Mary Clemmer Ames! The only fact in the piece was that Mary Lincoln had been found insane. Swisshelm was undoubtedly addressing this when she wrote, “Those who feel that she missed a grand opportunity to rival Florence Nightingale know little of that whereof they speak. Florence Nightingales are born, not made by opportunity; and if it were otherwise Mrs. Lincoln had not the opportunity.” Both women died the same year, and it was remarked that their female personal prejudices had overrode their judgment. This is not confined to women, but with Swisshelm, this approach was rather obvious and intentional. One paper concurred as to Mrs. Clemmer’s “judicial quality.” “She was a brilliant writer, but her whims and prejudices over-balanced her judgment, and it was impossible for her to see anything good or noble … in those who were personally distasteful to her, while … she invested her friends with talents and virtues more than human, and covered them with praise and adulation till it reached the level of common-place gush.” Wellington Enterprise, October 15, 1884.

[xix] Stephen William Berry, House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, a Family Divided by

War (1st Mariner Books ed. Boston: Mariner Books, 2009), 105.

[xx] David Herbert Donald, Lincoln. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 266.

[xxi] London Observer, quoted in Prescot Reporter, and St. Helens General Advertiser, June 12, 1875. Though Charles Sumner, immensely popular in England, had died only the year before, it included this incredible line: “She gave great and perhaps not unmerited offence to her husband’s political supporters and in consequence of the opposition of Senator Sumner the pension to which she was fairly entitled was only given to her grudgingly and tardily.”

[xxii] Capital, May 23, 1875.

[xxiii] Columbian Register, May 29, 1875. It noted Robert was “a young man of who everybody speaks well.”

[xxiv] The Morning Oregonian reprinted an article from the Alliance, and noted that it was “evidently inspired by Prof . Swing.” September 14, 1875. This is one of the few accounts which indicates that her episodes lasted for weeks and clearly alternated. What exactly the problem was that required her to be hospitalized for a few weeks every year is unclear.

[xxv] Quoted in Philadelphia Inquirer, October 23, 1867.

[xxvi] The Charleston Daily News, October 29, 1867.

[xxvii] The Morning Oregonian reprinted an article from the Alliance, and noted that it was “evidently inspired by Prof . Swing.” September 14, 1875.

[xxviii] On the 13th of August, the Weekly Atchison Champion published the following:

[xxix] The Inter Ocean August 8, 1881. The Inter Ocean was launched in 1872 and aimed at upscale readership. Wikipedia contributors, "Chicago Inter Ocean," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chicago_Inter_Ocean&oldid=885706846 (accessed July 30, 2019).

[xxx] Quoted in “Reminiscences of Mrs. Lincoln.” The Leavenworth Times, August 12, 1881.