It amazes me that they even communicated after the City Point incident. I wonder if she ever apologized to the Ord's. I doubt it, and I cannot believe she would even want to interact with anyone who witnessed that. Going off in another direction here, but can you do a post discussing ahy research you have about the friendship between Mary and Sumner?
"It amazes me that they even communicated after the City Point incident."
One thing I've noticed in my Mary Lincoln research is that few of her outbursts actually turned into permanent estrangements, etc. For some reason, a lot of historical writing acts like it's normal for "elite" adults to throw that kind of tantrum, but especially when you're dealing with a party who is a diplomat by profession, the pressures of official business and and shared society/experience mean that tensions are forced to take forms that don't rule out basic civility.
In this case in particular, Mary liked to hang around British consulates to discuss stuff about the war and elites that was kind of secret or insider-specific, and just in general, her decision to travel in and around Britain probably required routing things through Badeau at that time. I'm sure diplomats at that level are used to having to remain calm amid far more distressing events, and Badeau viewed her actions at City Point as rooted in mental illness.
"Going off in another direction here, but can you do a post discussing ahy research you have about the friendship between Mary and Sumner?"
I will try and work on one. I don't have as much on that as I would like to. It seems like their relationship wasn't really discussed much in the record, but I always have my eye open for anything relevant to it.
I was just checking through recent books on Google Books to see if they had any new Mary-Sumner stuff. Came up empty-handed, but I was pleased to see that more recent books about the Civil War tend to introduce Sumner as an intellectual abolitionist Senator who was also the overwhelming favorite of Mrs. Lincoln! There's a lot more emphasis on that part than there has been in the past, I think.
It amazes me that they even communicated after the City Point incident. I wonder if she ever apologized to the Ord's. I doubt it, and I cannot believe she would even want to interact with anyone who witnessed that. Going off in another direction here, but can you do a post discussing ahy research you have about the friendship between Mary and Sumner?
Thanks for reading and commenting!
"It amazes me that they even communicated after the City Point incident."
One thing I've noticed in my Mary Lincoln research is that few of her outbursts actually turned into permanent estrangements, etc. For some reason, a lot of historical writing acts like it's normal for "elite" adults to throw that kind of tantrum, but especially when you're dealing with a party who is a diplomat by profession, the pressures of official business and and shared society/experience mean that tensions are forced to take forms that don't rule out basic civility.
In this case in particular, Mary liked to hang around British consulates to discuss stuff about the war and elites that was kind of secret or insider-specific, and just in general, her decision to travel in and around Britain probably required routing things through Badeau at that time. I'm sure diplomats at that level are used to having to remain calm amid far more distressing events, and Badeau viewed her actions at City Point as rooted in mental illness.
"Going off in another direction here, but can you do a post discussing ahy research you have about the friendship between Mary and Sumner?"
I will try and work on one. I don't have as much on that as I would like to. It seems like their relationship wasn't really discussed much in the record, but I always have my eye open for anything relevant to it.
I was just checking through recent books on Google Books to see if they had any new Mary-Sumner stuff. Came up empty-handed, but I was pleased to see that more recent books about the Civil War tend to introduce Sumner as an intellectual abolitionist Senator who was also the overwhelming favorite of Mrs. Lincoln! There's a lot more emphasis on that part than there has been in the past, I think.