*Bolded text is my emphasis; italicizations are taken from the original.
Introduction
“I ask you to excuse what is odd in me and my language,” wrote William H. Herndon in 1866. This is something many Lincoln students have proved unable to do. “I am ‘sorter’ insane on the question of telling the truth,” he explained, and his biographer David Donald confirmed that there was no evidence he ever sought to tell a lie about Lincoln. “But to tell the truth one must first be able to recognize that rare article,” he lamented, a sentiment anyone familiar with Herndon’s massive research files can relate to. While the debate over Herndon’s ability to make such judgments continues, he was unquestionably correct when he wrote to a friend in 1866 about Lincoln’s legacy:
“In my judgment, and I appeal to mankind in the future, is that if the matter is talked over now that the subject will be dropt in a hundred years or less from to day. My judgment is--poor as it may be, that if these facts are concealed from mankind by … [Lincoln’s] biographers now, that they will grow and develope into a huge ever discussed lie, bothering and freting mankind forever. I know human nature; hide a mouse in crack, and shade it, it will in the minds of men--grow and expand into an elephant. So curious is the human mind.”
Speaking for mankind in 2021, I declare Herndon’s judgment correct. More than 150 years later, we seem well on our way to forever “bothering and fretting” about Lincoln’s life.
What mouse (or mice) was squirreled away? Which opinions about Lincoln resemble elephants more than the truth? Some hints appear to be recorded in the writings of a woman who visited him shortly before he wrote the above-quoted letter. The first analysis of the issue was in Douglas L. Wilson’s 1999 three-part Atlantic article, “Keeping Lincoln’s Secrets.” In recent years, her impressions have fed the atmosphere of scandal that Herndon feared, and it is too late to retrieve the facts, whatever they were. But a close analysis of Caroline Healey Dall’s statements may settle more questions than they raise. The purpose of this article is not to recapitulate the discussion about, as The New York Times put it, “Was Lincoln Gay?” Nor is it intended to disprove the theory. But if racy Lincoln gossip is your thing, read on. (I don’t think it exceeds a PG-13 rating, but you may not want to read it at work.)
Let’s go back to October of 1866, more than a year after Lincoln’s assassination. Boston writer, lecturer, and woman’s rights activist Caroline Healey Dall had arrived at the Springfield stop of her lecture tour. This was the home of Lincoln’s longtime law partner, and Dall’s longtime penpal, William H. Herndon. They shared an interest in the progressive movements of the day, especially Transcendentalism, and the enthusiastic Herndon welcomed her as a guest and was all too ready to show her the research he had been collecting in preparation for a biography of Lincoln.
Since Lincoln’s death, he had solicited accounts from people all over the country who claimed to know him, but he had not yet organized or assessed the ever-increasing material. Unsurprisingly, he doubted the veracity of some things that he had been told. Everyone wanted to be part of the Lincoln story, and human memories are not always what we wish they were. But almost anything he could verify to his satisfaction he intended to publish, believing that stating the truth about Lincoln’s life was crucial to showing and understanding his greatness. Lincoln was so great that he could withstand any scandalous or unflattering revelations, insisted Herndon, and his struggles had made him the glorious figure he became. Ignoring them would only risk their being discovered by Lincoln’s enemies and more effectively exploited due to the public’s curiosity about material that had been “shade[d],” as Herndon put it. Perhaps even worse, such suppression might make posterity unable to understand the lessons of the Civil War. He clearly articulated his approach: “My philosophy is to sink a counter mine, and blow up my enemies--Lincoln’s future traducers--and I do it for him, and for the People, who build their Philosophy of human history of out human thoughts--acts, & deeds.” After all, “The very existence of Christ is denied because he had no good truthful Biographers.”
Heading to his office, Herndon told Dall she was free to look through his papers. He was a women’s rights supporter, but seems to have underestimated her curiosity and thoroughness, which rivaled his own. She barely moved that day, devouring Herndon’s notes, including little notebooks where Herndon had recorded the most sensitive information that he had received. Whatever she found shocked her so much that she immediately canceled her planned lecture, which presumably contained commentary about Lincoln’s life and character. She no longer felt comfortable speaking in Springfield.
She indicated the substance of her concerns in a letter to her minister back home: "All the lawyers on circuit, and more dissolute women than I could count, know A. L's profligacy -- as regards women to be greater, than is common to married men, even here."
Who Was Caroline Healey Dall?
Dall was born and raised in Boston, where she had absorbed New England notions of propriety. But she was by no means provincial or conformist, having discussed the Greek classics with Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson and socialized with with Amos Alcott and Henry David Thoreau. She eventually achieved some prominence as a writer, and was definitely an impressive and interesting person.
Dall left behind decades of diary entries, many of which have been published, and some of which can only be seen a the Massachusetts Historical Society, along with her correspondence. I’ve done some research there, but it is hard to even put a dent in the task of reviewing all possibly relevant manuscripts in that collection. It is important to keep in mind that she copied many of her diary entries years later and tossed the originals. It seems that, in doing so, she “cleaned up” and condensed these entries, sometimes adding new details with the benefit of hindsight. There is reason to believe some of the details in her diary are way off, especially the lengthy entries in which she recounts her visit with Herndon, but her correspondence, which is in its original form, and other contemporary remarks can be used as a sanity check.
While Dall was married to a minister, they belonged to the progressive Unitarian Church. A constant learner, Dall lectured about progressive issues, which subjected her to the then-popular accusation of promoting free-love.
In reality, the institution of marriage was one thing which Dall had very conservative feelings about, going so far as to question Lucy Stone about her failure to take her husband’s name. She strongly believed that sex was only permissible in marriage, and that violations of this were appalling, but she was not naive.
In fact, she seemed to know too much about extramarital indiscretions for her own wellbeing. In 1846, after riding in an omnibus alongside prostitutes, she wrote in her diary “I cannot look upon this sin with any calmness.” In 1859, she had calmed down enough to lecture on the need of increased opportunities for women so that fewer would be driven to prostitution, the consequences of which she graphically described. Still, that same year she spoke to a friend of nearby brothels, lamenting “the ‘solid men’ of Boston visiting them openly by daylight.” The conversation brought her to tears, and she ended up overcome by “nervous pain” and eventually became so ill that she had to “lie down.”
So it is no surprise that she was upset when she saw, as she wrote in her diary, “affidavits” from prostitutes, apparently describing encounters with Lincoln.
“Our two girls”
Lincoln was far less rattled by the world’s oldest profession. As a lawyer traveling the Illinois circuit, he often defended women in seduction or slander cases, which involved detailed discussions of a woman’s “virtue.” It is possible that Dall misinterpreted references to these court cases or later interviews with such clients, as Herndon wrote her shortly after that “You must remember that I am not responsible for what others say, and which I note down.”
But Herndon later claimed he was told of two visits Lincoln himself had made to prostitutes, prior to marriage, and not in his capacity as attorney. Space prohibits a discussion of their credibility. Some historians have proposed that Herndon misunderstood one of Lincoln’s much-discussed but little-preserved off-color stories, some of which may have been told in the first person. Telling entertaining, often bawdy stories was then a competitive sport among men, and Lincoln reigned supreme in that area. But the stories were more reminiscent of a stand-up routine (“one time I dated this girl . . .”) than an autobiography. I think this there is probably some truth to this when it comes to things others told Herndon and which he wrote down, which Dall might have taken at face value, as his warning to her indicates. It seems less likely to be a mistake Herndon himself made.
Whatever the case, Lincoln was more amused than bothered by the prostitutes he saw in Washington as a congressman. And so, apparently, was his wife. Mary had left to visit family, and he wrote to her with an update:
“Our two girls, whom you remember seeing first at . . . the exhibition of the Ethiopian Serenaders, and whose peculiarities were the wearing of black fur bonnets, and never being seen in close company with other ladies, were at the music [concert] yesterday. One of them was attended by their brother, and the other had a member of Congress in tow. He went home with her; and if I were to guess, I would say, he went away a somewhat altered man---most likely in his pockets, and in some other particular.”
But Dall saw more than just mentions of “dissolute women.” In her letter to her minister, she wrote: "I remember that when I read Aristophanes, I was thankful that there were vices for which the English language had no name. I had not been in Springfield then!”
“Vices for Which the English Language Had No Name”
Dall’s diary abounds with references to Greek classics, and descriptions of the permissive lifestyle they portrayed were hard for an intelligent woman to miss. But many comforted themselves with the idea that these practices were confined to another time and place, as evidenced by the fact that they only existed in another language.
In a four-part series in the Lincoln Herald, William Hanchett skillfully and directly analyzed the evidence advanced in favor of the theory that Lincoln was homosexual. Some of his premises, however, may have distorted his argument.
Hanchett wrote that “The people of the nineteenth century were less sex-minded than we are,” citing the lack of widespread salacious media. While it is true that there were fewer images of that nature, popular books and newspapers were by no means prudish. Dall’s diary describes finding her young son burning a graphic newspaper account of the 1857 adultery trial of prominent reverend. The defense tried to impeach one of the witnesses because he had repeatedly exposed himself to women, but the public, including many women, packed the courtroom to hear the lurid details.
The Oneida free-love community was a popular topic. As Lincoln traveled by train to Washington D.C. in 1861, he poked fun at secession before a laughing crowd: “In their view, the Union, as a family relation, would not be anything like a regular marriage at all, but only as a sort of free-love arrangement—to be maintained on what the sect calls passionate attraction.” People may have been appalled, but they were not ignorant or humorless.
Additionally, the consequences of sex at that time, and indeed its very repression, caused a fixation with female purity. Private homosexual behavior, while not condoned, was for various reasons less likely to draw attention, and was not as associated with a specific orientation or identity. It was not the line in the sand that labeled one man as different from most. A far more definitive term was “fallen woman.”
In “Keeping Lincoln’s Secrets,” Wilson concluded that the books contained “evidence of a sort that Lincoln had engaged in illicit sexual behavior.” Hanchett posed follow-up questions, and arrived at the answer that “the memo books must say something about Lincoln’s appetite for low women . . . and--why else mention Aristophanes?—for men.” On the next page, he reiterated that the books must contain discussion of homosexual activities, “for Mrs. Dall saw ‘Greek’ things in the Memo books.”
But Hanchett’s rhetorical question invites another one. Which acts described in the Greek classics lacked an English language equivalent?
Aristophanes’ comedic play Lysistrata, a then-popular work that Dall had read, is about a group of women who start a sex strike in an effort to end the Peloponnesian War. Unsurprisingly, the play contains many racy jokes and references. To keep it PG-13, I have omitted some of my reasoning, but I do not believe Dall was talking about homosexuality. Even with those details omitted, I think the case I’m about to lay out is a fairly strong one.
Lysistrata mentions practices that, slang terms aside, are still formally referred to by Latin translations. Aristophanes mentioned these more than any other ancient Greek playwright. The evidence strongly suggests that what Dall objected to was Lincoln’s alleged antics with women. Plays such as Lysistrata, which was representative of Aristophanes’s work, were offensive to her because of their satirical depictions of strong women as driven by lust, overturning societal values with their licentiousness.
In fact, Dall argued that Aristophanes had almost single-handedly ruined the human understanding of womanhood. In 1867, the year after she visited Herndon, she published an astute examination of woman’s role in society. Section II, titled “How Public Opinion Is Made,” opened with the following line: “The existing public opinion with regard to woman has been formed by the influence of heathen ages and institutions, kept up by a mistaken study of the classics,--a study so pursued, that Athens and Rome, Aristophanes and Juvenal, are more responsible for the popular views of woman, and for the popular mistakes in regard to man’s position toward her, than any thing that has been written later.”
She had mixed feelings about the Greek classics in general, particularly in regard to their depiction of women. “We should be sorry to lose Homer and Aeschylus, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, from our library; but of how many poets and dramatists, from the few fragments of Pindar and Anacreon down through the tragic poets,--down, very far down, indeed, to Aristophanes,--can we say as much?”
That he was the lowest of the low was not up for debate. “There need be no doubt about Aristophanes. The world would be purer, and all women grateful, if every copy of his works, and every coarse inference form them, could be swept up out of existence to-morrow.”
Another of his plays Dall took issue with was Archarnians, especially its portrayal of Aspasia. In 1860, Dall went so far as to publish a defense of Aspasia against charges “that she brought on the Peloponnesian War,” and “that she founded at Athens a school of courtesans.” These two accusations were actually related, as Aristophanes explains the cause of the war as resulting from the abduction of a Megarian prostitute, and the retaliatory abduction of two of Aspasia’s prostitutes: “From this the beginning of the war erupted for all the Greeks -- from three laikastriai!”
While that term was usually translated as “prostitute,” Dall read it in the original Greek with the assistance of a lexicon, and would have seen a different word, one with suggestive roots. It is likely that Dall understood the references, although it is hard to tell due to her writings’ Victorian delicacy. After covering the misogynistic ideas found in other Greek playwright’s works, she continued, “In speaking of Aristophanes, I do not speak ignorantly. I know how much students consider themselves indebted to him for details of manners and customs, for political and social hints . . . But if a nation’s life be so very vile, if crimes that we cannot name and do not understand be among its amusements, why permit the record to taint the mind and inflame the imagination of youth?”
She then revealed what bothered her the most: “One of the most vulgar assaults ever made upon the movement to elevate woman in this country was made in a respectable quarterly by a Greek scholar. It was sustained by quotations from Aristophanes, and concluded by copious translations from one of his liveliest plays, offered as a specimen of the ‘riot and misrule’ that we ambitious women were ready to inaugurate.”
The phrase “riot and misrule” comes from Lysistrata, and, as Dall emphasized, “Coarser words still our Greek scholar might have taken from the same source to illustrate his theory.” She could not have been talking about the constantly discussed problems of prostitution or “solitary vice,” as she then wrote, “He knew very well that the nineteenth century would bear hints, insinuations, sneers, anything but plain speaking. We have limits: he observed them, and forbore.”
As a result, she acknowledged, many of the implications flew over the heads of both male and female readers of Aristophanes. “But a college furnishes helps. The mysteries of the well-thumbed English key are translated afresh into what we may call ‘college slang,’ illustrated oftentimes by clever if vulgar caricatures, where a few significant lines tell in a moment what a pure mind would have pondered years without perceiving . . .” I wonder if the books with these student “annotations” are still present in the Harvard Library…
“God help us.”
As stated earlier, Herndon left Dall in his study to view his papers, but was surprised with her thoroughness. There is some dispute about how much permission Herndon granted her, and his letter to a friend late in life evinces his own confused version of events: “Mrs. Dale [sic] did, I think, one day go to my private draw and read part of the book, as I am informed . . . It is probable that I let her see the book . . . I cannot recollect everything.” Herndon’s biographer believed “the prying Bostonian” had read “two little black notebooks in which Herndon had recorded rumors of a doubtful character.” Doubtful is probably not as accurate as sensitive, but there’s a good chance much of it fit into the dubious “reminiscences” of Lincoln flooding the country. In any event, it clear that Herndon conversed extensively with Dall about Lincoln, and encouraged her interest, despite his nervousness about her unexpected discovery of the little notebooks.
Douglas L. Wilson, in his perceptive analysis of Dall’s claims, raised questions about her credibility. He had very good reason to do so. She made some fantastic claims, mostly in her diary, and mentioned seeing things that Herndon almost certainly could not have possessed. It is important to remember that she had seen what Herndon called his “ocean” of papers far in advance of most people, and had to process them in a very brief period. They were not catalogued or annotated. Then she ruminated on the startling things she had read. It is probable that all the allegations got muddled and some seemed more significant in her mind than they probably were, given the confidence she placed in Herndon. The newspapers teemed with stories of Lincoln for the rest of her life, and it is clear that many people unconsciously assimilated these stories into their own memories of events.
Even if she had no intent to deceive, it is likely that her memories would distort over time. In view of this, I have confined my analysis almost exclusively to claims that can be compared with contemporary accounts or statements by Herndon. It should be kept in mind, however, that her remarks reflect what she believed she had read. She might have misremembered certain things, and where her memory was good, what she read may not have been accurate to begin with.
So, while many of Dall’s later recollections are of dubious accuracy, there is contemporaneous evidence of her beliefs during and shortly after her visit to Springfield. These assertions were not necessarily correct, but they should be given more weight, particularly in light of Herndon’s responses to them.
When Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, Dall had naturally reached out to Herndon. At first Herndon had was too stunned to respond to her condolences (and request for a memento). But by June, he wrote her, “This deed has shocked the Civilized world. But Providence will Strengthen the connections of mankind thereby in this—The whole race will now Everywhere strike to destroy all forms & kinds of despotism. I think the argument producing this connection was the bullet of Booth—figuratively Speaking—Crushing through the life of the great dead martyr.” After this analysis, he gave her fair warning: “I am some what Enthusiastic—fanatical in my beliefs—philosophy &c and you had better not pay any attention to what I say.”
But she paid much attention, becoming his special champion. Dall probably bonded with Herndon’s over his enthusiasm, compelling narratives, and pursuit of truth and justice over repressive social norms. As Wilson aptly noted, “Caroline Healey Dall was in some ways the perfect audience for Herndon's theorizing, for she understood and actually embraced his aspirations. Even before she was over the shock of reading his secret memoranda, she found herself admiring Lincoln all the more. There was, she had to admit, something inspiring about it.”
She wrote, “I shall when I recover poise continue to think his life -- the greatest miracle: God's own way -- of stating the extremest republicanism. I have racked my brain in vain, for a single instance in History like it. And that he could ultimately rise to self conquest, ought to forbid the lowest wretch to despair. It is a better help in one sense than the life of Christ, for all his endowments were towards holiness.” Wilson explained that “By this, she meant that he exemplified the American idea, implicit in its republican form of government, of leaders who were not chosen based on elite characteristics.”
Dall got over her shock quickly, or she was willing to push through it as long as her name was not attached to what she had learned. She wrote anonymously from Springfield to Boston’s Christian Register. Impressed by Lincoln’s tomb, she was “hopeless of conveying to you the thoughts and emotions which thronged upon me as I stood before it. ‘The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.’ These words spoken of a far more sacred life (for I must make distinctions growing more and more evident to me,) are preeminently true of Abraham Lincoln.”
Dall hinted at what was causing her to draw a line between Jesus and Lincoln. “At the State House I saw a portrait of Lincoln . . . It is the ideal pioneer. I saw three other portraits of Western men . . . They put all the old patriots of ‘seventy-six’ to shame, and prophecy distinctly a new world a new civilization--prophecy in spite of the profligacy from which not one of them was free. ‘Lincoln,’ said a State Senator the other night when we had talked very plainly to each other, ‘Lincoln was the purest man we ever had in the West.’ God help us.”
She was surprisingly revealing. “I have spent three days and nights, with a short hour for sleep, in examining the records of Abraham Lincoln’s life. No one living has read so much from his own hand, except the clerk who is to make an imperishable record of these papers; nor will he ever see all that I have read. The work would have been impossible to me had I not slighted the purely political, which I was more willing to trust to the perceptions of others, than the personal record. Suffice it now, that had a Unitarian church been within Abraham Lincoln’s reach, with its moral convictions, it would have saved him from everything in his life which he hated to remember. I shall wish to write you more of this . . .”
Shortly after she left, Herndon authorized her to state certain things about Lincoln publicly. In the margin, he wrote “You are welcome to make anything public I tell you except his love letters--his love scrapes--his women or Mr. Lincoln’s domestic relations at his home &c with Mrs. Lincoln. These things are Sacredly private--yet.” This corroborates her description in her diary of talking with Herndon in detail about his relationships with women. We know Herndon’s notes contained controversial information about Lincoln’s relationship with two women: 1) his wife and 2) Ann Rutledge. He also had letters from Lincoln to another woman, Mary Owens, who he had unenthusiastically and unsuccessfully courted. It is possible that these women are all he was referring to, particularly Rutledge. He wrote a friend of a lecture was preparing on the Lincoln-Rutledge romance, noting he could yet reveal the details, but that he had read the notes to a Boston lady. “I . . . hope she won’t reveal till I get ready; but you know the world.”
A few weeks later, he mailed Dall some Lincoln relics. He warned her that the little notebooks she had looked through may contain information he had since determined to be untrue, and asked to see anything she wrote about Lincoln, though he did not say in advance of publication. “Some facts in those little books need explanation -- others are false -- perverted & maliciously colored. Again -- some of my conclusions, made at an Early day when I Commenced gathering facts, have since then changed, or been modified: So if you want any particular idea you got from those memoranda Explained . . . you had better write to me . . . You must remember that I am not responsible for what others say, and which I note down.”
It is not hard to imagine that some women claimed the honor of sleeping with a future president, and that much of what Herndon was told was fabricated. But only some were false -- or perhaps out-of-context or exaggerated -- “perverted & maliciously colored.” Others were “facts” that required “explanation.” Herndon’s “conclusions” about “any particular idea” may have changed. For that reason, he told her that for her own sake, she should be careful about what she said, “because you might be contradicted.” But he insisted everything they had verbally discussed was true. Her revised diary entries mostly summarize these verbal conversations, and some of what she says is outlandish. Unfortunately, there’s nothing to check these claims against, so I generally avoid using them as evidence.
On December 7th, in response to criticism of Herndon’s Ann Rutledge lecture, she wrote to the Boston Daily Advertiser, defending his fitness as a biographer of Lincoln. It was also surprisingly revealing. Dall spoke about the culture of the “pioneers” generally - a group that, in her definition, included both Herndon and Lincoln. “Since the days of the old crusaders, there have been no men, I think, so blessed or so cursed, as the case might be, by the love of women. Nor is it, in those far off wilds, possible to keep the secrets of a man’s life in this respect.” After that unsubtle implication, Dall went further, indicating her shock when she “saw with my own eyes, written statements from Mr. Lincoln’s own hand, and affidavits from repeated sources, as to similar statements made by him in conversation, on matters which would never have have past the lips of an Eastern man.”
This suggests that she may have been disturbed by Lincoln’s comments more than actions - possibly jokes, stories, descriptions of court cases or attractive women, etc.—she firmly believed that the mere existence of Aristophanes’s comedies degraded women. But it went further—she continually emphasized that western men had a profligacy, as she had written earlier, “from which not one of them was free.”
Yet her Springfield visit seemed to have changed her perspective, as she admitted in her letter that “it is also well to go away from Boston, to be purged utterly of provincial egotism and moral bigotries, and open one’s eyes to the facts that God is competent to save all men, and that he specially bends to save sometimes the poor wretch whom we Bostonians leave in the gutter.”
Apparently this referred to the late President Lincoln.
Pioneering
The lecture and her letter caused less controversy than has been portrayed, but some newspapers protested vehemently against the invasion of privacy. She had seen harsh denunciation published, but noted that it was generally “well received” in the east. This included Massachusetts, and Dall’s friend Governor John A. Andrew had read it and wrote to Herndon with a “suggestion” to Herndon about how to handle his biography of Lincoln. Herndon closed his reply with “I never stoop to defend my motives--purposes, & plans, and never authorized others so to do--never; and will not. Others may do as they please. I read Mrs Dalls letter; it is excellent--substantially true--except when she speaks of my abilities &c. which she has overstated.” He did not deny her accusations about the pioneers’ licentiousness or documents in which Lincoln discussed things that Eastern men allegedly never would. He did not even mention it, and when he wrote to Dall the next day, he praised her letter but still did not mention it. They continued to correspond about Lincoln and support each other’s writing, but only discussed nonsensitive aspects of Lincoln’s life, with no mention of more scandalous ones.
Meanwhile, Springfielders responded to her letter in the Daily Advertiser. Assuming the writer was male, they wrote “We have read a letter from one of your correspondents, relative to Mr. Herndon and his biography of Mr. Lincoln . . . the writer, in justification of his views . . tells your readers, substantially, that Western men are so unlike Massachusetts men, that their acts, conduct and writings must not be viewed by a Massachusetts standard.” Switching to first person, the letter continued, “To this I assent,” before launching into an objection about another of Dall’s comments. Unfortunately, the argument is so poorly constructed that it is hard to discern what exactly the writer(s) objected to. One of the letter’s points was that Herndon’s portrayal of Lincoln was in part a caricature of a western man. It did not, however, object to the portrayal as them of licentious, and in fact never mentioned that allegation.
Meanwhile, Dall remained as focused on it as ever. She soon published an article in The Atlantic called “Pioneering” about what she had learned in her western travels. She was clearly impressed with what she had seen, but repeatedly mentioned the undeveloped senses of morality and “purity” possessed by the “white trash” (her words) who settled the western states. She contrasted this with the many positive qualities she saw in the western character, the result of a life of toil and self-reliance, which she believed prepared leaders like Lincoln for their tremendous responsibilities. She actually referred to Lincoln, and their friend Herndon, as being part of a separate “race,” distinguished from Southern and New England whites.
But her focus returned repeatedly to the West’s lack of “purity between man and woman,” and the failure to realize “the infinite value of one woman’s relation to one man” and “the worse than worthlessness of any such relation with many women.” Referring to Herndon, she wrote “When he says that the pioneers were the fast friends of women, he does not mean to claim chastity for either class, only to indicate what tender, chivalrous feeling toward the whole sex their common suffering, in the severe life he spoke of, had developed.” And as a result, she marveled, she could conclude that “Had the best classes of the old civilization settled in these States, I am afraid it would have kept the world back some centuries. A class which had never recognized the most imperative obligations of society might well begin to build it anew.”
“The Office Copy”
In other words, despite admirable efforts to learn about the wider world and full range of humanity, Dall never entirely overcame her Puritan roots. A stereotypical Bostonian woman of that era, her sensibilities were constantly shocked when she ventured outside of that society.
In discussing Aristophanes, she had mentioned other works whose views of women “are still lower,” arguing that there was no real difference between reading Byron’s Don Juan and reading his Child Harold. Neither was respectable, in her eyes. In both of these works, the male protagonists are repeatedly preyed upon by lecherous women. They also have a rather satirical, intentionally provocative nature, which Dall herself recognized, but the influence still bothered her -- specifically, the influence on society’s views of women.
“These things are not without their influence. Above all, low images, witty slang, and sharp satire, have force beyond their own, when slowly studied out by the help of the lexicon. The women to whom I speak know this very well…If men start with the idea that woman is an inferior being, incapable of wide interests, and created for their pleasure alone . . . they will write history in accordance with such views . . .”
This makes an anecdote Dall included all the more interesting. After extolling the virtues of Ann Rutledge and Herndon, and their importance in Lincoln’s life, Dall told a story in order to “throw a little light on Western habits and character.” Touring Lincoln and Herndon’s law office, she had picked up a book which appeared heavily used. It was Byron’s Don Juan. “Now I confess to the conviction,” she continued, “that the world would be no worse for the entire loss of this poem.” Feeling for some reason that this poem would be objectionable to Herndon, she concluded that it must have been one of Lincoln’s favorites. This caused her a “quick sense of pain,” and she asked Herndon if her suspicions were correct. The unconcerned Herndon replied that Lincoln read it often. “It is the office copy!”
The Notebook(s)
Shortly after this, Herndon fell on hard times, struggling financially and relapsing into alcoholism. Little correspondence from this time survives. He ended up selling copies of his materials to Lincoln’s close friend and associate Ward “Hill” Lamon, who published most of it word-for-word in a controversial biography. Space permits only an oversimplified summary of the controversy.
Many pernicious and increasingly implausible rumors about Lincoln’s background began circulating during the War, which is not surprising. He grew up in a culture and location more focused on survival than record-keeping, and his sudden launch to national prominence created a curiosity about his background that invited speculation. The bitterness of the political situation meant there was a large appetite for hostile rumors. Herndon’s research revealed that some people questioned whether his father was actually Thomas Lincoln, whether his parents were actually married, and whether his mother was an illegitimate child, among other things. Lamon’s reference to this in his biography was not universally applauded. Why did two of Lincoln’s closest associates, Herndon and Lamon, keep making revelations that damaged his legacy? The short answer is that they did not believe they were doing so—that they believed Lincoln would want them to portray his actual life, and what he had overcome, and that it would be a betrayal to go along with a sanitized one. They saw, as we see now, that even if Lincoln was illegitimate, it didn’t matter. As Herndon put it, “Mr. Lincoln can stand unstaggeringly up beneath all necessary or other truths.”
Dall was at first appalled by these revelations, found in Herndon’s papers and discussed with him directly, but soon took the same view. Lincoln was all the more impressive if he had risen from such low origins. However, Lincoln’s paternity seemed to fascinate her to the point of obsession; she wanted to explore the idea that great men did not have to come from greatness, and she believed there was something to the rumors. From then on, she never mentioned the scandalous books, and spoke only of Lincoln’s parentage, not whatever had initially struck her about Springfield men.
Initially, Lamon was upset at only receiving copies of Herndon’s papers, rather than originals, so Herndon sent him “two note books containing some secreat [sic] and private things which I would let no other man have even a sight at.” This threw the decision of what to publish onto Lamon. Of course, while no other man had seen them, a woman had.
Lamon apparently never returned the books, and they have never been found. Herndon had given Lamon permission to share them with his “‘Corps’ of literary friends.” Lamon used a ghostwriter, and a publisher must have been involved, among others, so this may have been who Herndon was referring to. In correspondence with Lamon, Herndon sometimes directed him to look in the black notebooks, but not in their discussions about Lincoln’s paternity. It seems that what was in the notebooks was not related to the paternity issue, which is supported by the fact that those rumors are recorded in his other papers.
As the years went on, Herndon seemed to get more and more nervous about the existence of these books. However, instead of worrying that they might turn up somewhere through Lamon or his associates, he seemed very worried about what Dall might do. They had corresponded in the 1870s about doing a biography of Lincoln, but mainly discussed his paternity. The only mention of the notebooks came when Herndon proposed selling Dall his materials for use in her own proposed biography. He stated that the notebooks she had seen were still with Lamon. The letter from Dall that prompted Herndon’s proposal does not survive, and it is unclear if she asked about them or if Herndon just assumed she wanted them.
In the last decade or so of his life, Herndon insinuated much about Lincoln’s intimate life in letters to his friend and co-author on the biography he was still working on. He repeatedly said he would explain these things in-person, as he did not wish to write them down. He made several references to the notebooks, but often referred to “the notebook”—he seemed to be legitimately confused at this point as to whether there were one or two. While he recovered his sobriety, his mental faculties seemed to be declining.
He regularly alternated between stating that Lincoln had an “appetite” for women to insisting that he was completely faithful to his wife. His insinuations as to the first do not seem to be confined to Lincoln’s bachelorhood, and neither were Dall’s claims. His cryptic and inconsistent comments do not permit conclusions on the matter. One possibility is that Herndon adhered to strict legal definitions, in the manner of Bill Clinton.
Ultimately, his correspondent, Jesse Weik, helped him complete the biography and went on to write many Lincoln-related pieces after Herndon’s death. Weik later did significant research into Lincoln’s paternity, and wrote about it, but never spoke of these matters. (He concluded that Lincoln’s mother was illegitimate, and that this grain of truth had led to all the other rumors. This seems plausible.) According to Weik’s daughter, he had suspected Herndon’s faculties were failing during these years, and did not publish some information because he was unsure it was credible.
Dall wrote Herndon when his biography was published, and mentioned her disappointment that he did not go into the paternity question or Lincoln’s “debauchery.” Herndon died in 1891. Dall lived until 1912, continuing to write and lead an active life. She never forgot her trip to Springfield. A decade after Herndon’s death, Dall was reviewing books for a Massachusetts paper. Of one, she wrote “the life it describes has a special interest for me, because it aptly sets for the state of society in which Abraham Lincoln grew up . . . It does not do to inquire too closely into the fate of women in such a town.”
Conclusion
So, what to make of all that? It was fun to investigate. Herndon is endlessly entertaining to me.
I feel confident that Dall was fixated on whatever she read about Lincoln’s “debauchery” with women, but that only addresses what Dall saw, or thought she saw, and what beliefs she drew from that. It seems that the notebooks Herndon was so concerned about had actually not made much of an impression on her, but that doesn’t prove they contained nothing scandalous. It’s possible she read less of them than Herndon thought, or didn’t interpret them the same way. This definitely does not refute all of the arguments advanced by Hanchett, but I think it is unlikely that Dall’s references to Greek literature support his thesis. Her diary indicates that she was fully aware of Walt Whitman’s preferences.
When it comes to Lincoln, I tend to think both Herndon and Dall let their imaginations carry them away because they were overwhelmed with information and did not know how to evaluate its credibility. Having access to all those records, including various witness accounts, was a rare experience then, and may have caused some of the same problems that widespread access to digital information causes today. They did better than most in attempting to vet the information, but it can be hard for people to accept just how unreliable witness accounts, and even newspaper reports, can be—repeatedly, and for no good reason. On top of all that, Lincoln got so famous, so quickly, and then died before these matters were fully investigated. What people sincerely thought was true and what was actually true probably diverged quite a bit.
And I think Herndon was playing elaborate games that we will never fully understand. Whether this was due to paranoia or he had good reason for doing so, I don’t know, but he admittedly planted some “countermines” to neutralize future attacks on Lincoln. While he may have been confused in his later years, in the 1860s I think he was cleverer than many give him credit for. I can understand why some have theorized that his over-the-top ravings about both Mary Lincoln and Ann Rutledge could have been designed to make sure no one ever doubted Lincoln’s romantic interest in women. But I really have no idea what Herndon was up to most of the time. I do think that there is still a lot to be learned from a more careful study of his papers, even after all this time.
In fact, I made some connections between his papers and Dall’s that led to a few discoveries, which will be discussed in subsequent installments of this series. Which brings me to the sources used in this piece—I have citations for all of it upon request, but they did not copy correctly into substack. My sources, other than the ones linked in the piece itself, were:
The archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society
David Donald’s biography of Herndon, Lincoln’s Herndon
Various works written or edited by Helen R. Deese relating to Dall
Dall’s published works
Various analyses of Aristophane’s plays and Lord Byron’s works
Contemporary newspapers and magazines
Herndon, William Henry, Douglas L. Wilson, and Rodney O. Davis. 2016. Herndon on Lincoln. The Knox College Lincoln Studies Center Series. Urbana: Knox College Lincoln Studies Center.
Wilson, Douglas L., Rodney O. Davis, Terry Wilson, William Henry Herndon, and Jesse William Weik, eds. 1998. Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
I originally wanted to pitch this as a “follow-up” to The Atlantic series, but The Atlantic was not interested, and it seems too niche or awkward for most publications. Letting it sit unread any longer became too frustrating, so I hope you enjoyed the revelations!