Introduction
In Part I, I discussed Dall and Herndon’s fascination with Lincoln’s parents, and whether he had been illegitimate. At first glance, Dall’s claims as to Lincoln’s uncertain paternity seem rather fantastical, and Herndon has long been criticized for his irresponsibility in revealing this unconfirmed accusation to the public through Lamon’s biography.
After examining Herndon’s record and Dall’s paper closely, I concluded that they had good reason to take the matter seriously.
Herndon was not simply credulous in the face of foolish Kentucky gossip. After Lincoln’s death, he was aware that there were “thousands of floating rumors -- assertions and theories, etc., etc.,” that had to be “hunted down -- dug out -- inspected criticized, etc., etc., before I can write [a biography].” He was a sharp lawyer who knew how to examine a record, and he endeavored to sift the claims and get to the bottom of things. He was in the process of doing so when Dall visited in 1866, and she saw many of the key documents.
Samuel Haycraft
Before discussing Herndon’s documents, it is worth going back to August 1860, when Lincoln was the Republican nominee for the presidency. His newfound celebrity drew attention from the part of Kentucky where he was born and had spent his early years. He received a letter from Samuel Haycraft, a records clerk in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, who noted it was “generally understood” locally that Lincoln had been born there. Haycraft had written to Lincoln because “there was some difference of opinion about the place & also about your parentage.” A correspondence got going, but not all of the early letters survive. One thing that does survive is this response from Lincoln:
In the main you are right about my history. My father was Thomas Lincoln, and Mrs. Sally Johnston, was his second wife. You are mistaken about my mother---her maiden name was Nancy Hanks. I was not born at Elizabethtown; but my mother's first child, a daughter, two years older than myself, and now long since deceased, was. I was born Feb. 12. 1809, near where Hogginsville [Hodgenville] now is, then in Hardin county. I do not think I ever saw you, though I very well know who you are---so well that I recognized your hand-writing, on opening your letter, before I saw the signature. My recollection is that Ben. Helm was first Clerk, that you succeeded him…
The line “You are mistaken about my mother” has puzzled historians, as it is unknown what Haycraft’s initial claim was. Evidently, he suggested Lincoln’s mother had a different name, indicating the confused state of local gossip around Lincoln’s origins. Nancy had died when Lincoln was young, so few had memories of her.
Based on other things I won’t go into here, there is reason to wonder about Lincoln’s language. He was not someone prone to wordiness and ambiguity, so there is something odd about the way he writes of his mother. The default was to say “my mother was the daughter of __ Hanks,” rather to simply give her first name and maiden name. Presumably Haycraft had given enough details about Thomas Lincoln and Sally Johnston that Lincoln didn’t feel a need to give more, but, as usual he volunteered little about Nancy. Then there is the reference to his sister as “my mother's first child,” with no dates or details. (Sarah died in childbirth shortly after getting married.) This will be relevant later.
In later letters, Haycraft passed on local gossip about Lincoln’s family, probably just wanting to preserve his epistolary relationship with the possible next President. A typical line was:
An old neighbor & friend of mine Saml Young told me to say to you if I wrote to you again that he would vote for you, his sister married a Hanks…
The sections in this installment may initially seem kind of random, but they will tie together as the series continues.
Benjamin Hardin Helm
In October, just before Lincoln was elected, Haycraft wrote:
Not long since I saw my old friend Dick Wintersmith who informed me that he in company with Ben Hardin Helm had lately paid you a visit & taken tea at your house— Dick was our late Treasurer & is a fellow of rare wit & humour & told me that he had expressed his fears to your lady that if it was known in the South that he had supped at your house that he would be hung.
Wintersmith, a fairly influental man in certain circles, had gone to Springfield with another man from that part of Kentucky, Benjamin Hardin Helm. Helm, the son of Kentucky’s governor, John Larue Helm, had married Mary Lincoln’s much younger half-sister, Emily. The Todds had grown up in Lexington, Kentucky.
The Ben. Helm who Lincoln had mentioned to Haycraft was Ben Hardin Helm’s grandfather. The counties in this region of Kentucky, some of which had been renamed since Lincoln lived there, included “Larue” and “Hardin,” showing the extensive influence of these families.
Ben Hardin Helm had never met the Lincolns prior to this, and Emily had not seen them much growing up in Kentucky. A newspaper report on Lincoln’s family connections mentioned the visit:
[Robert Todd, Mary’s father] was Clerk of the Kentucky House of Representatives, filled other positions of trust, and was allied to some of the most enterprising and worthy families in the State of Kentucky among them the Helms, one of whom was formerly Governor of the State; the Wintersmiths, a family of influence, and others, some of whom have lately called upon Mr. Lincoln, at his home in Springfield, and renewed the remembrance of those family ties which, in some cases, unhappily sink into oblivion.
Source: “Springfield Correspondence,” New York Herald, reprinted in Cleveland Daily Leader, August 16, 1860.
Lincoln attempted to sway Helm towards sticking with the Union, in the event of secession, by offering him a government position. Kentucky, a border state, was deeply divided on the issue, and for a while claimed “neutrality.” It never seceded, but many Kentuckians fought on both sides. (Much of the Haycraft correspondence mentions to “jokes” about how Kentuckians would hang Lincoln or anyone associated with him). Around the same time as the Helm/Wintersmith visit, the Lincolns had another surprise visit—-Mary’s half-sister Margaret and her husband, Charles H. Kellogg. The Kelloggs were likely some of the “others,” whose family ties to the Lincolns had “unhappily [sank] into oblivion.” Kellogg was now looking for a government job, which he eventually obtained, sticking close by Lincoln in the earlier months of his presidency and declaring his loyalty to the Union. Meanwhile, Ben Hardin Helm had turned down the job offer. He died in 1863, while serving as a Confederate General.
“The Wall Paper Life of Lincoln”
A few year ago, Douglas L. Wilson, who wrote the original “Keeping Lincoln’s Secrets” series, was asked the following question by an interviewer:
“A letter to Ward Hill Lamon on June 12, 1865, states that Herndon is ‘writing the life of Lincoln.’ Please comment on the type of information he requests.”
Wilson’s response:
“Herndon begins that letter by asking Lamon to send him ‘the wall paper life of Lincoln that O. M. Hatch loaned you,’ but we were unable to discover what this referred to. The rest of the letter . . . constitutes a very useful list of the kind of information he was most anxious to acquire. He focuses attention on Lincoln’s behavior in the White House, where he had no opportunity to observe him.”
In studying Dall’s papers, I figured out exactly what Herndon was referring to: a purported account of Lincoln’s early life, printed on wall paper, because the blockaded Confederacy had run out of regular newspaper. As you can probably imagine, the account was not flattering.
Hatch, an associate of Lincoln, had obviously obtained a copy and loaned it to Lamon. Herndon probably wanted it because, two days earlier, he had interviewed Lincoln’s cousin on his mother’s side, Dennis Hanks, about Lincoln’s ancestry. This was June 1865, so Herndon was just getting started with his research. According to Herndon’s notes, Hanks had told him that Lincoln’s mother’s name was Nancy Sparrow, “not Hanks as stated in the Biographies of the day . . .”
It seems that Herndon had already seen the Haycraft correspondence, in which Lincoln himself clearly stated his mother’s maiden name was Nancy Hanks, and was thrown by the discrepancy. Even worse, Hanks had told Herndon that “the stories going about, charging wrong or indecency prostitution in any of the … families [related to Lincoln] [are] false.” They were the work of political enemies and traitors trying to destroy Lincoln’s reputation, Hanks insisted. After speaking of Lincoln and his older sister Sarah, Dennis commented, “[Thomas and Nancy Lincoln] had no other children — Cause a private matter.” The record indicates that Thomas may have contracted mumps, which can damage fertility. He had no children with his second wife. However, there was a child born shortly after Lincoln, who died in infancy. It is likely that Dennis either forgot this or did not think it worth mentioning.
But Herndon was getting nervous—was Thomas Lincoln able to father children at all? As his research continued, his mind started to go in all sorts of unsettling directions. Lincoln had told Haycraft that Sarah was his mother’s first child, and there were some indications that Nancy had been pregnant with Sarah when she married Thomas, or even that the marriage took place after Sarah’s birth. And Herndon found out about the third child—whose child had that been? Dennis was clearly concerned about rumors of sexual indiscretion in the family.
So Herndon knew that trouble might be brewing, and that he’d have to sort it out. His mind turned to wartime newspaper gossip about Lincoln’s paternity, which had evidently come to the attention of Hatch while Lincoln was still living, and then to Herndon. As Lamon was not yet interested in writing a biography, the likely reason he possessed the “wall paper” article was that he often acted as a “fixer” for Lincoln during his presidency. He’d probably been told to look into the source of the rumors and get them “shut down.” These rumors probably seemed more serious to Herndon than they once had.
Lamon sent Herndon the “wall paper,” and Dall read it when she visited. She took notes in her diary, and the later rewrites of entries about the “wall paper” are exceptionally accurate. This is probably because Herndon had sent it to her in 1872, at her own request, when she was planning her own biography. At the end of his life, Herndon gave Dall permission to leave her notes “to posterity.”
After Dall’s death more than twenty years later, the Boston Globe reported that, under the terms of her will, the Massachusetts Historical Society received, among other things, “The Scandalous Bulletin Issued on Wall paper in New Orleans at the time of [Lincoln’s] second inauguration.”
What was so scandalous about it, and how does this tie into the other things mentioned in this installment? You’ll find out in Part III.