Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Ann Todd Lincoln was born December 13, 1818, in Lexington Kentucky, the fourth child of Robert Smith Todd and Elizabeth "Eliza" Parker. Mary’s father was a successful merchant and co-owner of a cotton mill, and the Todds were considered amongst the state's influential and politically connected handful of elite families. When she was only six years old Mary’s mother died in childbirth. Two years later, her father married Elizabeth "Betsy" Humphreys. Mary described her childhood as "desolate."
Considered rare for women in the early nineteenth century, Mary received nearly ten years of formal schooling: six years of study at Shelby Female Academy, with four years at Madame Charlotte Mentelle’s boarding school. She gained a lifelong fluency in French, a love of reading and learning, and knowledge of the world beyond Lexington.
Mary’s eldest sister, Elizabeth, married Ninian Wirt Edwards, son of the former territorial and state governor of Illinois, in 1832 and moved to Springfield, Illinois. Mary first visited in 1837, for three months. She returned to Lexington for another two years before moving to Springfield in the late autumn of 1839 to live with the Edwards. This display of independence for a woman was unusual for the time, but Mary desperately wanted to remove herself from the tensions in the Todd household.
Mary was popular among the elite of Springfield. While she was courted by the rising young lawyer and Democratic Party politician Stephen A. Douglas and others, she was attracted to Abraham Lincoln, a fellow Whig. Her education and upbringing in a politically active family enabled her to engage with Lincoln on matters of public policy. This mutual respect and intellectual compatibility laid the foundation for their enduring relationship. Mary Todd married Abraham Lincoln on November 4, 1842.
Mary invested her intellect, sharp wit and political astuteness into her husband’s career. As a couple, they faced many setbacks, including the death of their son, Edward Baker Lincoln (March 10, 1846 – February 1, 1850) in Springfield, Illinois. Abraham was defeated in his nomination to Congress in 1842 but won the election in 1846. He lost re-nomination in 1848 and was defeated for U.S. Senate in 1854 and again in 1858. Mary Todd Lincoln’s unwavering support, encouragement, and emotional connection were vital in shaping Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and personal life.
Lincoln ran for president in the 1860 Election on the Republican Party ticket. A tense election season followed, with southern states threatening to secede if Lincoln won. When news of his political victory arrived by telegraph, Lincoln hastened home to share the announce with Mary. Fears of restrictions or abolition of slavery following the Lincoln's election prompted national crisis. Between Lincoln's election victory in November 1860 and his inauguration as the sixteenth president in March 1861, seven southern states declared session and moved to form a separate country, the Confederate States of America. Just weeks after her husband took the oath of office, Mary heard the news that Confederates had fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina—beginning the American Civil War.
At a time when the nation was divided over the issue of slavery, so too was the Todd family, leading some to believe that First Lady Mary Lincoln was sympathetic to the Confederacy. Born into a slave-owning family, Mary never owned slaves herself and was influenced by her grandmothers who opposed slavery. The loyalties of the many children in the Todd family were sharply divided. Of her thirteen full and half-siblings, eight supported the Confederacy. Mary’s brother George R.C. Todd and three half-brothers, Alexander, David, and Samuel, served in the Confederate Army. Alexander was killed in Baton Rouge. Samuel was killed in the Battle of Shiloh. David Todd was wounded at Vicksburg. In September 1863, Mary’s brother-in-law, 32-year-old Confederate Brig. Gen. Benjamin Hardin Helm was killed at the Battle of Chickamauga. Helm had married Emilie Todd, Mary’s younger half-sister. The husbands of her half-sisters, Martha White and Elodie Dawson were ardent supporters of the Confederacy. The Todds were truly a house divided.
As First Lady, Mary played an obvious role in White House activities. The Lincolns hosted thousands at receptions, state dinners, and musical entertainments. She toured army camps, volunteered in Union hospitals, and donated to sanitary fairs. She also supported the Contraband Relief Association, started by her African American dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley, to help formerly enslaved men and women who had fled to Washington.
The passing of eleven-year-old William Wallace (Willie) Lincoln from typhoid fever in 1862 plunged Mary into a deep depression. The deaths of multiple family members during the Civil War caused her additional anguish, as did many health issues (i.e., migraine headaches, anxiety, paranoia, and erratic behavior). Much of her tenure as First Lady was marred by the hostile reception she received from much of Washington society and criticism in the press for her many shopping sprees in Philadelphia and New York.
Abraham Lincoln won the 1864 Election, and with Union victories pressuring the Confederacy, it looked like peace would come in his second term. Just weeks after his second inauguration and days after the surrender of Confederates at Appomattox Court House, an assassin fired a fatal shot at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865, and Abraham Lincoln died the following morning. Mary, in shock, sequestered herself at the White House aided by Elizabeth Keckley who “soothed the terrible tornado as best I could.”
Mary remained isolated in her rooms at the White House and did not accompany her husband’s remains on the funeral procession to Springfield, Illinois. She saw no one socially but took comfort in her sons and a few close friends. She moved from the White House to Chicago on May 23, 1865. She and her son Tad (Thomas) relocated to Frankfurt, Germany in 1868 after attending the wedding of son Robert Lincoln to Mary Harlan in Washington, D.C. While Tad attended school, Mary traveled throughout Germany and France.
Returning from Germany in 1871, Tad caught a cold. A month later, he was gravely ill. On the 15th of July 1871, Tad died either of pneumonia, tuberculosis, or congestive heart failure. He was eighteen years old. Tad’s death sent Mary into a downhill spiral. In 1875, she was committed to the Bellevue Insane Asylum, in Batavia, Illinois. Robert was appointed conservator of her estate.
After four months of confinement, the former First Lady was released to the care of her sister Elizabeth Edwards in Springfield, Illinois. After a second trial on June 19, 1876, declared her sane, she moved to France. After four years abroad she returned to live once again in the Edwards home, in October 1880.
Mary Lincoln died on July 16, 1882, at sixty-three years old and people paid their respects in the front parlor of the Edwards’ home, the same parlor where she had married Abraham Lincoln in 1842. She was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery alongside her husband and three of her four sons.
