MARY TODD met Abraham Lincoln in 1839 in Springfield, Illinois, on her second visit to her sister's. They had a tumultuous courtship with several partings and comings together. Lincoln was shy and awkward, given to moods and depression. But he was a lawyer, a self-educated man who came from pioneer stock and had arrived in Springfield in 1837.
He was completely unschooled in the art of "parlor talk," which included talking to women. Born into a poor farming family, he had only one year of formal schooling. He had worked on a flatboat, as a store clerk, and as a postmaster. He read constantly and could speak fluently by the time he got to Springfield, but he had to borrow money for a suit to attend the legislature.
Yet Mary Todd saw something in this earnest, ambitious, and melancholy man. Of course by the time she met him he had already been elected as town trustee, chosen as a presidential elector at the first state Whig (Republican) convention, and was one of the managers of a cotillion ball at the American House.
After their chaotic courtship, during which Abraham Lincoln almost had a nervous breakdown, they were married in the house of Mary's sister and brother-in-law, the Edwardses.
It was November 1842. Mary wore her sister Elizabeth's white satin wedding dress, which had been Mama's, and a pearl necklace. There were two bridesmaids. An Episcopalian minister married them.
ABRAHAM CALLED HER "Molly" and Mary called him "Mr. Lincoln." They took up residence in the Globe Tavern, a hotel/boardinghouse on Adams Street in Springfield. Room and board cost them $4 a week.
Lincoln was away a lot, riding court circuit (going from county to county to different courts, to try cases). Mary, in time, became pregnant with their first child, who was born on August 1, 1843. They named him Robert Todd after Mary's father.
Her father was so happy that he paid them a visit and gave them $25 in gold and also gave Lincoln a law case that would earn him $50. This money enabled them to start looking for a home.
They found one at Eighth and Jackson streets and settled in. Mary had the help of a black woman named Epsy Smith, who worked for her sister and brother-in-law.
Their second son, Edward, was born in March 1846. In the meantime Mary went on, firmly believing that her husband would surely bring her fame and power.
It was when Lincoln was riding circuit and away from home for weeks at a time that Mary consoled herself with shopping, just as her father used to console her with gifts when things got bad at home.
After working for years for the Whig party, in the fall of 1846 Lincoln was elected to Congress. They moved to Washington, D.C., where they lived in a boardinghouse. But first they paid a visit to Mary's family in Lexington, Kentucky. Here Lincoln saw slavery firsthand, being that Mary's father's house was right up the street from the slave market.
"I bite my lip and keep quiet," he said. He was anti-slavery.
Lincoln spent two years in Congress. Mary and their two sons returned to Springfield before the two years were up, unable to bear life in a boardinghouse, and Lincoln returned in 1849 when his term was up.
In late July, Mary's father died of cholera; six months later Grandma Parker passed away. In December Eddie fell ill. The Lincolns watched their son suffer with a wracking cough and fevers for nearly two months. Eddie died on February 1, 1850. The Lincolns were devastated. Mary couldn't stop crying, could not eat, and wrote a poem about him that was published in the Springfield Journal.
But soon she was expecting another child and this, at least, helped her to stop crying. William (called Willie) was born on December 21, 1850.
Two years later they had Thomas, named after Lincoln's father (called Tad, short for Tadpole).
Lincoln once again was practicing law in Springfield with the firm of Lincoln and Herndon. Most of his cases were for the railroads, which were advancing and expanding all over the land. Mary spent her time cooking and caring for the children, shopping and sewing and "educating" her husband in such things as wearing a jacket when answering the doorbell and which silverware to use at a dinner party. She kept his spirits buoyed and was a constant supporter in his career, besides being an excellent mother. Both were indulgent parents. Always interested in politics, Mary was soon collaborating with and advising her husband, and there were many people who said Lincoln told them his wife expected him to be president.
Zachary Taylor, a Whig, was in the White House. Lincoln wanted to be rewarded for all the work he'd done for the party. He wanted the post of commissioner of the Land Office. So he went back to Washington to further his cause, and Mary started a letter-writing campaign in his favor to get President Zachary Taylor's attention.
Lincoln didn't get the post but was offered the governorship of Oregon Territory. He declined. They didn't want to live so far away from everything. So for six years his political career came to a standstill. Mary, busy with the children, still continued to bolster his spirits and still spoke of his being president someday.
Lincoln made some speeches (after reading them first to Mary), and in 1858 he entered into a series of debates (seven in seven prairie towns) with Senator Stephen Douglas, Mary's old beau, taking a moderate antislavery position.
Sometimes he spoke as a candidate for the state senate himself, sometimes he spoke for others, but the slavery question was coming to a head and Lincoln knew he had to take a firm position on it. In the late 1850s Lincoln took his stand on slavery, saying in one of his speeches that it was a monstrous injustice.
While still in Springfield, the Lincolns' financial worth escalated. His fame, garnered from his speechmaking, and his influence were expanding. Mary had another floor built onto the house. In the winter of 1857 she threw a party for five hundred people, but only three hundred came because of the bad weather. She was, without knowing it, preparing herself to be First Lady.
But as always, when depressed, she shopped. On one occasion she spent $196.55 for clothing and one of her dresses cost the same as two months' pay for an ordinary Springfield family.
Lincoln continued speechmaking and came to stand for helping the oppressed. He addressed a large audience at New York's Cooper Institute, then traveled to New England where he gave eleven more speeches.
In 1860 he ran for president. War was looming. People predicted terrible results if he won.
In the blink of an eye, when her husband was elected, Mary's life in a fishbowl began. She was finally wife of the president of the United States, something she had wanted since she was a very young girl.
WITH ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD Willie and eight-year-old Tad (Robert had gone off to Harvard), the Lincolns went to Washington. The boys, often called "the Lincoln brats," had the run of the White House.
The Civil War (or War Between the States, as the Southerners called it) broke out in April of 1861. But despite it, Mary continued with her gaiety and parties, which she became known for in the White House. Some of Washington's elite matrons were rude to her—the wife of the pioneer president, the First Lady from the backwoods of Illinois. Others attended her levees (receptions) but talked behind her back.
Those who hated her husband called him "that ape" or "a Black Republican."
As always, when depressed, Mary shopped. She bought a fancy carriage, a 190-piece porcelain dinner set, wallpaper from Paris, silverware, and many other items that overshot the allowance she was permitted to run the White House. To the White House she added furnaces, gaslight, and running water.
She shopped at New York importers, and in Philadelphia. And soon she was criticized for her self-indulgence in Northern newspapers by those who hated her husband.
She interviewed dressmakers to make her lavish gowns. But all those she hired she was displeased with. Fashion was of prime importance to her. On one particular occasion she wanted a "bright rose-colored moiré antique gown," and determined to find just the right dressmaker, she set out to interview three or four more.
Early one morning at the beginning stages of the presidency, a light-skinned black woman walked up to the front entrance of the White House. She wanted the position of dressmaker to the First Lady but didn't think she had a chance of getting it.
Already successful in her trade, and the favorite of Washington's elite, she was a free black woman who had purchased her own freedom.
The interview lasted only a few minutes, and in that time Mary Lincoln hired the free black woman.
Her name was Elizabeth Keckley.