Born in Lexington, Kentucky, in a wealthy, influential family, who provided her with a quality education at private local academies, in 1839, she met Abraham Lincoln and the two became engaged. Their realationship was interrupted abruptly when he failed to arrive at the wedding, attributing his non-appearance to nervousness. Over the protests of her family, the courtship resumed, and they were hastily married Nov. 4, 1842. Although stubborn, willful and given to biting sarcasms, she adoreed her husband, and worked to make a comfortable home for him and their sons.
Her years as First Lady were not happy. Many in Washington distrusted her because of her Southern roots, her erratic temperament, her obsession for expensive clothes and lavish entertainment. The death of her 12 year old son, Willy, in 1862, left her severly depressed, and Lincoln's assassignation devastated her.
In 1870, Congress awarded her a yearly pension of $3000 in response to her indignant petitions for assistance as the widow of the martyred President. Her instability became more pronounced after the death of her youngest son, Tad, in 1871. In 1875, she was declared "insane" and committed to a private sanitarium at Batavia, Illinois where she remained for several months until judged "competant" to manage her own affairs.
For the next several years, she traveled abroad, returning to her sister's home in Springfield, Illinois for the rest of her life. Shortly before her death, Congress increased her pension to $5000 a year, and voted to give her a lump-sum gift of $15,000.
"The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War", Paricia L. Faust, Editor, Harper & Row, 1986
|
