Jason Emerson: The Madness of Mary Lincoln
[Jason Emerson is currently working on a book about the Mary Lincoln insanity letters, to be published by Southern Illinois University Press in 2007, and a biography of Robert Lincoln to be titled Giant in the Shadows. He was an HNN intern.]
Her son had her committed. She said it was so he could get his hands on her money. Now, 130 years after this bitter and controversial drama, a trove of letters—long believed destroyed—sheds new light on it.
In August 1875, after spending three months in a sanitarium in Batavia, Illinois, put there by her son against her will, Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the martyred President, wrote: “It does not appear that God is good, to have placed me here. I endeavor to read my Bible and offer up my petitions three times a day. But my afflicted heart fails me and my voice often falters in prayer. I have worshipped my son and no unpleasant word ever passed between us, yet I cannot understand why I should have been brought out here.”
This letter, along with 24 others, completely unknown and unpublished, was recently discovered in a steamer trunk owned by the children of Robert Todd Lincoln’s attorney. They are known as the “lost” insanity letters of Mary Lincoln, and their discovery will forever rewrite this famous—and infamous—chapter in the Lincoln-family history.
The newly discovered letters document a long and intimate correspondence between Mary Lincoln and Myra and James Bradwell, Mary’s legal advisers and the people most responsible for getting her out of the sanitarium. The letters were known to have existed. It was assumed Robert Lincoln burned them; he had admitted attempting to destroy all of his mother’s correspondence from the insanity period. ...
The “lost” insanity letters collection contains 11 letters from Mary’s time at Bellevue. Most were written by her, but some are from Myra and James Bradwell, Elizabeth Edwards, and Dr. Patterson. They show Mary questioning her religious faith, illuminate her continuing mania about money and clothing, and, perhaps most interesting, reveal the Bradwells to have been more instrumental than previously known both in securing her release and in causing her resentment of Robert.
When the Chicago Evening Post and Mail correspondent visited Mary Lincoln at Bellevue in July 1875, as mentioned above, Mary Lincoln asked the reporter about her friends in Chicago and “alluded to her attachment to Judge Bradwell’s family.” What has gone unrecorded in the insanity story is that after reading the Post and Mail story, Myra Bradwell journeyed to Bellevue to visit her friend “to satisfy myself in regard to Mrs. Lincoln’s insanity.” Dr. Patterson refused to let her either visit Mary Lincoln or leave her a note, she reported to the Bloomington (Indiana) Courier. Patterson’s treatment of Myra led her to exclaim about her friend, “Then she is a prisoner, is she not?”
It was after the press interview that Mrs. Lincoln is supposed to have secretly mailed letters to several people seeking help in her release. One of the newly discovered letters shows that in fact she sent only one, to her attorney, James Bradwell. “May I request you to come out here just so soon as you receive this note. Please bring out your dear wife, Mr. Wm. Sturgess and any other friend,” she wrote. “Also bring Mr. W. F. Storey with you. I am sure you will not disappoint me. Drive up to the house. Also telegraph to Genl. Farnsworth to meet you here.”
There have been many books and articles written about Mary Lincoln’s insanity case in the 131 years since it occurred. These works have examined everything from the extent of her insanity to Robert’s motivations to the unfair treatment of women by nineteenth-century American medical and legal professionals. Varying interpretations continue.
What can be agreed upon, however, is that the newly discovered “lost” letters will write a new chapter on the insanity episode. Their discovery continues to prove that even 141 years after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, there are still unknown jewels waiting to tell us yet more about the family of the most closely studied American in history.
Read entire article at American Heritage
Her son had her committed. She said it was so he could get his hands on her money. Now, 130 years after this bitter and controversial drama, a trove of letters—long believed destroyed—sheds new light on it.
In August 1875, after spending three months in a sanitarium in Batavia, Illinois, put there by her son against her will, Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the martyred President, wrote: “It does not appear that God is good, to have placed me here. I endeavor to read my Bible and offer up my petitions three times a day. But my afflicted heart fails me and my voice often falters in prayer. I have worshipped my son and no unpleasant word ever passed between us, yet I cannot understand why I should have been brought out here.”
This letter, along with 24 others, completely unknown and unpublished, was recently discovered in a steamer trunk owned by the children of Robert Todd Lincoln’s attorney. They are known as the “lost” insanity letters of Mary Lincoln, and their discovery will forever rewrite this famous—and infamous—chapter in the Lincoln-family history.
The newly discovered letters document a long and intimate correspondence between Mary Lincoln and Myra and James Bradwell, Mary’s legal advisers and the people most responsible for getting her out of the sanitarium. The letters were known to have existed. It was assumed Robert Lincoln burned them; he had admitted attempting to destroy all of his mother’s correspondence from the insanity period. ...
The “lost” insanity letters collection contains 11 letters from Mary’s time at Bellevue. Most were written by her, but some are from Myra and James Bradwell, Elizabeth Edwards, and Dr. Patterson. They show Mary questioning her religious faith, illuminate her continuing mania about money and clothing, and, perhaps most interesting, reveal the Bradwells to have been more instrumental than previously known both in securing her release and in causing her resentment of Robert.
When the Chicago Evening Post and Mail correspondent visited Mary Lincoln at Bellevue in July 1875, as mentioned above, Mary Lincoln asked the reporter about her friends in Chicago and “alluded to her attachment to Judge Bradwell’s family.” What has gone unrecorded in the insanity story is that after reading the Post and Mail story, Myra Bradwell journeyed to Bellevue to visit her friend “to satisfy myself in regard to Mrs. Lincoln’s insanity.” Dr. Patterson refused to let her either visit Mary Lincoln or leave her a note, she reported to the Bloomington (Indiana) Courier. Patterson’s treatment of Myra led her to exclaim about her friend, “Then she is a prisoner, is she not?”
It was after the press interview that Mrs. Lincoln is supposed to have secretly mailed letters to several people seeking help in her release. One of the newly discovered letters shows that in fact she sent only one, to her attorney, James Bradwell. “May I request you to come out here just so soon as you receive this note. Please bring out your dear wife, Mr. Wm. Sturgess and any other friend,” she wrote. “Also bring Mr. W. F. Storey with you. I am sure you will not disappoint me. Drive up to the house. Also telegraph to Genl. Farnsworth to meet you here.”
There have been many books and articles written about Mary Lincoln’s insanity case in the 131 years since it occurred. These works have examined everything from the extent of her insanity to Robert’s motivations to the unfair treatment of women by nineteenth-century American medical and legal professionals. Varying interpretations continue.
What can be agreed upon, however, is that the newly discovered “lost” letters will write a new chapter on the insanity episode. Their discovery continues to prove that even 141 years after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, there are still unknown jewels waiting to tell us yet more about the family of the most closely studied American in history.