Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln

Notes

425 Notes The following abbreviations are used in some citations. ACPL Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection at Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana ALPL Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois CHM Chicago History Museum DDFP David Davis Family Papers, Manuscripts Division, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois H-W Herndon-Weik Collection of Lincolniana, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress Hildene Archives Hildene, The Lincoln Family Home, Friends of Hildene Inc., Manchester, Vermont IF Mary Todd Lincoln Insanity File, Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection at Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana LB Robert Todd Lincoln Letterpress Books, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois. Citations are in the form LB, followed by volume, microfilm reel, and page numbers separated by colons, for example, Robert Lincoln to Frank Ashbury Johnson, July 5, 1898, LB, 33:54:247. LOC Library of Congress NARA National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC OR The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Edited by Robert N. Scott. Series 1, vol. 46. Washington, DC: GPO, 1895. 127 vols. RTL Robert T. Lincoln RTLFP Robert Todd Lincoln Family Papers, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress Introduction 1. “The Feeling for Lincoln,” Chicago Tribune, August 31, 1887, 1. 2. RTL to H. H. Warner, May 8, 1884, folder 1, RTL Collection, CHM. 3. “Gossip from the Capitol,” Chicago Tribune, August 9, 1890, 7. 4. RTL to John S. Phillips, October 14, 1908, LB, 41:71:361. 5. RTL to Mary Lincoln, Dec. 2, 1860, RTL Collection, Phillips Exeter Academy. 1. “I Was Born in the Globe Tavern” 1. Springfield is two hundred miles southwest of Chicago and about one hundred miles north-northwest of St. Louis. 2. Wallace, Past and Present, 1:5; Peck, Traveler’s Directory for Illinois, 164–65; Federal Land Surveyors’ Field Notes. notes to pages 5–8 426 3. Angle, Here I Have Lived, 6. 4. Western Tourist and Immigrant’s Guide, (1840), 133; Western Tourist and Immigrant’s Guide, (1845); Peck, Traveler’s Directory, 166–67. Population numbers are an average of conflicting estimates. 5. Wallace, Past and Present, 6; Peck, Traveler’s Directory, 165, 167. On November 4, 1840, the Morning Courier (Springfield, Illinois) newspaper stated, “Springfield has improved more than twice as much this season as in any former one. . . . The small enclosures, near the city, that have been in cultivation for several years, are giving way, and buildings are stretching into the prairies in every direction.” 2. 6. Wallace, Past and Present, 6; Peck, Traveler’s Directory. 7. Elizabeth Edwards, interview with William Herndon, January 10, 1866, Lamon Papers. See also Wilson and Davis, Herndon’s Informants, 443. 8. William Herndon to Jesse Weik, January 16, 1886, in Hertz, Hidden Lincoln, 136–37; Herndon and Weik, Herndon’s Life of Lincoln, 134. 9. James C. Conkling to Mercy Ann Levering, September 21, 1840, folder 1, box 1, Conkling Family Papers; Ninian Edwards quoted in K. Helm, True Story of Mary, 81. 10. K. Helm, True Story of Mary, 73–74. 11. Abraham was nine when his mother died of milk sickness; Mary was six when her mother died due to complications from childbirth. 12. Elizabeth Edwards, interview with William Herndon, January 10, 1866, 2:220–26, LN 2408, Lamon Papers; Herndon and Weik, Herndon’s Life of Lincoln, 166–67. See also Mrs. B. S. Edwards, interview with Chicago Tribune, February 12, 1900, Nicolay Papers. 13. Abraham Lincoln to Joshua Speed, Springfield, March 27, 1842, in Basler et al., Collected Works, 1:282; Elizabeth Edwards, interview with William Herndon, January 10, 1866, in Wilson and Davis, Herndon’s Informants, 443; D. L. Wilson, “Abraham Lincoln and ‘That Fatal First of January,’” 99–132. This broken engagement is usually referred to as “that fatal first of January” 1841, although even the accuracy of this reference is debatable. 14. For a good examination of the Lincoln-Todd courtship, see D. L. Wilson, Honor’s Voice, 220–64. 15. Abraham Lincoln to Joshua Speed, May 18, 1843, in Basler et al., Collected Works, 1:325; Hickey Collected Writings of James T. Hickey, 59. The tavern was located at 315 East Adams Street between Third and Fourth Streets. 16. Hickey, Collected Writings of James T. Hickey, 58; Frances Todd Wallace, interview by William Herndon, 1865–66, in D. L. Wilson and Davis, Herndon’s Informants, 485. 17. Abraham Lincoln to Samuel D. Marshall, Springfield, November 11, 1842, in Basler et al., Collected Works, 1:305. 18. Abraham Lincoln...