The Madness of Mary Lincoln

6. It Does Not Appear That God Is Good

6 It Does Not Appear That God Is Good Myra Bradwell has become known as the woman who orchestrated Mary Lincoln’s release from Bellevue Place Sanitarium, and not without reason. She was somewhat of a female icon in her day. Bradwell was an activist for numerous causes, such as female suffrage and fair legal treatment for women, and counted among her friends such luminaries as Susan B. Anthony and Mary Livermore. Not only was she America’s “first” woman lawyer but also was the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of the prestigious and widely read Chicago Legal News. “Myra Bradwell did more to create rights for women and other legally handicapped persons than did any other woman of her day, and perhaps any day,” stated her sole biographer.1 But in July 1875, this feminist hero was not looking for another cause or a fight with either Dr. Patterson or Robert Lincoln. In fact, despite her friendship with Mary Lincoln, Myra Bradwell seems to have made no attempt to write to or visit Mary Lincoln at Bellevue Place during the widow’s first two months there. The reason is unknown. Perhaps Bradwell was preoccupied publishing the Chicago Legal News; or maybe she simply believed (as she later explicitly stated) that her friend was insane, so she chose to give the physicians time to ply their trade. What is now known, however, due to the discovery of Mary Lincoln’s lost insanity letters, is that Myra Bradwell was not the instigator she has come to be credited as. She certainly was a willing and extremely able accomplice, but it was Mary herself who created and directed her plot for freedom. Inside Bellevue Place, Mary Lincoln sequestered herself from most of society, as she did during her European sojourn in 1868 and would do again after being declared sane in 1876. Initially, she did not reach out to Myra Bradwell. Both Dr. Patterson and the Post and Mail reporter attested that Mary refused all visitors during her first two months at the sanitarium; and the eagerness with which she asked the reporter about her Chicago friends indicates she was not in communication with them. Mary had, up to that point, expressed no displeasure at being at Bellevue 77 78 . It Does Not Appear That God Is Good Place during her time there, and while she suffered bouts of depression, she had made no mention of being uncomfortable, confined, or in any way desirous of freedom from her situation. Robert even reported more than once that his mother was always happy to see him and seemed pleased with her surroundings.2 Then suddenly on July 15, after a visit from Robert and his daughter, Mary told Dr. Patterson she wanted to live with her sister, Elizabeth Edwards, in Springfield, Illinois. The notation in the Bellevue daily patient progress report suggests Mary’s statement was regarded skeptically . “This sister we understand she might have lived with anytime but has not even felt kindly toward her—Mrs. L said—‘It is the most natural thing in the world to wish to live with my sister—She raised me and I regard her as a sort of mother.’”3 This last was certainly true. After the death of their mother, Elizabeth Todd, the oldest child by five years, played a motherly role to her younger siblings, even to the point of finding husbands for three of them.4 Yet, in the later White House years, Mary had become estranged from Elizabeth due to a family feud regarding government patronage, and the two barely spoke throughout the following decade.5 So why did Mary suddenly change her mind about her situation, and did she change her mind about living at Bellevue or about keeping quiet about not wanting to live there? No known evidence gives an explicit answer. The Bellevue patient log shows she had no visitors and received no mail. Mary’s seclusion likely was motivated by her embarrassment at being declared insane and her resulting self-pity from feelings of abandonment by family and friends. What seems likely is that upon learning her Chicago friends were thinking of her, Mary realized she was not alone after all. In fact, her friends were powerful people. James Bradwell, Mary’s unofficial legal adviser, was a former county court judge and current member of the state legislature; Myra Bradwell was a renowned activist and publisher; and John Franklin Farnsworth, a Chicago...