Lincoln Abraham Lincoln: The Family

LINCOLN

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE FAMILY MAN

In the summer of 1860, Jeriah Bonham, a newspaper editor from Springfield, Illinois, paid a visit to President Abraham Lincoln, staying at the Illinois State Capital building on some important business matters. Mr. Bonham relates that during this visit, he witnessed Tad and Willie, two of Lincoln's young sons, playing games on the floor of the Governor's office. Tad was apparently having some problems with spinning a top properly, so his father bent down and helped him with the toy. After this, Lincoln told Mr. Bonham that he was "having a little season of relaxation with my boys which I cannot always enjoy as so many callers occupy my time" (Randall, 126).

With this description, it is clear that Lincoln was a devoted and loving father and saw his family as perhaps the most important aspect of his life which was cut short with his assassination in April of 1865. Over the last one hundred years or so, many biographies have been written about Lincoln, but only recently have biographers begun to focus on his family life which is just as interesting and often as tragic as his political life. After all, Lincoln the family man had four boys to tend with -- Robert, the oldest son, Eddie, who died in 1850 at three years of age, Tad and Willie, who died in 1862, not to mention a wife with great aspirations, courage and fortitude, Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln.

Of course, Lincoln's family life with his four sons and wife was not often very pleasant, due to all of the duties which fall on the head and shoulders of the President of the United States, Lincoln being no exception to the rule. On the outside, Lincoln appeared to most of his colleagues, friends, acquaintances and fellow politicians in Washington, D.C. As a very dedicated and concerned President with deep feelings about a number of subjects, such as the slavery issue, corruption in Washington circles and the on-going War Between the States between 1861 and early 1865, an event which took up ninety percent of his time in the White House and which weighed heavily on his soul and his conscience. But nevertheless, Lincoln did mange to spend some quality time with his family, especially when away from Washington and all of the problems associated with it.

For example, in the fall of 1860, Lincoln, his wife Mary and Tad and Willie were having dinner in the parlor of their home in Springfield, Illinois. A journalist from Ohio later recalled this dinner said that Lincoln allowed his two sons to "clamber all over his legs, pat his cheeks, pull his nose, poke their fingers in his eyes, all without causing their father to reprimand them or even take notice of what they were doing" (Donald, 167). For the journalist witnessing all of this before his eyes, this event must have been somewhat startling, for here was the President of the United States sitting at dinner with his sons Tad and Willie as they treated their father like some kind of plaything. Perhaps one of the reasons why Lincoln allowed this type of activity from his small sons was that "Mr. Lincoln was the more patient parent with his children" (Burlingame, 174), an indication that Mrs. Lincoln, even though she was sitting at the same table while all of this was happening, would have reacted very differently if the situation had occurred in a more private setting.

As the oldest Lincoln son, Robert Todd Lincoln has been quoted very often by biographers as admitting that he felt he was never as close to his father as his younger siblings.

According to Robert, "My father's life was of a kind which gave me little opportunity to learn the details of his early career" and during his childhood and early youth, Lincoln "was almost constantly away from home" ("Lincoln's Sons," Internet), due to his responsibilities as a country lawyer and his growing reputation as the powerful political figure. Robert Lincoln also declares that after his father became President, "any great intimacy between us became impossible. I scarcely had even ten minutes of quiet talk with him during his Presidency on account of his ever-constant devotion to the business of being Commander-in-Chief" (Randall, 183).

Not surprisingly, Abraham Lincoln possessed a deep love for his sons and perhaps saw himself as he was as a youth in Illinois, long before he became a lawyer and decided to devote his life to helping the less fortunate. In 1860, Lincoln aide John Hay stated that very often while visiting the White House, he would find William (Willie) and Thomas (Tad) creating an uproar, due to their "independence and enterprise" which their father encouraged. "They drove their tutor wild," says Hays, "with their good-natured disobedience and conducted "lively games and pranks on virtually everyone that happened to pay a visit to the house during the daylight hours" (Burlingame, 197). Exactly how Mrs. Lincoln reacted to these types of shenanigans is not clear, yet biographer David H. Donald relates that Mary Lincoln so loved her husband that she would "put up with almost anything, especially when Mr. Lincoln, who towered over her by more than a foot, would look down with sad eyes and scold her for not having more patience with the children" (212).

In February of 1862, young Willie Lincoln died from complications brought on by typhoid fever. This surely affected Lincoln greatly, for he had lost another son some ten years earlier. Not long after Willie's death, Lincoln was reported to have been in a deep depression, due to loving his son and seeing how hard Mrs. Lincoln had taken the death of their little boy. A newspaper correspondent reported that on the day of Willie's death, Lincoln strolled in his office and said "Well, my boy is gone. He's actually gone!," whereby he "burst into tears and walked away sobbing as if his life had ended" ("Lincoln's Sons," Internet). For Mrs. Lincoln, this event was a stunning loss and for almost three years after Willie's death, she "lived in virtual seclusion which fated the overburdened President to walk alone, haunted by fear that his beloved wife might go insane" (Burlingame, 234).