![]() ![]() Some questioned how long before the Confederates invaded and raised their flag in Washington. Given that day’s typography, Lincoln could look out a second floor White House window and see a Confederate flag waving in the distance. He was like a young brother or son to the Lincolns and a beloved “older brother” to Lincoln’s two youngest sons.Īcross the Potomac River lay Virginia and the Confederacy - the rebels! Early in the war, the District of Columbia was poorly defended and fortified. Ellsworth had studied law with Lincoln in Springfield and had accompanied the family to Washington. Eddie, age 4, died during an epidemic in 1850 in Springfield.Īlso weighing on Lincoln’s soul was the death of Col. In fact, the Lincolns had named their second son Edward Baker Lincoln. Edward Baker, a senator who had long been Lincoln’s friend and political ally. The first Union general officer killed in the war, on Oct. He had little idea how much money she was spending until he wrote checks to cover her overdrafts. The president agonized over her spending on items he dismissed as “flub-a-dubs,” such as china and imported French wallpaper. Quickly, she spent the $20,000 Congressional appropriation for redecorating. ![]() Mary Lincoln had assessed the interior of the White House as an “old worn-out hotel.” She dreamed of a palace awed by Europeans and cherished by Washingtonians. Was she unaware that on winter nights, too many Union soldiers shivered without blankets, some without boots, most hungry? Lincoln’s gleeful shopping sprees in New York City stimulated vivid criticism and outrage. She spent extravagant amounts of money on fashionable clothes. Mary vowed to prove to the Washington elites - and gossips - that she had class and deserved respect as “Mrs. Although born into the aristocratic Todd family in Kentucky, Mary was derided as a “woman of the prairies,” uncultured, coarse and worse, some whispered, a secret Southern sympathizer after all, three of her stepbrothers were serving in the Confederate army and her brother-in-law, Benjamin Helm, was a Southern general. Lincoln - Mary, wife of almost 20 years and the mother of his four sons. ![]()
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