room shift and turn around her before all went dark.
Chapter Five
A UGUST 1861–M ARCH 1862
W hen George’s personal effects arrived a week later, Elizabeth kept them on her bureau for two days before mustering up the courage to examine them. They included all of her letters, neatly bound with a ribbon; a book of psalms; a sewing kit that could be rolled up and tied, commonly called a housewife; a rosewood ink bottle; a tin cup; a small tobacco box, also of tin; and a pair of bone dice. She touched the items one by one, imagining them in his hands. She was glad that he had found solace and inspiration in Holy Scripture while at war, but she did not like to think that he had taken up smoking and gambling.
It no longer mattered.
In the midst of her bereavement, Elizabeth found comfort in a heartfelt, compassionate letter from Mrs. Lincoln and from the gentle kindness of Virginia, Walker, and Emma, whose eyes brimmed with tears when she told Elizabeth she wished she would have known her fine, heroic soldier. For a brief moment, Elizabeth allowed herself to imagine George and Emma meeting, falling in love, marrying, raising children—but then she banished such thoughts forever.
He had died a free man. That much, at least, she had done for her son.
In autumn Mrs. Lincoln returned to Washington, and duty again called Elizabeth to the White House. The battlefront had moved off from the outskirts of Washington, but every day brought new reports of intense fighting and grisly scenes of death and destruction. War raged in several states, and the Union Army endured one demoralizing defeat after another. In Washington, a stretch of rainy weather flooded the Potomac, washing corpses of Union soldiers killed weeks before at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff downstream until they were fished out between the bridges at Fourteenth Street. Near the river and canals, sewers overflowed into the streets, spreading a miasma of stench and sickness for blocks. Soldiers camped in the surrounding hills, bunked close together in soggy tents where smallpox and typhoid fever struck them down in great numbers.
Union soldiers fought Confederate, doctors and nurses struggled against disease, police and volunteers alike battled the fires that broke out with alarming regularity, and Mr. Lincoln struggled with his cabinet and with General McClellan, who seemed incapable of pressing his advantage on the battlefield or even recognizing when he had it. All the while, Mrs. Lincoln engaged in a very different sort of battle. Her renovations to the White House had garnered her much criticism in the press and had run well over budget, and to Elizabeth’s dismay, the gardener, James Watt, had taught her how to pad bills and hide expenses in his account. Ignoring the commissioner of public buildings’ warnings that she had no money left to spend, Mrs. Lincoln continued running up debts until it became impossible to conceal them from her husband anymore. They argued furiously on her forty-third birthday, and afterward Mrs. Lincoln begged the commissioner to intercede with the president on her behalf. Reluctantly he did so, and although Elizabeth did not witness Mr. Lincoln’s explosive reply—“I swear I will never approve the bills for flub dubs for this damned old house!”—everyone heard of it later.
Mrs. Lincoln’s reputation suffered further damage thanks to the questionable characters who populated her evening salons—a coterie of favorites, almost exclusively men, who flattered her vanity and may have betrayed her confidences. It was said that one of her regular callers provided a copy of the president’s annual message to Congress to the
New York Herald,
which published the speech before he could deliver it. After that, Mr. Lincoln warned his wife against idle talk, banished the man blamed for the leak from the White House, fired the gardener, and to Mary’s sorrow, ceased confiding in her altogether where the work of his government was
Chapter Five
A UGUST 1861–M ARCH 1862
W hen George’s personal effects arrived a week later, Elizabeth kept them on her bureau for two days before mustering up the courage to examine them. They included all of her letters, neatly bound with a ribbon; a book of psalms; a sewing kit that could be rolled up and tied, commonly called a housewife; a rosewood ink bottle; a tin cup; a small tobacco box, also of tin; and a pair of bone dice. She touched the items one by one, imagining them in his hands. She was glad that he had found solace and inspiration in Holy Scripture while at war, but she did not like to think that he had taken up smoking and gambling.
It no longer mattered.
In the midst of her bereavement, Elizabeth found comfort in a heartfelt, compassionate letter from Mrs. Lincoln and from the gentle kindness of Virginia, Walker, and Emma, whose eyes brimmed with tears when she told Elizabeth she wished she would have known her fine, heroic soldier. For a brief moment, Elizabeth allowed herself to imagine George and Emma meeting, falling in love, marrying, raising children—but then she banished such thoughts forever.
He had died a free man. That much, at least, she had done for her son.
In autumn Mrs. Lincoln returned to Washington, and duty again called Elizabeth to the White House. The battlefront had moved off from the outskirts of Washington, but every day brought new reports of intense fighting and grisly scenes of death and destruction. War raged in several states, and the Union Army endured one demoralizing defeat after another. In Washington, a stretch of rainy weather flooded the Potomac, washing corpses of Union soldiers killed weeks before at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff downstream until they were fished out between the bridges at Fourteenth Street. Near the river and canals, sewers overflowed into the streets, spreading a miasma of stench and sickness for blocks. Soldiers camped in the surrounding hills, bunked close together in soggy tents where smallpox and typhoid fever struck them down in great numbers.
Union soldiers fought Confederate, doctors and nurses struggled against disease, police and volunteers alike battled the fires that broke out with alarming regularity, and Mr. Lincoln struggled with his cabinet and with General McClellan, who seemed incapable of pressing his advantage on the battlefield or even recognizing when he had it. All the while, Mrs. Lincoln engaged in a very different sort of battle. Her renovations to the White House had garnered her much criticism in the press and had run well over budget, and to Elizabeth’s dismay, the gardener, James Watt, had taught her how to pad bills and hide expenses in his account. Ignoring the commissioner of public buildings’ warnings that she had no money left to spend, Mrs. Lincoln continued running up debts until it became impossible to conceal them from her husband anymore. They argued furiously on her forty-third birthday, and afterward Mrs. Lincoln begged the commissioner to intercede with the president on her behalf. Reluctantly he did so, and although Elizabeth did not witness Mr. Lincoln’s explosive reply—“I swear I will never approve the bills for flub dubs for this damned old house!”—everyone heard of it later.
Mrs. Lincoln’s reputation suffered further damage thanks to the questionable characters who populated her evening salons—a coterie of favorites, almost exclusively men, who flattered her vanity and may have betrayed her confidences. It was said that one of her regular callers provided a copy of the president’s annual message to Congress to the
New York Herald,
which published the speech before he could deliver it. After that, Mr. Lincoln warned his wife against idle talk, banished the man blamed for the leak from the White House, fired the gardener, and to Mary’s sorrow, ceased confiding in her altogether where the work of his government was
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