Details
LINCOLN, MARY TODD, First Lady. Autograph letter signed ("Mary Lincoln") to Mary Ann Dana Foot[e], Chicago, 27 March 1866. 2 1/4 pages, 8vo, on black-bordered mourning stationery, two clean fold separations strengthened on verso with archival tape.
MARY TODD ON LINCOLN'S DEATH: "I HAVE PASSED THROUGH SUCH A BAPTISM OF SORROW AS BUT FEW HAVE KNOWN"
Less than a year after her husband's assassination, Mrs. Lincoln consoles the wife of a stricken Senator: "The painful announcement of the severe illness, of your noble and distinguished husband, has so troubled me, that I cannot refrain from writing you a few lines, expressive of my deep sympathy for you, in this your hour of deep trial. I pray that our Heavenly Father, may be merciful to you, and restore the Senator to health & spare you the cup of affliction which I have been called upon, so freely to drink. I have passed through such a baptism of sorrow, as but few have known, and my heart can most readily enter into your anxious feelings over the illness of one so dear to you and to all the country. In my hours of deep affliction, I often think it would have been some solace to me and perhaps have lessened the grief, which is now breaking my heart, if my idolized had passed away after an illness, and I had been permitted to watch over him and tend him to the last. No such assuaging thought, comes to my relief and only the knowledge, that no sign of recognition from my dearly beloved husband or a loving parting word or farewell, none such thought comes to soothe this distracted brain. The prayers of a suffering woman are yours that the life of your good husband may be spared, yet if the Divine will orders differently, I trust you may be prepared to bow in submission to so terrible a decree..."
Senator Solomon Foote, a well-loved and admired Vermont Republican, died the day after Mary Todd wrote this letter. Published in Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters, ed. J.G. Turner and L.L. Turner, p. 346-347.
MARY TODD ON LINCOLN'S DEATH: "I HAVE PASSED THROUGH SUCH A BAPTISM OF SORROW AS BUT FEW HAVE KNOWN"
Less than a year after her husband's assassination, Mrs. Lincoln consoles the wife of a stricken Senator: "The painful announcement of the severe illness, of your noble and distinguished husband, has so troubled me, that I cannot refrain from writing you a few lines, expressive of my deep sympathy for you, in this your hour of deep trial. I pray that our Heavenly Father, may be merciful to you, and restore the Senator to health & spare you the cup of affliction which I have been called upon, so freely to drink. I have passed through such a baptism of sorrow, as but few have known, and my heart can most readily enter into your anxious feelings over the illness of one so dear to you and to all the country. In my hours of deep affliction, I often think it would have been some solace to me and perhaps have lessened the grief, which is now breaking my heart, if my idolized had passed away after an illness, and I had been permitted to watch over him and tend him to the last. No such assuaging thought, comes to my relief and only the knowledge, that no sign of recognition from my dearly beloved husband or a loving parting word or farewell, none such thought comes to soothe this distracted brain. The prayers of a suffering woman are yours that the life of your good husband may be spared, yet if the Divine will orders differently, I trust you may be prepared to bow in submission to so terrible a decree..."
Senator Solomon Foote, a well-loved and admired Vermont Republican, died the day after Mary Todd wrote this letter. Published in Mary Todd Lincoln: Her Life and Letters, ed. J.G. Turner and L.L. Turner, p. 346-347.