Note 16 — Chapter IV

The story of Lincoln's love affairs lies mostly outside the field of our present inquiry. He had at least one more of them than his biographers have learned about. Those that are best known are the ones with Ann Rutledge, Mary Owens, and Mary Todd. Lamon declares that Lincoln loved Miss Matilda Edwards, sister of Ninian W. Edwards, whose wife was sister to Mary Todd. He gives this as the real reason for the estrangement of Lincoln and his fiancée (Lamon's Life of Lincoln, p. 259). This is vigorously denied by members of the Edwards family, and the opinions in Springfield are anything but unanimous. Herndon informs us that in 1840, when Lincoln was thirty-one, and during the period when he was attracted to Mary Todd, he proposed to Sarah Rickard, a girl of sixteen. The present writer has no occasion to go into the discussions attending these several affairs of the heart. Lincoln's unsettled condition of mind on matrimonial and other matters is, however, an important element in any study of his religious life in this period. Herndon, between whom and Mrs. Lincoln little love was lost, was not unwilling to inform her and the world that Lincoln had loved one woman, at least, more than he ever loved her; and that he married her reluctantly. This was not pleasant information for a proud and erratic grief-stricken woman, and it is not certain that Herndon was impartial authority or that he learned the whole truth. Lincoln was not a lady's man, and Mary Owens was quite right in deeming him "deficient in those little links that make up the chain of a woman's happiness."

Students of the Lincoln material are informed by those who suppose themselves to know, that beside the above-mentioned adventures, Lincoln had at least one additional love affair, and one that was not to his credit. They are told that the proof of this exists in an unpublished letter from the hand of Lincoln, a letter sacredly guarded and seldom shown by its owner. If this book had any reason to go at length into the subject of Lincoln's love affairs, I should be glad to consider that matter in detail; for the owner of that letter has permitted me to read and copy it, and I have the copy, which I intend to use in another volume on Lincoln. I wish to say, however, that the letter, which is a free, unguarded note to an intimate friend, does not sustain the impression that Lincoln had any other love affair, or that any wrong act or motive lay behind his words. Lincoln was not a tactful man in his relations with women; but he was a clean man.