The Backstory: Abe Lincoln, battered husband

It’s hard to imagine that one of the most powerful presidents in U.S. history was the victim of domestic violence. Abe Lincoln was physically and emotionally battered by Mary Todd Lincoln, primarily due to her mental illness.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So, no matter how great a relationship is, it should
never turn violent. Picture someone getting smashed across the nose
with the log, chase down the street with a knife,
or getting a hot cup of coffee thrown in their face.
That's just some of what happened to our greatest president.
I'm Patty Steele. A peek behind the curtains of the
Lincoln marriage. Next on the back story. We're back with

(00:26):
the backstory. There is no such thing as a perfect relationship,
but there is one completely black and white issue, a
line you just don't cross, and that's when disagreements or
anger turns violent. You might think it could never happen
to a successful, powerful person, but that's where you're wrong.
It can happen to anybody. A perfect example of that

(00:49):
our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln. He was a complicated guy
who came from a sad, difficult background, but he was
noted to be unfailingly kind and compar passionate. And maybe
that's where his problems with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln began.
Mary's temper was ferocious, and he put up with it
in his own way. Now, in fairness, a lot of

(01:11):
historians agree that she was emotionally unstable, with an explosive
temper that was exacerbated by migraines, terrible menstrual issues, and
likely two other conditions that included bipolar disorder and pernicious anemia,
which can cause everything from fatigue to fever and electrical

(01:32):
buzzing sensation down the spine, anger and delusion. Neighbors said
that Mary threw cups of hot coffee at abe, smashed
him across the nose with a piece of firewood, chased
him out of the house with a broomstick, ran after
him outside with a knife, threw books at him and
even potatoes, which is kind of like throwing rocks at somebody.

(01:53):
And she was constantly verbally abusive toward him, screaming at
him at the top of her lungs. She caused what's so,
several witnesses said were bloody injuries to his head. In
the firewood incident, she was angry that he wasn't building
a fire fast enough at home, and she slammed him
across the face with a piece of wood. His law
partner said the next day he came to work with

(02:16):
a large bandage covering his injured and torn nose. Mary
simply didn't hide her temper. Folks in their hometown of Springfield,
Illinois said Mary's tantrums for the talk of the neighborhood,
and that she also aimed her anger at people working
in local shops or at her house, as well as
her own servants. When she went off on Abe, his
law partner said he could always tell, because he'd come

(02:39):
to work and find Abe sleeping on a couch in
the office, or sometimes he'd be staying with friends across town.
What did Lincoln do about all of this, Well, he
put up with it, but he also, as a traveling lawyer,
did everything he could do to stay away from home,
and he became increasingly aloof which, understand only made her

(03:00):
even more upset. So none of what he did in
response to her abuse was the right answer to the problem,
but in those days there weren't a lot of answers
about how to deal with mental illness. As time went by,
Lincoln became more and more well known on the political circuit,
which of course delighted Mary. She wanted a bigger life

(03:21):
than she had as the life of a small town
traveling lawyer, but his success also frightened her. For several reasons.
She was impossibly jealous of the attention he got, particularly
from other women, but from men as well, And after
he won the presidential nomination and eventually the election, she
was terrified for his safety. She tried to make herself

(03:43):
a big deal in Washington, but she went about it
the totally wrong way. A compulsive shopper, she ran up crazy,
huge debts. If she went shopping for leather gloves in
New York City, she would buy and I mean this literally,
one hundred pairs. She bought wildly expensive clothes for the
White House. She bought wildly lavish furniture, fabrics, art rugs, china,

(04:08):
and crystal, and to hide it from her husband, she
falsified bills and illegally got a hold of federal funds
to partially pay off her debts with the help of
a dishonest White House manager. But she always had people
looking for money from her. She also took really expensive
gifts from men who wanted government jobs, and then lobbied

(04:29):
abe for those guys to get those jobs. Now, in
his defense, he rarely gave in on that front. One historian,
as well as Lincoln's law partner, set about the marriage
that life in the Lincoln House was a burning, scorching hell. Again,
in fairness, his law partner had a deep seated hatred
for Mary, Plus she did have a lot of physical

(04:51):
and mental issues, as well as a husband who retreated
from her and also was wildly busy with a civil war.
Her anxiety and depression and only worsened when one of
her little boys, her favorite child, Willie, died in eighteen
sixty two, and she never really got over that. When
Lincoln was assassinated, Mary completely collapsed. She didn't even go

(05:14):
to his funeral, didn't comfort her. Sons didn't leave her
bed in the White House for over a month. Eventually
she moved to Chicago, but ten years later her son Robert,
who lived out there, had her committed to a sanitarium.
She stayed for just three months, then she went to
live with her family until she died in eighteen eighty two.

(05:36):
Abe Lincoln's compassion for people who were suffering is legendary,
and that included his wife and her issues. The pain
he suffered in his own life helped him to feel
for others, but the inability for either him or his
wife to effectively deal with her mental illness and violent
temper led to an awful lot of sadness for both

(05:57):
of them and their kids as well. There's never a
real to excuse abusive behavior. It needs to be recognized
and treated for everybody involved, and that is a lesson
we all can learn from understanding the Lincoln marriage. Hope
you're enjoying the Backstory with me, Patty Steele. Please please subscribe,

(06:21):
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I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia,
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Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We

(06:44):
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Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele.
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