Robert Todd Lincoln
Robert Todd Lincoln (August 1, 1843 – July 26, 1926) was an American lawyer and businessman. The eldest son of President Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, he was the only one of their four children to outlive his parents. Robert Lincoln became a business lawyer and company president, and served as both United States Secretary of War (1881–1885) and the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain (1889–1893).
"Robert Lincoln" redirects here. For other uses, see Robert Lincoln (disambiguation).
Robert Todd Lincoln
Thomas F. Bayard (as Ambassador)
August 1, 1843
Springfield, Illinois, U.S.
July 26, 1926 (aged 82)
Manchester, Vermont, U.S.
- Mamie Lincoln Isham
- Abraham "Jack" Lincoln II
- Jessie Harlan Lincoln
February 11 – June 12, 1865
Lincoln was born in Springfield, Illinois, and graduated from Harvard College. He then served on the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant as a captain in the Union Army in the closing days of the American Civil War. After the war was over, he married Mary Eunice Harlan, and they had three children together. Following completion of his law school studies in Chicago, he built a successful law practice, and became wealthy representing corporate clients.
Lincoln was often spoken of as a possible candidate for national office, including the presidency, but never took steps to mount a campaign. He served as Secretary of War in the administration of James A. Garfield, continuing under Chester A. Arthur, and as Minister to Great Britain in the Benjamin Harrison administration.
Lincoln became general counsel of the Pullman Company, and after founder George Pullman died in 1897, Lincoln assumed the company's presidency. After retiring from this position in 1911, Lincoln served as chairman of the board until 1924. In Lincoln's later years, he resided at homes in Washington, D.C., and Manchester, Vermont; the Manchester home, Hildene, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. In 1922, he took part in the dedication ceremonies for the Lincoln Memorial. Lincoln died at Hildene in July 1926, at age 82, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Early life[edit]
Robert Todd Lincoln was born in Springfield, Illinois, on August 1, 1843, to Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln. He had three younger brothers, Edward, William, and Tad. By the time Lincoln was born, his father had become a well-known member of the Whig political party and had previously served as a member of the Illinois state legislature for four terms. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Robert Smith Todd.[1]
Some commentators believe that Lincoln had a distant relationship with his father, in part because, during his formative years, Abraham Lincoln spent months on the judicial circuit.[2] Lincoln recalled, "During my childhood and early youth he was almost constantly away from home, attending court or making political speeches."[3][a]
Abraham apparently realized that his being away had a potential impact on his sons as evidenced by the following quote from his April 16, 1848, letter to his wife: "don't let the blessed fellows forget Father".[7] One such example that gives insight into Robert's childhood in general was related by Joseph Humphreys, who had taken a train to Lexington, Kentucky, in 1847: "there were two lively youngsters on board who kept the whole train in a turmoil, and their long-legged father, instead of spanking the brats, looked pleased as Punch and aided and abetted the older one in mischief".[8]
Lincoln took the Harvard College entrance examination in 1859, but failed fifteen out of the sixteen subjects.[9] Subsequently, Lincoln was enrolled at Phillips Exeter Academy to prepare for college; he graduated Phillips Exeter in 1860.[10] Admitted to Harvard, he graduated in 1864, having been elected vice-president of the Hasty Pudding Club,[11] and was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon (Alpha chapter) fraternity.[12] Welsh author Jan Morris wrote that Robert Lincoln, "having failed fifteen out of sixteen subjects in the Harvard entrance examination, got in at last and emerged an unsympathetic bore."[13]
Family[edit]
Marriage and children[edit]
On September 24, 1868, Lincoln married Mary Eunice Harlan, daughter of Senator James Harlan and Ann Eliza Peck of Mount Pleasant, Iowa.[32][33]
They had three children, two daughters and one son: Mary "Mamie" Lincoln, Abraham "Jack" Lincoln II,[34] and Jessie Harlan Lincoln.[35]
Robert, Mary, and the children would often leave their hot city life behind for the cooler climate of Mount Pleasant, during the 1880s the family would summer at the Harlan home there. The Harlan-Lincoln home, built in 1876, still stands today. Donated by Mary Harlan Lincoln to Iowa Wesleyan College in 1907, it now serves as a museum containing a collection of artifacts from the Lincoln family and from Abraham Lincoln's presidency.[36]
Of Robert's children, Jessie Harlan Lincoln Beckwith had two children, but neither Mary Lincoln Beckwith ("Peggy") nor Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith had children of their own. Robert's other daughter, Mary Todd Lincoln ("Mamie") married Charles Bradford Isham in 1891. They had one son, Lincoln Isham,[37] who married Leahalma Correa in 1919,[38] but died without children.[39] The last person acknowledged and known to be of Lincoln lineage, Robert's grandson Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died in 1985.[40]
Relationship with Mary Todd Lincoln[edit]
In 1871, Lincoln's only surviving brother, Tad, died at the age of 18, leaving his mother devastated with grief. Lincoln was already concerned about what he thought were his mother's spending, hallucinations, and eccentric behaviors.[41] Fearing that she was a danger to herself, he arranged to have her committed to a psychiatric hospital in Batavia, Illinois, in 1875. With his mother in the hospital, he was left with control of her finances, although he used his own money to pay for her care. As the head of the family, he felt that it was his duty to protect her, although he did wish that she would have "every liberty and privilege" restored to her as soon as she was better.[42] On May 20, 1875, she arrived at Bellevue Place, a private, upscale sanitarium in the Fox River Valley.[43]
Three months after she started living there, Mary Lincoln was able to escape from Bellevue Place. She smuggled letters to her lawyer, James B. Bradwell, and his wife, Myra. Mary also wrote to the editor of the Chicago Times and shortly, the embarrassment Robert had hoped to avoid came to the forefront, with his motives and character being publicly questioned. Bellevue's director, who at Mary's commitment trial assured the jury she would benefit from treatment at his facility, now declared her well enough to go to Springfield to live with her sister.[44] Her commitment and subsequent events alienated Lincoln from his mother, and they did not possibly reconcile until shortly before her unexpected death.[45]
Politics[edit]
Secretary of War (1881–1885)[edit]
From 1876 to 1877 Lincoln served as Town Supervisor of South Chicago, a town which was later absorbed into the city of Chicago.[46] In 1877 he rejected President Rutherford B. Hayes' offer to appoint him Assistant Secretary of State. He was appointed by President James Garfield as Secretary of War and served from 1881 to 1885 under Garfield and then Chester A. Arthur.[47]
During his term in office, the Cincinnati Riots of 1884 broke out over a case in which a jury gave a verdict of manslaughter rather than murder in a case that many suspected was rigged. Forty-five people died during three days of rioting before U.S. troops dispatched by Lincoln reestablished calm.[48]
Subsequent to serving as Secretary of War, Lincoln assisted Oscar Dudley to establish the Illinois Industrial Training School for Boys (now known as Glenwood Academy) in Norwood Park in 1887, after Dudley (a Humane Society employee) "discovered more homeless, neglected and abused boys than dogs on the city streets."[49][50]
Robert Lincoln was coincidentally either present or nearby when three presidential assassinations occurred.[64]
Lincoln himself recognized these coincidences. He is said to have refused a later presidential invitation with the comment, "No, I'm not going, and they'd better not ask me, because there is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present."[70]
Lincoln's sarcophagus at Arlington National Cemetery
Robert Todd Lincoln died in his sleep at Hildene, his Vermont home, on July 26, 1926, at age 82. The cause of death was given by his physician as a "cerebral hemorrhage induced by arteriosclerosis".[71][72] His body was stored in the receiving vault at Dellwood Cemetery from July 1926 until March 1928 when arrangements were made to inter his remains at Arlington National Cemetery.[73]
Robert had long expressed his intention to be buried in the Lincoln Tomb with his family at the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. Two weeks after his death, his widow Mary Harlan Lincoln wrote to her husband's niece of an inspired thought: "...[O]ur darling was a personage, made his own history, independently of his great father, and should have his own place 'in the sun'".[74]
Lincoln's body was buried at Arlington National Cemetery[75][76] in a sarcophagus designed by the sculptor James Earle Fraser. He is buried together with his wife, Mary, and their son, Abraham II ("Jack"), who had died in London, England, of sepsis[34] in 1890 at the age of 16. Weeks after Jack's death, Robert wrote to his cousin Charles Edwards, "We had a long & most anxious struggle and at times had hopes of saving our boy. It would have been done if it had depended only on his own marvelous pluck & patience now that the end has come, there is a great blank in our future lives & an affliction not to be measured."[34]