Robert Todd Lincoln | |
|---|---|
_Crop.jpg) Lincolnc. 1870–1880 | |
| 30thMinister to the United Kingdom | |
| In office May 25, 1889 – May 4, 1893 | |
| President | |
| Preceded by | Edward John Phelps |
| Succeeded by | Thomas F. Bayard (as Ambassador) |
| 35th United States Secretary of War | |
| In office March 5, 1881 – March 4, 1885 | |
| President | |
| Preceded by | Alexander Ramsey |
| Succeeded by | William Crowninshield Endicott |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1843-08-01)August 1, 1843 Springfield, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | July 26, 1926(1926-07-26) (aged 82) Manchester, Vermont, U.S. |
| Resting place | Arlington National Cemetery |
| Party | Republican |
| Spouse | |
| Children |
|
| Parents | |
| Relatives | Lincoln family |
| Education | |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Branch/service | Union army |
| Years of service | February 11 – June 12, 1865 |
| Rank | Captain |
| Battles/wars | |
Robert Todd Lincoln (August 1, 1843 – July 26, 1926) was an American lawyer and businessman. The eldest son of PresidentAbraham Lincoln and First LadyMary Todd Lincoln, he was the only one of their four children to survive past 18 and also the only one to outlive both his parents. Robert Lincoln became a business lawyer and company president, and served as bothUnited States Secretary of War (1881–1885) and theU.S. Ambassador to Great Britain (1889–1893).
Lincoln was born inSpringfield, Illinois, and graduated fromHarvard College. He then served on the staff of GeneralUlysses S. Grant as a captain in theUnion army in the closing days of theAmerican Civil War. After the war was over, he marriedMary Eunice Harlan, and they had three children together. Following completion of his law school studiesin 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 ofJames A. Garfield, continuing underChester A. Arthur, and as Minister to Great Britain in theBenjamin Harrison administration.
Lincoln becamegeneral counsel of thePullman Company, and after founderGeorge 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., andManchester, Vermont; the Manchester home,Hildene, was added to theNational Register of Historic Places in 1977. In 1922, he took part in the dedication ceremonies for theLincoln Memorial. Lincoln died at Hildene in July 1926, at age 82, and was buried atArlington National Cemetery.
Robert Todd Lincoln was born inSpringfield, Illinois, on August 1, 1843, toAbraham Lincoln andMary Todd Lincoln. He had three younger brothers,Edward,William, andTad. By the time Lincoln was born, his father had become a well-known member of theWhig political party and had 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 Robert Lincoln had a distant relationship with his father, in part because, during his formative years, Abraham Lincoln spent months away 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 atPhillips 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 theHasty Pudding Club,[11] and was a member of theDelta Kappa Epsilon (Alpha chapter) fraternity.[12] Welsh authorJan 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]
After graduating from Harvard, Robert Lincoln enrolled atHarvard Law School,[11] which he attended from September 1864 to January 1865, when he left in order to join theUnion Army.[11]
Mary Todd Lincoln had prevented Robert from joining the Army until shortly before the war's conclusion.[14] President Lincoln argued to her that "our son is not more dear to us than the sons of other people are to their mothers." In January 1865, the First Lady gave in and President Lincoln wroteUlysses S. Grant, asking if Robert could be placed on his staff.[15][16]
On February 11, 1865, Lincoln was commissioned as an assistantadjutant with the rank of captain. He served in the last weeks of theCivil War on Grant's staff, a status which meant, in all likelihood, he would not be involved in actual combat.[17] According to Grant's personal secretary,Horace Porter, Lincoln was "exceedingly popular" with the rest of the staff, "was always ready to perform his share of hard work" and "never expected to be treated differently from any other officer" because he was the President's son.[18]
Lincoln was present atAppomattox whenRobert E. Lee surrendered.[14] He resigned his commission on June 12, 1865, and returned to civilian life.[19]
Lincoln was once saved from possible serious injury or death byEdwin Booth, whose brother,John Wilkes Booth,assassinated Robert's father. This event took place on a train platform inJersey City,New Jersey. The exact date is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1863 or early 1864, before John Wilkes Booth's assassination of President Lincoln. In a letter written in 1909 to the editor ofThe Century Magazine, Robert Lincoln recalled what had happened that day:[20]
The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name.
Months afterwards, while serving on Grant's US Army staff, Robert Lincoln recalled the occurrence to ColonelAdam Badeau, a fellow officer who happened to be a friend of Edwin Booth's. Badeau sent a letter to Booth, complimenting the actor for his heroism. Before receiving the letter, Booth had been unaware that the man whose life he had saved on the train platform was the president's son. The knowledge of whom he had saved that day was said to have been of some comfort to Booth following his brother's assassination of the president.[21][22] Grant also sent Booth a letter of gratitude for his action.[23]
On the night his father was assassinated, Robert had turned down an invitation to accompany the Lincolns toFord's Theatre due to fatigue after spending much of his recent time in a covered wagon at the battlefront.[24][25] Ten days later, Robert Lincoln wrote PresidentAndrew Johnson requesting that he and his family be allowed to stay in the Executive mansion for two and a half weeks because his mother had told him that "she can not possibly be ready to leave here".[26] Lincoln also acknowledged that he was aware of the "great inconvenience" this would be to Johnson, since he had become president of the United States only a short time earlier.[27]
In late April, 1865, Robert moved toChicago with his remaining family.[28] He attended law classes at theOld University of Chicago andstudied law at the Chicago firm ofScammon, McCagg & Fuller.[29]
On January 1, 1866, Lincoln moved out of the apartment he shared with his mother and brother. He rented his own rooms in downtown Chicago to "begin to live with some degree of comfort" which he had not known when living in cramped conditions with his family.[30] Lincoln graduated from Old University[b] with anLL.B. in 1866 and became licensed as an attorney in Chicago on February 22, 1867. He was certified to practice law four days later on February 26, 1867.[33]
In 1893, Harvard awarded Lincoln thehonorary degree ofLL.D.[34]
On September 24, 1868, Lincoln marriedMary Eunice Harlan, daughter of SenatorJames Harlan and Ann Eliza Peck ofMount Pleasant, Iowa.[35][36] They had three children, two daughters and one son: Mary "Mamie" Lincoln, Abraham "Jack" Lincoln II,[37] and Jessie Harlan Lincoln.[38]
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 toIowa 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.[39]
Of Robert's children, Jessie Harlan Lincoln Beckwith had two children, namelyMary Lincoln Beckwith ("Peggy") andRobert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, but neither of them had children of their own. The Robert Todd Lincoln of this article had another daughter, Mary ("Mamie") Todd Lincoln, who marriedCharles Bradford Isham in 1891; they had one son, Lincoln Isham,[40] who married Leahalma Correa in 1919,[41] but died without children.[42] The last person acknowledged and known to be of Lincoln lineage, Robert's grandson Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died in 1985.[43]
In 1871, Lincoln's only surviving brother, Tad, died at age 18, leaving his mother devastated. Lincoln was already concerned about what he considered were his mother's compulsive and extravagant spending, hallucinations, and eccentric behaviors.[44] Fearing that she was a danger to herself, he arranged to have her committed to apsychiatric hospital inBatavia, 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.[45] On May 20, 1875, she arrived atBellevue Place, a private, upscale sanitarium in the Fox River Valley.[46]
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 theChicago 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.[47] Her commitment and subsequent events alienated Lincoln from his mother.[48]
From 1876 to 1877 Lincoln served asTown Supervisor of South Chicago, a town which was later absorbed into the city of Chicago.[49] In 1877 he rejected PresidentRutherford B. Hayes' offer to appoint himAssistant Secretary of State. He was appointed by PresidentJames Garfield as Secretary of War and served from 1881 to 1885 under Garfield and thenChester A. Arthur.[50]
During his term in office, theCincinnati Riots of 1884 broke out over a case in which a jury returned a verdict of manslaughter rather than murder in a case that many suspected was rigged. Fifty-six people died during three days of rioting before U.S. troops dispatched by Lincoln reestablished calm.[51][52]
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 (aHumane Society employee) "discovered more homeless, neglected and abused boys than dogs on the city streets."[53][54]
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From 1884 to 1912, Lincoln's name was mentioned in varying degrees of seriousness as a candidate for the Republican presidential or vice-presidential nomination. He repeatedly disavowed any interest in running and stated he would not accept nomination for either position.[55] His likeness was included in an 1888 set of "Presidential Possibilities" cards.[56]
Lincoln served as the U.S. minister to Great Britain, formally to theCourt of St James's, from 1889 to 1893 in the Administration of PresidentBenjamin Harrison. Lincoln's teenage son, Abraham II "Jack", died during this time in Europe.[37] After serving as minister, Lincoln returned to private life as a lawyer.[57]
Robert fought to preserve and protect his father's legacy, clashing with Abraham Lincoln biographer William Herndon over Herndon's statements about his father.[58] As a result of their confrontations over his Lincoln biography, in 1890 Herndon wrote toJesse Weik, his Lincoln biography collaborator, that Robert was "a Todd and not a Lincoln ... a little bitter fellow of the pig-headed kind, silly and cold and selfish."[59]
Lincoln was general counsel of thePullman Palace Car Company underGeorge Pullman, and was named president after Pullman's death in 1897. According to Almont Lindsey's 1942 book,The Pullman Strike, Lincoln arranged to have Pullman quietly excused from the subpoena issued for him to testify in the 1895 conspiracy trials of theAmerican Railway Union's leaders (during the 1894Pullman Strike). Pullman hid from the deputy marshal sent to his office with the subpoena and then appeared with Lincoln to meet privately withJudge Grosscup after the jury had been dismissed.[60] In 1911, Lincoln became chairman of the Pullman Company board, a position he held until 1924.[61]
A serious nonprofessionalastronomer, Lincoln had anobservatory built at Hildene, and a 1909Warner & Swaseyrefracting telescope with a six-inchJohn A. Brashear objective lens was installed. Lincoln's telescope and observatory have been restored and it was used by a local astronomy club in the early 2000s.[62][63] Lincoln was also a dedicated golfer, and served as president of theEkwanok Country Club in Manchester.[64][65] His last public appearance was on May 30, 1922, at the dedication ceremony for his father'smemorial in Washington, D.C.[66][67]
Robert Lincoln was coincidentally either present or nearby when three presidential assassinations occurred.[68]
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."[74]
Lincoln died in his sleep atHildene, his Vermont home, on July 26, 1926, at age 82. The cause of death was given by his physician as a "cerebral hemorrhage induced byarteriosclerosis".[75][76] His body was stored in thereceiving vault atDellwood Cemetery from July 1926 until March 1928 when arrangements were made to inter his remains atArlington National Cemetery.[77]
Robert had long expressed his intention to be buried in theLincoln Tomb with his family at theOak 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'".[78]
Lincoln's body was buried at Arlington National Cemetery[79][80] in a sarcophagus designed by the sculptorJames Earle Fraser. He is buried together with his wife, Mary, and their son, Abraham II ("Jack"), who had died in London, England, ofsepsis[37] 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."[37]
HistorianMichael Burlingame considered Robert Todd Lincoln to be "a particularly unfortunate, even tragic figure."[81] Lincoln himself once said, "No one wanted me for Secretary of War... For minister to England... For president of the Pullman Company; they wanted Abraham Lincoln's son."[82] Nevertheless, he accepted the appointments and was very well-paid, becoming a millionaire lawyer and businessman, fond of the pleasures of the wealthy conservative Victorian gentlemen of his social circle.
Lincoln is considered to have had little in common with his father personally or politically, not being humorous or unpretentious, but rather cold, stuffy, and aloof.[81]Fanny Seward, daughter of secretary of stateWilliam H. Seward, described him, however, as "ready and easy in conversation having, I fancy, considerable humor in his disposition...agreeable, good-natured, and intelligent".[83]
Lincoln was the last surviving member of the Garfield and Arthur Cabinets,[84] and the last-surviving witness of Lee's surrender at Appomattox.[85] TheLincoln Sea, a body of water in theArctic Ocean between Canada andGreenland, was named after then Secretary of War Lincoln onAdolphus Greely's1881–1884 Arctic expedition.[86]
Lincoln's last known surviving descendant, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died December 24, 1985.[87]
Robert Todd Lincoln as a character has appeared multiple times on film, in television programs, and in dramatic productions.
Informational notes
Citations
as anxious as you can be to have every liberty & privilege restored
Upon the death of George Pullman in 1897, Robert Lincoln, son of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, became president of the Pullman Company. He remained in that position until 1911 when he became chairman of the board. He served in that capacity until 1924 but continued to serve on the board until his death in 1926.
Robert Todd Lincoln, son and the last survivor of the family of President Lincoln, died peacefully at Hildene, his Summer home, last night. His death was discovered by a servant, who went as usual to call Mr. Lincoln to breakfast. Dr. C.M. Campbell of Manchester Centre, the family physician, declared death due to cerebral hemorrhage induced by arterio-sclerosis.
Undated letter from Mary Harlan Lincoln to Katherine Helm, either held in the "Mary G. Townsend Collection" (Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln by Jason Emerson), or in an unnamed private collection (Swick & McCreary).
Bibliography
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| Preceded by | U.S. Secretary of War Served under:James A. Garfield andChester A. Arthur 1881–1885 | Succeeded by |
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| Preceded by | U.S. Minister to Great Britain 1889–1893 | Succeeded byas Ambassador |
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