Wife of President Abraham Lincoln (1818-1882) and First Lady from 1861 to 1865. ALS signed “Mrs. A. Lincoln,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.5 x 7, black-bordered personal letterhead, October 15, 1872. Letter to William Reid. In full: “About a year since, in the midst of my overwhelming bereavement, I received a note from you, notifying me that our kind old friend Dr. Smith of Dundee, had left quite a number of papers relative to my husband, in your charge for me. I have transferred these papers to the Hon Isaac N. Arnold of Chicago, Ill, and you will kindly oblige, by immediately forwarding them to him.” In very good condition, with a few small separations to horizontal mailing folds, one fold through first initial of signature, some mild toning, and scattered light wrinkling.
Just eleven days after the death of her youngest son Tad in July of 1871, Mary Todd suffered another difficult loss: dear family friend and Scottish emigrant James Smith, with whom the Lincolns had been close since 1850 when he performed the funeral service for their second son, Edward. Though Abraham never joined his wife in declaring membership at the First Presbyterian Church in Springfield, where Smith served as pastor from 1849-56, he did attend to hear his sermons regularly. Impressed by Smith’s book, The Christian Defense, and by his logical approach to religion, Lincoln engaged in more discussions on the subject with Smith than with any other person in his life. Succeeding his son as the US Consul to Dundee, Scotland, the reverend returned to his homeland for the final decade of his life.
After the president’s assassination in 1865, Smith remained close with Mary Todd. When he passed away in July of 1871, just eleven days before young Tad’s death, he left her “quite a number of papers relative to [her] husband.” No doubt containing highly desirable glimpses into the fallen president’s religious beliefs, Mary Todd transferred the papers to Isaac Arnold of Chicago, who was working on his second biography of her husband (published in 1884). An excellent letter involving a close family friend, as well as papers containing invaluable information on the Great Emancipator’s hard-to-define religion.
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