Since the days when Indiana Lincoln sat on the river's bank with
little Kate Roby, dangling his bare feet in the water, there has been
no hint in these pages of tender relations with any one of the opposite
sex. Now we approach in timely order the "grand passion" of his life--a
romance of much reality, the memory of which threw a melancholy shade
over the remainder of his days. For the first time our hero falls in
love. The courtship with Anne Rutledge and her untimely death form
the saddest page in Mr. Lincoln's history. I am aware that most of his
biographers have taken issue with me on this phase of Mr. Lincoln's
life. Arnold says: "The picture has been somewhat too highly colored,
and the story made rather too tragic." Dr. Holland and others omit
the subject altogether, while the most recent biography--the admirable
history by my friends Nicolay and Hay.--devotes but five lines to it.
I knew Miss Rutledge myself, as well as her father and other members of
the family, and have been personally acquainted with every one of the
score or more of witnesses whom I at one time or another interviewed on
this delicate subject. From my own knowledge and the information thus
obtained, I therefore repeat, that the memory of Anne Rutledge was the
saddest chapter in Mr. Lincoln's life.*
* In a letter dated Dec. 4, 1866, one of Miss Rutledge's
brothers writes: "When he first came to New Salem and up to
the day of Anne's death Mr. Lincoln was all life and
animation. He seemed to see the bright side of every
picture."
James Rutledge, the father of this interesting girl, was one of the
founders of New Salem, having come there from Kentucky in 1829. He was
born in South Carolina and belonged to the noted Rutledge family of
that State. I knew him as early as 1833, and have often shared the
hospitality of his home. My father was a politician and an extensive
stock dealer in that early day, and he and Mr. Rutledge were great
friends. The latter was a man of no little force of character; those
who knew him best loved him the most. Like other Southern people he was
warm,--almost to impulsiveness,--social, and generous. His hospitality,
an inherited quality that flashed with him before he was born, developed
by contact with the brave and broadminded people whom he met in
Illinois. Besides his business interests in the store and mill at New
Salem, he kept the tavern where Lincoln came to board in 1833. His
family, besides himself and wife, consisted of nine children, three of
whom were born in Kentucky, the remaining six in Illinois. Anne, the
subject of this chapter, was the third child. She was a beautiful girl,
and by her winning ways attached people to her so firmly that she soon
became the most popular young lady in the village. She was quick of
apprehension, industrious, and an excellent housekeeper. She had a
moderate education, but was not cultured except by contrast with those
around her. One of her strong points was her womanly skill. She was
dexterous in the use of the needle--an accomplishment of far more value
in that day than all the acquirements of art in china painting and
hammered brass are in this--and her needle-work was the wonder of the
day. At every "quilting" Anne was a necessary adjunct, and her nimble
fingers drove the needle more swiftly than anyone's else. Lincoln used
to escort her to and from these quilting-bees, and on one occasion even
went into the house--where men were considered out of place--and sat by
her side as she worked on the quilt.
He whispered into her ear the old, old story. Her heart throbbed and
her soul was thrilled with a joy as old as the world itself. Her fingers
momentarily lost their skill. In her ecstasy she made such irregular and
uneven stitches that the older and more sedate women noted it, and
the owner of the quilt, until a few years ago still retaining it as a
precious souvenir, pointed out the memorable stitches to such persons as
visited her.
L. M. Greene, who remembered Anne well, says, "She was amiable and of
exquisite beauty, and her intellect was quick, deep, and philosophic as
well as brilliant. She had a heart as gentle and kind as an angel, and
full of love and sympathy. Her sweet and angelic nature was noted by
every one who met her. She was a woman worthy of Lincoln's love." This
is a little overstated as to beauty--Greene writes as if he too had been
in love with her--but is otherwise nearly correct.
"Miss Rutledge," says a lady* who knew her, "had auburn hair, blue eyes,
fair complexion. She was pretty, slightly slender, but in everything a
good hearted young woman. She was about five feet two inches high, and
weighed in the neighborhood of a hundred and twenty pounds. She was
beloved by all who knew her. She died as it were of grief. In speaking
of her death and her grave Lincoln once said to me, 'My heart lies
buried there.'"
* Mrs. Hardin Bale.
Before narrating the details of Lincoln's courtship with Miss Rutledge,
it is proper to mention briefly a few facts that occurred before their
attachment began.
About the same time that Lincoln drifted into New Salem there came in
from the Eastern States John McNeil, a young man of enterprise and great
activity, seeking his fortune in the West. He went to work at once, and
within a short time had accumulated by commendable effort a comfortable
amount of property. Within three years he owned a farm, and a half
interest with Samuel Hill in the leading store. He had good capacity
for business, and was a valuable addition to that already pretentious
village--New Salem. It was while living at James Cameron's house that
this plucky and industrious young business man first saw Anne Rutledge.
At that time she was attending the school of Mentor Graham, a pedagogue
of local renown whose name is frequently met with in these pages, and
who flourished in and around New Salem from 1829 to 1860. McNeil fell
deeply in love with the school-girl--she was then only seventeen--and
paid her the usual unremitting attentions young lovers of that age had
done before him and are still doing to-day. His partner in the store,
Samuel Hill, a young man of equal force of character, who afterwards
amassed a comfortable fortune, and also wielded no little influence as
a local politician, laid siege to the heart of this same attractive
maiden, but he yielded up the contest early. Anne rejected him, and he
dropped from the race. McNeil had clear sailing from this time forward.
He was acquiring property and money day by day. As one of the pioneers
puts it, "Men were honest then, and paid their debts at least once a
year. The merchant surrounded by a rich country suffered little from
competition. As he placed his goods on the shelf he added an advance of
from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty per cent over cost price,
and thus managed to get along." After "managing" thus for several years,
McNeil, having disposed of his interest in the store to Hill, determined
to return to New York, his native State, for a visit. He had accumulated
up to this time, as near as we can learn, ten or possibly twelve
thousand dollars. Before leaving he made to Anne a singular revelation.
He told her the name McNeil was an assumed one; that his real name was
McNamar.
"I left behind me in New York," he said, "my parents and brothers and
sisters. They are poor, and were in more or less need when I left them
in 1829. I vowed that I would come West, make a fortune, and go back to
help them. I am going to start now and intend, if I can, to bring
them with me on my return to Illinois and place them on my farm." He
expressed a sense of deep satisfaction in being able to clear up all
mysteries which might have formed in the mind of her to whom he confided
his love. He would keep nothing, he said, from her. They were engaged
to be married, and she should know it all. The change of his name was
occasioned by the fear that if the family in New York had known where
he was they would have settled down on him, and before he could have
accumulated any property would have sunk him beyond recovery. Now,
however, he was in a condition to help them, and he felt overjoyed at
the thought. As soon as the journey to New York could be made he would
return. Once again in New Salem he and his fair one could consummate
the great event to which they looked forward with undisguised joy and
unbounded hope. Thus he explained to Anne the purpose of his journey--a
story with some remarkable features, all of which she fully believed.
"She would have believed it all the same if it had been ten times as
incredible. A wise man would have rejected it with scorn, but the girl's
instinct was a better guide, and McNamar proved to be all that he said
he was, although poor Anne never saw the proof which others got of it."*
* Lamon, p. 161.
At last McNamar, mounting an old horse that had participated in the
Black Hawk war, began his journey. In passing through Ohio he became
ill with a fever. For almost a month he was confined to his room, and a
portion of the time was unconscious. As he approached a return to good
health he grew nervous over the delay in his trip. He told no one around
him his real name, destination, or business. He knew how his failure to
write to New Salem would be construed, and the resulting irritation gave
way to a feeling of desperation. In plainer language, he concluded it
was "all up with him now." Meanwhile a different view of the matter
was taken by Miss Rutledge. Her friends encouraged the idea of cruel
desertion. The change of McNeil to McNamar had wrought in their minds a
change of sentiment. Some contended that he had undoubtedly committed
a crime in his earlier days, and for years had rested secure from
apprehension under the shadow of an assumed name; while others with
equal assurance whispered in the unfortunate girl's ear the old story of
a rival in her affections. Anne's lady friends, strange to relate, did
more to bring about a discordant feeling than all others. Women are
peculiar creatures. They love to nettle and mortify one another; and
when one of their own sex has fallen, how little sympathy they seem
to have! But under all this fire, in the face of all these insidious
criticisms, Anne remained firm. She had faith, and bided her time.
McNamar, after much vexatious delay, finally reached his birthplace
in New York, finding his father in the decline of years and health.
He provided for his immediate needs, and by his assiduous attentions
undertook to atone for the years of his neglect; but all to no purpose.
The old gentleman gradually faded from the world, and early one winter
morning crossed the great river. McNamar was thus left to settle up the
few unfinished details of his father's estate, and to provide for the
pressing needs of the family. His detention necessitated a letter
to Anne, explaining the nature and cause of the delay. Other letters
followed; but each succeeding one growing less ardent in tone, and more
formal in phraseology than its predecessor, Anne began to lose faith.
Had his love gradually died away like the morning wind? was a question
she often asked herself. She had stood firm under fire before, but
now her heart grew sick with hope deferred. At last the correspondence
ceased altogether.
At this point we are favored with the introduction of the ungainly
Lincoln, as a suitor for the hand of Miss Rutledge. Lincoln had learned
of McNamar's strange conduct, and conjecturing that all the silken
ties that bound the two together had been sundered, ventured to step in
himself. He had seen the young lady when a mere girl at Mentor Graham's
school, and he, no doubt, then had formed a high opinion of her
qualities.
But he was too bashful, as his friend Ellis declares, to tell her of
it. No doubt, when he began to pay her attentions she was the most
attractive young lady whom up to that time he had ever met. She was
not only modest and winning in her ways, and full of good, womanly
common-sense, but withal refined, in contrast with the uncultured people
who surrounded both herself and Lincoln. "She had a secret, too, and
a sorrow,--the unexplained and painful absence of McNamar,--which, no
doubt, made her all the more interesting to him whose spirit was often
even more melancholy than her own."
In after years, McNamar himself, describing her to me, said: "Miss
Rutledge was a gentle, amiable maiden, without any of the airs of your
city belles, but winsome and comely withal; a blonde in complexion, with
golden hair, cherry-red lips, and a bonny blue eye. As to her literary
attainments, she undoubtedly was as classic a scholar as Mr Lincoln. She
had at the time she met him, I believe, attended a literary institution
at Jacksonville, in company with her brother."
McNamar seems to have considered Lincoln's bashfulness as proof against
the alluring charms of Miss Rutledge or anybody else, for he continues:
"Mr. Lincoln was not to my knowledge paying particular attention to any
of the young ladies of my acquaintance when I left for my home in New
York. There was no rivalry between us on that score; on the contrary, I
had every reason to believe him my warm, personal friend. But by-and-by
I was left so far behind in the race I did not deem my chances worthy
of notice. From this time forward he made rapid strides to that
imperishable fame which justly fills a world."
Lincoln began to court Miss Rutledge in dead earnest. Like David
Copperfield, he soon realized that he was in danger of becoming deeply
in love, and as he approached the brink of the pit he trembled lest he
should indeed fall in. As he pleaded and pressed his cause the Rutledges
and all New Salem encouraged his suit. McNamar's unexplained absence and
apparent neglect furnished outsiders with all the arguments needed to
encourage Lincoln and convince Anne. Although the attachment was
growing and daily becoming an intense and mutual passion, the young lady
remained firm and almost inflexible. She was passing through another
fire. A long struggle with her feelings followed; but at length the
inevitable moment came. She consented to have Lincoln, provided he gave
her time to write to McNamar and obtain his release from her pledge.
The slow-moving mails carried her tender letter to New York. Days
and weeks--which to the ardent Lincoln must have seemed painfully
long--passed, but the answer never came. In a half-hearted way she
turned to Lincoln, and her looks told him that he had won. She accepted
his proposal. Now that they were engaged he told her what she already
knew, that he was poverty itself. She must grant him time to gather
up funds to live on until he had completed his law studies. After this
trifling delay "nothing on God's footstool," argued the emphatic lover,
could keep them apart. To this the thoughtful Anne consented. To one of
her brothers, she said: "As soon as his studies are completed we are
to be married." But the ghost of another love would often rise unbidden
before her. Within her bosom raged the conflict which finally undermined
her health. Late in the summer she took to her bed. A fever was burning
in her head. Day by day she sank, until all hope was banished. During
the latter days of her sickness, her physician had forbidden visitors to
enter her room, prescribing absolute quiet. But her brother relates that
she kept enquiring for Lincoln so continuously, at times demanding to
see him, that the family at last sent for him. On his arrival at her
bedside the door was closed and he was left alone with her. What was
said, what vows and revelations were made during this sad interview,
were known only to him and the dying girl. A few days afterward she
became unconscious and remained so until her death on the 25th day of
August, 1835. She was buried in what is known as the Concord grave-yard,
about seven miles north-west of the town of Petersburg.*
* "I have heard mother say that Anne would frequently sing
for Lincoln's benefit. She had a clear, ringing voice. Early
in her illness he called, and she sang a hymn for which he
always expressed a great preference. It begins..
'Vain man, thy fond pursuits forbear.'
You will find it in one of the standard hymn-books. It was
likewise the last thing she ever sung."--Letter, John M.
Rutledge, MS., Nov. 25, 1866.
The most astonishing and sad sequel to this courtship was the disastrous
effect of Miss Rutledge's death on Mr. Lincoln's mind. It operated
strangely on one of his calm and stoical make-up. As he returned from
the visit to the bedside of Miss Rutledge, he stopped at the house of
a friend, who relates that his face showed signs of no little mental
agony. "He was very much distressed," is the language of this friend,
"and I was not surprised when it was rumored subsequently that his
reason was in danger." One of Miss Rutledge's brothers* says: "The
effect upon Mr. Lincoln's mind was terrible. He became plunged in
despair, and many of his friends feared that reason would desert her
throne. His extraordinary emotions were regarded as strong evidence
of the existence of the tenderest relations between himself and the
deceased." The truth is Mr. Lincoln was strangely wrought up over the
sad ending of the affair. He had fits of great mental depression,
and wandered up and down the river and into the woods woefully
abstracted--at times in the deepest distress. If, when we read what
the many credible persons who knew him at the time tell us, we do not
conclude that he was deranged, we must admit that he walked on that
sharp and narrow line which divides sanity from insanity. To one friend
he complained that the thought "that the snows and rains fall upon her
grave filled him with indescribable grief."**
* R. B. Rutledge, MS., letter, Oct. 21,1866.
** Letter, Wm. Greene, MS., May 29, 1865.
He was watched with especial vigilance during damp, stormy days, under
the belief that dark and gloomy weather might produce such a depression
of spirits as to induce him to take his own life. His condition finally
became so alarming, his friends consulted together and sent him to the
house of a kind friend, Bowlin Greene, who lived in a secluded spot
hidden by the hills, a mile south of town. Here he remained for some
weeks under the care and ever watchful eye of this noble friend, who
gradually brought him back to reason, or at least a realization of his
true condition. In the years that followed Mr. Lincoln never forgot the
kindness of Greene through those weeks of suffering and peril. In 1842,
when the latter died, and Lincoln was selected by the Masonic lodge to
deliver the funeral oration, he broke down in the midst of his address.
"His voice was choked with deep emotion; he stood a few moments while
his lips quivered in the effort to form the words of fervent praise
he sought to utter, and the tears ran down his yellow and shrivelled
cheeks. Every heart was hushed at the spectacle. After repeated efforts
he found it impossible to speak, and strode away, bitterly sobbing, to
the widow's carriage and was driven from the scene."
It was shortly after this that Dr. Jason Duncan placed in Lincoln's
hands a poem called "Immortality." The piece starts out with the line,
"Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud." Lincoln's love for this
poem has certainly made it immortal. He committed these lines to memory,
and any reference to or mention of Miss Rutledge would suggest them,
as if "to celebrate a grief which lay with continual heaviness on his
heart." There is no question that from this time forward Mr. Lincoln's
spells of melancholy became more intense than ever. In fact a tinge
of this desperate feeling of sadness followed him to Springfield. He
himself was somewhat superstitious about it, and in 1840-41 wrote to
Dr. Drake, a celebrated physician in Cincinnati, describing his mental
condition in a long letter. Dr. Drake responded, saying substantially,
"I cannot prescribe in your case without a personal interview." Joshua
F. Speed, to whom Lincoln showed the letter addressed to Dr. Drake,
writing to me from Louisville, November 30, 1866, says: "I think he
(Lincoln) must have informed Dr. Drake of his early love for Miss
Rutledge, as there was a part of the letter which he would not read."
It is shown by the declaration of Mr. Lincoln himself made to a fellow
member* of the Legislature within two years after Anne Rutledge's death
that "although he seemed to others to enjoy life rapturously, yet when
alone he was so overcome by mental depression he never dared to carry a
pocket knife."
* Robert L. Wilson, MS., letter, Feb. 10, 1866
It may not be amiss to suggest before I pass from mention of McNamar
that, true to his promise, he drove into New Salem in the fall of 1835
with his mother and brothers and sisters. They had come through from
New York in a wagon, with all their portable goods. Anne Rutledge had
meanwhile died, and McNamar could only muse in silence over the fading
visions of "what might have been." On his arrival he met Lincoln, who,
with the memory of their mutual friend, now dead, constantly before him,
"seemed desolate and sorely distressed." The little acre of ground in
Concord cemetery contained the form of his first love, rudely torn from
him, and the great world, throbbing with life but cold and heartless,
lay spread before him.