Everybody knows about Lincoln’s assassination and the huge funeral journey back to Springfield. But what about when Mary died?

Mary Lincoln, Widow

Mary Todd Lincoln (1818-1882) became a widow when she was 45, and survived her husband by seventeen years. They were bitter years for her. She understandably refused to return to Springfield. She could not bear being in a house where she had lived with a husband and three sons (a fourth had died years earlier as a toddler); now she had no husband, and only two sons.

She moved to Chicago, and for the most part of those seventeen years, was virtually homeless, living in residence hotel rooms. Money, which most believed was sufficient for a moderate-to-comfortable lifestyle, was never enough for The Widow Lincoln, who believed her debts incurred as First Lady amounted to some $38,000. (More than a half-million today). Some modern historians believe the debts were more likely around $12,000 – still sizable. 

Her “retirement” was plagued by scandals, and to escape the public eye, she took her youngest son, Tad, then around 14, to live in Europe, where it was less expensive. Shortly after they returned, Tad died. He was just 18. 

Her oldest son, Robert, had become a successful Illinois attorney, married and starting his own family. Despite the best intentions of all concerned to have a warm relationship, difficulties between Robert, his wife and his mother became strained to a point of distant. Mrs. Lincoln’s difficult personality, coupled with serious grief, depression and various illnesses (some real, some psychosomatic), made her nearly impossible to live with. Her Victorian sense of “my husband is my all” made it nearly impossible for her to live alone. She had little to occupy her time.

She suffered the humiliation of another scandal, a trial of her sanity, and spent a few months in a sanitarium. After her release, and an opportunity to “recuperate” at her sister Elizabeth Edwards’ home, Mary Lincoln again went to Europe.

When she was 60, she had two new health issues, totally unrelated to her emotional and/or mental health. First, she was losing her vision, commonly believed today to be cataracts. Secondly, she injured her back in a fall, and very possibly may have broken a bone or two. She had back pain for the rest of her life.

She wired her sister Elizabeth asking if she could come to live with her. Permanently. Elizabeth said yes.

The Darkened Window Upstairs

For the next two years, she resided with Elizabeth and Ninian Edwards, in the same house where she met and later married Abraham Lincoln. Legend indicates that the young children in town, who knew nothing about First Lady Lincoln, sniggered at the rumors of a peculiar old woman who sat in a darkened room and never came out.

Happily for those involved, Robert Lincoln, by then Secretary of War under Garfield/Arthur, had visited his mother, in an effort to mend fences and repair tattered relationships and reputations.

Most historians concur that Mary Lincoln died of a stroke. Whatever the cause, death was welcome to Mrs. L. whose last years were far from happy.

Meanwhile…

In 1876, a totally new scandal-in-situ had been aborted – and kept under tight wraps. A few counterfeiters had devised a plot to kidnap the body of Abraham Lincoln from his memorial in Springfield, and hold it for ransom. Secret Service agents, then tasked with counterfeiting issues, worked undercover, ostensibly working with the miscreants, alerted the authorities, and the perps were arrested. The plot and its outcome (a nifty story in itself) was kept a secret. If Mrs. Lincoln, recovering from the sanitarium, was aware of the situation, it is unknown. Newspapers only mentioned that ”items from the Tomb” were stolen, and recovered. Only the authorities, John Carroll Power, the Tomb Custodian, a few Oak Lawn Cemetery volunteer “guardians” and Robert Lincoln knew the details. 

They determined that the sarcophagus would be sealed – and remain empty. Lincoln’s 600-pound lead-lined coffin would be hidden away deep within the building, under the protection of the Lincoln Tomb custodian until final arrangements could be made.

It was further determined that coincidental structural repairs were required, because of the unstable ground surrounding the Tomb itself. Thus Lincoln’s body was once again reburied in a shallow grave within the building. Only the Guard of Honor members and Robert Lincoln knew about it.

When Mary Lincoln died in 1882, Robert Lincoln told the Guard of Honor to bury his mother’s casket next to the casket of Abraham Lincoln – wherever it was. Thus Mrs. Lincoln had her dearest wish granted: to have her final remains lie beside her husband. 

She remained buried in the shallow grave next to Abraham Lincoln for five years, while repairs were being made above ground.

It was not until 1887 that Mary Lincoln was finally interred in the wall-crypt along with her three sons who had died years earlier. But the area surrounding the Tomb was seriously unstable, and required extensive shoring up. In the meantime, Lincoln’s coffin was opened on a few occasions, to ascertain that indeed, the remains inside were that of the martyred sixteenth President.

Not until 1901 would Abraham Lincoln’s casket be re-placed not in the sarcophagus, but lowered far below ground and covered by ten feet of cement. The sarcophagus remains empty, even today.

Sources:

Baker, Jean – Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography – W.W.Norton & Co. 1999

Clinton, Catherine – Mrs. Lincoln: A Life – HarperCollins, 2009

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/4/15/22382530/abraham-lincolns-body-stolen-plot

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/first-families/mary-todd-lincoln/

https://lincolntomb.org/