Willie Lincoln was 11 when he died in the White House.

Willie.

In December, 1850, ten months after his sickly four year old brother Edward Baker Lincoln died, William Wallace Lincoln was born. He was the third son born to Abraham and Mary Lincoln, named for Mary’s brother-in-law, the local doctor who had been indispensable during Eddy’s final illness. 

According to nearly every source, Willie was a bright, caring and lovable child, with long legs that promised above average height. Elizabeth Grimsley, Mary Lincoln’s cousin, commented that he was “most like Lincoln except he was handsome.” 

Willie Lincoln was comfortable with people, whether they be his playmates, or the adult friends of his parents, or even important government officials. Even the lowliest servants in the White House remarked about the boy’s cheerfulness and sincere good manners to all.

According to Lincoln secretary John Hay, Willie was prematurely serious and studious. He was also more receptive to religion than his brothers. There is some indication that he once told his Sunday School teacher that he might like to be a preacher. 

Typhoid the Killer

Typhoid is a water borne disease, serious even today. In the 19th century, its prevention was decades in the future. So was its treatment. More often than not, it proved fatal. In late January, 1861, both Willie Lincoln and his brother Tad, two-and-a-half years younger, became sick. The doctors said it was a bad cold and fever, and prescribed the usual treatments for childhood diseases, which were/are numerous and commonplace. 

Having already lost a small child, both Lincolns always worried when their sons were sick.

But Dr. Robert Stone was readily available, and not overly concerned. When the POTUS and FLOTUS considered cancelling a gala event, the doctors advised that the boys were strong and would recover. But while Tad seemed to rally and improve, Willie did not. He failed steadily, and by mid-February 1862, less than a year after Lincoln was inaugurated, Willie was in grave danger, diagnosed with the dreaded “typhoid,” and moved into what is today, the more spacious Lincoln Bedroom.

On February 20, he died.

Mourning Willie

When the end came, Lincoln tearfully announced to his secretaries, “Well, my boy is gone,” and disappeared into his office, to grieve in private. Mary Lincoln collapsed, and required medical sedation. Tad, still sick in bed, was only eight. The Lincolns’ oldest son, Robert, had been summoned from his studies at Harvard. 

Willie’s body was washed and dressed by Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Lincoln’s dressmaker, who was quickly becoming indispensable to the First Family. Then he was brought downstairs to the Green Room to be prepared for embalming, and placed in a metallic casket, that looked like simulated rosewood. Flowers covered the coffin, and friends and dignitaries came to quietly pay their respects.

The funeral services were scheduled in the White House East Room at 2 PM, February 24, a stormy and windy day. The mirrors were covered, and the gilt frames and windows were draped in mourning cloth. Shortly before the service the family spent some time in private farewell. Mary Lincoln was again so overcome, that she needed medical attention, and did not attend the service, or the burial. According to Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Lincoln “was an altered woman,” who never entered the room where Willie died, nor the Green Room, where he was embalmed. She was bedridden for three weeks, and did not appear publicly for months.

The President personally escorted Bud and Holly Taft, who had become the inseparable playmates of Willie and Tad, to say their own tearful goodbyes. Mrs. Lincoln was so overwrought, she had sent word to their mother not to send the boys to the White House: it would be too upsetting for her.

Congressmen and Senators, Cabinet members, foreign diplomats, military brass, including General George McClellan, filled the sorrowful room to pay their respects to the President and Robert. Finally Dr. Phineas Gurley, the pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, where the Lincolns rented a pew, preached a heartfelt and tender sermon-eulogy. 

A Temporary Rest

It was a long procession in cold, wet weather that followed the hearse, pulled by two white horses. Next came two black horses pulling the President’s carriage. The train of mourners trudged to Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, where there was another brief ceremony at the chapel. Then Willie’s coffin was placed in a temporary vault.

The vault was owned by Mr. And Mrs. William Carroll, whose three deceased young sons already occupied the structure. Carroll was the clerk of the Supreme Court, and graciously “lent” the space to the President, for Willie to rest in peace until such time as he would be removed to return to Springfield, IL with his family. 

It is said that President Lincoln visited the vault several times to mourn quietly – in private.

The Final Journey

Three years later, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. That funeral service was longer. The shock and mourning resonated across the continent. This time Robert Lincoln would serve as chief mourner, accompanied by Justice David Davis and Ward H. Lamon, longtime friends of the late President. The always emotionally frail Mary Lincoln was now permanently devastated; Tad, only 12, was still a child. 

The plans for the long ride back to Springfield retraced the 1700 mile railroad trip the President had taken to his inauguration in 1861. In each stop along the way, in the cities his journey had taken, there were more services, dirges and even re-embalming. More dignitaries paid their respects and more eulogies were proclaimed. 

But quietly and with little fanfare, prior to the homeward bound journey, Willie’s casket was removed from the Carrolls’ vault, and brought to the train and placed at the foot of his father’s coffin. They would go home together.

Both coffins were taken to Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, and placed in another vault until 1871, when the Lincoln burial site was completed. Little Eddie’s coffin was also exhumed and he and Willie were moved to a permanent crypt in the wall. He remains there till this day, alongside his mother and his brothers Eddie and Tad.

Sources:

Bayne, Julia Taft – Tad Lincoln’s Father – Bison Books (reprinted) – 2001

Keckley, Elizabeth – Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House – Important Books, 2013

Randall, Ruth Painter – Lincoln’s Sons – Little, Brown & Co., 1955

https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/education/williedeath.htm

Family: William Wallace Lincoln (1850-1862)

Funeral Train Route