Death of Mary Lincoln
On July 16, 1882, Mary Todd Lincoln's final period of turmoil ended. Mary never recovered from the death of her husband Abraham, who was killed by an assassin after the end of the civil war. Although she often seemed "difficult" throughout her life, she became depressed after the deaths of her son Willie and her husband. After Lincoln was shot, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton ordered Mary to leave the room where her husband's death was because she was bereaved.
Widowed, Mrs. Lincoln returned to Illinois and lived with her sons in Chicago. In an act approved by a narrow margin on July 14, 1870, the United States Congress granted Mrs. Lincoln a life pension of $3,000 a year. Mary lobbied hard for such a pension, writing numerous letters to Congress and asking patrons such as Simon Cameron to petition on her behalf. She insisted that the soldiers' widows should get the same pension. It was unprecedented for widows of presidents at the time, and Mary Lincoln had alienated many members of Congress, making it difficult for her to win approval.
In July 1871, death returned to the Lincoln family and took the life of Thomas (Tad), leaving Mary deeply saddened and depressed. Her surviving son, Robert Lincoln, an up-and-coming young lawyer in Chicago, was appalled by his mother's increasingly abusive behavior. During a visit to Jacksonville, Florida in March 1875, Mary felt that Robert was terminally ill. She went to Chicago to see him, but he was not sick.
In Chicago, she told her son that someone had tried to poison her on the train and that a "wandering Jew" had taken the book in her pocket, but then returned it. During her stay in Chicago with her son, Mary spent a lot of money on furniture, draperies, and fancy clothes that she never used—she only wore black after her husband's murder. She walks around town with $56,000 in government bonds. Despite this large sum of money and a $3,000 per year stipend from Congress, Mrs. Lincoln had an irrational fear of poverty. After she jumped out of a window to escape a non-existent fire, her son decided she should be institutionalized.
On May 20, 1875, he committed her to a private asylum in Batavia, Illinois. Three months after joining Bellevue, Mary Lincoln planned to escape. She was not only her friend, but also her lawyer, James B., a fellow spiritualist. Smuggling letters to Bradwell. She also sent a letter to the editor of the Chicago Times. Before long, the public embarrassment that Robert had hoped to avoid was slipping away, and his character and motives were questionable as he controlled his mother's finances. At Mary's trial, Bellevue's director assured the jury that he would benefit from treatment. Because publicity could hurt, he declared himself well enough to move to Springfield to live with her sister, Elizabeth Edwards.
Mary Lincoln was placed in the care of her sister in Springfield. In 1876 she was declared competent to manage her affairs. After the court proceedings, Mary became so angry that she tried to kill herself. She went to the hotel pharmacist and ordered enough laudanum to kill herself, but he understood her intentions and did not give her a harmful prescription. As a result of the earlier proceedings, Mary was bitterly estranged from her son Robert, and shortly before her death they were not reconciled.
Mrs. Lincoln spent the next four years traveling around Europe and settled in France. Her final years were marked by declining health. She had severe cataracts that reduced her eyesight. This condition may have made her more likely to fall. In 1879, she injured her spine after falling down a flight of stairs.
In the early 1880s, Mary Lincoln was holed up in the home of her sister Elizabeth Edwards in Springfield, Illinois. She died on July 16, 1882 at the age of 63. She was buried with her husband in the Lincoln Mausoleum at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. Hope, in this quiet place - next to her beloved husband - Mary has finally found some peace.
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