Mrs. Lincoln's Sisters

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  As soon as the bright spectacle faded, Mr. Judd drew Abe, Judge Davis, and a few other gentlemen aside into a private room. Mary managed to slip inside before the door closed, and Elizabeth, after waiting to see whether her sister would promptly reappear, peremptorily excluded from the meeting, retired to her suite, where her daughters were preparing for bed and reminiscing in awestruck tones about the day’s events.

  More than an hour later, Elizabeth was settling down to sleep herself when she heard a rap on the door and opened it to find Mary in the corridor, face pale and eyes shining with tears. “Dreadful news, simply dreadful,” she choked out, twisting a handkerchief so tightly the fabric strained.

  Quickly Elizabeth ushered her inside to the sitting room and softly closed the door to the hallway as well as to the adjoining chamber where her daughters slept. “What’s wrong?” she asked, seating herself on the sofa beside her distraught sister.

  “You recall, of course, the scheme to damage the railroad as we pass through Baltimore.”

  “Of course.”

  “The Pinkerton agents have since discovered a more sinister plot.” Mary inhaled shakily and dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “The station in Baltimore is strangely, most inconveniently configured. To transfer from inbound to outbound trains, passengers have to cross through a narrow pedestrian tunnel, the same tunnel our carriages will use to take us to our lodgings in the city. According to the detectives, after our train halts, Southern sympathizers intend to create a diversion further down the tracks to draw the police escort away. When we enter the tunnel”—Mary choked out a sob—“at least eight men will be waiting to stab or shoot my husband!”

  “Goodness,” Elizabeth exclaimed. “How certain are the detectives that this is no idle rumor?”

  “Certain enough that the military has urged—no, demanded—that Abe leave us and travel through Baltimore under the cover of night, in disguise and accompanied by Pinkertons.” Mary shook her head, mouth pursed. “I am entirely against it. I refuse to be separated from my husband, and I am certain that this timorous, clandestine entrance into Washington will make him appear weak before the public and all those dreadful secessionists.”

  “Perhaps, but his safety must be the primary concern,” said Elizabeth. “What does Abe think?”

  Mary frowned. “He said that unless there are other reasons besides incurring ridicule that make the plan unwise, he is inclined to approve it.”

  If Abe thought that was best, Elizabeth would trust his judgment. The next morning, when she confided in Frances, Margaret, and Martha, they too agreed with Abe that the military likely knew best. The sisters’ words were brave and their voices determined, but their eyes revealed their worry.

  Over Mary’s objections, Abe did continue ahead without them. Conveyed by less ostentatious vehicles, he slipped through Baltimore clad in a Scotch cap and a tartan cloak, stooping to conceal his remarkable height, a disguise he abandoned well before he reached Washington. Mary and the rest of the party departed later, continuing on the Inaugural Express and pulling into the depot at New Jersey Avenue and C Street at about four o’clock in the afternoon, ten hours after Abe had entered the city.

  “See who has come to meet us,” Mary murmured to Elizabeth as the train came to a halt. She nodded through the window to the platform below. “Do you recognize the gentleman on the left, Congressman Elihu Washburne? It’s good to see an old friend from Illinois here. The slight man standing beside him, the one with silver hair and a cane, is Senator William Seward. Abe has chosen him for secretary of state—over my strong objections. He has no principles, and he aspires to be the power behind the throne, but he’ll soon discover that my husband is no callow boy to be molded.”

  Despite her disparaging tone, when Mary and her entourage descended from the train and Mr. Washburne and Mr. Seward came forward to welcome them to the capital, she accepted their compliments graciously and chatted amiably as the two gentlemen escorted them to the carriages that would take them to their hotel. Elizabeth rode with Mary, the boys, and the two gentlemen, while Frances, William, Levi, and the other ladies followed in a second carriage and the rest of Abe’s companions in a third.

  Elizabeth’s first incredulous, appalled impression of Washington City was that it was a squalid rural village where cows, pigs, and geese roamed freely through the streets, which Mary had warned her were cloudy with dust on dry days and ran thick with mud when it rained. Pennsylvania Avenue and a few adjacent blocks of Seventh Street were paved, but the cobblestones were broken and uneven, and mud oozed up between the cracks. The 156-foot stub of the Washington Monument stood forlornly in the midst of an open field where cattle grazed, its construction halted by political squabbling, financial uncertainty, and vandalism. The Capitol, too, was unfinished, but there at least construction continued; the incomplete, truncated dome loomed above the landscape, hemmed in by derricks and scaffolding, flanked by bare, unadorned marble wings, and surrounded by workers’ sheds, tools, piles of bricks, and blocks of marble scattered on all sides.

  “It is not as dreadful as it looks,” said Mary in an undertone. “When Abe was in Congress, I discovered that Washington City offers a peculiar mix of grandeur and squalor side by side. I’ve always chosen to focus on the city’s more pleasant attributes—the elaborate mansions and lovely gardens, the grand estates in the surrounding countryside, the opulent marble edifices that house the various federal departments, and let’s not forget the splendid, extravagant levees, dinners, and balls. It does take a bit of care to navigate the city without ruining one’s skirts and shoes in the mud, but that’s what carriages are for.”

  When Mary smiled brightly, Elizabeth smiled back, but she found herself suddenly relieved that she was only visiting. Only Abe’s offer to Ninian of a cabinet position could extend her stay indefinitely, but that was an increasingly unlikely prospect.

  The carriages took them up Pennsylvania Avenue, lined with trees that lifted bare branches to the overcast sky, past the State Department, the more massive Treasury Building, and, at a distance so they only caught a glimpse of it, the Executive Mansion. Mary had been invited to call there on March 1 so that Miss Harriet Lane, President Buchanan’s niece and hostess, could offer her a guided tour of the White House. Elizabeth longed to accompany her sister, but Mary herself would welcome the Todd ladies to her new home soon thereafter.

  They arrived at the Willard Hotel, a rambling, six-story edifice that was not only the city’s finest and largest hotel but also a nexus of Washington society and politics. As Mr. Washburne helped them down from the carriage, he remarked that it would not be wrong to call the Willard more the center of the federal government than the Capitol, the White House, or the State Department, as so many policies were debated and compromises worked out in its storied parlors and corridors. Recently the Willard brothers had gamely endeavored to maintain peace between contentious factions by assigning Southern guests to rooms on a single floor and urging them to use the ladies’ Fourteenth Street entrance, while Northerners were encouraged to use the main doors on the Pennsylvania Avenue side. Even so, rivals were bound to encounter each other in the hotel’s public rooms, which were illuminated by gaslight, opulently furnished in rosewood, damask, lace, and velvet, and redolent of cigar smoke and spilled whiskey. One quick look and Elizabeth resolved not to let her daughters spend any time there unaccompanied. Her heart sank when she observed Levi hanging back and ducking inside when he thought no one was watching.

  As soon as they were shown to their rooms, Mary’s first desire was to reunite with her husband. Then, and in the days that followed, while Abe organized his government, Mary embarked on her own campaign—helping her entourage settle in, welcoming family and friends, and accepting calls from diplomats, statesmen, and their ladies. Elizabeth and Frances observed a troubling absence of the most prominent ladies of Washington society, most of whom were Southerners, but they said nothing to Mary, hoping that she would be too busy to notice and w
ould not consider it a snub.

  Southern ladies tended to show up in greater numbers at events where Abe would appear too, drawn by curiosity, Elizabeth supposed. At one reception, where Abe and Mary received callers for more than two hours in a crowded, humid parlor on the second floor of the Willard, a waiter spilled coffee on Mary’s dress, a favorite lavender silk she had intended to wear to a party after the inauguration the following week. “What shall I do?” Mary fretted as Elizabeth and Martha swept her into an adjacent lounge where no one could gawk as they frantically blotted her dress with their handkerchiefs. It was all to no avail, for the stain had set. “I have nothing else suitable to wear.”

  Elizabeth heard the frantic note in her voice and realized that Mary must have detected the snub from the Washington ladies after all. They had all read the snide remarks in the papers, the speculation that the Lincolns were uncultured hayseeds and bumpkins who would bring down the quality of the social scene with their unrefined Western ways. Mary absolutely must appear elegant and stylish whenever she appeared in public or she would never win them over.

  “You’ll need an entirely new gown,” said Mrs. McLean, the wife of Colonel Eugene McLean of Maryland, who had followed them unnoticed into the lounge. “I know just the dressmaker—Mrs. Elizabeth Keckly. She’s the most acclaimed modiste in Washington City. She creates all of my fine dresses, and those of other fashionable ladies—Mrs. Douglas, for one.”

  “Stephen Douglas’s wife? She’s quite lovely, and always beautifully attired.” Mary considered. “Your dressmaker’s name sounds familiar.”

  “She came to Washington from St. Louis,” said Mrs. McLean. “Perhaps she sewed for your acquaintances there. If you wish, I’ll invite her to call on you so that you may interview her.”

  This plan was quickly agreed to, and Mary returned to the reception in the ruined gown, a fan artfully held open to conceal the stain.

  Mary’s tour of the White House on the first of March went well, or so she told her sisters afterward. Miss Lane promised to arrange for a meal to be prepared for the Lincolns and their guests at the White House following the inauguration, when the Executive Mansion would pass to their custody. The staff had provided Mary with a detailed list of protocol regarding management of the White House, which she was sure would be very useful. Yet a tightness around Mary’s eyes suggested that, however courteously Miss Lane’s household had welcomed her, they had conveyed no warmth or genuine friendliness. “A certain coolness is to be expected, I suppose, since she is a Democrat and I am a Republican,” Mary confided to Elizabeth and Frances. “I am, after all, replacing her as the first lady of Washington.”

  Perhaps that was not the only reason for Mary’s chilly reception. The next morning Frances came early to Elizabeth’s room to show her the most recent Harper’s Weekly, which included an article describing “Mrs. Lincoln’s sisters” as “the toast of Southerners.”

  “To Washington’s social elite, who are predominantly of Southern extraction, we Todd sisters are uncouth Westerners,” said Frances, frowning. “To Yankees we are Southern belles clamoring for secession.”

  “I don’t believe this piece goes quite that far,” said Elizabeth, skimming the article. “But don’t show it to Mary.”

  “This piece isn’t the first to cast doubt on Mary’s loyalties, nor will it be the last,” said Frances. “I fear that until this rebellion is put down, she’ll find herself caught in the middle, claimed by neither side, mistrusted by both.”

  “I do hope you’re wrong,” said Elizabeth, but her heart was troubled.

  On the morning of the inauguration two days later, Elizabeth rose early, a thrill of pride and expectation chasing away sleep as surely as the first pale rays of dawn peeking through her window. She washed and dressed with care, then woke Julia and Lizzy and set them to the same task, lingering in the doorway until she was convinced they would not crawl back into their beds. She ordered breakfast sent up to the room, and after they had eaten, they finished their toilettes, helped one another into their fine new dresses, took turns arranging one another’s hair, put on jewelry, reconsidered, traded around earbobs and necklaces, and considered their reflections in the mirror. When they were finally satisfied, they heaped praise upon one another with great enthusiasm and sincerity, confident that they would be equal in appearance to the most disdainful snobs of the Washington elite.

  They left their suite and joined the other Todd ladies in Salon Number 6 to help Mary prepare for the momentous day. She looked resplendent in an ashes-of-rose sateen gown, with an elaborate headdress of flowers and ribbon upon her shining chestnut hair and diamonds sparkling from her earlobes. They were such a merry group, all in good spirits, pleased with how lovely they looked together, and dressed becomingly for the events at the Capitol that were soon to begin.

  Then a knock sounded on the door. “Enter!” Mary called out cheerfully.

  A lovely colored woman entered, her dress stylish and beautifully made, perfectly fit to her elegant figure. She carried herself with almost regal dignity, and when Mary rose to greet her, she inclined her head in a graceful acknowledgment of Mary’s status as the first lady of the land.

  “You are Elizabeth Keckly, I believe,” said Mary. “The dressmaker that Mrs. McLean recommended?”

  Mrs. Keckly bowed her assent. “Yes, madam.”

  “Very well.” Mary returned to her dressing table and examined her face in the mirror, touching the delicate skin beneath her eyes, frowning at what might have been newly discovered or newly imagined lines. “I have no time to talk to you now, but at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, I would like you to call at the White House.” Turning in her seat, she held Mrs. Keckly’s gaze and added portentously, “Which is where I shall then be.”

  “Yes, madam.” Mrs. Keckly bowed again and saw herself out.

  “Who was that enchanting woman?” asked Martha, who had been standing at the window on the other side of the salon and had missed the brief conversation. “Such noble bearing! Is she a foreign princess?”

  “Mrs. Keckly is the dressmaker Mrs. McLean recommended last week. I was told she might call today. I wish I could have interviewed her now, but we haven’t the time. I do hope I wasn’t too abrupt.” Studying her reflection in the mirror, Mary gave her coiffure one last gentle pat, rose from her chair, and gazed around the room, smiling affectionately at each of them in turn. “My dearest ones, I cannot fully express how overjoyed I am that you came so far to share this glorious day with me. Now, shall we go see Mr. Lincoln become Mr. President?”

  Elizabeth and the other ladies all agreed that this was a very fine idea.

  The morning had dawned chilly, damp, and overcast, but by the time Mary, her sons, and her ladies arrived at the Capitol, a gusty, intermittent wind had blown away the clouds. Thousands of spectators lined the parade route President and Mrs. Lincoln would take to the White House after the ceremony. Elizabeth had not yet seen her brother-in-law that day; Mary had explained that Mr. Buchanan was picking up Abe in his gleaming black barouche and escorting him to the Capitol.

  Inside the Senate chamber, a guard escorted them to their seats in the diplomatic gallery, from whence they observed the last oratory of the Thirty-Sixth Congress. An expectant hush fell over the chamber as outgoing vice president Breckenridge—another Todd cousin from Kentucky—rose and offered a pleasant farewell address to the Senate, after which he summoned Mr. Hannibal Hamlin to the Senate floor and administered his oath of office. Applause and cheers filled the chamber as the new vice president took the chair and called the Thirty-Seventh Congress to order.

  One by one, the newly elected and reelected senators took their solemn oaths of office. When the last of the senators had been sworn in, the entire assembly proceeded outside to the eastern portico, where a platform had been erected for the conclusion of the ceremony. Elizabeth linked arms with her daughters in the crush, grateful for the military guard who kept a path clear for Mary and her companions.

&n
bsp; Shortly before one o’clock, the central door was opened for them and Mary emerged onto the portico accompanied by her sons, the Todd ladies, and several gentlemen. The sky had cleared, and the sun shone brightly down upon the crowd of roughly thirty thousand people who had packed the muddy Capitol grounds below to witness the historic occasion. As they were led to their seats, Elizabeth spotted other dignitaries seated in places of honor closer to the front, shaded beneath a wooden canopy near a small table where Abe would soon stand and address the crowd.

  After the Todd entourage seated themselves, the portly clerk of the Supreme Court appeared, carrying a Bible in one hand and leading the elderly, frail Supreme Court chief justice, Roger Taney, with the other. When Abe appeared upon the platform, Mr. Buchanan looking pale, sad, and nervous at his side, deafening cheers greeted him and continued until nearly the entire Senate and all other dignitaries had taken their places. Then Senator Edward D. Baker of Oregon stepped forward and announced, “Fellow citizens, Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, will now proceed to deliver his inaugural address.”

  Abe rose, serene and calm, putting on his spectacles as he approached the canopy. He removed his hat, and then suddenly halted, looking around with a self-deprecating smile as if he had only then realized that he had no place to put his hat while he took his oath. His former rival, Senator Douglas, promptly came forward, took it, and held it on his lap while Abe addressed the crowd.