An Unlikely Friendship

by Ann Rinaldi

  As for "above-stairs," Mary Lincoln was soon sharing secrets with Lizzy and asking her advice about social problems.

  In the outside world Lizzy was approached because of her position in the Lincoln family circle. She was asked to make connections for many people. For a fee, naturally. She turned down all such offers, in one instance an offer of several thousand dollars.

  "Sooner than betray the trust of a friend," she said, "I would throw myself in the Potomac River."

  MEANWHILE, THE WAR was progressing. Mary Lincoln's own brother, George, fought for the South as did three of her half brothers. She was criticized for that and when torn in pieces over it, it was Lizzy who comforted her.

  Then Emilie, Mary's "Little Sister," as the president called her, came for a visit and the Northern newspapers criticized Mary Lincoln for "having Southern spies in the White House." Indeed, Harpers Weekly described all of Mary's sisters as "the toast of Southerners."

  The Northern papers even labeled Mary Lincoln a "Southern sympathizer" and ran stories about her sister Emilie smuggling supplies across lines to the South. At the same time the Southern papers accused her of being a traitor to her roots. Mary wept. Lizzy was there to comfort her.

  Mary Lincoln, wanting to escape the White House at times, began walking the one-third mile to Lizzy's rented rooms to be fitted for her gowns. Fashion was almost a god with her and she made many demands on Lizzy. Accustomed to dealing with difficult white mistresses, Lizzy managed always to oblige and soothe her.

  In turn, Mary found herself turning to Lizzy in difficult times, much as she used to depend on her Mammy Sally as a child. And when she was not unburdening herself on Lizzy, she was shopping to relieve her anxieties about the war, about being left out of politics in that male-run world, about important Washington matrons snubbing her, and about criticism in the newspapers.

  She had discovered, her first year in the White House, that there was a $20,000 congressional allowance given to each new administration for repairs on the White House. And she shopped—in New York, in Philadelphia, and from Paris—to accumulate goods to make up for the disappointments in her life.

  Soon the $20,000 was gone and there was more public criticism of her extravagance. So, in a vicious circle, she would have more gowns made to appease her vanity and restore her confidence.

  By now she and Lizzy were confidantes. "I must dress in costly materials because the people scrutinize every article I wear," she told Lizzy. "The very fact of coming from the West subjects me to more searching observation."

  BECAUSE HER PERSONAL finances improved and her reputation grew, Lizzy was able to open workrooms across from her apartment and hire apprentices. Then, in mid-August she was notified of the death of her son, George, who had left Wilberforce to enlist in the Union Army. He had to enlist as a white man if he wanted to fight, because blacks at the time were allowed only to dig fortifications and cook. He enlisted as George W. D. Kirkland in the First Missouri Volunteers and he fell in his first fight—the Battle at Wilson's Creek in southern Missouri. Mary Lincoln, in New York at the time, wrote her friend Lizzy a long letter of comfort.

  BY THIS TIME Lizzy was fully involved with the Lincoln family. She helped care for and quiet the rowdy boys, Willie and Tad. She stayed with Mary when the woman came down with one of her now-frequent migraines. She even, on occasion, combed the president's hair. The Lincolns did not consider her a stranger but spoke freely in front of her, even if they argued. In particular, Lizzy was privy to the argument they had when Lincoln discovered that his wife was over budget by nearly $7,000 on the household yearly allowance.

  The beginning of 1862 was not good in the White House. Lincoln was upset by his wife's extravagance, and twelve-year-old Willie was fearfully sick.

  SICKNESS IN THOSE DAYS was not to be taken lightly. In Victorian times parents intentionally had many children because they knew that one episode of cholera or typhoid or scarlet fever could wipe out a family. There were no antibiotics, no aspirin, no drugs of any kind, and medical knowledge, too, was sorely lacking. And so, when Willie came down with his fever, the Lincolns had every right to be fearful.

  Willie likely had typhoid fever. His parents watched him helplessly for weeks, while he worsened and finally died on February 20, 1862.

  Lizzy was there with the Lincolns through the terrible ordeal. She was witness to Abraham Lincoln's weeping and was "awestruck" at seeing so powerful a man reduced to tears.

  Mary Lincoln would not be consoled. This was the second son she had lost. She had frequent crying jags. She came down with her headaches. And Lizzy was there to comfort and to listen.

  "Willie would have been the hope and stay of my old age," she told Lizzy, who had, herself, counted on the same thing from her own son.

  Deep depression settled over Mary Lincoln and the only cheer she found was in ordering expensive mourning gowns from Lizzy and black-veiled bonnets from New York. She locked herself in her room to get away from the rest of the world. Lincoln was too overwhelmed himself to attend her. It could be said that Lizzy Keckley and Mary Todd were drawn even closer in mourning Willie because Lizzy understood, having lost her own son.

  AS IF SHE WERE not busy enough that summer, Lizzy founded a relief society to raise money to care for the contrabands (former slaves) who were living in great numbers and in abject poverty in Washington at the time. She fell back on her church and her many friends, black and white, to raise the money to help these people. Of them, she said, "Poor dusky children of slavery, men and women of my own race, the transition from slavery to freedom was too much for you." She even traveled to New York and Boston to raise money for her cause.

  LIZZY WAS IN THE presence of the Lincolns in the White House one day when Abraham led Mary over to a window and pointed across the Potomac to an insane hospital. He told his wife that if she let her grief and depression take over she would soon be insane and she would have to go there.

  By the time 1862 ended, Mary Lincoln's fog of mourning had somewhat lifted. The war and life as she'd known it were going on without her. Lincoln had already issued a proclamation freeing all of Washington, D.C.'s slaves and now the tide of public opinion was in favor of emancipation for all of them.

  The blacks could only hope. Then, on January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all of the slaves.

  Lizzy finally felt herself equal and saw the world differently now, while all Mary Lincoln could feel was a renewed sense of loss "for life as we have known it."

  Still in mourning, she had, with Lizzy's help, sought out mediums (spiritualists) and claimed to have learned "wonderful things about Willie" in the séances those mediums conducted. Both she and Lizzy took part in the séances, seeking relief from past sufferings.

  By fall of 1863 Mary Lincoln had lost three half brothers in the war. All had fought for the South. But Mary refused to mourn them because "in fighting against the North they have fought against me and my husband."

  Eighteen sixty-four was an election year, and Mary came out of her mourning for Willie by entertaining lavishly. Naturally, she needed many new gowns, and she went on more shopping sprees, accumulating thousands of dollars of debt. Lincoln was unaware of her debt, but Lizzy knew of it. And so Mary drew Lizzy even more into her confidence.

  Before the election, Lizzy asked Mary Lincoln if she could have "the right-hand glove that the President wears at the first public reception after his second inaugural."

  Lincoln did win a second term, defeating one of his former generals, George B. McClellan. The war was coming to an end now, and in April of 1865 Lizzy went along on a boat and train trip with Mary and her husband, up the James River to City Point, Petersburg, and Richmond, Virginia. President Jefferson Davis, head of the Confederacy, had fled Richmond, and it was in ruins. But what most moved Lizzy was Petersburg, where she had once lived as a slave for the Garlands. She was nostalgic, proud, and bitter all at the same time.

  She had come far, she knew, and so h
ad the race to whom she belonged. After the president's first public reception, following the inaugural, Lizzy got the president's white right-hand glove and treasured it always.

  AFTER LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION Mary Lincoln stayed in the White House for six more weeks, refusing to move out. The new president, Andrew Johnson, stayed in a house on Fifteenth and Eighth streets and did not push her. Mary Lincoln was often uncontrollable in her grief and refused to face the world. Lizzy and twelve-year-old Tad slept in the same room with her.

  Lincoln's body was returned to Illinois, but Mary would not make the trip for the burial. Robert had to take over. Everyone wanted her to go back to Illinois to live, but she said no; it held too many memories for her.

  Finally, with the persuasion of Robert, now twenty-two, she packed up to leave the White House, taking five years' worth of gifts she had received as First Lady, even though technically they were not hers. She had decided to go and live in Chicago. In packing she gave away all of Lincoln's things. His hat, his cane, even his shawl, she gave to White House aides. To Lizzy she gave his comb and brush, a pair of his overshoes, and the cloak she was wearing when her husband was shot.

  Late in May of 1865 Mary Lincoln, Lizzy, Tad, and Robert took the train to Chicago where they took some rooms in a hotel. Robert entered a law firm. Lizzy stayed in Chicago only two weeks because Mary Lincoln could no longer afford to pay her and she wanted to reopen her shop in Washington, which had been neglected. Back in Washington she bandied it about that Mary Lincoln "was practicing the closest economy" in her style of living.

  Mary and Lizzy did not see each other again for two years. Mary had asked Congress for money. She hoped for $100,000, which represented her husband's salary had he finished out his term in office.

  Lizzy made a trip to Virginia to see the Garlands, who gave her a joyful welcome. "Even to a slave," she said, "the past is dear." Many ex-slaves at the time were visiting old masters and having reconciliations with their former owners.

  The two women, bonded by good times and bad times, stayed in touch and saw each other again over the years. In Lizzy Keckley, Mary Lincoln seemed to have found her "Mammy Sally" again and, indeed, turned to her in all her hours of need and loneliness.

  As for Lizzy Keckley, she recognized what she had in the friendship. She perhaps saw in Mary her own white heritage, although she did not need it to continue leading a productive and happy life. She had her memories to carry her through lonely hours: the time spent on the Burwell plantation; her time with Robert and his wife and children; her rising above the status that whites in her life always wanted her to be satisfied with; and the knowledge that along the way she had purchased her own freedom, given a son to "the cause," known a president and his family, helped start an organization in Washington, D.C., to help the freedman, and been a solid and continuing presence in so many lives, both black and white.

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  Author's Note

  I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN FASCINATED with the tale of Elizabeth Keckley, the black woman born into slavery, who grew up in bondage and eventually purchased her own freedom and that of her son's.

  The fact that she ended up in the White House, a personal dressmaker and confidante of Mary Lincoln, that the two women became fast friends, further intrigued me.

  In looking at their childhoods, I thought: How utterly different. One a slave girl, mistreated and overworked; the other the daughter of a wealthy and influential family in Lexington, Kentucky, herself surrounded by slaves.

  The idea presented itself. Why not explore the childhoods of each of these women who were buffeted by the turmoil of their times, whose mettle was tested every day? As I began to research the idea, it loomed even stronger.

  I have depicted Mary Lincoln's childhood with as much accuracy as possible. A writer need not have to stray far from the truth to make an interesting story here. It had all the ingredients of a good novel, right down to the "evil" stepmother. I have had to, for the sake of story, invent some scenes and piece together others, for frequently in research, the pieces don't always fit.

  But other pieces stand firm under the test of time. For instance, Mary Todd always did want to live in the White House and marry a president. She did get put into Ward's girls' school by her parents, and her Grandma Parker did live "up the hill" and refuse to accept the Todd girls' stepmother, Betsy. Grandfather Levi Todd's wife, Jane, did fashion a wedding dress from weeds and wild flax, and the incident about Mary Todd desperately wanting a hoopskirt, and of Betsy's disapproval, is true.

  Liz Humphreys did come to stay and go to school with Mary.

  Mammy Sally did have a sign painted on the fence to welcome runaways, and Mary Todd did find out about it and was a staunch supporter of the practice. Elizabeth, Mary's older sister, did invite her younger sister to Springfield, Illinois, to "stay a while," and both Frances and Mary Todd met their husbands that way.

  It is a bit murky about what troubled George, Mary's brother, christened George Rogers Clark, but I have it down as an early drinking problem combined with feeling guilty because their mother died at his birth. (Having been in George's position, with my mother dying at my birth, I can relate to George's guilt, which only deepens, instead of lessens, as one grows older and begins to comprehend the full extent of what a mother's death means.)

  It is also true that when she was older and went to Mentelle's School for Young Ladies, Mary Todd was fetched home only on weekends, making her feel even more alienated from her family. So it wasn't difficult for her to give up the ghost and go to Springfield, Illinois, to her sister Elizabeth's house when the time came for her to leave home.

  What did I learn upon researching the childhood of Mary Todd? That her life was filled with a sense of loss (right down to the middle name—Ann—that was taken from her when a young sister was born and given the name) even before she married Abraham Lincoln. I learned that she was completely dependent upon their black nanny, Mammy Sally, to make things right when they went wrong. And so, in later years turned to Elizabeth Keckley, the black dressmaker, when she was hurting or worried.

  I learned that when she was excessively worried, or feeling abandoned (as when her young husband went riding circuit as a lawyer), she turned to shopping to make her feel better.

  When she got to be First Lady, there were plenty of occasions upon which she felt abandoned or at a sense of loss. And so, as First Lady, she shopped, excessively, and ran up a score of bills while in the White House.

  But all the troubles Mary Todd had when she was a child, whether real or imagined, cannot be compared to those of Elizabeth Keckley.

  It is true that Elizabeth was started on chores at about age four. And that she was cruelly whipped for trying to pick up the baby of the master's house, with a fireplace shovel.

  Her half brother, Robert Burwell of Dinwiddie County, Virginia, did become her master and treated her with cruel indifference, even "farming" her out to the "slave breaker" next door in order to break her spirit.

  It would not be broken. She had an indomitable spirit, and eventually both the slave breaker and Robert begged her forgiveness for their treatment of her.

  The stories of other slaves being sold as children, of Jane being made to eat worms, only touch the surface of the mistreatment of slaves. And while most slaves were broken by such treatment, Elizabeth Keckley was only made stronger.

  She did sew enough and work enough to support the whole family when she was grown. She did buy her own freedom and came to be known as a source of strength to many white people around her.

  It is a fact, though surprising, that she was asked to be in the wedding party of several white girls. Research tells us this. Apparently the custom was practiced in the South, especially when the girl was as attractive and poised as Elizabeth Keckley.

  Her dressmaking, soon recognized by the likes of Mrs. Jefferson Davis, wife of the future president of the Confederacy, was enviable, to say the least. All the cream of society had to have one of her dresses.
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  So, once ensconced in Washington City, she had a whole list of wealthy patrons, and just about that time Mary Lincoln came to play her part as First Lady. The rest is a wonderful, heartbreaking, true story.

  I hope I have done it justice. The tale of this friendship between these two women is remarkable, indeed.

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  Bibliography

  Baker, Jean H. Mary Todd Lincoln, A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Ltd., 1987.

  Fleischner, Jennifer. Mrs. Lincoln and Mrs. Keckly, The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave. New York: Broadway Books, a Division of Random House, 2003.

  Keckley, Elizabeth. Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

  Leech, Margaret. Reveille in Washington 1860–1865. New York: Harper & Bros., 1941.

  Lewis, Lloyd. The Assassination of Lincoln: History and Myth. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1957.

  Morrow, Honore. Great Captain. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1930.

  Robertson, David. Booth. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1998.

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