Abraham Lincoln: Heartbreaker

This month, April 2015, sees the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination at the hands of the enraged renegade actor John Wilkes Booth in 1865. Disgusted by the Lincoln’s part in the Confederate States’ defeat after four years of civil war, Booth sneaked into Lincoln’s box as the President was watching a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. and shot him in the back of the head. Days after the end of the Civil War Lincoln was killed at the very moment of his great triumph.

Many will be the eulogies to Lincoln as the great emancipator and the political mastermind behind the Union victory in the American Civil War; a man who came from the classic humble origins of the log cabin to dominate his time. Is he the greatest president the USA ever had? Is he one of the greatest statesmen of all time? Some may take a more cynical view of Lincoln: his suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War and his attitudes towards African Americans beyond their emancipation from slavery will be debated. But few of these comments will dip into the early personal life of Lincoln like this letter of May 7 1837, included in American History, 1493-1945: From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York, written from Springfield where the 28-year-old Lincoln practised as a lawyer.

The story goes that, in jest, Lincoln had agreed to Elizabeth Abell that he would marry her sister, Mary Owens, if Mary was brought back to Illinois from Kentucky. Lo and behold, Mary Owens arrived in Illinois and Abraham, though he’d met her a few years before, was not impressed to be quasi-engaged. His correspondence recounts that he was less than enamoured. Rather than tell Mary Owens straight that he wasn’t interested he embarked on the longer, and perhaps less hurtful, strategy of discouragement. But instead of demonstrating poor table manners, leaving the loo seat up, watching a lot of sport, poor personal hygiene, not texting back promptly, etc. he wrote a letter about his life prospects and the town where he lived.

Firstly – with the prospect of Mary coming to live in his town – he tells her how dull Springfield is: “I am quite as lonesome here as ever in my life”. He goes on to talk about how the people of Springfield do a lot of “flourishing about in carriages here” and as he is poor, she’d have no way of hiding this poverty. He plants the question in her mind: “Do you believe you could bear that patiently?” He encourages her to think seriously about their relationship while giving the illusion that he’s interested before suggesting she reject him for her own sake. He essentially tells her that he’s not going to amount to anything in this world. No surprise that this document has been dubbed the “It’s not you, it’s me” letter.

Sure enough, Mary Owens did break off the relationship and Lincoln went on to marry the beautiful Mary Todd. Mary Owens also married elsewhere and we don’t know if she ended up regretting failing to land the future president or not. Lincoln’s history is better known. Little did she know that she’d been ditched by one history’s “great men”.



​Module 2 Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Age: 1860-1945 of American History, 1493-1945: From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is released in June 2015. Module 1 Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859 is available now.

Friend Mary

I have commenced two letters to send you before this, both of which displeased me before I got half done, and so I tore them up. The first I thought wasn’t serious enough, and the second was on the other extreme. I shall send this, turn out as it may.

This thing of living in Springfield is rather a dull business after all, at least it is so to me. I am quite as lonesome here as ever was anywhere in my life. I have been spoken to by but one woman since I have been here, and should not have been by her, if she could have avoided it. I’ve never been to church yet, nor probably shall not be soon. I stay away because I am concious I should not know how to behave myself-

I am often thinking about what we said of your coming to live at Springfield. I am afraid you would not be satisfied. There is a great deal of flourishing about in carriages here; which it would be your doom to see without sharing in it. You would have to be poor without the means of hiding your poverty. Do you believe you could bear that patiently? Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine should any ever do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I can immagine, that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort. I know I should be much happier with you than the way I am, provided I saw no signs of discontent in you. What you have said to me may have been in jest, or I may have misunderstood it. If so, then let it be forgotten; if otherwise, I much wish you would think seriously before you decide. For my part I have already decided. What I have said I will most positively abide by, provided you wish it. My opinion is that you had better not do it. You have not been accustomed to hardship, and it may be more severe than you now immagine.

I know you are capable of thinking correctly on any subject, and if you deliberate maturely upon this, before you decide, then I am willing to abide your decision.

You must write me a good long letter after you get this. You have nothing else to do, and though it might not seem interesting to you, after you have written it, it would be a good deal of company to me in this “busy wilderness”. Tell your sister I dont want to hear any more about selling out and moving. That gives me the hypo whenever I think of it.

Yours &c.

Lincoln