The Tragedies of Mary & Abraham Lincoln

Prior to the November 4th, 1842 marriage of Mary and Abe Lincoln, historians have unearthed strong evidence of Abraham’s persistent depression and suicidal thoughts, made worse after the tragic death of his first love, Anna Mayes Rutledge in August of 1835, leading a one time neighbor and friend, Mentor Graham, to confess that “Lincoln told me that he felt like committing suicide often.” Lincoln suffered a second major depression in 1841, after he broke off his engagement to Mary “because of his affection for another woman,” prompting friends and relatives to remove guns and knives from Lincoln’s home.

Trouble Ahead

Following their marriage, a devoted Lincoln watched helplessly as his wife developed illnesses and erratic behaviors, made worse by the death of their eleven-year-old son Willie to Typhoid Fever in 1862, followed by an 1863 head injury caused by a carriage accident that left her complaining of migraines. As the Civil War slogged on, President Lincoln’s depression worsened over the weight of his office and the heavy death toll taking place on American battlefields, while Mary’s worsened under the continuous death threats heaped upon her husband by pro-slavery southerners, who also labeled Mary a traitor to her own Southern roots. As for the president, historians now point to Marfan syndrome as the cause of his depression, which is an inherited genetic disorder that weakens the connective papillary muscles in the valves of the human heart; a condition frequently associated with depression.

Condition Worsens

After Lincoln’s assassination, Mary’s psychotic behavior worsened dramatically, further exacerbated six years later, when on July 15th, 1871, her fourth son Tad died at eighteen year of age, with a cause of death variously diagnosed as tuberculosis, pneumonia or congestive heart failure. The loss sent Mary off the deep end, as she combed the United States, Canada and Europe for spiritualists in hopes of communicating with her lost loved ones. As her mental health worsened, her eldest son Robert petitioned the courts until his mother was admitted against her will into Bellevue Place Sanitarium in Batavia, Illinois. After two suicide attempts at Bellevue, Mary was released into the custody of her sister Elizabeth in Springfield, Illinois, where she passed away from a stroke on July 16th, 1882, at 63 years of age, making the tragedies of Mary and Abe Lincoln, a latent testament to the pressures of their time.