Robert Todd Lincoln

Robert Todd Lincoln (August 1, 1843 – July 26, 1926) was an American lawyer and businessman. The eldest son of President Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, he was the only one of their four children to survive past 18 and also the only one to outlive both his parents. Robert Lincoln became a business lawyer and company president, and served as both United States Secretary of War (1881–1885) and the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain (1889–1893).

Lincoln was born in Springfield, Illinois, and graduated from Harvard College. He then served on the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant as a captain in the Union Army in the closing days of the American Civil War. After the war was over, he married Mary Eunice Harlan, and they had three children together. Following completion of his law school studies in Chicago, he built a successful law practice, and became wealthy representing corporate clients.

Lincoln was often spoken of as a possible candidate for national office, including the presidency, but never took steps to mount a campaign. He served as Secretary of War in the administration of James A. Garfield, continuing under Chester A. Arthur, and as Minister to Great Britain in the Benjamin Harrison administration.

Lincoln became general counsel of the Pullman Company, and after founder George Pullman died in 1897, Lincoln assumed the company's presidency. After retiring from this position in 1911, Lincoln served as chairman of the board until 1924. In Lincoln's later years, he resided at homes in Washington, D.C., and Manchester, Vermont; the Manchester home, Hildene, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. In 1922, he took part in the dedication ceremonies for the Lincoln Memorial. Lincoln died at Hildene in July 1926, at age 82, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Early life

Robert Todd Lincoln was born in Springfield, Illinois, on August 1, 1843, to Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln. He had three younger brothers, Edward, William, and Tad. By the time Lincoln was born, his father had become a well-known member of the Whig political party and had served as a member of the Illinois state legislature for four terms. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Robert Smith Todd.Template:Sfn

Some commentators believe that Robert Lincoln had a distant relationship with his father, in part because, during his formative years, Abraham Lincoln spent months away on the judicial circuit.Template:Sfn Lincoln recalled, "During my childhood and early youth he was almost constantly away from home, attending court or making political speeches."Template:SfnTemplate:Efn Abraham apparently realized that his being away had a potential impact on his sons as evidenced by the following quote from his April 16, 1848, letter to his wife: "don't let the blessed fellows forget Father".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> One such example that gives insight into Robert's childhood in general was related by Joseph Humphreys, who had taken a train to Lexington, Kentucky, in 1847: "there were two lively youngsters on board who kept the whole train in a turmoil, and their long-legged father, instead of spanking the brats, looked pleased as Punch and aided and abetted the older one in mischief".Template:Sfn

Lincoln took the Harvard College entrance examination in 1859, but failed fifteen out of the sixteen subjects.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Subsequently, Lincoln was enrolled at Phillips Exeter Academy to prepare for college; he graduated Phillips Exeter in 1860.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Admitted to Harvard, he graduated in 1864, having been elected vice-president of the Hasty Pudding Club,<ref name="Register"/> and was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon (Alpha chapter) fraternity.Template:Sfn Welsh author Jan Morris wrote that Robert Lincoln, "having failed fifteen out of sixteen subjects in the Harvard entrance examination, got in at last and emerged an unsympathetic bore."Template:Sfn

Civil War years

Portrait by Mathew Brady Template:Circa 1865

After graduating from Harvard, Robert Lincoln enrolled at Harvard Law School.<ref name="Register">Template:Cite book</ref> Lincoln attended Harvard Law School from September 1864 to January 1865, but left after four months in order to join the Union Army.<ref name="Register"/> In 1893, Harvard awarded Lincoln the honorary degree of LL.D.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Mary Todd Lincoln prevented Robert Lincoln from joining the Army until shortly before the war's conclusion.Template:Sfn President Lincoln argued "our son is not more dear to us than the sons of other people are to their mothers." In January 1865, the First Lady gave in and President Lincoln wrote Ulysses Grant, asking if Robert could be placed on his staff.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

On February 11, 1865, Lincoln was commissioned as an assistant adjutant with a captain's rank. He served in the last weeks of the American Civil War on General Grant's staff, a status which meant, in all likelihood, he would not be involved in actual combat.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He was present at Appomattox when Robert E. Lee surrendered.Template:Sfn He resigned his commission on June 12, 1865, and returned to civilian life.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Lincoln was once saved from possible serious injury or death by Edwin Booth, whose brother, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated Robert's father. This event took place on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey. The exact date is uncertain, but it is believed to have taken place in late 1863 or early 1864, before John Wilkes Booth's assassination of President Lincoln. In a letter written in 1909 to the editor of The Century Magazine, Robert Lincoln recalled what had happened that day:<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Months afterwards, while serving on Grant's US Army staff, Robert Lincoln recalled the occurrence to Colonel Adam Badeau, a fellow officer who happened to be a friend of Edwin Booth's. Badeau sent a letter to Booth, complimenting the actor for his heroism. Before receiving the letter, Booth had been unaware that the man whose life he had saved on the train platform was the president's son. The knowledge of whom he had saved that day was said to have been of some comfort to Booth following his brother's assassination of the president.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Grant also sent Booth a letter of gratitude for his action.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

On the night his father was assassinated, Robert had turned down an invitation to accompany the Lincolns to Ford's Theatre due to fatigue after spending much of his recent time in a covered wagon at the battlefront.<ref>Ralph Gary, The Presidents Were Here: A State-by-State Historical Guide, 2008, p. 43</ref>Template:Sfn Ten days later, Robert Lincoln wrote President Andrew Johnson requesting that he and his family be allowed to stay in the Executive mansion for two and a half weeks because his mother had told him that "she can not possibly be ready to leave here".Template:Sfn Lincoln also acknowledged that he was aware of the "great inconvenience" this would be to Johnson, since he had become president of the United States only a short time earlier.Template:Sfn

In late April, 1865, Robert moved to the city of Chicago with his remaining family.Template:Sfn He attended law classes at the Old University of Chicago and studied law at the Chicago firm of Scammon, McCagg & Fuller.Template:Sfn On January 1, 1866, Lincoln moved out of the apartment he shared with his mother and brother. He rented his own rooms in downtown Chicago to "begin to live with some degree of comfort" which he had not known when living in cramped conditions with his family.Template:Sfn Lincoln graduated from Old UniversityTemplate:Efn with an LL.B. in 1866 and became licensed as an attorney in Chicago on February 22, 1867. He was certified to practice law four days later on February 26, 1867.Template:Sfn

Family

Marriage and children

On September 24, 1868, Lincoln married Mary Eunice Harlan, daughter of Senator James Harlan and Ann Eliza Peck of Mount Pleasant, Iowa.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn They had three children, two daughters and one son: Mary "Mamie" Lincoln, Abraham "Jack" Lincoln II,<ref name=AbeII/> and Jessie Harlan Lincoln.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Robert, Mary, and the children would often leave their hot city life behind for the cooler climate of Mount Pleasant, during the 1880s the family would summer at the Harlan home there. The Harlan-Lincoln home, built in 1876, still stands today. Donated by Mary Harlan Lincoln to Iowa Wesleyan College in 1907, it now serves as a museum containing a collection of artifacts from the Lincoln family and from Abraham Lincoln's presidency.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Of Robert's children, Jessie Harlan Lincoln Beckwith had two children, namely Mary Lincoln Beckwith ("Peggy") and Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, but neither of them had children of their own. The Robert Todd Lincoln of this article had another daughter, Mary ("Mamie") Todd Lincoln, who married Charles Bradford Isham in 1891; they had one son, Lincoln Isham,<ref name="LIObit1971">Template:Cite news</ref> who married Leahalma Correa in 1919,<ref name="1919Wedding">Template:Cite news</ref> but died without children.<ref name="Winkler2004">Template:Cite book</ref> The last person acknowledged and known to be of Lincoln lineage, Robert's grandson Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died in 1985.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Relationship with Mary Todd Lincoln

In 1871, Lincoln's only surviving brother, Tad, died at age 18, leaving his mother devastated. Lincoln was already concerned about what he thought were his mother's compulsive and extravagant spending, hallucinations, and eccentric behaviors.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Fearing that she was a danger to herself, he arranged to have her committed to a psychiatric hospital in Batavia, Illinois, in 1875. With his mother in the hospital, he was left with control of her finances, although he used his own money to pay for her care. As the head of the family, he felt that it was his duty to protect her, although he did wish that she would have "every liberty and privilege" restored to her as soon as she was better.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On May 20, 1875, she arrived at Bellevue Place, a private, upscale sanitarium in the Fox River Valley.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Three months after she started living there, Mary Lincoln was able to escape from Bellevue Place. She smuggled letters to her lawyer, James B. Bradwell, and his wife, Myra. Mary also wrote to the editor of the Chicago Times and shortly, the embarrassment Robert had hoped to avoid came to the forefront, with his motives and character being publicly questioned. Bellevue's director, who at Mary's commitment trial assured the jury she would benefit from treatment at his facility, now declared her well enough to go to Springfield to live with her sister.<ref>Template:Cite web, Wellesley Centers for Women 2008</ref> Her commitment and subsequent events alienated Lincoln from his mother.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Politics

Secretary of War (1881–1885)

Portrait 1870-1880

From 1876 to 1877 Lincoln served as Town Supervisor of South Chicago, a town which was later absorbed into the city of Chicago.Template:Sfn In 1877 he rejected President Rutherford B. Hayes' offer to appoint him Assistant Secretary of State. He was appointed by President James Garfield as Secretary of War and served from 1881 to 1885 under Garfield and then Chester A. Arthur.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

During his term in office, the Cincinnati Riots of 1884 broke out over a case in which a jury returned a verdict of manslaughter rather than murder in a case that many suspected was rigged. Fifty-six people died during three days of rioting before U.S. troops dispatched by Lincoln reestablished calm.<ref name=Scullin>Template:Cite web</ref> <ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Subsequent to serving as Secretary of War, Lincoln assisted Oscar Dudley to establish the Illinois Industrial Training School for Boys (now known as Glenwood Academy) in Norwood Park in 1887, after Dudley (a Humane Society employee) "discovered more homeless, neglected and abused boys than dogs on the city streets."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Template:Clear left

Republican politics

Presidential Possibilities card issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Honest Long Cut Tobacco, 1888

From 1884 to 1912, Lincoln's name was mentioned in varying degrees of seriousness as a candidate for the Republican presidential or vice-presidential nomination. He repeatedly disavowed any interest in running and stated he would not accept nomination for either position.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His likeness was included in an 1888 set of "Presidential Possibilities" cards.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Minister to the Court of St James's

Lincoln served as the U.S. minister to Great Britain, formally to the Court of St James's, from 1889 to 1893 under President Benjamin Harrison. Lincoln's teenage son, Abraham II "Jack", died during this time in Europe.<ref name=AbeII>Template:Cite newsletter</ref> After serving as minister, Lincoln returned to private business as a lawyer.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Later life and career

Chief Justice William Howard Taft (left), President Warren G. Harding (center) and Lincoln at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial, May 30, 1922

Robert fought to preserve and protect his father's legacy, clashing with Abraham Lincoln biographer William Herndon over Herndon's statements about his father.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> As a result of their confrontations over his Lincoln biography, in 1890 Herndon wrote to Jesse Weik, his Lincoln biography collaborator, that Robert was "a Todd and not a Lincoln ... a little bitter fellow of the pig-headed kind, silly and cold and selfish."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Lincoln was general counsel of the Pullman Palace Car Company under George Pullman, and was named president after Pullman's death in 1897. According to Almont Lindsey's 1942 book, The Pullman Strike, Lincoln arranged to have Pullman quietly excused from the subpoena issued for him to testify in the 1895 conspiracy trials of the American Railway Union's leaders (during the 1894 Pullman Strike). Pullman hid from the deputy marshal sent to his office with the subpoena and then appeared with Lincoln to meet privately with Judge Grosscup after the jury had been dismissed.<ref>Lindsey, The Pullman Strike, p. 301.</ref> In 1911, Lincoln became chairman of the Pullman Company board, a position he held until 1924.<ref name="Sunbeam">Template:Cite web</ref>

A serious nonprofessional astronomer, Lincoln had an observatory built at Hildene, and a 1909 Warner & Swasey refracting telescope with a six-inch John A. Brashear objective lens was installed. Lincoln's telescope and observatory have been restored and it was used by a local astronomy club in the early 2000s.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Lincoln was also a dedicated golfer, and served as president of the Ekwanok Country Club in Manchester.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> His last public appearance was on May 30, 1922, at the dedication ceremony for his father's memorial in Washington, D.C.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Presence at assassinations

Robert Lincoln was coincidentally either present or nearby when three presidential assassinations occurred.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

• Lincoln was not present at Ford's Theatre when his father was assassinated<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> but he was at the White House nearby,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and rushed to be with his parents.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The president was moved to the Petersen House after the shooting, where Robert attended his father's deathbed.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Lincoln was an eyewitness when Charles J. Guiteau shot President James A. Garfield at the Sixth Street Train Station in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1881. Lincoln was Garfield's Secretary of War at the time.
• Lincoln was at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, when President William McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz. Though not an eyewitness, he was just outside the Temple of Music when the shooting occurred.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Lincoln himself recognized these coincidences. He is said to have refused a later presidential invitation with the comment, "No, I'm not going, and they'd better not ask me, because there is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Death

Robert Todd Lincoln died in his sleep at Hildene, his Vermont home, on July 26, 1926, at age 82. The cause of death was given by his physician as a "cerebral hemorrhage induced by arteriosclerosis".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> His body was stored in the receiving vault at Dellwood Cemetery from July 1926 until March 1928 when arrangements were made to inter his remains at Arlington National Cemetery.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Robert had long expressed his intention to be buried in the Lincoln Tomb with his family at the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. Two weeks after his death, his widow Mary Harlan Lincoln wrote to her husband's niece of an inspired thought: "...[O]ur darling was a personage, made his own history, independently of his great father, and should have his own place 'in the sun'".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Lincoln's body was buried at Arlington National Cemetery<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in a sarcophagus designed by the sculptor James Earle Fraser. He is buried together with his wife, Mary, and their son, Abraham II ("Jack"), who had died in London, England, of sepsis<ref name=AbeII/> in 1890 at the age of 16. Weeks after Jack's death, Robert wrote to his cousin Charles Edwards, "We had a long & most anxious struggle and at times had hopes of saving our boy. It would have been done if it had depended only on his own marvelous pluck & patience now that the end has come, there is a great blank in our future lives & an affliction not to be measured."<ref name=AbeII />

• 
  Lincoln's sarcophagus at Arlington National Cemetery
• 
  Robert Todd Lincoln's mansion Hildene in Manchester, Vermont

Legacy

Portrait by Harris & Ewing, 1915

Historian Michael Burlingame considered Robert Todd Lincoln to be "a particularly unfortunate, even tragic figure."<ref name=Burlingame>Template:Cite book</ref> Lincoln himself once said, "No one wanted me for Secretary of War... For minister to England... For president of the Pullman Company; they wanted Abraham Lincoln's son."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Nevertheless, he accepted the appointments and was very well-paid, becoming a millionaire lawyer and businessman, fond of the pleasures of the wealthy conservative Victorian gentlemen of his social circle.

Lincoln is considered to have had little in common with his father personally or politically, not being humorous or unpretentious, but rather cold, stuffy, and aloof.<ref name=Burlingame/> Fanny Seward, daughter of secretary of state William H. Seward, described him, however, as "ready and easy in conversation having, I fancy, considerable humor in his disposition...agreeable, good-natured, and intelligent".<ref>Papers of William Seward; Frances (Fanny) Seward diary entry February 12, 1863</ref>

Lincoln was the last surviving member of the Garfield and Arthur Cabinets,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the last-surviving witness of Lee's surrender at Appomattox.Template:Sfn The Lincoln Sea, a body of water in the Arctic Ocean between Canada and Greenland, was named after then Secretary of War Lincoln on Adolphus Greely's 1881–1884 Arctic expedition.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Lincoln's last known surviving descendant, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died December 24, 1985.<ref>Joe Akins, "Abraham Lincoln's Last Living Descendant Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith Ended the Family Line in 1985", July 18, 2019; accessed 2023.07.20.</ref>

Cultural depictions

Robert Todd Lincoln as a character has appeared multiple times on film, in television programs, and in dramatic productions.

Films

• Edwin Mills in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2012)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Television

• Kieran Mulroney in Tad (1995)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Gregory Cooke in the miniseries Lincoln (1988)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Wil Wheaton in The Day Lincoln Was Shot (1998)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Brett Dalton in Killing Lincoln (2013)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Neal Bledsoe in Timeless (2016)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• James Carroll Jordan in Sandburg's Lincoln (1974), with Hal Holbrook as Abraham Lincoln.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Nick Robinson in History of the World, Part II (2023)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Maxwell Korn in Manhunt (2024)<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• Kyle Soller in Death by Lightning (2025)<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref>

Stage plays

• Michael Cristofer in The Last of Mrs. Lincoln (1976).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Last of Mrs. Lincoln, starring Julie Harris, was also seen on television, on PBS as part of a series called Hollywood Television Theater.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s – March 8, 1926
• Lincoln family tree

References

Print sources

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• Cooper, Dan. "President Lincoln of the Pullman Company," Financial History (Fall 2013), Issue 108, pp 10–39.
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External links

• Robert Todd Lincoln
• Photographs of Robert Todd Lincoln
• Original Letters and Manuscripts: Robert Todd Lincoln Shapell Manuscript Foundation