A. Lincoln, Grandfather and Grandson
February 12, 2009, 8:12 am
Posted by Robert P. Imbelli
To celebrate the Lincoln bi-centennial I’ve been reading Ronald White’s wonderful new biography, A. Lincoln.
I was dimly aware that the former President had a seemingly strained relationship with his own father, Thomas.
What I had not realized was that Thomas, at age six, stood next to his own father when the latter was shot and killed by an Indian.
I can imagine the effect it had on the young boy, and the man he became. And I am moved that he named his only son after that fallen father: Abraham.
As the Roman poet, who extolled familial pietas, exclaimed: Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt — human experiences, death-destined, breed tears, and strike the hollows of our hearts (translation with apologies to P. Vergilius).
I haven’t read Ronald White’s biography yet, but I remember from reading David Herbert Donald’s “Lincoln” that family grief and sorrow likely played a large role in shaping Lincoln the man and steeling him for the national grief and sorrow of the Civil War. Lincoln’s younger brother, Thomas, died as a child. His older sister, Sarah, died during childbirth, and Lincoln lost his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, when he was nine. It was lucky for Lincoln (and by not too attenuated extension, the rest of us) that his father then married Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln, who brought some of her own children to the marriage. Lincoln adored his stepmother, and she recognized and cultivated the potential in her stepson. And of course, Lincoln and his wife lost three (Edward, William (Willie), and Thomas (Tad)) of their four sons at ages 4, 11, and 18, respectively.
In light of all the personal tragedy and sorrow in Lincoln’s life, your quote from Vergil seems most apt, Fr. Imbelli.
This post led me to recall Mario Raedelli, a very scary character from the worst years of the civil war here (El Salvador). I remember seeing him in a documentary back around 1980. He was harsh and unsympathetic to those who were protesting injustices. To give you a sense of him, here’s an excerpt from testimony by the then U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White; he was providing a chronology for members of a Congressional subcommittee:
Many years later, I learned this: When tens of thousands of peasants were killed here following a brief uprising in 1932, a small number of well-off people were murdered before the uprising was crushed – and one of those people was the father of Mario Raedelli. I don’t know if he, like Lincoln’s father, actually saw his dad murdered, but it’s very possible.
So, when I read Robert’s words this morning,
I thought, “So, too, with Mario Raedelli.”
Allow me to add a personal note: I was fortunate enough to have both of my parents while growing up. Today would have been their seventy-first anniversary. Please keep them in your prayers today.
The Booth family also had its generational and sibling conflicts which would be interesting to trace. And there was one strange incident in which a Booth and a Lincoln were involved even before the assassination. It seems that Edwin Booth, the actor and brother of John Wilkes Booth, may have rescued Robert Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln.
I’m usually with Aristotle – it’s likely that the unlikely will occur – but this episode is still very remarkable. Here’s an account:
Edwin Booth Saved Robert Todd Lincoln’s Life
http://www.historynet.com/edwin-booth-saved-robert-todd-lincolns-life.htm
Excerpts:
“Fate brought Lincoln and Booth together in a train station in Jersey City, N.J., in the midst of the Civil War. At the time Robert was on a holiday from Harvard, traveling from New York to Washington, D.C., while Booth was on his way to Richmond, Va., with his friend, John T. Ford (owner of Ford’s Theatre in Washington). The exact date of the encounter is unknown, although Robert consistently recalled it as having occurred in 1863 or 1864.”
Robert Lincoln later recalled:
“The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car…There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name.”
IIRC, Abraham’s mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died when he was still a boy. I believe that Thomas Lincoln needed to ride off far away to get his new wife, Sarah Bush Lincoln, and left his two children alone for quite a long period of time – I think several weeks. Thomas is remembered as promising and swearing to his children (who were young at the time maybe 11 and 9?) that he would come back for them.
Life on the frontier is hard to fathom today.
According to the book “Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President” Lincoln had many resentments against his father. One of the strongest was that because Abe was strong and a good worker, he finished his chores early in hopes of having time to read a book. Instead, his father hired him out to the neighbors for the remaining part of the day. Lincoln’s father collected his his wages for the work, giving nothing to Abe. Later Lincoln said, “I have never been a slave, but I know how it feels to have my wages taken from me.” By law he had to stay home and work for his father till he was 21. On his 21st birthday, he left home without returning for years. He was notified when his father died, but decided not to travel to attend the funeral. The book is interesting because it also gives a good explanation of his religious views.
In Gore Vidal’s “Lincoln,” the president has a strained relationship with his oldest son, Robert for reasons that are never quite clear, especially since Lincoln doted on Willie and Tad, whom Vidal paints as a couple of hellions dreaded by visitors to the White House. But Vidal admits that he found Lincoln something of an enigma.
Read this years ago, and enjoyed it, particularly the political intriguing and the fact that all the Washington insiders underestimated Lincoln’s political acumen. Nobody can render political machinating like Vidal.
Includes a scene in which Lincoln, who feared that black people would not be accepted as full citizens after the Civil War, meets with Frederick Douglas and other black leaders to discuss whether they would be willing to encourage other black people to move to a colony outside the U.S. Douglas and others rejected the proposition.
Gene, prayers for your parents. Good to see you on the blog again.
Reading about Nancy Hanks Lincoln has a special fascination for me since family lore says she was the sister of my great grandmother on my father’s side. My father and grandfather’s middle name was Hanks, and I was almost named Nancy Hanks myself.
My father’s brother wrote an autobiography in which he spoke of Grandma, who raised him after he lost his mother at 3 or 4. There is an interesting tidbit about Nancy Lincoln:
“Grandma was proud of her background, which included a number of members of her family who had served the Confederacy with distinction. There were trunks in the attic filled with Confederate currency and battle flags with holes allegedly made by Yankee bullets; but I always thought that they were probably made by moths.
There was one blemish in her loyalties that I did not fully understand then – or even now. I never knew whether her admonition to keep her connection to Nancy Hanks Lincoln a secret was based on her antipathy toward the North and the policies of Lincoln or simply on the fact that Lincoln’s mother hadn’t been acceptable to the family. She had been born illegitimately and had settled in the North. No doubt, it was probably a bit of both.”
Anyone hear this before about Nancy?
Family lore also has it that my father got a terrible lickin’ from his Grandma for playing with a papist. She was long dead by the time he married one.
Gene, I appreciate your post about Raedelli, since it adds to my interest about the influence of violence during childhood on several brutal dictators. Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Ceacescu of Romania and Hitler all experienced terrible beatings from fathers or uncle as children.
Alice Miler, a noted Swiss psychoanalyst, wrote a powerful book, “For Your Own Good: Hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence.” There is a chapter on Hitler’s childhood, “From Hidden to Manifest Horror,” in which she shows how the child victim comes to identify with the aggressor, and acts out in adulthood what was done to him early on.
The parallels are chilling. There is an unrelenting determination never to be the victim again, and lashing out becomes a repetitive compulsion. The sadomasochistic bonds are impossible to break and signal the permanent destruction of the self.
Your instincts are on the mark, Gene. Miller also speaks of the harm done by distortions in religious training.