Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [328]
On the nights he did not spend with Seward, Lincoln found welcome diversion in the telegraph office, where he could stretch his legs, rest his feet on the table, and enjoy the company of the young telegraph operators. He sought out Captains Dahlgren and Fox, whose conversation always cheered him. Describing a pleasant evening in Captain Fox’s room, Dahlgren remarked that “Abe was in good humor, and at leaving said, ‘Well I will go home; I had no business here; but, as the lawyer said, I had none anywhere else.’”
Occasionally, late at night, Lincoln would rouse John Hay. Seated on the edge of his young aide’s bed, or calling him into the office, the president would read aloud favorite passages ranging from Shakespeare to the humorist Thomas Hood. Hay recorded one occasion, “a little after midnight,” when Lincoln, with amused gusto, read a portion of Hood, “utterly unconscious that he with his short shirt hanging about his long legs & setting out behind like the tail feathers of an enormous ostrich was infinitely funnier than anything in the book he was laughing at. What a man it is! Occupied all day with matters of vast moment…he yet has such a wealth of simple bonhommie & good fellow ship that he gets out of bed & perambulates the house in his shirt to find us that we may share with him the fun of one of poor Hoods queer little conceits.”
Lincoln’s evening rambles suggest that Mary’s continuing depression over Willie precluded easy relaxation at home. “Only those, who have passed through such bereavements, can realize, how the heart bleeds,” Mary admitted to Mary Jane Welles. Yet despite the desolation that still tormented her, Mary had gamely resumed her duties as first lady, telling Benjamin French that she felt responsible to “receive the world at large” and would endeavor “to bear up” under her sorrow. French, in turn, marveled at the “affable and pleasant” demeanor the first lady regularly displayed in public. “The skeleton,” he noted, “is always kept out of sight.”
As the anniversary of Willie’s death approached, Robert came down from Harvard to spend a few weeks with his family. Encountering him at a number of parties, Fanny Seward found him to be a delightful young man, “much shorter than his father,” with “a good, strong face,” though not an especially handsome one. “I talked some time with him. He is ready and easy in conversation—having, I fancy, considerable humor in his composition.”
With the official mourning period behind them, the Lincolns resumed the weekly public receptions they both enjoyed despite the exhausting rounds of handshaking. In gratitude to Rebecca Pomroy, the nurse who had cared for Tad after Willie died, Mary arranged for all the nurses, officers, and soldiers at Pomroy’s hospital to attend a grand White House reception in early March. Mrs. Pomroy instructed the soldiers “to provide themselves with clean white gloves, and to look their best.” The White House that night was “brilliantly lighted and decorated with flowers in the greatest profusion.” Pomroy was certain that her soldiers would remember this night, declaring that if they survived the war, “they will tell their children’s children” of their enchanting evening at the White House.
The abolitionist Jane Grey Swisshelm had initially been reluctant to join her friends at one of these Saturday receptions. She had no interest in meeting Mary Lincoln after the tales suggesting the first lady’s sympathy with the Confederate cause. Yet when she was actually introduced to Mary, she realized at once that the stories were slanderous gossip. “When I came to Mrs. Lincoln, she did not catch the name at first, and asked to hear it again, then repeated it, and a sudden glow of pleasure lit her face, as she held out her hand and said how very glad she was to see me. I objected to giving her my hand because my black glove would soil her white one; but she said: ‘Then I shall preserve the glove to remember a great pleasure, for I have long wished to see you.’” Over time, as the two women developed a close friendship,