Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [443]
Mary’s pleasure in her husband’s victory reflected more than simple pride. During the fall election, she had been terrified that his defeat might signal merchants in New York and Philadelphia—to whom she still owed substantial sums—to call in her debt. “I owe altogether about twenty-seven thousand dollars,” she confided in Elizabeth Keckley. “Mr. Lincoln has but little idea of the expense of a woman’s wardrobe. He glances at my rich dresses, and is happy in the belief that the few hundred dollars that I obtain from him supply all my wants. I must dress in costly materials. The people scrutinize every article that I wear with critical curiosity. The very fact of having grown up in the West, subjects me to more searching observation. To keep up appearances, I must have money—more than Mr. Lincoln can spare for me. He is too honest to make a penny outside of his salary; consequently I had, and still have, no alternative but to run in debt.”
Although padded bills and attempts to trade upon her White House influence exposed her to serious scandal, Mary could not curtail her excessive spending habits. “Here is the carriage of Mrs Lincoln before a dry goods Store,” Judge Taft noted four weeks after the election, “her footman has gone into the Store. The Clerk is just going out to the carriage (where Mrs L is waiting) with some pieces of goods for her to choose from. I should rather think that she would have a better chance at the goods if she was to go into the Store but then she might get jostled and gazed at and that too would be doing just as the common people do. The footman holds the carriage door open. The driver sits on the box and hold[s] the horses. Mrs L. thumbs the goods and asks a great many questions.”
A week later, Mary journeyed to Philadelphia for another shopping trip. Not long afterward, she visited New York, where she purchased a new dress, expensive furs, and “300 pairs of kid gloves.” When the items she purchased did not measure up to her expectations, her manic sprees quickly gave way to depression and anger. “I can neither wear, or settle with you, for my bonnet without different inside flowers,” she threatened a milliner in New York. “I cannot retain or wear the bonnet, as it is—I am certainly taught a lesson, by your acting thus.”
Mary’s self-conscious attention to the details of her bonnet was not entirely misplaced. Newspaper reports of her evening receptions invariably commented on every piece of her apparel. At the first White House levee of the new winter season, the National Republican noted that she “was charmingly and elegantly attired…dressed in a rich, plain white silk, with heavy black lace flounce and black lace shawl, and upon her head was a coronet of white and purple flowers—a most tasteful decoration.” Her outfit at a state dinner a few weeks later drew equal praise. “Mrs. Lincoln was tastefully attired in a heavy black and white spotted silk, elegantly trimmed with black lace, her headdress and rich set of jewelry harmonizing throughout.”
The new season brought new rules of etiquette for visitors at public receptions at the White House: “Overcoats, hats, caps, bonnets, shawls, cloaks &c. should be deposited in the several ante-rooms provided for that purpose, and where they will be in charge of proper persons for safekeeping.” The new arrangement pleased the Washington social elite, who began returning to the open receptions they had shunned. A reporter for the National Republican noted on the part of all the guests “a more general observance of the proprieties of dress and demeanor,” which seemed to suggest “increasing respect for the President, his family and themselves.”
Mary also took great pride in her informal Blue Room receptions, which