Robert
Todd Lincoln, the first child of Abraham
Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, was
born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1843. He had three brothers: Robert
Lincoln (1843-1926), Edward Lincoln
(1846-50), William Lincoln (1850-62)
and Thomas Lincoln (1853-1871). Lincoln
studied at Illinois State University and Harvard
University.
During the American Civil War he joined
the Union Army and was appointed to the
rank of captain. His father did not want him sent to the front-line
and so it was arranged that he should became assistant adjutant general
of volunteers on the staff of General Ulysses
S. Grant. This enabled him to be present when General Robert
E. Lee surrendered his army at the Appomattox Court House.
After the assassination of his father he returned to the family home.
In 1867 he was admitted to the Illinois Bar and became a successful
lawyer. He married Mary Harlan, the daughter of James
Harlan, and the couple had three children: Mary (born 15th October,
1869), Abraham (born 14th August, 1873) and Jessie (6th November,
1875).
Lincoln, like his father, was a member of the Republican
Party. He shared the views of Radical
Republicans and attacked the idea of taxes being used to compensate
slaveowners for the loss of their
slaves. He campaigned for the Republicans
waving his father's "bloody shirt", and complaining about
"so much precious blood" being spilt without the creation
of a just and fair society.
Lincoln became increasingly concerned about the mental health of his
mother. Mary Todd Lincoln worried unnecessarily
about money. Charles Sumner had persuaded
Congress to grant her a $3,000 a year pension. She also had received
a large percentage of her husband's estate. However, her conviction
that she was poor, resulting in strange and irrational behaviour.
This included selling her clothes and writing letters begging money
from prominent politicians.
In 1875 Lincoln, arranged for a sanity hearing. The court judged her
insane and she was committed to a sanatorium in Batavia, Illinois.
On 15th June, 1876, a second trial judged her sane and she went to
live with her sister in Springfield. Her health continued to deteriorate
and she refused to leave her bedroom.
In 1881 President James Garfield appointed
Lincoln as his Secretary of War. He was with him when he was assassinated
in 1881. Lincoln remained in the post under Garfield's replacement,
Chester Arthur. Lincoln refused all attempts
to nominate him as a presidential candidate but in 1889 he accepted
the post as minister to England.
Lincoln grew increasingly conservative and in 1893 he bitterly attacked
John P. Altgeld for pardoning the men
found guilty of the Haymarket Bombing.
He was strongly opposed to the growth in the trade
union movement and supported his friend, George
Pullman, in his struggle during the Pullman
Strike. After the death of Pullman in 1897 Lincoln became president
of the Pullman Palace Car Company.
Lincoln criticised the radicalism of Theodore
Roosevelt and claimed that his ideas constituted "a revolution"
and would lead to a dictatorship. Lincoln also raised doubts about
what he called "an unchecked democracy" and disapproved
of the progressive policies of Woodrow Wilson.
Robert Todd Lincoln died in Manchester, Vermont, in 1926.
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