{"id":1021,"date":"2013-06-29T12:35:01","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T12:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/?p=1021"},"modified":"2016-06-17T17:43:52","modified_gmt":"2016-06-17T17:43:52","slug":"letter-to-mary-lincoln-september-21-1863","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/letter-to-mary-lincoln-september-21-1863\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to Mary Lincoln (September 21, 1863)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ranking<\/strong><\/h3>\n

#89<\/span> on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents<\/em><\/p>\n

Annotated Transcript<\/h3>\n

“The air is so clear and cool, and apparantly healthy, that I would be glad for you to come. Nothing very particular, but I would be glad [to] see you and Tad.”<\/a><\/p>\n

On This Date<\/h3>\n

HD Daily Report, September 21, 1863<\/a><\/p>\n

Custom Map<\/h3>\n

\"Screen<\/a>
\nView in Larger Map<\/a><\/p>\n

How Historians Interpret<\/h3>\n

“By the seventh week of Mary\u2019s absence, Lincoln\u2019s entreaties for her to return home become more wheedling: on September 20 \u2013 \u2018I neither see nor hear anything of sickness here now,\u2019 and on September 21- \u2018The air so clear and cool, and apparently healthy that I would be glad for you to come.\u2019 He also tried to use go-between to try to get his family back to Washington, writing on the twenty-second: \u2018Mrs. Cuthbert did not correctly understand me I directed her to tell you to use your own pleasure whether to stay or come; and I did not say it is sickly and that you should on no account come\u2026 I really wish to see you. Answer this on receipt.\u2019 Mary responded that she had called for transportation to return from New York and that she was anxious to return home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catherine Clinton, \u201cThe Fiery Furnace of Affliction,\u201d<\/a> in 1863: Lincoln\u2019s Pivotal Year<\/em>, ed. Harold Holzer and Sarah Vaughn Gabbard (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013), 81.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly a dozen short telegrams between the Lincolns remain from that summer. In these brief communications, Lincoln talked about the heat, shared news of the Kentucky elections, and asked her to let \u2018dear Tad\u2019 know that his nanny goat had run away and left his father \u2018in distress about it.\u2019 Only in mid-September, as the time drew near for Mary\u2019s return, did Lincoln admit that he had missed her, repeating in two separate telegrams his eagerness to be reunited with her and with Tad. Mary understood that he was \u2018not given to letter writing,\u2019 and so long as she was assured of his good health, she remained content.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln<\/a> <\/em>(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 540.<\/p>\n

NOTE TO READERS<\/h3>\n

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new \u201cUnderstanding Lincoln\u201d online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http:\/\/new.livestream.com\/gilderlehrman\/lincoln<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Searchable Text<\/span><\/h3>\n
Washington, D.C.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Sept. 21. 1863<\/span><\/div>\n
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Mrs. A Lincoln\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Fifth Avenue Hotel New-York<\/span><\/div>\n
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The air is so clear and cool, and apparantly healthy, that I would be glad for you to come. Nothing very particular, but I would be glad [to] see you and Tad.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
A. LINCOLN<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ranking #89 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents Annotated Transcript “The air is so clear and cool, and apparantly healthy, that I would be glad for you to come. Nothing very particular, but I would be glad [to] see you and Tad.” On This Date HD Daily Report, September 21, 1863 Custom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10857],"tags":[10879,11638,6088,11650,10865,10870,10862,10876],"class_list":["post-1021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-father-abraham","tag-family","tag-female-correspondent","tag-letter","tag-mary-todd-lincoln","tag-private","tag-telegram","tag-wartime","tag-younger-readers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1021"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4287,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions\/4287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}