{"id":1078,"date":"2013-06-29T13:05:29","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T13:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/?p=1078"},"modified":"2016-06-19T13:54:10","modified_gmt":"2016-06-19T13:54:10","slug":"letter-to-mary-lincoln-june-16-1863","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/letter-to-mary-lincoln-june-16-1863\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to Mary Lincoln (June 16, 1863)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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

Annotated Transcript<\/h3>\n

“It is a matter of choice with yourself whether you come home. There is no reason why you should not, that did not exist when you went away. As bearing on the question of your coming home, I do not think the raid into Pennsylvania amounts to anything at all.”<\/a><\/p>\n

On This Date<\/h3>\n

HD Daily Report, June 16, 1863<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lincoln Log, June 16, 1863<\/a><\/p>\n

Custom Map<\/h3>\n

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

How Historians Interpret<\/h3>\n

“So little correspondence has survived between husband and wife that one is tempted to make much of a pittance. \u00a0It is irresistible because Lincoln chose his words so carefully. \u00a0Clearly she had asked whether she should come home; plainly he told her the war should not keep her away. \u00a0So his first two sentences are telling. \u00a0He would not order her to come home\u2014it was not his way to order her about, any \u00a0more than it was her habit to submit. \u00a0The second, cryptic sentence addresses a great chasm between them. \u00a0Simply translated, it means that since she left, nothing has changed; and if she wanted to be apart from him before, it will be no different now. \u00a0The tone is distant and cool, not at all welcoming.”<\/p>\n

\u2013Daniel Mark Epstein,\u00a0The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage<\/em> (New York: Ballentine Books, 2008), 396<\/a><\/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 City, D.C.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
June 16. 1863\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Mrs. Lincoln\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Philadelphia.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
It is a matter of choice with yourself whether you come home. There is no reason why you should not, that did not exist when you went away. As bearing on the question of your coming home, I do not think the raid into Pennsylvania amounts to anything at all\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
A. LINCOLN<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ranking #117 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents Annotated Transcript “It is a matter of choice with yourself whether you come home. There is no reason why you should not, that did not exist when you went away. As bearing on the question of your coming home, I do not think the […]<\/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":[10879,11638,6088,11650,11630,11669,10865,10870,10862],"class_list":["post-1078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-father-abraham","tag-family","tag-female-correspondent","tag-letter","tag-mary-todd-lincoln","tag-military-affairs","tag-needs-close-reading","tag-private","tag-telegram","tag-wartime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078","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=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4380,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions\/4380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}