Lincoln, the unknown

202 •LINCOLN THE UNKNOWNThe young officer suddenly paused with a look of embarrassment.Mrs. Lincoln turned to him with flashing eyes, with theremark that his familiarity was offensive to her.Quite a scene followed, and I do not think that theCaptain who incurred Mrs. Lincoln's displeasure will everforget that memorable evening."I never in my life saw a more peculiarly constituted woman,"says Mrs. Keckley. "Search the world over and you will notfind her counterpart.""Ask the first American you meet, 'What kind of a womanwas Lincoln's wife?' " says Honore Willsie Morrow in her book"Mary Todd Lincoln," "and the chances are ninety nine toone hundred that he'll reply that she was a shrew, a curse to herhusband, a vulgar fool, insane."The great tragedy of Lincoln's life was not his assassination,but his marriage.When Booth fired, Lincoln did not know what had hit him,but for twenty-three years he had reaped almost daily whatHerndon described as "the bitter harvest of conjugal infelicity.""Amid storms of party hate and rebellious strife," says GeneralBadeau, "amid agonies . . . like those of the Cross . . .the hyssop of domestic misery was pressed to Lincoln's lips, andhe too said: 'Father, forgive: they know not what they do.' "One of Lincoln's warmest friends during his life as Presidentwas Orville H. Browning, Senator from Illinois. These two menhad known each other for a quarter of a century, and Browningwas frequently a dinner guest in the White House and sometimesspent the night there. He kept a detailed diary, but onecan only wonder what he recorded in it about Mrs. Lincoln, forauthors have not been permitted to read the manuscript withoutpledging their honor not to divulge anything derogatory toher character. This manuscript was recently sold for publicationwith the provision that all shocking statements regardingMrs. Lincoln should be deleted before it was put into print.At public receptions in the White House it had always beencustomary for the President to choose some lady other thanhis wife to lead the promenade with him.But custom or no custom, tradition or no tradition, Mrs.