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The Lincolns in the White House: Four Years That Shattered a Family
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Product Description
“Readable, well organized, well researched, and smoothly written. . . . Even those who know Lincoln well may learn something they did not know before.”
--- The Washington Post Book World
From the day of his inauguration, Abraham Lincoln was confronted with a nation divided by a savage conflict but within the White House walls, Lincoln’s family was as divided as the nation he led.
Criticized by the American public for her extravagance, and distrusted because of her Southern roots, First Lady Mary Lincoln’s increasing mental instability would strain her marriage. The presidential couple was devastated when eleven-year-old Willie died in the White House of typhoid fever. Robert Lincoln’s success at Harvard made his parents proud, but his relationship with them was troubled and would eventually result in his permanent, painful estrangement. The Lincolns’ youngest son Tad, though physically impaired, remained the couple’s joy; but the president’s assassination coupled with Tad’s early death all but destroyed Mary’s fragile spirit. Mary finally retreated into deep seclusion, falling further into madness until her own death in 1882. The Lincolns in the White House is a moving and poignant portrait of the family life of America’s greatest president.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #427399 in Books
- Published on: 2006-12-12
- Released on: 2006-12-12
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 304 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Civil War readers are no doubt familiar with the Lincoln family's tensions and personalities, and some of them will want the full soaking in details that Packard presents. Knowledgeable about the sources, such as a memoir written by Mary Lincoln's seamstress, Elizabeth Keckley, Packard synthesizes them and salts the account with his hypotheses, such as the clinical description of Mary Lincoln's volatility or Abraham Lincoln's supposed homosexuality. The less-speculative areas of the Lincoln family saga are sufficiently interesting to engage readers, and the author capably recounts them. Perhaps Packard's most effective device is incorporating the physical appearance of the White House's rooms and grounds into the individual dramas that unfolded within them. The executive mansion needed work, which factored into Mary Lincoln's spending sprees, and its unhealthiness may have contributed to the family's illnesses, fatal in the case of son Willie. Registering external events as they intruded on the Lincoln household's affairs, Packard succeeds in this realistic and sympathetic rendering of the family's private emotional life. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
From the Inside Flap
Savagely criticized for her extravagance by the American public and widely distrusted because of her southern roots, first lady Mary Lincoln's increasing instability would deeply strain her marriage and eventually end in her mental collapse. The couple was devastated when eleven-year-old Willie died in the White House of typhoid fever. Tad, the youngest son, remained the family joy despite his physical impairments. Though their son Robert's success at Harvard made his parents proud, his relationship with them was troubled and would result in a painful estrangement, one which would eventually permanently separate him from his mother. The president's assassination brutally crushed Mary's always-fragile spirits. After leaving the White House and following Tad's early death, the former first lady retreated into increasing eccentricity and seclusion until her death in 1882. A moving and poignant portrait of the family life of America's greatest president.
Customer Reviews
Good read on the Lincoln family in the White House
Errors appear in even the best edited works. Perhaps the next edition will correct the incorrect information about the "last" photograph. As one of the multitude of Lincoln fans I found this book to contain lots of personal information about Lincoln and his family that I had not read in collected form elsewhere. I value the author's collected research that gives us a brief peek into the life of a very private man with more than his share of family tragedy. The relationship with his sons and wife is much clearer to me now that I have read this work. I consider this a well-written, highly readable account of the A. Lincoln family in the White House and belongs on every Lincoln collector's, if not scholar's bookshelf.
Found A Mistake As Soon As I Opened The Book
I received Mr. Packard's book yesterday, and I could not wait to begin reading it. Although I have little interest in the war aspects of Lincoln's presidency, the personal side of his story has always piqued my interest. I recently purchased books on Lincoln's depression and on his supposed (by the author) sexuality. Mr. Packard's contribution seemed to fit the motif quite well. After reading the back of the book jacket, which states that his book was written "with painstaking research and an eye for historical detail", I was disheartened to see that the first page I opened up to (purely by coincidence), was a photograph of Lincoln purported to be his last. The photograph in question was believed, for many years, to have been taken by Alexander Gardner on April 10, 1865, four days before the assassination. Packard dates the photograph to that session. The problem lies in the fact that many Lincoln scholars, relying on primary sources of the time, including the diary of portrait painter Matthew Wilson, who attended the photo shoot, have long since established that the Gardner photo was taken on February 5, 1865, and that the true last set of photographs were taken of Lincoln on the south portico of the White House on March 6, 1865, two days after the second inaugural, by Henry F. Warren. This will undoubtedly come across as nitpicking to some, but when a book markets itself as one conducted with "painstaking research and an eye for historical detail", it makes one wonder just how much of the content is accurate, ala "A Million Little Pieces." I tried to contact Mr. Packard before writing this review, but naturally his number is unlisted. In any event, the written portion of the book may be incredibly interesting and perhaps even accurate, but the author gets a one for making such an obvious and unnecessary error, in light of what current scholarship has already undercovered through the writings of Lincoln's secretaries, John Hay and John Nicoloy, Lloyd Ostendorf, W. Emerson Reck et. al.
