'An Ambitious Little Woman'

18th of 45 excerpts from Lincoln by David Herbert Donald:

Like her husband, Mary Lincoln was also preparing to leave Springfield. She had found the presidential campaign tremendously exciting and the outcome highly gratifying. She was, as an Ohio cousin remarked, "an ambitious little woman," and her husband's triumph satisfied her heart's desire. To those who knew her best, she seemed little changed by victory, and Mrs. Bailhache found her "just as agreeable as ever" and "as pleasant and talkative and entertaining as she can be." But others were troubled by her growing sense of self-importance and her extreme sensitivity to suspected social slights. A Springfield minister unkindly remarked that her ego was now so inflated "that she ought to be sent to the cooper's and well secured against bursting by iron hoops."

Looking forward to her new role in the White House, Mary Lincoln went to New York in January [1861] accompanied by her brother in law, C.M. Smith, and Robert joined her there. Aware that in March her husband would begin drawing a salary of $25,000 -- at least five times as much as his average annual income in Springfield -- she set about ordering a wardrobe that would show the Southern dowagers who dominated Washington society that she was no frontier woman. Eagerly merchants extended credit, and she began running up debts that she concealed from her husband. She saw nothing wrong about accepting presents from office-seekers and other who sought favors from the Lincoln administration. She was, after all, now a very important person who deserved special treatment. . . .

Five days later the President-elect set out on a journey of his own to see his stepmother in Coles County. He had to use a passenger train, a freight train, and a buggy to complete the difficult trip, but away from journalists and job-hunters, he was in fine spirits. At dinner in Charleston, when an enthusiastic admirer vowed to shed the last drop of his blood to prevent any interference with his inauguration, Lincoln said he was reminded about the young man who was about to go to war whose loving sisters were making him a belt handsomely embroidered with the motto "Victory or death." "No, no," said the youth, "don't put it quite that strong. Put it 'Victory or get hurt pretty bad.' "