'My Boy Is Gone, He Is Actually Gone!'

29th of 45 excerpts from Lincoln by David Herbert Donald:

A large party that the Lincolns gave on February 5 [1862] -- the very evening, as it happened, before Grant captured Fort Henry -- was a sign of the changing times. Ignoring the advice of the protocol officers at the State Department that the President's entertainment should be confined to soirees open to the public at large and to small private dinners, Mary Lincoln decided to show off the newly refurbished White House to five hundred invited guests, who were required to present tickets of invitation at the door. . . .

The Lincolns' celebrations were short-lived. Shortly before the party their son Willie had fallen ill with "bilious fever" -- probably typhoid fever, caused by pollution in the White House water system.

Deeply anxious, their parents considered canceling the grand reception, but the family doctor assured them that the boy was in no immediate danger. Even so, both the President and his wife quietly slipped upstairs during the party to be at their son's bedside. During the next two weeks Tad came down with the same illness while Willie (photo, above) grew worse and worse.

Sitting up with his sick children night after night, Lincoln was able to transact little business, and he seemed to stumble through his duties. There were fluctuations in Willie's illness, but during the two weeks after the grand party he grew weaker and weaker, and Lincoln began to despair of his recover. On February 20 the end came. Stepping into his office, Lincoln said in a voice choked with emotion: "Well, Nicolay, my boy is gone -- he is actually gone!" He then burst into tears and left to give what comfort he could to Tad (photo, above).

Both parents were devastated by grief. When Lincoln looked on the face of his dead son, he could only say brokenly, "He was too good for this earth . . . but we loved him so." It seemed appropriate that Willie's funeral, which was held at the White House, was accompanied by one of the heaviest wind and rain storms ever to visit Washington. Long after the burial the President repeatedly shut himself in a room so that he could weep alone. At night he had happy dreams of being with Willie, only to wake to the sad recognition of death. On a trip to Fort Monroe, long after Willie was buried, Lead read passages from Macbeth and King Lear aloud to an aide, and then from King John he recited Constance's lament for her son.

And, father cardinal, I have heard you say
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven:
If that be true, I shall see my boy again.

His voice trembled, and he wept. . . .

Mary Lincoln's grief over Willie's death was even more devastating than her husband's. Having earlier lost Eddie in Springfield, she could not deal with this second death, and for three weeks she took to her bed, so desolated that she could not attend the funeral or look after Tad, who was slowly beginning to recover. For many months the mere mention of Willie's name sent her into paroxysms of weeping, and Lincoln had to employ a nurse to look after her. Never again did Mary Lincoln (photo, above) enter the bedroom where Willie died nor the downstairs Green Room, where his body had been embalmed. When she was finally able to emerge from her room, she went into such profound mourning dress that she was almost invisible under the layer of black veils and crepes.