Disturbing History - DH Ep:6 The Dark Obsession of Mary Todd Lincoln

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

She was First Lady of the United States during its most fractured hour—graceful in public, defiant in politics, and privately… unraveling. But behind the veils, the funerals, and the shadow of a war-torn White House, Mary Todd Lincoln was spiraling into something far stranger than grief. She wasn’t just mourning her children. She was chasing them—into the afterlife.In this episode of Disturbing History, Brian steps into the quiet madness that gripped Mary Todd Lincoln following a lifetime of unimaginable loss. From secret séances in the Red Room to whispered messages from beyond the veil, her world became one ruled by mediums, mysticism, and a desperate hope that death wasn’t the end.Was it spiritual healing… or something darker?A woman ahead of her time—or lost to it?This is the story of a First Lady who didn’t just endure grief—she invited it in, gave it a seat at the table, and refused to let it leave.Some ghosts haunt places.Others haunt people.And sometimes, we invite them in… with open arms.

Some stories were never meant to be told. Others were buried on purpose. This podcast digs them all up. Disturbing history peels back the layers of the past to uncover the strange, the sinister, and the stories that were never supposed to survive. From shadowy presidential secrets to government experiments that sound more like fiction than fact, this is history they hoped you'd forget. I'm Brian, investigator, author, and your guide through the dark corner.

corners of our collective memory. Each week I'll narrate some of the most chilling and little-known tales from history that will make you question everything you thought you knew. And here's the twist. Sometimes the history is disturbing to us. And sometimes, we have to disturb history itself, just to get to the truth.

If you like your facts with the side of fear, if you're not afraid to pull at threads, others leave alone. You're in the right place. History isn't just written by the victors. Sometimes, it's rewritten by the disturbed. The flickering gaslight cast elongated shadows across the green room of the White House. Its emerald wallpaper seeming to absorb the scant illumination rather than reflect it.

Outside, a winter storm battered the capital, the howling wind providing a mournful backdrop to the scene unfolding within. At the center of the room, seated around a circular mahogany table, five figures remained perfectly still. Their hands linked in a continuous human chain. Mary Todd Lincoln sat rigid, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow. The black bombazine of her morning dress absorbed what little light touched it, making her pale face appear to float disembodied in the dimness. Eleven days had passed since they had laid her beloved Willie in the cold ground at Oak Hill Cemetery, 11 days of a mother's unrelenting agony. We call upon the spirit,

to make themselves known and tone the man, seated to Mary's right, the self-proclaimed medium Charles Colchester. His British accent lent an air of theatrical authority to the proceedings. We ask specifically for the spirit of William Wallace Lincoln to come forward and speak to his grieving mother. The First Lady's fingers tightened around those of the participants flanking her. At 12 years old, Willie had been the light of the Lincoln household. Bright, compassionate and possessing a gentle wisdom beyond his years. Typhoid fever had stolen him away in the space of two weeks, leaving his mother trapped in a maze of grief from which she could find no exit.

I feel a presence, Colchester announced, his voice dropping to a dramatic whisper. There is a young soul here with us. Mary's breath caught in her throat. Her eyes snapped open, darting around the room with desperate hope. Willie, she whispered. Willie, my dear boy, are you here? The candle flame suddenly bent sideways as though caught in a draft,

though the windows were sealed against the February cold. One of the women at the table gasped. He's here, Madam Lincoln, Colchester confirmed. He wishes to speak with you. Mary leaned forward. Her grief hollowed face transformed by desperate yearning. Tell me what he says. Please, I beg you.

Colchester closed his eyes, tilting his head as though listening to an invisible presence. He says, he says not to weep for him. He is at peace. The medium paused, his brow furrowing. He says he watches over you, and, and over his father. He wishes the president would join these sessions. Mary's shoulders slumped.

Abraham had flatly refused to participate in what he viewed as theatrical nonsense, though he hadn't forbidden her from exploring this avenue of comfort. His absence tonight loomed large, another wound in her already bleeding heart. Is there more, she pressed, her voice quavering. Colchester's eyes remained closed. He says there are others with him. I see. I see a young boy.

Thomas? Yes, Edward. Your son Edward is with Willie. A sob escaped Mary's lips. Eddie, her second born, had died at age three of pulmonary. tuberculosis, 12 years before Willie's passing. The idea that her lost children might be together brought a painful surge of comfort. And they are. They are happy? Her voice caught on the question. The medium nodded solemnly. They are at peace, Madam Lincoln. They wish you to know that they are

never far from you. The veil between our world and the next is thin, particularly for those with the gift to sense it. And you, madam, have that gift. Mary straightened in her chair, her eyes wide. I do? I sense it strongly. With proper guidance you could learn to commune with the spirits yourself. The First Lady glanced around the darkened room, her gaze lingering on the shadows in the corners, as though expecting them to coalesce into familiar forms.

Outside, the storm continued to rage, but within Mary Todd Lincoln's tortured heart, a new obsession was taking root. A desperate hope that through the practice of spiritualism, she might never truly be separated from those she had lost. Little did she know that this night marked the beginning of a descent into a darkness far more perilous than grief alone, a journey that would ultimately lead her through the shadow realms of madness, public humiliation, and institutional confinement. The spirits she sought to contact

were silent on that point. The seeds of Mary Todd Lincoln's fascination with death and the afterlife had been planted long before she became first lady, long before the Civil War painted America in blood and grief. Indeed, death had been her companion since childhood, the uninvited guest who repeatedly tore her world asunder when she was too young to comprehend such permanent partings. Mary was not yet seven when her mother, Eliza Parker Todd, died giving birth to her seventh child in July 1825. The final memory Mary carried of her mother was of a beautiful woman of 28, lying still and waxy in a pine coffin, surrounded by weeping strangers in black. The child had been hurried past the open casket, given only a moment to place a small

posy of violets beside her mother's folded hands, before being ushered away. That night, as a thunderstorm raged outside their Lexington home, young Mary had slipped from her bed and returned to the parlor where her mother's body lay in state. In the lightning flashes, she'd stared at the unfamiliar stillness of the face that had once animated with laughter and song, trying to reconcile this empty vessel with the vibrant woman who had read her bedtime stories just weeks before. I thought I might find you here, came her father's voice from the doorway. Robert Todd had lifted his daughter into his arms, not scolding her for leaving her bed, understanding somehow the child's need to confront the incomprehensible.

Where did she go, Papa? Mary had asked. Her small face serious in the stormlit darkness. To heaven, my dear, he'd replied, his voice thick with restrained emotion. But how do we know? How do we know she arrived safely? Even then Mary's mind had sought certainty, proof, a connection to the departed. Her father had no answers that satisfied the logical bent of her young mind, but he'd hugged her close, his strong arms temporarily shielding her from the cold reality of mortality's mystery.

The void left by her mother's passing was partially full. when her father remarried in 1826. Elizabeth Betsy Humphreys, a widow with children of her own, became Mary's stepmother. While not an unkind woman, Betsy never fully bridged the emotional chasm in Mary's heart. The household expanded rapidly, eventually encompassing 16 children, a blended family in which Mary often felt overlooked and misunderstood. Perhaps it was this early experience of maternal loss, This first severing of the most primal bond that awakened in Mary a lifelong preoccupation

with maintaining connections to loved ones, a preoccupation that would eventually manifest in her embrace of spiritualism when conventional religion failed to provide the tangible reassurances she craved. Her education at Madame Mantel's boarding school in Lexington from 1832 to 1836 had exposed young Mary to French literature and philosophy, planting seeds of end. intellectual curiosity that would later draw her to the more esoteric branches of thought. Among her schoolmates whispered conversations, she first heard tales of mesmerism, the practice named after Franz Mesmer, who believed in an invisible natural force possessed by all living things. It was said that this force could be channeled to heal or to establish connections

beyond the mundane world. These ideas had intrigued the bookish imaginative girl who was already developing the high-strung temperament that would mark her adult personality. Yet it was not until another death, this one shocking in its suddenness, that Mary's casual interest in spiritual matters deepened into something more urgent. In 1835, when Mary was 16, her beloved maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Parker, died unexpectedly while visiting the Todd home. The night before the funeral, Mary had a vivid dream in which her grandmother appeared at the foot of her bed, smiling with the same warmth that had always characterized her in life. Don't fret, my darling, the apparition had said.

I am with your mother now. We watch over you together. Upon waking, Mary had been so convinced of the visitation's reality that she'd rushed downstairs to tell her father. Robert Todd, practical and presbyterian to his core, had dismissed it as the product of an overactive imagination inflamed by grief. The dead do not return, Mary. he'd said firmly. They rest in God's keeping until the resurrection.

Your dream was merely your mind's way of seeking comfort. But Mary knew differently. The experience had been too vivid, too distinct from ordinary dreams. She'd felt her grandmother's presence as tangibly as she'd ever felt it in life. This conviction held privately against her father's rationalist dismissal was the first real divergence between Mary's spiritual inclinations and the conventional religious teaching she'd received. By the time she met the gangly, melancholic lawyer Abraham Lincoln in Springfield in 1839,

Mary had developed into a complex young woman, educated, witty, politically astute, and harboring a private belief that the barrier between the living and the dead was perhaps more permeable than most people supposed. Abraham, with his own streak of fatalism and his periodic bouts of what he called the hypo, hypochondria or deep depression, might have been expected to sympathize with such spiritual leanings. Yet he remained a skeptic in matters supernatural, even as he was drawn to Mary's vivacious intellect and emotional depth.

Their courtship was tumultuous, marked by a broken engagement and eventual reconciliation. When they married on November 4, 1842, they created a union of temperamental opposites. He, deliberate and melancholic, she, quick-witted and passionate. Yet they shared a fierce intelligence and political ambition that would eventually carry them to the White House.

The early years of their marriage brought both joy and sorrow. Their first son, Robert Todd Lincoln, was born on August 1, 1843, followed by Edward Baker-Lincoln on March 10th, 1846. But Eddie's life was tragically brief. On February 1st, 1850, at just three years old, he succumbed to pulmonary tuberculosis after a long illness. Mary's grief was profound. For weeks, she barely left her room in their Springfield home.

Her sobs audible through the closed door. When she finally emerged, she was noticeably changed. Her vibrant spirit dimmed. Her emotional reactions more volatile. She began to speak to Eddie as though he were still present, setting a place for him at the dinner table and scolding the other family members if they disturbed his chair. Abraham, grieving in his own deeply internal way, tried at first to humor his wife's behavior, hoping it was a passing phase in her mourning process. But when months passed and Mary's dialogue with their deceased son continued, he became concerned. Mary, my dear, he said one evening after the living children had been put to bed. Eddie is gone. Keeping his place at the table won't bring him back. Mary's eyes had flashed with sudden anger.

How can you be so certain he's gone? His body, yes, but his soul. How do you know he isn't here with us? Watching, waiting for some acknowledgement. Lincoln had no answer that would satisfy her. His own religious views were unorthodox and private, characterized more by a fatalistic acceptance of divine will than by firm convictions about an afterlife.

Mary, desperate for assurance that she would one day be reunited with her lost child, found her husband's ambivalence insufferable. It was during this period of grieving for Eddie that Mary first attended a spiritualist gathering, though she kept this fact from Abraham. The sayance was held in the home of a Springfield widow who claimed to have made contact with her deceased husband through a visiting medium from Boston.

Mary went skeptically, pushed by curiosity and desperation, rather than conviction. The medium, a slender woman with sharp features and unnervingly pale eyes, had singled Mary out almost immediately upon her arrival. You've lost a child recently, she'd said, fixing Mary with an intent gaze. A boy. He was very young. Mary had gasped, though in truth this was not such remarkable information.

Eddie's death had been known throughout Springfield, and the medium could easily have been informed of the Lincoln family's loss before the gathering. He's here, the medium continued, her eyes rolling back slightly. He says his name is Edward. Eddie to his mother. He says he misses your stories, especially the one about the rabbit. This had shaken Mary profoundly.

She had indeed told Eddie a recurring bedtime tale about a clever rabbit that outwitted a fox, a detail not widely known outside the family. Something cold had traced the length of her spine as the medium continued, describing with uncanny accuracy the toy wooden horse that had been Eddie's favorite, and which was still kept on a shelf in Mary's bedroom.

Mary had left the seance that night transformed. Her skepticism cracked open by the seeming impossibility of what she'd witnessed. She returned home to find Abraham still awake, working on legal briefs by lamplight. Your home late, he'd observed, not looking up from his papers. Visiting with the Edwards's? Yes, Mary had lied. The first of many deceptions she would employ to conceal her growing interest in spiritualist practices.

Ninian and Elizabeth send their regards. As she prepared for bed, Mary found herself drawn to Eddie's wooden horse on the shelf. She picked it up, running her fingers over its smooth surface, worn by her son's small hands. I spoke with him tonight, she whispered to the empty room. He's waiting for us, Abraham.

One day, we'll be together again. But Abraham Lincoln, absorbed in his legal work downstairs, did not hear this declaration of a belief that would eventually consume his wife's reason. A belief born from the seeds of sorrow, planted in her childhood and nurtured by each subsequent loss, in a life that would see far more than its share of tragedy.

The White House was a far cry from the comfortable but modest home the Lincoln's had left behind in Springfield. As Mary Todd Lincoln took up residence in the Executive Mansion, in March 1861, she faced the monumental task of transforming the neglected presidential residence, into a symbol of national dignity during a time of unprecedented crisis. The first shots of the Civil War would be fired at Fort Sumter barely a month after her husband's inauguration, plunging the already divided nation into bloody conflict. For Mary, the pressure was immense.

As a Kentuckian with familial ties to the Confederacy, several of her brothers were fighting for the South. She faced immediate suspicion from Washington Society. Rumors circulated that she was was a southern spy, passing information to her rebel relatives. The baseless accusations wounded her deeply, for despite her Kentucky roots, Mary was passionately committed to the union cause and to her husband's presidency. The White House itself presented another challenge. Years of neglect under the Buchanan administration had left it in a state of shabby disrepair, unworthy of a great nation. Mary threw herself into an extensive renovation project, determined that the executive mansion should reflect the dignity and strength of the union during its darkest hour.

Congress had allocated $20,000 for the refurbishment, a substantial sum for the time. But Mary quickly exceeded this budget, purchasing expensive wallpaper, carpets, china, and furniture. Her spending would later become a source of public scandal, but in her mind, it was a patriotic necessity. The White House must present a face of undiminished grandeur to foreign dignity. particularly those from European powers that might be considering recognition of the Confederate government. The White House must represent the face of the union to the world, Abraham, she insisted, when her husband expressed concern over her expenditures. How can we ask our people to sacrifice for this war if their own president's house lies in shambles?

Lincoln preoccupied with the monumental task of preserving the nation, acquiesced to his wife's judgment in domestic matters. What he did not fully appreciate was the extent to which Mary's frenetic energy was a manifestation of her deteriorating mental state, her spending a desperate attempt to fill internal voids that grew wider with each passing day. The pressures of her position, the hostility of Washington society, and the strain of supporting her husband through the early disasters of the war, exacerbated Mary's already volatile temperament. Her mood swings became more pronounced, vacillating between people,

periods of manic activity and dark depressions. Headaches plagued her with increasing frequency, sometimes confining her to darkened rooms for days at a time. Into this precarious psychological landscape came another shattering blow. In February 1862, Willie Lincoln, the Lincoln's beloved third son, contracted typhoid fever. Mary maintained a desperate vigil at his bedside for two weeks, barely sleeping or eating as she watched her 11-year-old son. son, widely regarded as the most like his father in temperament and intellect, struggle against

the ravaging disease. On February 20, 1862, despite the best medical attention available, Willie died. Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages. The blow was devastating to both parents, but while Abraham channeled his grief into the prosecution of the war effort, finding in his public duties a bulwark against private anguish, Mary collapsed into a state of uncontrolled mourning that alarmed those around her. I cannot bear it, she wept to her dressmaker and confidant, Elizabeth Keckley,

a former slave who had purchased her own freedom and established herself as a successful businesswoman. First Eddie, now Willie. It is too much to endure. Keckley, who had herself known profound loss, held the First Lady's hands as she sobbed. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, she said gently. We must accept his will. But Mary found no comfort in such conventional religious platitudes. The God who had taken two of her sons seemed cruel and distant. She sought more tangible reassurance,

a direct connection to her lost children that traditional faith could not provide. It was Elizabeth Keckley who first suggested the possibility of spiritualist consultation, though she did so with some trepidation. I know a woman, she told Mary hesitantly, who has the gift of speaking with those who have passed beyond the veil. She has brought comfort to many in their grief. Mary seized upon this suggestion with desperate hope, disregarding the scandal that would surely erupt if her activities became known.

She arranged for a medium to visit the White House under the guise of a social call. The first seance took place in the Red Room on March 4, 1862, with only Mary, Elizabeth Keckley, and the medium present. The results were ambiguous, vague messages that could have applied to anyone's lost loved ones. But Mary, in her desperation, found enough hope in the experience to arrange further sessions. Word of the First Lady's activities inevitably reached the president. Lincoln's response was characteristically measured. While he did not share his wife's belief in spiritualism, neither did he belittle it.

His own grief for Willie was profound, and if Mary found comfort in these sessions, He would not deny her that solace, however misguided he might privately consider it. I have seen too much of life and death to mock anyone's attempt to make sense of it, he told John Hay, his private secretary. When the young man expressed concern about rumors of the first lady's activities, Mary must find her way through this valley as best she can. Lincoln's tolerance had limits, however. When Mary suggested he attend a seance himself, he firmly declined.

My channels of communication with the Almighty are sufficient, he said, with gentle finality. His refusal wounded Mary deeply, adding another layer to the growing distance between them. As 1862 progressed, Mary's involvement with spiritualism deepened, becoming more than a temporary solace for her grief. She began to host regular seances in the White House, drawing a circle of like-minded individuals around her. Among these was Nettie Colburn, Maynard, a young trance medium who would later claim to have channeled spirits who advised Lincoln

on political matters, though no reliable evidence supports this assertion. Another frequent visitor was Charles Colchester, a British medium of dubious reputation who had ingratiated himself with the First Lady through his claims to receive regular communications from Willie. Colchester's influence troubled Lincoln, who suspected the man of exploiting his wife's vulnerability, but the president's gentle attempts to warn Mary were met with fierce resistance. You do not understand, Mary snapped, when Lincoln suggested that Colchester might be untrustworthy. You have your cabinet, your generals, your politicians to advise you. I have only my spirits. Would you deny me that comfort as well?

Lincoln stricken by the raw pain in his wife's voice, retreated from the confrontation. The war demanded his full attention, and he could not spare the emotional. emotional energy required to navigate Mary's increasingly fragile psychological state. By the autumn of 1862, Mary's spiritualist practices had become an open secret in Washington, providing fresh fodder for her critics in the press and society. The New York Herald published a scathing article implying that national policy was being dictated by ghostly visitors to the White House, while political cartoons depicted the First Lady in consultation with spectral figures, her hand on the string

of a presidential puppet. Mary was simultaneously hurt by these attacks and defiant in the face of them. Her belief in spiritualism had become a central pillar of her emotional survival, a framework that allowed her to maintain some semblance of connection with her lost children. To abandon it would be to lose them a second time, a prospect she could not face. Moreover, her spiritualist activities had expanded beyond seeking contact with Willie and Eddie. She now believed she was receiving guidance from a host of historical figures, including her husband's political hero, Henry Clay,

and former presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. These distinguished spirits, as she called them, offered commentary on the war effort and political strategy that Mary occasionally attempted to relay to her husband. Lincoln listened to these communications with outward patience, but inward concern. The gulf between them widened as Mary's grasp on conventional reality grew more tenuous.

Increasingly, she lived in a world populated as much by the dead as by the living, finding in her spectral companions the unconditional acceptance and understanding that eluded her in corporeal relationships. The trajectory of Mary's psychological fracturing paralleled that of the nation itself. As America tore itself apart in bloody conflict, with brother-fighting brother and families divided by the Mason-Dixon line, Mary's mind similarly split between the world of flesh and the realm of spirit, between the demanding present and the idealized past. Like the union, her husband fought so desperately to preserve.

Her psyche had become a house divided, and as Lincoln himself had famously observed, such a house cannot stand. The seeds of sorrow planted in Mary's childhood had bloomed into a garden of ghosts, and she wandered its paths with increasing detachment from the harsh realities of war, politics, and a marriage strained to its breaking point by public pressure and private grief. The woman who had once been Abraham Lincoln's intellectual partner and political asset was transforming before his eyes into someone he barely recognized, a transformation that would continue its inexorable progress into the darkest corners of obsession, and eventually, madness. The science room had been prepared with meticulous care. Heavy velvet curtains were

drawn across the windows of the White House's red room, sealing out the faint moonlight that might otherwise have penetrated the April evening. A single oil lamp burned low on a side table, casting just enough light to illuminate the faces of those gathered around the circular table at the room's center. Mary Todd Lincoln sat straight-backed in her chair, wearing her black morning dress, worn continuously since Willie's death, despite the passage of more than a year. Besider sat Elizabeth Keckley, the First Lady's dressmaker and confidant. Across from them was the medium Lord Colchester, as he styled himself. Though whispers in Washington society suggested his lordship was as fabricated as his claimed powers of spiritual communication.

Next to him sat Nettie Colburn Maynard, a young trance medium who had gained the First Lady's confidence through what Mary believed were authentic communications from the spirit world. The fifth member of the circle was a surprise edition, Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. His presence lent an air of political legitimacy to proceedings that might otherwise have been dismissed as the indulgence of a grief-stricken mother. Wilson, like many in Washington, had lost family to the war

and harbored his own interest in the possibility of communication with the departed. Shall we begin, Colchester inquired. his British accent adding a theatrical flourish to the proceedings. Mary nodded, her eyes already taking on the distant look that had become increasingly common as she retreated into her internal world. The participants joined hands, completing the circle that spiritualists believed necessary for the free flow of energy between the worlds of the living and the dead. Colchester began the familiar invocation.

We ask the spirits to draw near, to make their presence known to us who wait with open hearts and minds. The room fell silent, save for the soft breathing of the participants. Outside, the distant sounds of the capital at war, the rumble of supply wagons, the occasional shout of a century, provided a muted backdrop to the scene. Suddenly the flame in the oil lamp fluttered as though caught in a draft, though no window had been opened.

Keckley gasped softly, her grip on Mary's hand tightening. There is a presence, Colchette. said Colchester announced, his voice dropping to a dramatic whisper. Mary leaned forward eagerly. Willie? Is it my Willie? Colchester closed his eyes, tilting his head as though listening to an invisible presence. I sense a young male spirit, yes, but he is not alone. There's an older presence with him, a distinguished gentleman. Who? Mary whispered. I believe. Colchester paused. Yes, it is the spirit of him. Henry Clay. Mary drew in a sharp breath. Clay, the great Kentucky statesman, had been a political

idol of her husbands, his portrait hanging prominently in Lincoln's office. That he should appear alongside Willie seemed too perfect a conjunction to be coincidental, a fact that would have alerted a less emotionally invested observer to the possibility of fraud. Henry Clay wishes to speak about the war Colchester continued. He says that the president must press forward with emancipation. The souls of the enslaved cry out for freedom, and their voices have reached even to the higher spheres. Senator Wilson leaned forward. His political interest peaked. Does the spirit offer any specific counsel on the conduct of the war? Before Colchester could respond, Nettie Colburn Maynard suddenly stiffened in her chair,

her eyes rolling back to show only whites. Her breathing became labored, and when she spoke, her voice had transformed from its usual gentle soprano to a deep, resonant baritone. The union must be preserved at all costs, she intoned, the masculine voice issuing incongruously from her small frame. Tell the president that the spirits of Washington, Jefferson, and all true patriots stand with him in this hour of trial. Mary's face shone with a fervent light in the dimness. You see, she whispered to Keckley. They speak through her, just as they have spoken to me. Keckley nodded uncertainly. Her own religious upbringing, making her increasingly uncomfortable with these proceedings,

though her loyalty to Mary kept her participating. This continued for over an hour, with both mediums conveying messages purportedly from historical figures and from Willie himself. Mary drank in every word, particularly those attributed to her dead son, which described a peaceful existence in the spirit realm and reassurances of his continued love for his mother. As the session concluded and normal lighting was restored to the room, Senator Wilson approached Mary with a thoughtful expression. The messages tonight were most compelling, Mrs. Lincoln, he said carefully,

particularly those concerning emancipation. Mary nodded eagerly. The spirits have been consistent on this point, Senator. They have urged the president toward this course from the beginning. Wilson nodded, though a shadow of skepticism crossed his features. One wonders, however, at the convenient alignment between the Spirit's council and the president's existing policies. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued months ago. Mary's expression hardened slightly.

You question the authenticity of the communications. I merely observed that spirits seem rarely to contradict their medium's own political leanings, Wilson replied diplomatically. Nevertheless, the experience was illuminating. The spiritualist sessions continued with increasing frequency throughout 1863, drawing a widening circle of participants from Washington society and political circles. Mary's openness about her beliefs, she spoke freely of her ghostly visitors to White House guests, created a social climate in which interest in spiritualism could be openly expressed without the stigma it might otherwise have carried.

Among those who joined the sessions was Noah Brooks, a journalist and close friend of Lincoln's, who attended out of curiosity rather than conviction. Brooks later wrote of his observations. Mrs. Lincoln's faith in spiritualism was so ingrained that no amount of practical demonstration of the falsity of her belief could shake it. I have seen so-called mediums at her gatherings exposed as the grossest frauds, yet she held to her faith with the tenacity of one whose convictions are unalterable. Brooks's assessment pointed to a troubling aspect of Mary's obsession. the steadily eroding boundary between rational judgment and emotional need. Even when presented with evidence of fraud,

as when one medium was caught using a hidden accomplice to produce spirit wrappings, Mary found ways to preserve her belief system, arguing that the occasional charlatan did not invalidate the authentic communications she had received. Abraham Lincoln observed his wife's deepening involvement with spiritualism with a mixture of resignation and concern. While he never publicly criticized her beliefs, privately he confided to Noah Brooks. Mary's experiences have been severe, and the consolations which would naturally arise from our religious belief have been denied to her by the doubt that has been cast upon the divine origin of the Bible

by the new lights of modern scholarship. Lincoln's assessment touched on a core truth. Mary's spiritualism represented a search for certainty in an age of increasing religious questioning. Traditional Christianity, with its emphasis on faith rather than empirical evidence, no longer provided sufficient comfort to a mind like Mary's, which craved tangible proof of continued existence after death. Spiritualism, with its purported demonstrations of actual communication with the deceased, offered what seemed like scientific evidence for the soul's survival,

a compelling prospect to a woman desperately seeking reassurance that her dead children were not lost to her forever. As the war ground on, bringing ever more death and destruction to the divided nation, Mary's seance is increasingly focused not only on personal communications with Willie and Eddie, but also on receiving guidance about the conflict from historical figures. These sessions took on a pseudo-political dimension that troubled some observers, including John Hay, one of Lincoln's private secretaries, who wrote in his diary. Mrs. Elle continues her spiritualist obsession, now fancying herself a chance,

for messages from Washington and Jefferson regarding the conduct of the war. The president bears this with his characteristic patience, though I have observed him skillfully changing the subject when she begins to relay these spectral councils. By late 1863, as the tide of war finally began to turn in the Union's favor, after the pivotal battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Mary's mental state showed signs of further deterioration. Her headaches increased in frequency and severity. sometimes leaving her bed ridden for days.

Her mood swings became more pronounced, with periods of frenetic activity and excessive spending, followed by deep depressions during which she would not leave her rooms for days. The White House staff had begun to whisper among themselves about the first lady's erratic behavior. Her obsession with spirits had created an atmosphere of superstitious dread among the servants, many of whom reported strange occurrences, unexplained footsteps and empty corridors, objects moving without human intervention,

cold spots in rooms where seances had been conducted. Whether these phenomena were genuine manifestations, the product of suggestion in an already tense environment, or simply the normal creeks and drafts of an aging building, they added to the growing sense that the executive mansion had become a nexus for supernatural activity. Mary herself encouraged these beliefs, interpreting every unexplained sound or occurrence as evidence of Willie's continued presence. She spoke to her dead son as though he were physically present,

carrying on one-sided conversations that deeply disturbed those who witnessed them. Did you see how the curtain moved just then she would ask a startled visitor? That was Willie. He does that to let me know he's listening. The few friends who dared to express concern about her mental health were swiftly banished from her inner circle. Only those who validated her beliefs remained in her confidence, creating an echo chamber that reinforced her increasingly tenuous grasp on reality. As 1864 progressed and the presidential election approached, Mary temporarily sublimated her spiritualist obsessions into political activity. Despite her fragile health, she threw herself into the campaign for Lincoln's re-election, writing letters, hosting strategic meetings, and leveraging her social connections,

to shore up support for her husband. This period of focused external activity seemed to temporarily stabilize her psychological condition, providing a channel for her frenetic energy that was more socially acceptable than her spiritual pursuits. Lincoln's decisive victory in November 1864 brought a brief period of improved mental health for Mary.

The validation of her husband's leadership, after years of criticism and doubt, lifted some of the defensive anxiety that had fueled her worst episode. For a few weeks, she seemed more like her old self. The intelligent, politically astute woman Lincoln had married, rather than the ghostly medium she had become. Yet this improvement proved short-lived. As Lincoln's second inauguration approached in March 1865, Mary's premonitions of danger returned with increased intensity. Her spirit communications now conveyed specific

warnings about the inaugural ceremonies, leading her to beg Lincoln to increase his security arrangements. The spirits say there will be an attempt on your life during the ceremony, she insisted during a rare private moment with her husband. Please, Abraham, you must take extra precautions. Lincoln, though skeptical of the source, was not dismissive of the potential danger. Death threats against him had increased in frequency and virulence as the war entered what appeared to be its final phase. Nevertheless, he maintained his characteristic fatalism about his personal safety. If it is to be, Mary, it is to be, he replied, with the quiet resignation that had marked his approach to the war's countless difficult decisions. No man can outrun his

destiny. The inauguration on March 4, 1865, passed without incident, temporarily disproving Mary's premonitions. Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages. But rather than causing her to question her spiritualist beliefs, this failure merely shifted the timeline of her fears. Now, her spectral communications warned of danger in the near future, a prediction vague enough to maintain anxiety without risking immediate disproof. As March gave way to April, and as the war at last reached its conclusion with Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, Mary's spirits began to convey messages of a different sort, warnings not of physical danger, but of spiritual transformation.

Willie came to me last night, she told Keckley on the morning of April 14, 1865. He said that Abraham will soon join him in the spirit realm, but not through violence as I had feared. He said it will be a peaceful transition, a spiritual evolution. Keckley, alarmed by this new direction in Mary's spirit communications, tried to redirect her thoughts. Surely that's many years in the future, Mrs. Lincoln. The president is in good health, and now that the war is ending,

he can rest more. Mary shook her head, her eyes taking on the distant look that had become familiar to those closest to her. It will be soon. Willie was very clear, and I must prepare myself

to help Abraham make the transition when the time comes. That evening, against Mary's inexplicable reluctance, the Lincoln's attended a performance of our American cousin at Ford's Theater. It was to be a rare evening

of relaxation after the long years of war, a celebrant. of the piece that now seemed finally within reach. What happened in that theater would transform Mary's spiritualist obsession from an eccentric fixation into the central organizing principle of her shattered existence. A desperate attempt to maintain connection with a husband taken from her with the same cruel suddenness that had claimed her children. For Mary Todd Lincoln, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead

was about to be torn irrevocably asunder, plunging her into a darkness from which she would never fully emerge. Where is my husband's spirit? Why does he not come to me? Mary Todd Lincoln's voice echoed through the small bedroom of the Peterson house across from Ford's theater. Dawn was breaking over Washington, casting pale light through the curtained windows, illuminating a scene of profound despair. The president of the United States lay dead on a bed too short for his lanky frame.

His face already taking on the waxing on the waxing. stillness of death. Around him stood cabinet members, generals, doctors and friends, all witnesses to the end of an era and the birth of a new American martyrdom. Mary was not among them. After her initial hysterical collapse at the theater

and her vigil through the night, she had been sedated and removed to an adjacent room when it became clear that Lincoln would not survive the assassin's bullet. Now, awakening to the drug-muffled realization of her loss, she called out not for human comfort, but for spiritual contact. I have been faithful to the spirits, she sobbed to Elizabeth Keckley, who sat beside her, her own face streaked with tears. Why do they abandon me now,

when I need them most? Where is Abraham's spirit? Why does he not speak to me? Kekley had no answer that could penetrate Mary's anguish. The spiritualist beliefs that had sustained the first lady through Willie's death, now seemed cruelly silent at the moment of her greatest need. The spirit world that had been so garrulous through mediums and seances offered no immediate consolation for this fresh, devastating loss. In the days that followed, as Lincoln's body lay in state in the east room of the White House, and then began its long funeral journey back to Springfield, Mary remained in seclusion, unable to participate in the public mourning that swept the nation. Her grief was too raw,

too personal to be displayed for the consumption of strangers, however well-meaning their condolences might be. It was during this period of initial shock that Mary's spiritualist beliefs underwent a subtle but significant transformation. The immediate absence of spiritual contact with her husband, the silence from beyond the veil that had so distressed her in the Peterson House, gradually gave way to a conviction that Abraham's spirit remained present, but was temporarily unable to communicate due to the violence,

nature of his passing. The spirits tell me that souls who depart through violence need time to adjust to their new state, she explained to Robert Lincoln, her eldest son, who had rushed to Washington from his military post upon receiving news of the assassination. Your father's spirit is gathering strength. He will speak to me when he is ready. Robert, who had long regarded his mother's spiritualist activities with skeptical concern, found this latest iteration of her beliefs particularly alarming in the context of her fresh grief. Consulting with physicians who had attended the family over the years, he arranged for Mary to be kept under regular medical supervision, ostensibly for the nervous prostration that

had overtaken her, but actually out of fear that she might harm herself in her extreme mental distress. This medical intervention, well-intentioned though it was, only added to Mary's sense of isolation and persecution. The sedatives administered to calm her nerves, left her groggy and disoriented, interfering with what she believed was her ability to sense spiritual presences. She became convinced that the doctors were deliberately dampening her psychic receptivity, perhaps as part of a larger conspiracy related to her husband's murder. They fear what Abraham might reveal through me, she whispered to Keckley during one of the dressmaker's visits in late April 1865. The same forces that took his life now seek to silence his spirit. This paranoid

element represented a dark new dimension in Mary's spiritualist obsession. What had begun as a desperate mother's attempt to maintain connection with her dead children and had evolved into a more generalized belief in spirit communication, now transformed into a conspiracy-laden worldview, in which unseen forces, both human and supernatural, moved against her in coordinated opposition. By late May 1865, when Mary finally left the White House, After an unseemly delay that had tested the patience of incoming President Andrew Johnson, she was effectively living in two worlds simultaneously,

the physical realm of her reduced circumstances and uncertain future, and the spiritual domain where she increasingly believed her true family awaited her. The journey from Washington to Chicago in June 1865, where she had decided to settle temporarily with her sons, Robert and Tad, was a cavalry of public scrutiny and private. anguish. At every stop, crowds gathered to glimpse the martyred president's widow, their morbid curiosity adding to Mary's sense of violation. She traveled heavily veiled, refusing to display her grief for public consumption, a stance that many critics interpreted as cold indifference rather than the

protective withdrawal it actually represented. Once established in Chicago, Mary's first action was to seek out local spiritualists. The city, like many urban centers in post-war America, boasted a thriving community of mediums, psychics, and spirit photographers, practitioners of various occult arts that had been normalized and popularized by the massive death toll of the Civil War. With hundreds of thousands of families seeking connection with lost loved ones, spiritualism had moved from the fringes to the mainstream of American cultural and religious life. Mary's status as the former First Lady and widow of the Martyred President gave her immediate entree into the highest circles of Chicago's spiritualist community.

Mediums and seance hosts vied for her patronage, recognizing the prestige and legitimacy her presence would confer on their activities. For Mary, this ready acceptance provided a sharp and comforting contrast to the political hostility and social criticism she had endured in Washington. Among the various spiritualist practitioners Mary consulted in Chicago, one emerged as particularly influential in this new phase of her obsession. William H. Mumler, a Boston-based photographer who had pioneered the technique of spirit photography, captured Mary's attention with his claim to be able to produce visual evidence of spiritual

presences. Mummler's process involved creating photographic portraits in which translucent figures, purportedly spirits, appeared alongside the living subject. These extras, as they were called, were actually created through simple double exposure techniques, though Mumler vehemently denied using any such methods, insisting that the spirit images appeared spontaneously on his photographic plates through supernatural agency. Mary traveled to Boston in December 1865 specifically to sit for a portrait with Mumler.

The resulting photograph showed her in her heavy morning dress, her face solemn beneath her widow's veil, while behind her appeared a translucent figure that resembled Abraham Lincoln, his hands resting protectively on her shoulders. For Mary, this photograph was nothing short of miraculous, tangible, visible proof of her husband's continued presence and protection. She ordered multiple copies, sending them to friends and relatives as evidence that her spiritualist beliefs were not mere delusion, but demonstrable fact, that the image was almost certainly fraudulent, created through photographic trickery,

rather than supernatural manifestation, did not occur to her. Or if it did, the emotional comfort the image provided outweighed any rational skepticism. Now all may see what I have known all along, she wrote triumphantly to Elizabeth Keckley, enclosing a copy of the spirit photograph. Abraham has not left me. His earthly form was taken, but his spirit remains, watching over me just as he did in life. This visual confirmation of her beliefs intensified Mary's commitment, to spiritualist practices. She began to host regular seances in her Chicago home, drawing an eclectic mix of participants,

genuine grieving families seeking contact with war dead, opportunistic mediums eager to exploit the former First Lady's endorsement, curiosity seekers drawn by her celebrity, and a small circle of loyal friends who participated primarily out of concern for Mary's welfare. Robert Lincoln, increasingly alarmed by what he viewed as his mother's exploitation by charlatans, attempted to intervene. During a particularly heated confrontation in the autumn of 1866, he threatened to publicly denounce several of the mediums

who had become regular visitors to his mother's home. These people are fraud's mother, he insisted. They prey upon grief, such as yours. They offer false comfort at the price of both your dignity and your financial security. Mary's response was swift and vehement. You sound exactly like your father once did. she snapped, before he came to understand the reality of the spirit world. These are not frauds, but gifted individuals who helped me maintain connection with those I have

lost. Your father and brothers included, would you deny me that comfort? Robert faced with his mother's emotion and unable to provide any alternative source of solace for her grief, reluctantly withdrew his opposition. Like his father before him, he chose to tolerate what he could not change, hoping that time would eventually diminish the intensity of Mary's obsession. But time seemed only to entrench Mary's spiritualist convictions more deeply. As the initial shock of Lincoln's assassination receded, Mary's interest expanded beyond simple communication with her dead husband and sons to include larger metaphysical questions

about the nature of the afterlife and the possibilities for eventual reunion with her lost loved ones. She began to study spiritualist literature voraciously. Consuming works by Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie Seer whose philosophical writings had helped lay the theoretical foundations of the movement, and Emma Harding's Britain, the English spiritualist whose 1870 publication, Modern American Spiritualism, would become a definitive history of the movement. Mary's library grew to include dozens of volumes on spirit communication, mediumship, and the afterlife. Many inscribed to her by their authors,

who recognized the promotional value of the former First Lady's endorsement. This intellectual dimension of Mary's spiritualist pursuits provided a framework for her experiences that went beyond simple grief and longing. In spiritualist philosophy, she found a coherent cosmology that explained not only her personal losses, but placed them within a larger context of spiritual evolution and divine purpose. The suffering she had endured, the deaths of her children and husband, could be interpreted not as arbitrary cruelty, but as necessary transitions in an ongoing spiritual journey.

I now understand that what we call death is merely a passage from one state of existence to another. She wrote to a spiritualist friend in 1866. My beloved ones have not been taken from me permanently, but have simply preceded me into the higher spheres, where we shall eventually be reunited in perfect understanding and joy. This philosophical perspective might have provided. provided a healthy framework for processing grief, had it been tempered by practical engagement with the world of the living. But for Mary, spiritualist philosophy increasingly became a substitute for practical reality, a lens through which all aspects of her life were filtered and interpreted.

Financial decisions, travel plans, health treatments, all came to be influenced by supposed communications from the spirit world. When Mary suffered a serious back injury after falling from a step ladder while hanging curtains in late 1866. She refused conventional medical treatment in favor of magnetic healing, recommended by a spiritualist practitioner, claiming to channel the spirit of a deceased physician. The injury left her partially debilitated for over a year, during which her isolation and dependence on spiritualist advisors deepened further. Confined often to her home or hotel rooms during this period, Mary's world contracted physically, even as it expanded. medophysically through her spiritualist studies and seances.

By early 1867, Mary's financial situation had become precarious. Lincoln had died without a will, leaving his estate to be divided according to standard inheritance laws, with Mary receiving one-third and her sons the remainder. While the estate was substantial by the standards of the day, approximately $85,000, it was not enough to support Mary in the style to which she had become accustomed, particularly given her compulsive spending habits. These financial pressures, combined with her spiritualist beliefs, led Mary to one of the most bizarre and publicly damaging episodes of her post-White House life.

The Old Clothes Scandal of 1867. Convinced that she faced imminent poverty and guided by spirits who supposedly advised her to convert her valuable wardrobe into cash while maintaining absolute secrecy, Mary attempted to sell her clothing and jewelry through intermediaries and new New York in February and March of 1867. The scheme backfired spectacularly when her identity was discovered, leading to sensational newspaper coverage that portrayed the former First Lady as either destitute or mentally unsound,

or both. The public humiliation was immense, compounded by the revelation that Mary had approached Congress seeking a pension while simultaneously trying to sell her possessions. Robert Lincoln, mortified by the scandal and increasingly concerned about his mother's mental stability, intervened more forcefully. He arranged for Mary to return to Chicago under his supervision and consulted with physicians about her condition. The diagnosis, by the standards of 19th century psychiatry, was hysteria, compounded by nervous stability. Vague terms that encompassed a wide range of symptoms, but offered little in the way of effective treatment beyond rest,

tonics, and the avoidance of excitement. For Mary, this medical intervention represented yet another conspiracy against her, one that she believed originated in the spirit world. She became convinced that hostile spirits, perhaps those of her husband's political enemies, were working through Robert and the doctors to separate her from her spiritualist advisors and block her communication with Abraham's protective spirit. This paranoid interpretation drove her deeper into secrecy regarding her spirit, regarding her spiritualist activities,

while outwardly appearing to comply with her son's wishes by reducing her visible involvement with mediums and seances. She simply transferred these activities to more private settings, often conducting solo sessions in her bedroom late at night, attempting to make direct contact without the assistance of professional mediums. It was during one such private session in early January 1868 that Mary experienced what she later described as her most profound, spiritual encounter, a visitation from Abraham that seemed so real, so tangible, that it transcended

all her previous experiences of spirit communication. He came to me not as a spirit, but in his full earthly form. She confided in a letter to her half-sister, Emily Todd Helm. I could feel the rough texture of his hand as he touched my face, smell the familiar tobacco scent of his clothing. He spoke to me for over an hour, telling me of his life in the spirit realm, and assuring me that all my suffering has purpose, that we who endure the greatest pain in this life are destined for the highest spiritual evolution in the next. Whether this experience represented an actual paranormal event,

a vivid dream, a hallucination born of grief and isolation, or simply the elaboration of a lonely woman's fantasy, its effect on Mary was profound and lasting. She emerged from this perceived encounter with a renewed sense of spiritual purpose and a conviction that her sufferings were not meaningless, but preparatory for an exalted spiritual destiny.

This sense of special purpose helped sustain Mary through the increasingly difficult years that followed. Her relationship with Robert continued to deteriorate as his concern for her mental health clashed with her conviction that she was being spiritually persecuted. Her younger son Tad, though devoted to his mother,

was frequently away at school and later on European travels, leaving Mary often alone with her spirits and her thoughts. In 1868, at the recommendation of physicians who believed European travel might distract Mary from her spiritualist obsessions and improve her increasingly fragile health, she and Tad embarked on an extended tour of the continent. For a time, the change of scenery seemed beneficial. Away from the intense scrutiny and painful associations of America, Mary appeared to engage more fully with the physical world, taking an interest in art, architecture, and culture. Yet even in Europe, she sought out spiritualist connections. In Germany, she attended seances conducted by the famed medium

honor row, which were attended by European nobility and intellectual figures. In France, she consulted with Alan Cardec, whose spiritist approach to communication with the dead, had gained widespread acceptance. Stay tuned for more disturbing history. We'll be back after these messages. In England, she met with members of the Society for Psychical Research, whose scientific approach to investigating spiritual phenomena appealed to her desire for empirical validation of her experiences. These European spiritualists, generally more sophisticated and less obviously fraudulent

than many of their American counterparts, provided Mary with new techniques and perspectives that she incorporated into her personal practice. From them, she learned about automatic writing, a method of purported spirit communication, in which the medium's hand is supposedly guided by spirits to write messages, and crystal gazing, the use of reflective surfaces to induce visionary states. Mary's European sojourn was cut tragically short in July 1871, when 18-year-old Tad died suddenly in Chicago after returning ahead of his mother from their travels.

The cause was believed to be tuberculosis or pneumonia, though the exact nature of of his fatal illness remains uncertain in historical records. This third devastating loss, the death of her third son out of four, shattered the fragile equilibrium Mary had established. Rushing back to America, she arrived too late for Tad's funeral, a circumstance that added guilt to her overwhelming grief. In the aftermath, her spiritualist obsession took on a frantic, desperate quality as she sought to establish contact with Tad's spirit,

alongside those of Abraham, Willie, and Eddie. Now three of my treasures are gone from earthly sight, she wrote to a spiritualist friend in August 1871. Only Robert remains in the material world, and he is so changed toward me that I scarcely recognize him as my child. But I am not truly bereft. My husband and sons await me in the spirit realm. They speak to me daily, assuring me that our separation is temporary, and that the joys of

our eventual reunion will far outweigh the pain of our present parting. The intensity of Mary's renewed grief and the increasingly bizarre nature of her spiritualist activities, following Tad's death, alarmed Robert anew. Now 31, in establishing himself as a successful Chicago lawyer, he had grown increasingly embarrassed by his mother's public reputation and concerned about her mental stability. When Mary began to claim that Tad's spirit was physically manifesting in her home, moving objects, playing pranks, and even materializing visibly. Robert decided that more drastic intervention was necessary. In March 1875, after several particularly troubling incidents,

in which Mary appeared to experience public delusions, claiming to hear voices and see spirits in crowded venues, Robert initiated commitment proceedings. With the testimony of several physicians and witnesses to Mary's erratic behavior, he secured a court order committing her to Bellevue Place, a private sanitarium in Batavia, Illinois, for treatment of what was diagnosed as hysteria minor, a diagnosis that was recognized as insanity for legal purposes. The commitment trial was brief, lasting less than three hours, with Mary herself unaware that it was taking place until officers arrived to escort her to the asylum.

Her sense of betrayal by Robert was absolute and would never fully heal. For Mary, this was not merely a son's misguided attempt to help his troubled mother, but the culmination of the spiritual conspiracy she had long-sensed working against her, a conspiracy in which her own son had become an unwitting agent. Mary's confinement at Bellevue Place lasted four months, from May to September 1875. During this period, her spiritualist practices were severely curtailed by the asylum's regulations and monitoring. Deprived of her familiar routines of seances, automatic writing sessions, and communication with other spiritualists, Mary experienced what modern psychology would recognize as withdrawal symptoms, increased anxiety,

agitation, and intensification of her conviction that supernatural forces were conspiring against her. Dr. Richard J. Patterson, the medical director of Bellevue Place, approached Mary's case with a mixture of compassion and 19th century psychiatric medicine. methodology. While he did not directly challenge her spiritualist beliefs, understanding that frontal assaults on delusional systems often strengthen rather than weaken them, he attempted to redirect her attention to more conventional religious practices and practical concerns. Mrs. Lincoln's preoccupation with spiritualism represents a pathological extension of natural grief, he wrote in his case notes. The challenge is to guide her toward more socially acceptable expressions of her

continuing emotional attachment to her deceased family members while gradually reducing her dependence on spiritualist practices that reinforce her separation from consensus reality. Patterson's therapeutic approach, progressive for its time, included daily walks on the asylum grounds, occupational activities such as sewing and gardening, regular religious services, and carefully monitored social interactions with selected other patients and visitors. explicitly spiritualist activities, seances, trances, automatic writing, were prohibited,

though Mary attempted to continue these in secret during the night hours. The loss of her spiritualist routines and community was traumatic for Mary. In letters smuggled out to her few remaining allies, she described feeling cut off, not only from human society, but from the spirit world that had become her primary source of comfort and identity. They seek to separate me from my belief, loved dead, she wrote to her friend Myra Bradwell, a prominent Chicago legal reformer who would

later play a crucial role in securing her release. Without my spirit communications, I am truly alone in a way that no living person who has not experienced such loss can comprehend. Mary's liberation from Bellevue came through an unexpected alliance of supporters, including Bradwell and Mary's formidable sister-in-law, Elizabeth Edwards. Together they mounted a public campaign questioning both the legality of her commitment and the reality of her alleged insanity. Their efforts succeeded in securing a new hearing in June 1876, at which Mary was declared competent to manage her own affairs. Her release from Bellevue, however, did not represent a return to normalcy, but rather the beginning of a new phase in her spiritualist obsession,

one characterized by increased secrecy, isolation, and intensity. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across Mary Lincoln's room at the Edwards home in Springfield, where she had taken refuge following her release from Bellevue Place. The heavy curtains were drawn against the light, creating a perpetual twilight that matched the somber mood of the room's occupant. Seated at a small writing desk, Mary hunched over a sheet of paper, her hand moving in swift, jerky motions across the page. This was not ordinary correspondence but automatic writing.

a spiritualist technique in which the practitioner supposedly surrenders control of their hand to a spirit entity, allowing direct communication from beyond the veil. Mary had first learned the method during her European travels, and had refined it into a daily practice during the years following her release from Bellevue. Abraham comes through most clearly in the writing, she explained to her niece Catherine Helm, one of the few relatives who still maintained regular contact with her. His hand guides mine, and I often find I've written pages without any conscious awareness of the content. The pages in question contained a mixture of personal messages, purportedly from her deceased husband and sons,

alongside more esoteric material, descriptions of the spirit world, metaphysical teachings, and occasionally warnings about hidden enemies still working against Mary in both the physical and spiritual realms. Catherine, concerned but unwilling to challenge her aunt's beliefs directly, examined one of the automatic writing samples. The handwriting bore little resemblance to Mary's normal script, featuring looping, elaborate characters that sprawled across the page with an almost manic energy. It's quite different from your usual hand, she observed cautiously. Mary nodded in satisfaction.

That's how I know it's truly Abraham coming through. notice the distinctive way he forms his A's, exactly as he did in life. In fact, the writing bore no real resemblance to Lincoln's famously clear, measured handwriting. But Mary saw what she needed to see. Evidence that her connection to her husband remained unbroken, despite all earthly efforts to sever it. Following her release from Bellevue, Mary had learned the necessity of discretion regarding her spiritualist activities. The public scandal of her commitment had taught her that open, pursuit of spirit communication would only provide ammunition to those who questioned her sanity.

Instead, she retreated into a private world of solitary spiritualist practices, sharing her experiences only with the dwindling circle of friends and relatives who would not judge or interfere. This retreat from public spiritualism coincided with a physical withdrawal from American society. In October 1876, Mary left the United States for Europe, where she would remain for the next four years, moving between France, Germany, and Italy. This self-imposed exile served multiple purposes. It removed her from Robert's immediate sphere of influence. It distanced her from the painful memories and associations of America, and it placed her in cultures where spiritualist practices were often regarded with less suspicion and more philosophical interest

than in the increasingly materialistic post-war United States. Europe offers a freedom I can longer find in my own country, she wrote to Myra Bradwell before her departure. Here I am forever the insane widow watched and whispered about. There I may be simply Mrs. Lincoln, a private citizen seeking health and peace. Mary's European sojourn was characterized by increasing isolation and intensifying spiritualist practices. She avoided American tourists and journalists, changed lodgings frequently to maintain privacy and spent long hours in solitary communion with what she believed were the spirits of her

departed family members. Her automatic writing sessions became more elaborate, often lasting through the night until exhaustion overcame her. She filled notebook after notebook with messages purportedly from Abraham, Willie, Eddie, and Tad, creating an alternative family narrative that existed alongside and increasingly supplanted her connections to the living world. I have received a a magnificent communication from Mr. Lincoln, she wrote to her sister Elizabeth in 1877. He assures me that all my trials have been necessary preparation for the work I am to do in bringing knowledge of the spirit world to humanity. Soon he says, I will develop the ability to see and hear spirits constantly, without the need for trance or special conditions.

This prophecy reflected Mary's evolving spiritualist ambitions, no longer content merely to receive communications through mediums or even through her own automatic writing. She now sought the ultimate spiritualist achievement, direct, continuous contact with the spirit world while in a normal waking state. This goal drove her to increasingly extreme practices, including extended periods of fasting and sleep deprivation intended to thin the veil between worlds. The physical and mental toll of these practices was severe. Mary's already fragile health deteriorated further, with chronic pain, insomnia, and vision problems that she interpreted not as warning signs, but as evidence of her spiritual progress. The material body breaking down

as the spirit ascended. My physical sufferings increased daily, she noted in a diary entry from 1878. But Abraham assures me this is merely the shedding of material limitations as my spiritual senses awaken. Each pain is a step toward liberation. Mary, European exile was briefly interrupted in 1878 when she returned to America upon learning that Robert's eldest son, Abraham Lincoln II, called Jack, was seriously ill. The boy recovered, but the visit reopened old wounds between mother and son. Though they maintained a facade of reconciliation, Robert remained deeply concerned about his mother's mental state, while Mary continued to harbor resentment over her commitment to Bellevue. During this visit, Mary stayed with her

sister Elizabeth Edwards in Springfield, returning to the city where she had lived as a young wife and mother. The experience was both painful and comforting. Every street corner held memories of Abraham and their lost children. Yet these same memories reinforced her conviction that death was merely a temporary separation. It was during this brief return to America that Mary experienced what she later described as her most complete spiritual manifestation. Alone in her bedroom at the Edwards home, she claimed to have witnessed the materialization of all three of her deceased sons, accompanied by Abraham, a complete family reunion spanning the boundary between life and death. They appeared not as spirits, but in solid form, she wrote, in a private journal never intended for other eyes.

Willie and Eddie as the boys they were, Tad as the young man he would have become. And Abraham, oh my dear husband, looked just as he did in our happiest days, before the presidency aged him so terribly. We spoke together for what seemed hours but might have been only moments in earthly time. They assured me we will never truly be separated again, that the barrier between our worlds grows thinner as my spiritual development progresses.

This experience, whether a vivid hallucination, a dream interpreted as reality, or something genuinely paranormal, marked a turning point in Mary's spiritualist journey. having experienced what she believed was direct physical contact with her deceased family. The mediums and seances that had once been so important to her now seemed superfluous. Her spiritualism became increasingly personalized and mystical, focused on her direct connection to her family's spirits,

rather than on the broader spiritualist movement and community. Mary returned to Europe in early 1879, settling in the French city of Pau, whose mild climate was recommended for her deteriorating health. There, her daily routine revolved almost entirely around her spiritualist practices, automatic writing sessions morning and evening, meditation at midday, and what she called spirit walks through local gardens and cemeteries, where she believed the boundary between worlds was naturally thinner.

Her physical health continued to decline, with failing vision becoming her most debilitating problem. By 1880, she was nearly blind in one eye. A conditioned modern medical historians attribute variously to cataracts, glaucoma, or possibly the neurological effects of undiagnosed diabetes. Yet Mary interpreted her vision loss in spiritualist terms as a shutting down a physical sight

to make way for the development of spiritual vision. As my earthly eyes dim, my spiritual sight grows clearer, she wrote in a shaky hand to her niece. I begin to perceive shake. and lights invisible to normal sight, the actual forms of the spirit world breaking through into our material plane. These visual phenomena, likely the result of her deteriorating eyesight combined with the psychological effects of isolation, grief, and spiritual obsession convinced Mary that she was evolving beyond normal

human perception. She began to document her visions in detailed written accounts, describing luminous figures, geometric patterns, and landscapes that she believed represented glimpses of the spirit realm. Modern medical science would recognize many of her described visual experiences as consistent with Charles Bonnet syndrome, a condition in which people with vision loss experience complex visual hallucinations, or possibly with the effects of medication, as Mary regularly took both laudanum and chloral hydrate for her various physical complaints. But for Mary, these visions were sacred experiences, confirmation that her years of spirit spiritualist devotion were yielding the promised results.

In October 1880, Mary's declining health and financial concerns finally compelled her return to the United States. She settled once more with her sister Elizabeth in Springfield, accepting that her days of independent living had passed. Though her relationship with Robert remained strained, he dutifully arranged for her financial support and medical care, while maintaining an emotional distance that reflected their unresolved conflicts over her commitment and her spiritualist beliefs.

The final year and a half of Mary Lincoln's life was marked by increasing physical debility, but undiminished spiritualist conviction. Confined often to bed or chair by her various ailments, she continued her automatic writing and her conversations with spirits, now conducted so habitually that those around her grew accustomed to her speaking aloud to empty rooms and responding to voices no one else could hear. Elizabeth Edwards, though never sharing Mary's spiritualist beliefs, treated these behaviors with compassionate acceptance,

recognizing them as her sister's coping mechanism for losses too profound to be processed through conventional grief. The household staff was instructed to give Mary privacy during her spiritualist activities and to refrain from commenting on or interrupting her spectral conversations. As her death approached, Mary spoke increasingly of her imminent reunion with her husband and sons. Her spiritualist beliefs had transformed the prospect of death from a terrifying separation into a joyful homecoming, the final dissolution of the barrier that had kept her from full communion with those she had lost. I go to them soon, she told Elizabeth, during one of her more

lucid moments in the summer of 1882. Abraham says it will not be long now. On the morning of July the 16th, 1882, Mary Todd Lincoln suffered a stroke at her sister's home in Springfield. She lingered, partially paralyzed and unable to speak, for several hours before dying in the early afternoon. She was 63 years old, the same age her husband would have been had he lived. In accordance with her wishes, Mary was buried in the Lincoln family tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. Her physical remains finally rejoining those of her husband and three of their four sons. Robert, the soul surviving Lincoln, arranged for a simple ceremony that acknowledged his mother's devotion to his father's memory, while tactfully omitting any reference to the spiritualist beliefs

that had sustained and obsessed her for the last 20 years of her life. The newspaper obituary similarly glossed over Mary's spiritualist activities, focusing instead on her role as the martyred president's devoted wife and the tragedy of her multiple bereavements. The Springfield Journal characterized her as A Woman Who Knew Sorrow as Few Have Known It, while the Chicago Tribune noted that death comes as a merciful release to one who has endured more than her share of life's hardships. Stay tuned for more disturbing history.

We'll be back after these messages. In the decades following her death, Mary Todd Lincoln's spiritualist obsession would be variously interpreted by historians, psychologists, and spiritualists themselves. For conventional historians, it represented an unfortunate descent into delusion, triggered by overwhelming grief and trauma. For psychologists, it offered a case study in complicated mourning and possible untreated mental illness.

For spiritualists, it stood as evidence that even the most prominent Americans had accepted the reality of spirit communication. What none of these interpretations fully captured was the subjective reality of Mary's experience. the complex interplay of grief, hope, loneliness, and spiritual yearning that drove her ever deeper into a world where death was not an ending, but merely a change of a dress, where loved ones were never truly lost, but simply awaiting reunion on another plane of existence. In the spiritualist cosmology that came to dominate Mary's worldview, her death represented not an end, but a transition. The final dropping away of the physical limitations that had kept her separated from those she loved most. Whether one views this belief as a beautiful metaphor,

a comforting delusion, or a metaphysical reality for Mary Todd Lincoln, it transformed two decades of earthly torment into a purposeful journey toward an eternal reunion. The Lincoln tomb stands as one of America's most visited presidential monuments. Its massive granite obelisk rising 117 feet above the gentle Illinois landscape. Inside the tomb's marble chamber rests the remains of Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary, and three of their four sons, Edward, William, and Thomas.

Only Robert Lincoln, who died in 1926, is buried elsewhere at Arlington National Cemetery. For the quarter million visitors who come to the tomb each year, it represents the final chapter in one of America's most compelling historical narratives. The story of a frontier lawyer who rose to save the union, only to be struck down by an assassin's bullet at the moment of victory. But for a smaller, more specialized group of visitors, the tomb holds additional significance.

Psychics, mediums, and ghost hunters have long claimed that the Lincoln Tomb is a site of intense paranormal activity, with reported manifestations ranging from cold spots and unexplained electrical disturbances to full visual apparitions of Mary and, Abraham Lincoln. These claims would likely have pleased Mary Todd Lincoln immensely. The woman who spent the latter half of her life seeking communion with the spirit world might well consider such reports vindication of her most deeply held beliefs, evidence that the veil between worlds remains permeable, and that death is indeed not an ending, but a transition. The modern spiritualist movement that provided Mary with her framework for understanding life after death has evolved, considerably since the 19th century.

Today's practitioners, influenced by parapsychology, quantum physics, and comparative religious study, often frame their beliefs in more sophisticated terms than the simple table wrappings and cabinet manifestations of Mary's era. Yet the essential appeal remains the same. The promise that death does not sever our connections to those we love. That consciousness survives the body's dissolution. And that communication across the boundary. between life and death is possible under the right conditions.

For Mary Todd Lincoln, spiritualism was never merely a philosophical position or a social diversion, as it was for many of her contemporaries. It was a lifeline thrown across the abyss of unbearable loss, a means of maintaining connection with a husband and children taken from her with brutal suddenness. That her pursuit of this connection eventually consumed her life,

alienated her from many of the living, and contributed to her public humiliation and private suffering speaks to both the depth of her grief and the intensity of her need for continued relationship with her dead. In an era before grief counseling, before the psychological understanding of trauma, and before effective treatments for the range of physical and mental health issues that plagued her, Mary cobbled together her own system for survival from the spiritual resources available to her, that this system ultimately failed to provide the healing she saw, does not diminish the courage and determination with which she pursued it.

Today, visitors to the Lincoln Tomb often leave small offerings, pennies, flowers, and handwritten notes, in tribute to the man whose leadership preserved the union through its darkest hour. Few think to leave something for Mary, whose struggles were fought not on battlefields, but in the equally harrowing terrain of profound personal loss. Yet if, as Mary believed, consciousness survives death and the dead remain aware, of the living, one might imagine that the spirits of the Lincoln family, Abraham, Mary, and their three lost sons, have indeed achieved the reunion she so desperately sought during her lifetime. In that imagined reunion, the boundaries that separated them in life, Abraham's rationalism

and Mary's spiritualism, his patience and her impulsivity, his public stoicism, and her private emotional intensity, might finally have dissolved, leaving only the deep attack of the that bound them together through a life of extraordinary triumph and tragedy. Whether one views Mary Todd Lincoln's spiritualist obsession as delusion, mental illness, or genuine metaphysical exploration, it represented her best attempt to make sense of losses too profound to be processed through the conventional, religious, and psychological frameworks of her time. In her desperate quest to maintain connection with her dead, Mary created an alternative reality in which death had no final victory, and love transcended the grave,

a reality that sustained her through two decades of earthly torment, until she herself passed beyond the veil she had spent so long trying to penetrate. The remarkable journey of Mary Todd Lincoln reminds us that grief can be as creative as it is destructive, that in our darkest hours the human spirit reaches for whatever light it can find, fashioning meaning and purpose from even the most devastating circumstances. For Mary, that light came in the form of spirits, whether objectively real or subjectively created, who offered her the one thing she could not bear to live without, the continued presence of those she had lost. In the end, perhaps the most fitting epitaph for Mary Todd Lincoln comes not from any historian or biographer,

but from her husband's second inaugural address, delivered just weeks before his assassination on March 4, 1865. Speaking of the terrible suffering of the Civil War, Lincoln observed, the prayers of both could not be answered, that of neither has been answered fully. So it was with Mary's lifelong prayer for genuine communion with her dead. Whether her spiritualist practices ever truly pierced the veil between worlds remains a mystery as profound as death itself. But in her unwavering conviction that such communion was possible, that love could transcend even the grave,

Mary Todd Lincoln embodied a hope that continues to resonate across the centuries, speaking to the universal human desire to maintain connection with those we have loved and lost. If today's tale left you a little more curious, and maybe a little more uneasy, then you're exactly where you belong. Here on disturbing history, we don't just tell stories. We dig up the ones they tried to bury. If you like what you're hearing, help keep the past alive by subscribing, following and turning on auto downloads so you never miss what comes creeping out of the archives next.

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