Abraham Lincoln's Children

                              Tragedy followed Lincoln's children.

Willie and Tad with their mother. The picture is courtesy of Edward Anthony.

Mr. Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln had four children: Robert, Edward, Willie, and Tad.

Edward died before his father became president. His passing was on February 1, 1850, at 3 years and 11 months from chronic consumption, which we now call tuberculosis.

Tad died July 15, 1871. Scientists are not sure if it was from tuberculosis, pleurisy, pneumonia, or congestive heart failure. He was 18.

Willie died from typhoid fever on February 20, 1862, at the age of eleven years.

Robert, ironically, was rescued from a moving train by Edwin Booth, the elder brother of John Wilkes Booth.

When he heard his father was shot, he rushed to his bedside and stayed with him throughout the night.

Robert graduated from Harvard University, joined the army, and served on General Ulysses S. Grant's staff. He later became the minister to Great Britain. He traveled with President Garfield as Secretary of War when the president was shot at the Washington, D.C., railroad station and was with him when the president died.

Then he became the president of the Pullman Company of Chicago. He attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, with President William McKinley. He witnessed the president being assassinated.

Enough was enough. He had witnessed three presidential assassinations. He retired to his summer retreat in Manchester, Vermont, where he became a recluse. 

He died at the age of 83 of a cerebral hemorrhage. He is the only one not buried in the Lincoln family plot in Springfield, Illinois.

Information from Shocking Secrets of American history by bill Coate

The next blog will be about what happened after Lincoln was shot.