Lincoln's Last Days: Lincoln's Health
150 years ago today, on March 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was ill. The previous day he was too ill to see visitors, and on March 15th, he conducted a cabinet meeting in his bedroom, according to an entry in the diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy.
Lincoln's exhaustion was apparent to many. In his 1995 biography of the president, simply entitled Lincoln, author David Herbert Donald states that there was no organic cause for Lincoln's bed rest, he was simply very tired. Donald writes at pages 568-9:
Lincoln was so exhausted after the inauguration ceremonies that he took to his bed for a few days. There was nothing organically wrong. Despite his sedentary work, he continued to be a physically powerful man. But he often felt terribly tired. For some time he had been losing weight, and strangers now noticed his thinness rather than his height. Though he was only fifty-six, observers at the second inauguration thought he looked very old. His photographs show a face heavily lined with sunken cheeks. Joshua Speed, who had not seen the president for some time, was shocked to find him looking "so jaded and weary." "Speed," said Lincoln, "I am a little alarmed about myself; just feel my hand." It was, remembered Speed, "cold and clammy," and his feet were obviously cold too, for he put them so near the fire that they steamed.
Mary was worried about his health. "Poor Mr. Lincoln is looking so broken-hearted, so completely worn out," she told Elizabeth Keckley, her dress-maker, "I fear he will not get through the next four years." For months she had been urging her husband to keep a lighter schedule, and in order to get him away from his desk, she encouraged him to go to the theater frequently. He attended both Grover's Theater on E street, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets, and Ford's Theater on Tenth Street, between E and F Streets. Usually Mary accompanied him, but occasionally he went with Tad or with one or both of his secretaries, and occasionally the Lincolns made up a small party of friends to occupy the presidential box. He enjoyed all sorts of theatrical entertainment, including Barney Williams, the blackface minstrel and Irish comedian, and he attended numerous plays that were little noted nor long remembered, like Leah, starring Avonia Jones, and The Marble Heart, featuring the brilliant young actor John Wilkes Booth.
Lincoln's exhaustion was apparent to many. In his 1995 biography of the president, simply entitled Lincoln, author David Herbert Donald states that there was no organic cause for Lincoln's bed rest, he was simply very tired. Donald writes at pages 568-9:
Lincoln was so exhausted after the inauguration ceremonies that he took to his bed for a few days. There was nothing organically wrong. Despite his sedentary work, he continued to be a physically powerful man. But he often felt terribly tired. For some time he had been losing weight, and strangers now noticed his thinness rather than his height. Though he was only fifty-six, observers at the second inauguration thought he looked very old. His photographs show a face heavily lined with sunken cheeks. Joshua Speed, who had not seen the president for some time, was shocked to find him looking "so jaded and weary." "Speed," said Lincoln, "I am a little alarmed about myself; just feel my hand." It was, remembered Speed, "cold and clammy," and his feet were obviously cold too, for he put them so near the fire that they steamed.
Mary was worried about his health. "Poor Mr. Lincoln is looking so broken-hearted, so completely worn out," she told Elizabeth Keckley, her dress-maker, "I fear he will not get through the next four years." For months she had been urging her husband to keep a lighter schedule, and in order to get him away from his desk, she encouraged him to go to the theater frequently. He attended both Grover's Theater on E street, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets, and Ford's Theater on Tenth Street, between E and F Streets. Usually Mary accompanied him, but occasionally he went with Tad or with one or both of his secretaries, and occasionally the Lincolns made up a small party of friends to occupy the presidential box. He enjoyed all sorts of theatrical entertainment, including Barney Williams, the blackface minstrel and Irish comedian, and he attended numerous plays that were little noted nor long remembered, like Leah, starring Avonia Jones, and The Marble Heart, featuring the brilliant young actor John Wilkes Booth.