Mary Todd Lincoln: Life, Loss, and Later Trials

Mary Todd Lincoln was born December 13, 1818, in Lexington, Kentucky, and she received more schooling than many women of her time at Shelby Female Academy and at Madame Mentelle's boarding school. She married Abraham Lincoln on November 4, 1842, and she served as First Lady from 1861 to 1865. While in Washington she supported relief work and kept a busy social household; she also relied on her dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley, who later organized relief for formerly enslaved people.

After the Civil War and the assassination of her husband, Mary suffered deep grief. Her son Willie died in 1862 and Tad in 1871. Concerned by her behavior and spending, her son Robert brought legal action and a jury declared her insane on May 19, 1875; she was sent to Bellevue Place in Batavia, Illinois. She was released to her sister's care and a jury found her restored to reason on June 15, 1876. In 1870 Congress had granted her a life pension of $3,000 a year, which helped support her final years. She later traveled to Europe and lived for a time in France before returning to Springfield, Illinois.