First Ladies (18 page)

Mary's older sister, with whom she had lived when she first arrived in Springfield as a young woman, was becoming less convinced that Mary belonged in an institution. The attendant publicity was certainly unpleasant. Joining forces, the sister, lawyer Bradwell, and Mary requested a new hearing. Without alerting hospital attendants, Bradwell arranged for a newspaper reporter to interview Mary, and after a two-hour talk, the reporter concluded that Mary showed “not a sign of weakness … of mind.”
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The efforts of the three women led to Mary's release in September 1875.

Still looking for a place to settle, Mary returned to Europe and made her headquarters in Pau, France, until a bad fall partially paralyzed her. Saddened and broken, she returned to America on the same ship that carried the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt. In terms as dramatic as the parts she played on stage, Bernhardt later described how she had saved Mary Lincoln from falling down a flight of stairs. The two women introduced themselves, and after they had talked, Bernhardt realized that she had done the one thing for Mary Lincoln that she should not have done—saved her life.
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But not for long. Mary returned to her sister's house in Springfield, the same house where she had married, and she died there in 1882.

Except for her good education and remarkable spunk, Mary Todd Lincoln had everything against her. Geography made her suspect, both socially and politically. The competitiveness and insecurity she had shown as a young girl matured into a self-defeating combination. The loss of three sons and the assassination of her husband in front of her eyes broke her.

It is ironic that Mary Todd Lincoln would become so much discussed, more books and plays being written about her than any other First Lady of the nineteenth century, because in all important ways she was a failure. After the early years of her marriage (when she may have helped Abraham develop socially and may have improved his financial situation by her inheritances), she proved a hindrance to him. Historians have generally dismissed her as unbalanced; and a century after her death, a highly respected scholar, Henry Steele Commager, described her as “a half-crazy woman.”
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Yet for all her flaws, Mary Lincoln showed considerable determination throughout her life, particularly in her refusal to accept anonymity in Washington and later, in engineering her release from the mental institution. She had a good excuse, especially after the death of her son in 1862, to plead grief as a reason to avoid social life in the capital. Or she could have fallen back on her recurring headaches and refused any public role. Only her stubbornness lifted her out of the obscurity that surrounds most nineteenth-century presidents' wives. In a time when women had few constructive outlets for their energy and talents, they sometimes selected destructive ones, directing their strong wills to insignificant, even damaging actions. Given other choices, Mary Lincoln might have behaved differently.

Julia Dent Grant, the third woman to emerge from a long string of unnoticed First Ladies, demonstrates how quickly circumstances change. Wife of Ulysses S. Grant, one of the least prepared presidents in American history (1869–1877), Julia spent a great deal of money but escaped the criticism leveled at Mary Lincoln. Boasting none of Sarah Polk's political savvy, Julia received equally favorable press notices.

Perhaps she profited from the optimism that surrounded her husband's first inauguration in 1869. The Federal City, as people still called the capital, was cold and dark that day; but the rain held off and thousands of people got the chance to see the man they trusted to initiate “a reign of loyalty and truth and patriotism.”
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To signal their determination to put both the Civil War and the bungled Johnson administration that followed it behind them, supporters had traveled many miles and paid high prices for seats to witness the Grant inauguration. About the new president's wife the crowd knew very little, but in the next eight years they would hear a good deal. Julia Dent Grant had never been one to stay in the background.

Born in 1826 to relatively wealthy Missouri slaveholders who already had three sons, Julia had enjoyed more than her share of her parents' attention. Even after the birth of another daughter, Julia
Dent remained her father's favorite. A cheerful, good-natured youngster, she matured into a self-assured young woman who chose to marry against strong parental objection. Ulysses Grant showed little promise of success, and Julia's father thought she could do better—an opinion that did not change quickly. Ulysses performed well enough in the army as long as he was fighting against Mexico, but later assignments to Panama and then to a lonely outpost at Fort Vancouver, Washington, went less well. Rumor had it that his excessive drinking led to his resignation from the army. He tried selling real estate and farming before going to work in his father's Illinois harness shop. Although Julia later brushed aside hints that these had been trying times, as she tried to cope with her erratic husband and the four children born to them in twelve years, friends admitted she had been frequently unhappy.

Had the Civil War not rescued Ulysses from obscurity, he might well have ended up a stooped, soft-spoken, sloppy store clerk, who never excelled in anything. At West Point, he had been a mediocre student—riding was his best subject. But the war brought out new strengths in the middle-aged Ulysses and he managed to get himself appointed head of the twenty-first Illinois Volunteers. Then in one battle after another he showed he could be both ruthless and tenacious. His insistence on the enemy's “unconditional surrender” earned him the nickname “butcher,” and provided a new explanation for his initials “U.S.” Through all the criticism, President Lincoln defended his victorious general. His determination to fight to the bloody end repelled many people, Abraham Lincoln admitted, but it achieved the desired results.

By the time Ulysses Grant met Robert E. Lee at war's end at Appomattox, he had become a national figure and soon there was talk of nominating him for president. He won in the 1868 election, just two months after Mary Lincoln, who had vowed to leave the country if “that butcher” ever became president, had sailed for Europe.

The Grant family appeared particularly healthy and appealing occupants of the White House after the tragedies associated with the Lincolns and the difficulties encountered by the Andrew Johnsons. The two older sons, Frederick and Ulysses, Jr., spent most of the first years of their father's tenure away at college, but teenager Nellie and mischievous Jesse, the baby of the family, made up for the absence. Nellie's participation added a youthful touch to official parties that had tended to become stiff and predictable. Her White House wedding in 1874 became a national celebration.

Twelve-year-old Jesse Grant, whom his mother described as “never at a loss for an answer,”
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kept several reporters busy with his antics
and his gossip about other family members, especially his two grandfathers who often stayed at the White House. Frederick Dent, Julia's father, and Jesse Grant, Ulysses's father, did not get along, according to young Jesse, and sometimes they would refuse to communicate with each other except through Julia. In the presence of the elder Grant, Frederick Dent would instruct Julia to “take better care of that old gentleman [Grant]. He is feeble and deaf as a post and yet you permit him to wander all over Washington alone.” Overhearing the remark as he had been meant to do, Grandfather Grant would retort to young Jesse: “Did you hear him? I hope I shall not live to become as old and infirm as your Grandfather Dent.”
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Accounts of such harmless family squabbles entertained a public that had become accustomed to a more somber White House, and the Grants' extravagant spending increased their attractiveness. In what came to be called the Gilded Age, large price tags were less objectionable than they had been during the Lincoln war years, and no one seemed to care what Julia bought. No expense appeared in bad taste, no shine too bright. The newly rich vied with each other for the title of bigger spender, with the prize placed squarely on quantity of purchase rather than quality. In such an atmosphere, the White House hostess could hardly overspend, and an approving nation watched as Julia served dinners of twenty-nine courses, accompanied by high-priced French wines.

On more significant matters, she evidently understood very little. By her own admission, she once came out both for and against a particular piece of legislation. She explained that she had been in New York on a shopping trip when she was approached by both proponents and critics of the bill, wanting her to influence the president in their behalf. Since she knew nothing about the bill at that time, she cheerfully implied agreement with both sides.

Back in Washington, she confronted Ulysses and asked that he explain the bill and its possible effects. When he had finished, she urged him to veto it. “I always flattered myself,” she wrote, “that I had rendered my husband and the country a very great service in advising the President to veto the all-important Finance Bill that was almost convulsing the country … but I find I had more than one rival in that honor. … To tell the truth, I think the President knew his duty quite well and would have fulfilled his duty in any case.”
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Ulysses made no secret of the fact that he liked the women around him dependent, and Julia usually humored him by appearing docile and agreeable. She never quite hid, however, a stubborn, willful streak. She once signaled her independence by refusing to sign the necessary
papers for the sale of their Washington house. As president-elect, Ulysses had arranged the sale without consulting his wife, and to underscore her objection, she refused to go along. Ulysses was thus forced to back out of the deal with no other explanation than that his wife would not cooperate. The next time he located a prospective buyer, he discussed the offer with Julia, and this time she reported that she cheerfully signed, having made her point.
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Julia Grant prolonged her tenure in the public eye by accompanying her husband on a trip around the world after his second term ended in 1877. She would have preferred a third term in the White House but Ulysses did not consult her on the matter.
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In the twenty-eight-month journey, Julia was treated more like a reigning monarch than like the wife of an ex-president, and she thrived on the attention she received. The Grants dined with royalty at Windsor Castle, breakfasted with “London literati,” and drank with English workingmen. After more banquets and honors on the continent, they sailed for the Far East. Governments along the way competed for title of biggest giver, the Japanese distinguishing themselves only slightly more than the others by offering the ex-president the furnishings of an entire room.
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The Grants returned to settle in New York, and Ulysses set about writing his memoirs. He was already ill with a spreading throat cancer and just days after he completed the work, he died. He had feared he would not finish in time and had sketched in the important parts first, knowing he could go back and fill in the details if time permitted. What later became a standard exercise for ex-presidents—the writing and selling of their memoirs for large sums—began with Ulysses Grant, and it did not spring so much from his own ego as from a desire to provide an income for his family.

The book earned half a million dollars in royalties,
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so that Julia was encouraged to write her own autobiography—the first by an expresident's wife. Memoirs of Abigail Adams and Dolley Madison had already been published but heirs had spliced them together out of the women's letters. Unfortunately, Julia's work failed to interest a publisher until nearly three quarters of a century after her death, and it was not published until 1975.

Less than one-tenth of her book deals with Julia's eight years as First Lady and in those few pages, she concentrates on describing her social accomplishments and defending Ulysses. His own autobiography had ignored rumors about his malfeasance in office, and Julia determined to set the record straight. Several of her relatives took jobs on the public payroll but that hardly constituted corruption.
“There was that dreadful Black Friday,” she admitted, referring to a scheme drafted by the financiers Jim Fisk and Jay Gould early in the Grant administration to “corner” the New York gold market and make themselves millions richer. They enlisted the help of President Grant's brother-in-law and believed—incorrectly as it turned out—that they had secured the president's assurance that the federal Treasury would cooperate and not release gold. On “Black Friday” in September 1869, the plot reached its culmination. While businessmen watched helplessly, Gould and Fisk bid gold prices up and out of reach. Then the federal Treasury moved in and filled the vacuum by releasing its funds. Questions remained about the president's complicity. Had he intended to participate or been misread?

Julia's account of her husband's role predictably concurred with that of historians who later decided Ulysses was naïve and a poor judge of character but not dishonest. As for her own part, she explained: “The papers seemed to say I knew something of [the Fisk and Gould scheme] but I did not; only this.” The president had instructed her to add in a letter she was sending to his sister: “If you have any influence with your husband, tell him to have nothing whatever to do with [Fisk and Gould.] If he does, he will be ruined for come what may, [Ulysses] will do his duty to the country and the trusts in his keeping.”
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Thus Julia added, for what it was worth, her own account of her husband's honesty.

Ulysses Grant's two terms as president were also marred by reports that members of his family and some of his closest advisers were involved in plots to defraud the government; and in each case Julia's account portrays her husband as naïve and misunderstood rather than dishonest. The Whiskey Ring involved Orville E. Babcock, the president's secretary. Contrived as a kickback system in which federal taxes on alcohol production were not collected if distillers paid off the inspectors, the scheme would have enriched the Republican Party and Babcock. Julia explained that Babcock had always been “civil and obliging and never officious,”
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and she urged the president to assist him at his trial. When Babcock was acquitted in the courtroom, but not in the public's mind, Julia encouraged the president to replace him at the White House.
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