Her father, Robert Todd, overwhelmed by the care of six children, remarried. Mary was six years old when her mother died in childbirth. Long before the deaths of their young sons Eddie and Willie, Mary and Abraham suffered from the loss of their parents and siblings. It may have been named after the Topsy and Eva characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” This painting appears on the diorama, “Malice Toward None”, South Façade.Ībraham Lincoln was famously permissive with his sons who ran amok in his Springfield law office and later, in the Executive Mansion. Likely originated by the slave mother, it expresses the complex relationship between master and slave in a topsy-turvy world. “Topsy Turvy Doll” ( watercolor) This post–Civil War double identity doll-its dress hiding a black persona and flipping over to the white one-originated in the South before the Civil War. X-ray of doll Nina, revealing cavity inside the head It is believed that illegal life-saving drugs were hidden inside the doll heads. Smuggler Dolls were carried (to avert suspicion) by mothers and children to Confederate prisoners. Southern white girl with Golliwog doll-a racist stereotypic caricature Stuntz’s store near the Executive Mansion, frequented by the Lincoln sons “Civil War Toys” (watercolor) left to right Tad died from illness at age 18, when living with his mother in Chicago. It wasn’t until after the assassination, when the widow Mary took Tad to Europe, where he applied himself to his school studies. At the age of 12, he still could not read. After the death of Willie, the Lincolns, who were exceedingly permissive, were even less inclined to rein in Tad’s wild behavior. A cleft palate severely limited the highly intelligent boy’s ability to speak clearly, which may have slowed down his learning. He was named Thomas after Abraham’s father and nicknamed Tad because he wiggled like a tadpole. Tad was the youngest of the Lincolns' four sons. Three years earlier, on the night of Lincoln’s second inauguration, Tad suffered the loss of his brother Willie who died at age 11 from illness.īy the time the Lincolns entered the Executive Mansion, their son Eddie had died at age four. On his 12th birthday, he accompanied his father to the burning Confederate capital of Richmond marking the end of the war. Tad Lincoln, who witnessed the Civil War, played war games. This was devastating for Mary who adored Emilie. After a week, she left and severed ties with the Lincolns, blaming the President for her husband’s death. He risked public scorn when he invited Emilie, Mary’s newly widowed half-sister to stay in the Executive Mansion. Abraham Lincoln’s impoverished Kentucky childhood is legendary. Mary Lincoln, born in the slave-owning Todd family of Lexington, Kentucky, had three brothers and a brother-in-law who were killed fighting on the side of the Confederacy.
No matter how young, everyone offered sustenance to the exhausted, starving and wounded soldiers many were billeted in local homes. Even brethren battled each other. They imitated adult behavior from kindness to cruelty. The Civil War, fought in our country’s fields and towns, impacted the play of all children be they Confederate, Union and slave.
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