Explore Documents

Introduction

Thomas Stackpole was a White House employee who once confided to the president’s close friend, Senator Orville H. Browning, many things about Mrs. Lincoln’s financial misdeeds that were, as Browning wrote in his diary, “painful to hear, and will result in the disgrace of the family at the White House, unless they are corrected.”   Knowledgeable about Mary Lincoln’s ethical lapses, Stackpole presumably was trying to help her, but he was evidently not blind to the ways in which his being useful could be translated into presidential favor, and how this, in turn, could work to his financial benefit.

Abraham Lincoln and Mary Lincoln, autograph letters signed to John E. Wool
30 Sept. 1862
AMs 353/12

Related

A man accused of conspiracy appeals to Lincoln: January 29, 1865

Prince L. Hudgins admits that he spoke against the federal authority in the first year of the war, b ...

Lincoln’s law partner insists Lincoln was an infidel: October 29, 1881

What is thought to be the character of Lincoln's religious beliefs comes almost entirely from other ...

Lincoln plans to accuse a political opponent of being pro-black: April 17, 1840

As a young man, Lincoln was a zealous politician, who, in the manner of the time, was capable of a c ...

Lincoln’s Papers

This is a collection of Lincoln papers.