Date Created:
Place Created: Exeter, NH
Year Created: 1860
Collection this Document is Affiliated with:
Description: Inspired by newspaper accounts of Lincoln’s Cooper Union Address, New England Republicans asked Lincoln to speak in their states. He made a whirlwind tour, appearing in eleven cities in twelve days. Lincoln’s frustration at having to prepare at least nine different speeches during his tightly packed campaign through New England is clearly evident in this letter to Mary Todd. He was not accustomed to such sophisticated audiences who would have read his prior speeches in newspapers. His reputation with words preceded him and he worried that he might have little new to say.
Categories of Documents:
From Abraham Lincoln to Mary Todd Lincoln1, March 4, 1860
Exeter, N. H. March 4. 1860
Dear Wife:
When I wrote you before I was just starting on a little speech-making tour, taking the boys2 with me— On Thursday they went with me to Concord, where I spoke in day-light, and back to Manchester where I spoke at night— Friday we came down to Lawrence — the place of the Pemberton Mill tradg tragedy —3 where we remained four hours awaiting the train back to Exeter— When it came, we went upon it to Exeter where the boys got off, and I went on to Dover and spoke there Friday evening— Saturday I came back to Exeter, reaching here about noon, and finding the boys all right, having caught up with their lessons— Bob had a letter from you saying Willie and Taddy4 were very sick the Saturday night after I left— Having no despatch from you, and having one from Springfield, of Wednesday, from Mr. Fitzhugh,5 saying nothing about our family, I trust the dear little fellows are well again—
This is Sunday morning; and according to Bob's orders, I am to go to church once to-day— Tomorrow I bid farewell to the boys, go to Hartford, Conn. and speak there in the evening; Tuesday at Menden, and Wednesday at New-Haven — and Thursday at Woonsocket, R. I— Then I start home, and think I will not stop— I may be delayed in New-York City an hour or two— I have been unable to escape this toil— If I had foreseen it I think I would not have come East at all. The speech at New-York6, being within my calculation before I started, went off passably well, and gave me no trouble whatever. The difficulty was to make nine others, before reading audiences, who have already seen all my ideas in print—
If the trains do not lie over Sunday, of which I do not know, I hope to be home to-morrow week— Once started I shall come as quick as possible—
Kiss the dear boys for Father—
Affectionately
A. Lincoln
1 Lincoln had been invited to speak at a number of places in New England after his speech at Cooper Institute in New York on February 27, 1860. He was also visiting Robert Lincoln who was a student at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.
2 Robert Lincoln and George Latham, an Exeter student who also came from Springfield, Illinois.
3 The Pemberton Mill at Lawrence, Massachusetts, had collapsed and burned on January 10, 1860. There were many casualties.
4 William Wallace Lincoln and Thomas Lincoln, Lincoln's youngest sons.
5 Harrison G. Fitzhugh was a carpenter and Republican activist in Springfield.
6 The Cooper Institute speech of February 27, 1860.
Citation: Lincoln, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 3. General Correspondence. 1837 to 1897: Abraham Lincoln to Mary Todd Lincoln, Sunday,Report from Exeter, New Hampshire. March 4, 1860. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/mal4340100/>.