#willie lincoln

[kuulpenguin]

Lincoln in the Bardo

[616mattfoggymoments]

Daredevil (1964) #59 | Roy Thomas & Gene Colan

[xycuro-illuminati]

Willie Lincoln is the type of guy to show up and be like "Good morning everyone!" and the audience cheers and claps and goes wild because he's the best but we can't have that because Daredevil writers doesn't want Matt to have blind friends because what the FUCK HEY WHERE IS HE?? WHERE IS WILLIE I MISS HIM SO MUCH HE'S THEIR FRIEND!! HE'S FRIENDS WITH MATT AND FOGGY AND NOW HE'S JUST GONE?? WHERE IS HE!!!!!!!

[wanderingmind867]

In reading the first 63 Daredevil comics, I think I can pinpoint the main cast. There was the main trio of Matt Murdock/Daredevil, Foggy Nelson and Karen Page. And equally important are Deborah Harris and Willie Lincoln, in my opinion. Oh, I know we don't see them as much. But Deborah was Foggy's girlfriend and Willie Lincoln was possibly better representation than Daredevil, imo. I mean, Willie had no powers. He was just blind. And yet he helped Daredevil quite a bit in his three or four appearances. Shame they stopped using him, he was a good character.

[alice-and-ethel]

Abraham Lincoln with his sons Robert, Willie, and Tad in Abe Lincoln in Illnois (1940)

[marvelousmrm]

Daredevil #59 (Thomas/Colan, Dec 1969). Nelson & Murdock keep Willie Lincoln safe from Crime-Wave.

[tiny-librarian]

Carte De Visite, Mary Lincoln, in dress, wearing bonnet, with Willie on her right and Tad on her left holding her hand, all standing.  

[lincolncollection]

Lincoln’s Home Front

Abraham Lincoln experienced the Civil War as president and commander-in-chief, with all the attendant responsibilities and pressures. But he also experienced the war as a private individual—especially as husband and father. Those experiences were Lincoln’s home front. And in many ways, Lincoln’s home front had much in common with the home fronts of other American families during the war, buffeted by family stresses, money issues, illness, and death.

The greatest joys of Lincoln’s home front were his young sons, Willie and Tad. Willie was 11 years old and Tad was just turning 8 when Lincoln took the oath of office. The boys found life in the White House exciting—they owned goats and ponies and other pets; they found friends to play with; they paid little or no attention to their tutor and spent little time on their lessons. They were allowed free run of the house and grounds, including Lincoln’s office.

Yet the boys were also a source of worry and pain for Lincoln. The first year of the war turned Washington into large metropolis of military camps and hospitals, freedmen’s encampments, and slapdash housing, and all that turned the Potomac River into an open sewer. In early February 1862, Willie and Tad became ill—probably with typhoid fever contracted from the water, which was pumped directly from the river to the White House. After days of sickness and worry, Tad recovered. Willie did not. Willie’s death was a crippling blow to Lincoln’s home front.

The Lincolns’ eldest son, Robert, was old enough to enlist and was anxious to join the army and fight. But he was away at school in 1861-64—first at Exeter Academy and then at Harvard College—and his parents insisted he stay there. It was a point of family friction, but Mary was especially adamant that Robert be kept away from the war. Though Lincoln faced increasing public criticism for keeping Robert in school, he could not sway Mary, and, especially after Willie’s death, he knew she was too fragile to bear another loss. So Robert remained an unhappy civilian—a point of conflict between father and son.

Then in January 1865, Lincoln was able to convince Mary to allow Robert to serve on Gen. U.S. Grant’s staff—a position that was safer than serving in the infantry, but not completely bulletproof. So Robert finally enlisted, with his costs and salary paid by his father. And like all parents, Lincoln and Mary worried.

Mary Lincoln was a constant source of wartime brush fires for her husband to stamp out. She was accused in the press and among Washington gossips for being a closet Confederate, even a spy. She was not. She did, however, have a talent for attracting and listening to unscrupulous admirers. Her interest in Spiritualism after Willie’s death made her a laughingstock in some circles and, more seriously, opened her up to manipulation by a variety of charlatans seeking political influence, or money, or both. She overspent her budget and cooked the books to hide it. She likely provided the text of Lincoln’s 1862 message to Congress to a “friend” who then provided it to the New York Herald, setting off a scandal and a Congressional investigation.

Mary’s faults—real and imagined—made the papers. Her virtues—visiting soldiers in Washington’s military hospitals, raising money and supplies for the freedmen’s settlements—did not. She was without a doubt the most persistent and delicate struggle of Lincoln’s home front.

Lincoln’s experience of the Civil War was unique—no one else shared his public role or his private struggles. Historians, admirers, and critics have long focused on Lincoln’s public role, but it is important to remember that Lincoln the president and commander in chief, like all Americans caught up in the Civil War, had a home front as well.