House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, A Family Divided by War
Mary Todd Lincoln one of fourteen siblings who were split between the Confederacy and the Union. Three of her brothers fought, and two died, for the South. Several Todds bedeviled Lincolns administration with their scandalous behavior

Mary Todd Lincoln
1818-1882

While the Civil War dragged on, Southerners scorned her as a traitor to her birth, and citizens loyal to the Union suspected her of treason.

American Experience - Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided
Abraham Lincoln's legacy as the Great Emancipator reshaped the nation while his tragic death left Mary reclusive and forgotten. DVD

Mary Todd Lincoln As a girlhood companion remembered her, Mary Todd was vivacious and impulsive, with an interesting personality--but "she now and then could not restrain a witty, sarcastic speech that cut deeper than she intended...." A young lawyer summed her up in 1840: "the very creature of excitement." All of these attributes marked her life, bringing her both happiness and tragedy.

Daughter of Eliza Parker and Robert Smith Todd, pioneer settlers of Kentucky, Mary lost her mother before the age of seven. Her father remarried; and Mary remembered her childhood as "desolate" although she belonged to the aristocracy of Lexington, with high-spirited Mary Todd Lincoln social life and a sound private education.

Just 5 feet 2 inches at maturity, Mary had clear blue eyes, long lashes, light-brown hair with glints of bronze, and a lovely complexion. She danced gracefully, she loved finery, and her crisp intelligence polished the wiles of a Southern coquette.

Nearly 21, she went to Springfield, Illinois, to live with her sister Mrs. Ninian Edwards. Here she met Abraham Lincoln--in his own words, "a poor nobody then." Three years later, after a stormy courtship and broken engagement, they were married. Though opposites in background and temperament, they were united by an enduring love--by Mary's confidence in her husband's ability and his gentle consideration of her excitable ways.

Their years in Springfield brought hard work, a family of boys, and reduced circumstances to the pleasure-loving girl who had never felt responsibility before. Lincoln's single term in Congress, for 1847-1849, gave Mary and the boys a winter in Washington, but scant opportunity for social life. Finally her unwavering faith in her husband won ample justification with his election as President in 1860.

Though her position fulfilled her high social ambitions, Mrs. Lincoln's years in the White House mingled misery with triumph. An orgy of spending stirred resentful comment. While the Civil War dragged on, Southerners scorned her as a traitor to her birth, and citizens loyal to the Union suspected her of treason. When she entertained, critics accused her of unpatriotic extravagance. When, utterly distraught, she curtailed her entertaining after her son Willie's death in 1862, they accused her of shirking her social duties.

Yet Lincoln, watching her put her guests at ease during a White House reception, could say happily: "My wife is as handsome as when she was a girl, and I...fell in love with her; and what is more, I have never fallen out."

Her husband's assassination in 1865 shattered Mary Todd Lincoln. The next 17 years held nothing but sorrow. With her son "Tad" she traveled abroad in search of health, tortured by distorted ideas of her financial situation. After Tad died in 1871, she slipped into a world of illusion where poverty and murder pursued her.

A misunderstood and tragic figure, she passed away in 1882 at her sister's home in Springfield--the same house from which she had walked as the bride of Abraham Lincoln, 40 years before.

**DVDs**
Gore Vidal's Lincoln This a very personal view of President Lincoln and his relationship with his wife Mary.	Unsolved History ~ Plots to Kill Lincoln Discovery Channel Before John Wilkes Booth fired that fatal shot in the balcony of Ford's Theater, President Lincoln was the target of at least five other assassination conspiracies.	Biography - Abraham Lincoln Preserving the Union Abe Lincoln's presidency in detail. The emotional tragedy and the humorus side of the man. His thoughts on the early commanders and dicussions with Historians. Pictures and details hard to find in other historical documentaries.	American Experience - Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided Abraham Lincoln's legacy as the Great Emancipator reshaped the nation while his tragic death left Mary reclusive and forgotten.
Women And The Civil War The many contributions of women in both the North and South are presented in this program describing their roles on and near the momentous battles of the American Civil War	Abraham Lincoln Journey though the life of America's heroic President. The story begins at Lincoln's birth. The history of what led this man to the White House, his freeing of the slaves, and the Civil War; This story delves into his personal life, including Lincoln's affair with Ann Ruthledge and courtship of Mary Todd. Lincoln struggles through his debates with Douglas and in the end is assassinated	Lincoln The History Channel Lincoln was able to employ his powerful wit and innate charm to transform his inner demons. A devastating and moving chronicle of a president's last moments, Lincoln captures the dark soul that fueled one of history's brightest lights

**Books**
House of Abraham: Lincoln and the Todds, A Family Divided by War Mary Todd Lincoln one of fourteen siblings who were split between the Confederacy and the Union. Three of her brothers fought, and two died, for the South. Several Todds bedeviled Lincolns administration with their scandalous behavior	Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House This is a memior written by a woman who started life as a slave, then managed to buy her freedom, and later set up a successful living as a seamstress, eventually going to work for Mary Todd Lincoln in the White House	Loving Mr. Lincoln: The Personal Diaries of Mary Todd Lincoln Chronicles life, love, and daily struggles with Abraham in their 26 years together. In frank, haunting journal entries, Mary describes the pain she felt when Abraham left her at the altar, when her sons died, and when Abraham's political career seemed to be at an end	First Ladies of the Civil War Mary Todd Lincoln and Varina Davis
Lincoln and Freedom: Slavery, Emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment The history of slavery in North America, the Dred Scott decision, the evolution of Lincoln's view of presidential powers, the influence of religion on Lincoln, and the effects of the Emancipation Proclamation	We Saw Lincoln Shot: One Hundred Eyewitness Accounts How witnesses felt after; how rumor of other tragedies spread in the hours after, why some Southerners hated Lincoln and cheered his death; and, ultimately, why those who loved him were so profoundly affected	Lincoln's Assassins: Their Trial and Execution For twelve days after the president was shot, the nation waited breathlessly as manhunters tracked down John Wilkes Booth	Right or Wrong, God Judge Me: THE WRITINGS OF JOHN WILKES BOOTH Collection of the writings of John Wilkes Booth constitutes a major new primary source that contributes to scholarship on Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War, and nineteenth-century theater history. The nearly seventy documents--more than half published here for the first time--include love letters written during the summer of 1864
Sanctified Trial: The Diary of Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain, a Confederate Woman in East Tennessee The Diary of Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain	The Bridge Burners: A True Adventure of East Tennessee's Underground Civil War The railroad that proved such a peacetime boon would become a point of conflict only three years later	A Very Violent Rebel: The Civil War Diary of Ellen Renshaw House The Siege of Knoxville (November 1863) is covered and Sutherland's footnotes make for good history	A Rebel Wife in Texas: The Diary and Letters of Elizabeth Scott Neblett, 1852-1864 Elizabeth Neblett's observations on slave and class relations, regional politics, lynching, farm management, medical practices, mental illness, and the Civil War in Texas.
Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America The evolution of black society from the first arrivals in the early seventeenth century through the Revolution	The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America Go behind the scenes of the crucial Missouri Compromise, the most important sectional crisis before the Civil War, the high-level deal-making, diplomacy, and deception that defused the crisis.	Reconstruction after the Civil War Chicago History of US Civilization Praised for cutting through the controversial scholarship and popular myths of the time to provide an accurate account of the role of former slaves during this period in American history	Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy Insights into the relatively neglected debates over fencing laws and hunting and fishing rights in the postemancipation South, and into the solidarity of the low-country black community
A Confederate Girl's Diary Sarah Morgan Dawson Sarah Morgan Dawson lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at the outbreak of the American Civil War. In March 1862, she began to record her thoughts about the war in a diary	Women in the Civil War	Confederate Scrapbook Copied From A Scrapbook Kept By A Young Girl During And Immediately After The War Lizzie Cary Danie l	Great Women of the Confederacy
The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865 Eliza Andrews' diary is more cogent than any novel about the Civil War. General Sherman laid a track, and ELiza had to follow his footsteps through Georgia. Her insights into war and the havoc it wrought in the South are accompanied by her own editorial comments forty-four years later	When Will This Cruel War Be Over? A Confederate girl in Virginia, in 1864, Emma Simpson writes about the hardships of growing up during a turbulent time	A Girl's Life in Virginia Before the War First published in 1895. An engrossing eyewitness account of antebellum plantation life as it really was	Record of the Actual Experiences of the Wife of a Confederate Officer The author tells of her many travels across the war-torn South, capture behind enemy lines, encounter with Belle Boyd, friendship with General J. E. B. Stuart, and the devastation suffered by the citizens of Richmond in the last days of the Confederacy.
Rose O'Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy Fearless spy for the Confederacy, glittering Washington hostess, legendary beauty and lover, Rose Greenhow risked everything for the cause she valued more than life itself	Spies In The Civil War	Confederate Spies at Large: The Lives of Lincoln Assassination Conspirator Tom Harbin And Charlie Russell The most wanted of all Confederate agents, was also one of the leaders in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln	The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows Reconstructs what really happened in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863.