finest work. Defiled.
Finished.
Ann Rutledge died on August 25th, 1835. She was twenty-two years old.
Abe didn’t take it well.
FIG. 1-3. - ABE WEEPS AS ANN RUTLEDGE WASTES AWAY IN AN ETCHING FROM TOM FREEMAN’S BOOK ‘LINCOLN’S FIRST LOVE’ (1890).
25th August, 1835
Mr. Henry Sturges
200 Lucas Place, St. Louis
By Express
Dear Henry,
I thank you for your kindness these several years, and beg a parting favor of you. Below is the name of one who deserves it sooner. The only blessing in this life is the end of it.
John MacNamar
New York
—A
For the next two days, Jack Armstrong and the Clary’s Grove Boys kept watch over him in round-the-clock shifts. They stripped him of his pocketknife and carpentry tools; took away his flintlock rifle. They even confiscated his belt for fear that he would hang himself with it. Jack saw to it that Abe’s hidden stash of hunting weapons was moved well beyond his reach.
For all their care, there was one weapon they missed. None of them thought to look beneath my pillow, where I kept a [pistol] hidden. Jack having briefly left my side that second night, I retrieved it and pressed the barrel to the side of my head—resolved to be done with it. I imagined the ball penetrating my skull. I wondered if I would hear the shot, or feel the pain of it tearing through me. I wondered if I would see my brains strike the opposite wall before I died, or if I would see nothing but darkness—a bedside candle blown out. I held it there, but I did not fire….
I could not….
I could not fail her. I threw the weapon on the floor and wept, damning myself for cowardice. Damning everything. Damning God.
Rather than kill himself that night, Abe did what he always did in times of immense grief or unbridled joy—he put pen to paper.
The Suicide’s Soliloquy *
Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I’ll rush a dagger through
Though I in hell should rue it!
Sweet steel! Come forth from out your sheath,
And glist’ning, speak your powers;
Rip up the organs of my breath,
And draw my blood in showers!
I strike! It quivers in that heart
Which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the bloody dart,
My last—my only friend!
Henry Sturges galloped into New Salem the next morning.
He sent the others away at once, claiming to be a “close cousin.” The two of us alone, I imparted the whole of Ann’s murder, making no attempt to hide my grief. Henry took me in his arms as I wept. I remember this distinctly, for I was doubly surprised—both that a vampire could show such warmth, and by the sensation of his cold skin.
“It is the fortunate man who does not lose one so loved in his lifetime,” said Henry, “and we are not fortunate men.”
“You have lost one as beautiful as she? As kind?”
“My dear Abraham… one could fill a cemetery with the women I have wept over.”
“I do not wish to live without her, Henry.”
“I know.”
“She is too beautiful too… too good….”
“I know…”
Abe could not help his tears.
“The more precious His gift,” said Henry, “the more anxious God for its return.”
“I must not be without her….”
Henry sat on the bed beside Abe, holding him in his arms… rocking him like a child… debating with himself.
“There is another way,” he said at last.
Abe sat up straight on the bed; ran a sleeve over his tears.
“The older of us, we… we can wake the deceased, provided the body is whole enough, and less than a few weeks dead.”
It took Abe a moment to comprehend what Henry had said.
“Swear to me you speak the truth….”
“She would live, Abraham… but I warn you—she would be cursed to live forever.”
Here was the answer to my grief! A way to see the smile of my beloved again—to feel her delicate fingers in mine! We would sit in the shade of our favorite tree, reading Shakespeare and Byron for all time, her finger carelessly twirling my hair as I lay in her lap. We would walk the years away on the banks of the Sangamon! The thought of it brought such relief. Such bliss…
But it was fleeting. For when I pictured her pale skin, her black eyes and hollow fangs, I felt nothing of the love we had shared. We would be united, yes—but it would be a cold finger gently twirling my hair. Not in the shade of our favorite tree, but in the darkness of our curtained house. We would walk the years away on the banks of the Sangamon—but it would be only I who grew old.
I was tempted to the point of madness, but I could not. I could not indulge the very darkness that had taken her from me. The very evil that had taken my mother.
Ann Rutledge was laid to rest at the Old Concord Burial Ground on Sunday, August 30th. Abe stood silently as her coffin was lowered into the earth. A coffin he’d insisted on making himself. He’d inscribed a single line on its lid:
