Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

take heart (for the course of true love has never run smoothly * ) and expect that all shall be swiftly and happily resolved.
Abe did what he did best. He wrote John MacNamar a letter.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
IV
On the morning of August 23rd, Abe jotted ten innocuous words in his journal:
Note from Ann—not feeling well today. Off to visit.
It had been a perfect summer. Abe and Ann met nearly every day, taking long, pointless walks along the river, stealing kisses when they were sure no one was looking. It didn’t matter—all of New Salem and Clary’s Grove knew the two were in love, thanks in part to Jack Armstrong’s constant griping on the subject.
Her mother met me at the door and told me that she wished no visitors, but on hearing our voices, Ann called me in. I found her lying in bed, an open copy of Don Juan on her chest. With Mrs. Rutledge’s permission, we sat alone. I took her hand in mine and remarked on its warmth. Ann smiled at my concern. “It is merely a fever,” she said. “It shall pass.” As we talked, I could not help the feeling that something else troubled her. Something more than a summer cold. I pressed her, and her tears confirmed my suspicions. I could scarcely believe what she next imparted.
Ann’s long-lost fiancé, John MacNamar, had returned.
“He came to see me night before last,” she said. “He was furious, Abe. He looked sickly; acted strangely. He told me of your letter, and demanded my answer in person. ‘Tell me now that you love this other man!’ he said. ‘Tell me that, and I shall leave this place tonight and never return!’ ”
Ann gave her answer: she loved no man but Abraham Lincoln. True to his word, MacNamar left that night. Ann would never see him again. Abe’s fury is evident in an entry made that evening.
I wrote this MacNamar of our love—asking him to do the gentlemanly thing and release her. Rather than reply, he crossed a thousand miles of wilderness to waylay a woman he had ignored these three long years! To claim her as his own after casting her aside! Scoundrel! Had I been there when the coward appeared, I would have broken his skull and cut strops * from his back! Yet I rejoice, for he is gone—and with him the only impediment to our happiness. I shall delay no longer! When Ann is recovered, I shall ask her father’s permission.
But Ann would not recover.
By the time Abe returned on the morning of the 24th, she was too sick to speak more than a few labored words at a time. Her fever grew worse; her breathing shallow. By midday, she couldn’t speak at all, and slipped in and out of consciousness. When she did wake, it was to nightmarish delusions—her body convulsing to the point that her bed rattled against the floor. The Rutledges joined Abe at her side, keeping her compresses cool, the candles burning. The doctor had been there with his sleeves rolled up since midday. At first, he’d been “certain” it was typhoid. Now he wasn’t so sure. Delusions, convulsions, coma—and all in such a short time? He’d never seen anything like it.
But Abe had.
A dread crept over me throughout the course of the day and evening. An old, familiar dread. I was a boy of nine again, watching my mother sweat and suffer through the same nightmares. Whispering the same futile prayers; feeling the same unbearable guilt. It was I who had brought this upon her. I who had written the letter demanding she be released. And who had I demanded this of? A man who left mysteriously and returned sickly and ashen… a man who had waited till nightfall to confront his betrothed… a man who would sooner see her suffer and die than see her in the arms of another.
A vampire.
This time there was no last embrace. No momentary reprieve. This time she merely slipped away. God’s 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