Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

worse, and the best doctors in Washington were summoned to treat him.
They did all they could to treat his symptoms, but could find no cure for them. For three days and nights, Mary and I kept a vigil at his bedside, praying for his recovery, fervent in our belief that youth and Providence would see him through. I read him passages from his favorite books as he slept; ran my fingers though his soft brown hair and wiped the sweat from his brow. On the fourth day, our prayers seemed answered. Willie began to mend on his own, and my faint hopes returned. It could not be a fool’s dose, I told myself—for he would surely be dead by now.
But after a few hours’ reprieve, Willie’s health began to worsen again. He couldn’t eat or drink without being sick to his stomach. His body withered and weakened, and his fever refused to subside. On the ninth day, he could not be roused from sleep. And on the tenth, despite the best efforts of the best physicians available, it became clear that Willie was going to die.
Mary could not bring herself to hold another of our little boys as he left this earth. It fell to me to cradle our sleeping son against my chest and gently rock him through the night… through the next morning… and through the day that followed. I refused to let him go; refused to let go of that faintest hope that God would not be so cruel.
On Thursday, February 20th, 1862, at five p.m., Willie Lincoln died in his father’s arms.
FIG. 19-1. - MARY TODD LINCOLN POSES WITH TWO OF THE THREE SONS OF SHE WOULD LIVE TO BURY - WILLIE (LEFT) AND TAD (RIGHT).
Elizabeth Keckley was a freed slave who worked mainly as Mary Lincoln’s dressmaker. Years later, she recalled the sight of Lincoln weeping openly, his tall frame convulsing with emotion. “Genius and greatness,” she said, “weeping over love’s idol lost.” John Nicolay remembered the tough, towering president walking to his office door “as if in some trance.” “Well, Nicolay,” he said, staring off into space, “my boy is gone… he is actually gone.” Abe barely made it into his office before bursting into tears.
For the next four days, Abe conducted little government business. He did, however, fill nearly two dozen pages in his journal. Some of them with lamentations…
[Willie] will never know the tender touch of a woman, or experience those particular joys of a first love. He will never know the complete peace of holding his own tiny son in his arms. He will never read the great works of literature, or see the great cities of the world. He will never see another sunrise, or feel another drop of rain against his sweet face…
Others with thoughts of suicide…
I have come to believe that the only peace in this life is the end of it. Let me wake at last from this nightmare… this brief, meaningless nightmare of loss and struggle. Of endless sacrifice. All that I love waits on the other side of death. Let me find the courage to open my eyes at last.
And sometimes, with blind rage…
I wish to see the face of the cowardly God who delights in these miseries! Who delights in striking down children! In stealing innocent sons from their mothers and fathers! Oh, let me see his face and rip out his black heart! Let me strike him down as I have so many of his demons!
Arrangements were made to transport Willie’s body to Springfield, where it would be buried near the Lincolns’ permanent home. But Abe couldn’t bear the idea of having his little boy so far away, and at the last minute it was decided that Willie would lie in a Washington crypt until the end of his father’s presidency. Two days after the funeral (which Mary, overcome with grief, could not attend), Abe returned to the crypt and ordered his son’s casket opened.
I sat beside him, as I had on so many nights during his brief life; half expecting him to wake and embrace me—for such was the skill of his embalmer, that he seemed merely asleep. I stayed with him an hour or more, speaking to him tenderly. Laughing as I told him stories of his earliest mischief… his first steps… his peculiar laugh. Telling him how very loved he would always be. When our time was through, and the lid again affixed to his coffin, I began to weep. I could not bear the thought of his being alone in that cold, dark box. Alone where I could not comfort him.
With Mary confined to bed, Abe sought refuge behind his closed office door in the week after Willie’s death. Fearing for his health, Nicolay and Hay