Description

In 1862, in the midst of a bloody civil war, President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary, suffered unspeakable heartache when their young son died. To combat her grief, First Lady Mary Lincoln became a devotee of Spiritualism making the White House a center for Washington, D.C.'s Spiritualist community. For decades historians have maintained that President Lincoln only attended a few seances in an attempt to protect his mentally unstable wife. This narrative is incorrect, using a host of previously neglected primary sources, historian Michelle L. Hamilton documents the numerous seances President Lincoln attended and the interest he had for the religion. Michelle L. Hamilton's "e;I Would Still Be Drowned in Tears"e; sheds new light onto the Lincolns' interest in Spiritualism and proves that Mary Lincoln might not have been the only Spiritualist in the White House. "e;Perhaps now we can frankly admit, without ridicule or condemnation, the role Spiritualism played in the lives of Abraham and Mary,"e;--William Weeks, Ph.D., San Diego State University

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