Mary behaved similarly toward her sons, though she sometimes repented afterward. Neighbors recalled that she was “turbulent—loud—always yelling at children” and “was prone to excitability and rather impulsive, saying many things that were sharp and caustic, and which she afterward usually regretted.” She lashed out corporally as well as verbally. One day she brought home a new clock, which she told her sons not to touch. According to Mrs. Benjamin S. Edwards, a “short time afterward she went into the room and found that two of them had taken the clock to pieces. She whipped them.” Describing the conduct of his wayward young son Robert, Lincoln in 1846 told Joshua Speed that “by the time I reached the house, his mother had found him, and had him whip[p]ed.” She did not always rely on others to punish the lad; in fact, a servant in the house recalled that Mary Lincoln “would whip Bob a good deal.” She once “held a private-strapping party” with her youngest son, Tad, after he had fallen into a mud puddle. Elizabeth Edwards said her sister Mary had a “high temper and after her outburst[s] normally was penitent. If she punished [the] children [she] would seek to make amends by presents and affectionate treatment.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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