Others confirmed Speed’s suggestion that Mary Todd took the initiative in the courtship. In 1875, Orville H. Browning told an interviewer: “I always thought then and ever since that in her affair with Mr Lincoln, Mary Todd did most of the courting.” Browning added that “Miss Todd was thoroughly in earnest [in] her endeavors to get Mr. Lincoln” and stated flatly that there “is no doubt of her exceeding anxiety to marry him.” Browning reported that in “those times I was at Mr. Edwards’ a great deal, and Miss Todd used to sit down with me, and talk to me sometimes till midnight, about this affair of hers with Mr. Lincoln.” William Butler’s sister-in-law, Sarah Rickard, thought that Mary Todd “certainly made most of the plans and did the courting” and “would have him [Lincoln], whether or no.” Rickard alleged that “it was the talk of Springfield that Mary Todd would marry him in spite of himself.” Herndon believed that “Miss Todd wanted L. terribly and worked, played her cards, through Mrs. [Simeon] Francis’s hands.” In pursuing her quarry, “she read much & committed much to memory to make herself agreeable,” according to Mrs. Benjamin S. Edwards.
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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