Rare documents offer insight into the family lives of two American presidents and reveal little-known details.
The U.S. Library of Congress has acquired letters written by Martha Washington, wife of the first U.S. president, George Washington, and Mary Todd Lincoln, spouse of Abraham Lincoln.
The letter from Martha Washington is dated September 29, 1760. In it, she describes the illness and subsequent recovery of her four-year-old daughter, Patsy.
The second letter, written by Mary Todd Lincoln on February 15, 1865—two months before her husband’s assassination—is addressed to Caroline Wright, the wife of a former governor of Indiana.
In the letter, Lincoln mentions the “Hairy Eagle,” a sculpture created using hair from Abraham Lincoln, other prominent politicians of the era, and their wives. It was commissioned in 1864 by the U.S. Sanitary Commission to raise funds for the care of soldiers wounded during the Civil War.
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