GDG- we lost our little boy

[Dennis Lawrence]

To John D. Johnston [1]
Dear Brother
Springfield, Feb. 23 1850

Your letter about a mail contract was received yesterday. I have made out a 
bid for you at $120, guaranteed it myself, got our PM here to certify it, 
and sent it on. Your former letter, concerning some man's claim for a 
pension was also received. I had the claim examined by those who are 
practised in such matters, & they decide he can can [sic] not get a pension.

As you make no mention of it, I suppose you had not learned that we lost 
our little boy. He was sick fiftytwo days & died the morning of the first 
day of this month. It was not our first, but our second child. [2] We miss 
him very much. Your Brother in haste

A. LINCOLN
Annotation

[1]   ALS-P, ISLA.

[2]   Edward Baker Lincoln.


A week after Eddie's death, Mary (possibly assisted by Abraham; just who 
authored the poem is unknown) wrote a poem entitled "Little Eddie" which 
was printed "by request" in the Illinois State Journal. Composed of four 
stanzas, the words are as follows:

Those midnight stars are sadly dimmed,
That late so brilliantly shone,
And the crimson tinge from cheek and lip,
With the heart's warm life has flown -
The angel of Death was hovering nigh,
And the lovely boy was called to die.

The silken waves of his glossy hair
Lie still over his marble brow,
And the pallid lip and pearly cheek
The presence of Death avow.
Pure little bud in kindness given,
In mercy taken to bloom in heaven.

Happier far is the angel child
With the harp and the crown of gold,
Who warbles now at the Savior's feet
The glories to us untold.
Eddie, meet blossom of heavenly love,
Dwells in the spirit-world above.

Angel Boy - fare thee well, farewell
Sweet Eddie, We bid thee adieu!
Affection's wail cannot reach thee now
Deep though it be, and true.
Bright is the home to him now given
For "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."
http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln67.html

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February 11861 : Texas secedes

Texas becomes the seventh state to secede from the Union when a state 
convention votes 166 to 8 in favor of the measure.

The Texans who voted to leave the Union did so over the objections of their 
governor, Sam Houston. The hero of the Texas War for Independence was in 
his third term as the state's chief executive; a staunch Unionist, his 
election seemed to indicate that Texas did not share the rising 
secessionist sentiments of the other southern states.

But events in the year following Houston's election swayed many Texans to 
the secessionist cause. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in 
October 1859 raised the specter of a massive slave insurrection, and the 
ascendant Republican Party made many Texans uneasy about continuing in the 
Union. After Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, pressure mounted 
on Houston to call a convention so that Texas could consider secession. He 
did so reluctantly in January, and he sat in silence on February 1 as the 
convention voted overwhelmingly in favor of secession. Houston grumbled 
that Texans were "stilling the voice of reason," and he predicted an 
"ignoble defeat" for the South.

Texas' move completed the first round of secession. Seven states--South 
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and 
Texas--left the Union before Lincoln took office. Four states--Virginia, 
North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas-- waited until the formal start of 
the war with the firing on Ft. Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina, before 
deciding to leave the Union. The remaining slave states--Delaware, 
Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri--never mustered the necessary majority for 
secession.