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new documentary Man’s Lover: The Untold History of Abraham Lincoln Go behind the scenes of the 16th President—and into his bedroom.
Was Lincoln gay? In recent years, more and more people have speculated that he was man’s lover This perspective is illustrated through the writings (letters, biographies, etc.) of Lincoln and his contemporaries, as well as through the commentary of various historians and scholars.
The documentary, which premiered in select theaters on September 6, details Lincoln’s difficult childhood, which was marked by the death of his mother when he was 9 and his contentious relationship with his father.
man’s lover It focuses on his relationships with four men – William Green, Elmer Ellsworth, David Derrickson and Joshua Speed - while also examining the sexual and political issues of the time. social customs.
According to the documentary, these four men played key roles in Lincoln’s life and all were romantically involved with him at different times. Speed, in particular, was described as “the love of Lincoln’s life.”
“If there are no letters, if there are no records, if there is no documentary evidence, I cannot in good faith conclude that Lincoln was a lover of men,” said Occidental College professor Thomas Balcerski, an expert on the play one. “But we have receipts.”
Here are some of the most surprising revelations and accusations from the documentary.
As a young man, Lincoln was not particularly interested in the company of women
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The documentary cites letters from Lincoln’s contemporaries in which he wrote of his general dislike of “girls.” “There’s a lot of evidence that Lincoln really wasn’t interested in women,” says historian Jonathan Ned Katz. “The number of comments on this is staggering.”
Responding to what University of Massachusetts professor Michael Chesson calls “Lincoln’s avoidance or aversion to young women” and further evidence that he had little interest in the opposite sex as a young man, historian Dr. Charles Strozier said: “I think this indicates that Lincoln may have been a virgin at 33.” This was his age in 1842 when he married Mary Todd, who would one day become the First Lady of the United States. The couple later had four children.
However, Balceski respectfully disagreed with Strozier’s assessment that Lincoln might have been a 33-year-old virgin. “We have no sources that suggest Lincoln had any sexual passion for women before marrying Mary Todd,” he told People. “I see no so-called romance that scholars have passed down for generations, including the fabricated romance with Ann Rutledge.”
Therefore, he added, “You have two theories: He was a virgin, which I discount, or his sexual needs were met through men…I can conclude that Lincoln did this through Contact with other men to satisfy his physical needs, and I can see this as a pattern in his life.
Lincoln, in his early 20s, slept in the same bed as a male colleague
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In his early 20s, Lincoln moved to New Salem, Illinois, where he met William Green, a local grocery store worker. According to the documentary, Greene would become the first key figure in Lincoln’s life, and the two were once inseparable, even while sleeping.
In an 1865 letter shown in the documentary, Greene wrote: “Mr. Lincoln and I worked together about eighteen months and slept in the same bed. When one turned over, the other must do the same.”
Chesson elaborated on the sleeping arrangement: “They sleep together so they don’t fall out of bed – with spoons. I can’t imagine either of them could live with it if they didn’t like it.” ”
When Lincoln first met Joshua Speed, it was “love at first sight”
Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group, Getty Images
In the spring of 1837, after Lincoln passed the bar and officially became a lawyer, he moved to Springfield, Illinois. While he was looking for materials for a bed, one of the first people he met there was Joshua Speed, a co-owner of a local grocery store. According to the doctor, when Lincoln said he didn’t have $17 to buy a mattress, “Joshua Speed said, ‘Well, I’ve got a big double bed upstairs. Go upstairs and take a look.'”
The documentary notes that one of Lincoln’s colleagues, William Butler, offered him a single bed in the home, but Lincoln chose to sleep with Speed. In the four years they lived together and slept in that bed side by side, Chesson said, “it developed into something far beyond lust.”
Speed made Lincoln more presidential
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man’s lover Speed shows that it was Speed, not Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, who really groomed Lincoln for the presidency. “Who was the real woman behind the man Abraham Lincoln? Joshua Speed,” Balceski said. “Mary Todd gets the credit. Joshua Speed did the job.”
“Lincoln was a rough redneck, very approachable in his manner and speech. He wore high-water pants,” Chesson said. Harvard professor John Stauffer added, “Lincoln always had terrible hair.”
Speed brought about a radical change in him, helping him become more metrosexual (to use a modern term that didn’t exist in the 19th century), and presidential in appearance.
When Speed left and moved home, Lincoln fell into a suicidal depression
In early 1841, Lincoln learned that Speed was moving back to his native Kentucky to help his mother run the family farm after his father’s death. What followed was a dark period of “suicidal depression,” during which Lincoln’s friends are said to have “set up a kind of suicide watch,” hiding all sharp objects and anything else Lincoln might have used to inflict self-harm.
After Speed left, Lincoln wrote a letter to his law partner John Stewart, in which he declared: “I am now the most miserable man in the world. If my feelings were distributed to the entire human family , there would be no such person.
Without Speed, Lincoln and Mary Todd would never have married
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Before returning to Kentucky, Speed introduced Lincoln to Mary Todd, who came from a wealthy Southern slave family.
According to the documentary, Lincoln began a romance with Todd, much to Speed’s chagrin. They were engaged, but Lincoln suddenly broke off the engagement. “Lincoln realized that his courtship of Mary Todd had triggered an alienation from his dearest companion, his bedmate and his lover,” Balceski said in the documentary. “So Lincoln chose to break off the engagement.”
Lincoln witnessed the horrors of slavery up close for the first time when he visited Speed in Kentucky, where Speed was engaged. After the wedding, he wrote to Lincoln to share the news, according to the doctor. “In that moment, Joshua Speed assured Lincoln that sex with women was under control for the sake of his own health,” Balceski said.
What follows is a series of passionate letters from Lincoln to Speed, in which the future President of the United States signs “Forever Yours.” In the spring of 1842, Lincoln resumed his courtship of Mary Todd and married her in November of the same year. “He didn’t want to get married, but Lincoln got married,” Stauffer said. “It was a big help to Lincoln, who knew he would be a better politician by having Mary Todd as his wife. She was very important to Lincoln’s rise in politics.”
While his wife was away, Lincoln would sleep with a certain “Bucktail Soldier”
In detailing Lincoln’s “emotional intimacy as well as physical intimacy” with his bodyguard, Capt. David Derrickson, the documentary cites Virginia Woodbury Fox, the wife of Lincoln’s assistant secretary of the Navy, on November 18, 1862. A paragraph from the monthly diary. She wrote: “Here is a buck-tailed soldier loyal to the president, driving with him and sleeping with him when Mrs. L is not home. What the hell!”
“What?” historian Dr. Jean Baker asked. “What are we supposed to think about this? For me, I’m glad that Lincoln felt like his libido was strong enough to have sex with the Captain, or just let the Captain hold his hand.”
Lincoln’s law partner and biographer loved his ‘perfect’ thighs
Photography Search/Getty
William Herndon, a contemporary of Lincoln who was Lincoln’s law partner from the mid-1840s and Lincoln’s eventual biographer, was a great admirer of Lincoln. man’s lover Here’s an excerpt in which he praises Lincoln’s physique: “When I first saw Lincoln, he was then in great shape and his thighs were as perfect as a human being.”
Herndon, considered one of the preeminent Lincoln biographers, was said to have had a tense relationship with Mary Todd. He died in 1891 at the age of 72 and was buried in Springfield’s Oak Ridge Cemetery, where Lincoln’s grave is located.
