TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Book Review: Honest Abe's Descendants Didn't Take After Him

ADVERTISEMENT

By AL HUTCHISON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 2, 2008

"The Last Lincolns: The Rise & Fall of a Great American Family," by Charles Lachman (Union Square Press, $24.95)

Abraham Lincoln was one of our greatest presidents, but Honest Abe's descendants didn't live up to the standards of behavior and judgment we might normally associate with such a distinguished name.

Charles Lachman, executive producer of "Inside Edition" on CBS, tells a tragic story, a story of folly, arrogance, ignorance, deceit and even willful separation from the distinguished family's history, and yet it's a surprisingly intriguing story, too. Readers practically live alongside the president's widow, the controverisal Mary Todd Lincoln, whose bizarre behavior and assorted misfortunes dominate the first 300 pages.

Readers can decide for themselves if she was insane or merely peculiar. But when she finally dies, it's almost a relief. Now the reader can get on to all the other less famous but sometimes equally interesting descendants of the martyred chief executive, the largest of whom is his oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln. Three other sons had died young (and their deaths no doubt contributed to their mother's odd behavior), but Robert lived to a ripe old age and had a successful career, first as a lawyer in Chicago, later as secretary of war under President Garfield and, under President Harrison, America's "minister" (this was before the post was raised to the level of ambassador) to Great Britain. Finally, he was chief executive of the Pullman Corp., which built and leased railroad passenger cars.

Robert's life was hardly serene. He was almost totally estranged from his mother. He was very uncomfortable in the public eye, so he strongly discouraged those who tried to persuade him to run for public office, including the White House.

In Lachman's book, Robert does not come across as a wholly admirable character, although the reader can't help but sympathize with a man who suffered so much because he lost his father to an assassin's bullet, saw a beloved brother (Tad Lincoln) die young and had to cope for years with a mother who was a huge burden.

Then there was Peggy Beckwith, who ran the family estate in Vermont, learned to fly and ran the estate in autocratic fashion. The last male heir was her brother, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, who readily conceded he was "a spoiled brat." He lived off his inheritance at his estate in Virginia and was famous for hosting wild parties.

The other descendants were less interesting, but one character who insinuated himself into Robert Beckwith's life was an ex-convict named Jack Coffelt, who, the author suggests, may have been D.B. Cooper, who in 1971 hijacked a Boeing 727 in the Pacific Northwest. Cooper parachuted with $200,000 in ransom money and neither he nor the money has been found.

The FBI didn't buy Lachman's suggestion that Cooper might actually be Coffelt, but readers may be inclined to agree with the author. If Coffelt was Cooper, that's just one more curious aspect of the dismal demise of the Lincoln family. As if it needed any more curious aspects.

Al Hutchison of Citrus County is a freelance writer.

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT