Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen (17 page)

Sometime in the late fall of 1840, Mary and Abraham had made their decision, too. They became engaged. But the engagement was short lived. Something happened on New Year's Day 1841 to change the course of their romance. In Springfield the New Year's Day custom was to exchange house visits of celebration. As their friends and neighbors gathered in the Edwards parlor, it would have been natural to announce wedding plans, or at least to toast the happy couple. Instead Abraham Lincoln was to call it “that fatal first of Jan'y.”

The engagement was broken off, perhaps because of an insecurity on Lincoln's part that he could give Mary the life she deserved, perhaps because of Mary's possible flirtations with other suitors. Perhaps there was anger between them, or family pressure from Elizabeth, and especially
Ninian Edwards, who was Mary's legal guardian. Mrs. Edwards suggested family concerns as the cause of the rupture in her terse interviews with William Herndon. “Mr. Edwards & myself after the first crush of things told Mary & Lincoln that they had better not ever marry—that their natures, mind—education—raising etc. were so different they could not live happy as husband and wife.”

Lincoln became immediately despondent, so much so that his friends feared for his sanity. He soon apologized for his behavior, saying, “I have within the last few days, been making a most discreditable exhibition of myself.” Lincoln returned to his responsibilities in the legislature after a week, although he continued in a melancholy state of mind.

We know less of Mary's true feelings. She seemed to have carried on, holding her head high through the winter social season. However, from her words in the letter she wrote to
Mercy Levering in June, Mary suffered from the dissolution of the engagement, too. She wrote that she “was left in the solitude of my own thoughts, and some lingering regrets over the past, which time alone can overshadow with its healing balm.”

Even though Mary and Abraham didn't see each other during all of
1841 and into the following year, they were aware of events in each other's lives. In March 1842, Lincoln was still deeply affected by the estrangement, but he expressed relief that Mary seemed, at long last, to be of glad heart. “I cannot but reproach myself for even wishing to be happy while she is otherwise. She accompanied a large party on the Rail Road cars to Jacksonville last Monday; and on her return, spoke, so I heard of it, of having enjoyed the trip exceedingly.”

Springfield was a small town and the social circles of Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln were even smaller. By the spring of 1842 mutual friends of the two decided it was time to bring them together again.
Mrs. Simeon Francis, wife of the
Sangamo Journal
editor, cleverly invited both Abraham and Mary to her home without telling them, or anyone else, that they would meet. The couple must have picked up where they had left off eighteen months or so earlier.

More than twenty years later, six months into her widowhood, Mary Lincoln wrote about an incident during that secret engagement period.
Josiah Gilbert Holland had sent her a copy of his book
The Life of Abraham Lincoln
. In it he had revealed very publicly the event the Lincolns had pledged never to discuss in public—the duel Abraham Lincoln nearly fought, in part, to protect Mary Todd. The event is instructive. It highlights Mary's political interest and involvement and Lincoln's devotion. It was a bit of youthful and political fun gone awry, and Lincoln's actions demonstrate both the consequences of his youthful, sometimes careless, wit and the price he was willing to pay to correct it.

In February 1842, the state bank of Illinois collapsed, making the paper currency it had issued worthless. When state taxes came due,
James Shields, the Democratic state auditor, refused to accept that currency, saying the taxes must be paid in silver. Lincoln, a member of the opposing Whig Party, saw this declaration as an opportunity to make political points and to poke some fun at Shields, an intemperate dandy who also fancied himself as a ladies man.

Springfield newspapers commonly published letters written in the character of rural, unsophisticated voters to make political points. Lincoln, adopting the voice of
“
Rebecca,” a semiliterate widow who lived in “Lost Township,” sent in a letter to the
Sangamo Journal
. Writing of the troubles her farmer neighbor would have paying his taxes, Rebecca
then attacked the character of Shields, ridiculing him as “a conceity dunce” for whom “truth is out of the question.” In the letter Lincoln also “quoted” Shields's conversation with a group of young women. “Dear girls. It is distressing, but I cannot marry you all. Too well I know how much you suffer; but do, do remember, it is not my fault that I am so handsome and so interesting.”

Mary Todd and her friend Julia Jayne, both ardent Whigs, submitted a “Rebecca” letter of their own continuing the ridicule as the backwoods woman. In the letter Rebecca even offered to marry Shields. He became the laughingstock of Springfield. His friends took to teasing him about it. Shields quickly demanded to know the identity of the letters' author.

Protecting Mary and her friend, Lincoln claimed authorship of the letters and hoped that would resolve the issue. In response, Shields escalated the incident. He demanded more than an apology; he challenged Lincoln to a
duel. Such satisfaction was illegal in Illinois and so the men and their seconds agreed to meet on “Blood Island,” a neutral territory on the Mississippi River near Alton, Illinois. As the one who was challenged, Lincoln had the right to choose the weapon. He selected broadswords, later saying, “I did not want to kill Shields, and felt certain that I could disarm him …; and furthermore, I didn't want the d—d fellow to kill me, which I rather think he would have done if we had selected pistols.”

Once on the island, the men came to their senses and called off the duel. As Mary wrote to Josiah
Holland in 1865, “the foolish and uncalled for
rencontre
, with … Shields … when Mr. Lincoln thought he had some right to assume to be my champion.… Mr L & myself mutually agreed never to refer to it & except in an occasional light manner, between us, it never was mentioned.”

Mary and Abraham continued to meet in secret at the
Francis home and made their plans to marry. Their decision to marry was so secret and sudden that it bordered on an in-town elopement. They would simply go to the minister's home and exchange their vows. Even Mr. and Mrs.
Francis were kept in the dark until the morning of the
wedding. When
Ninian and Elizabeth Edwards learned on the day of the wedding that the couple planned to marry at the home of the minister, they hurriedly
insisted that the marriage take place up on the hill. They also insisted that the wedding take place a day later and then scrambled to prepare for the event.

Three years after they met, Mary and Abraham did have a wedding cake, but it was not a fancy two-day-cooking version. Mary's other sister Frances Todd
Wallace described the wedding-day flurry. “It was a hurly-burly day. How we hustled! I had a whole boiled ham which I took over for the wedding supper, and made the bride's and groom's cake. It was a very pretty and gay wedding. After the ceremony, congratulations, and the wedding supper, we danced until midnight.” None of the thirty or so guests described what kind of cake was served. Some did recall that when it was brought out at the end of the ceremony, it was too warm for icing.

A week after the wedding, Lincoln wrote to a friend describing the event with an apt terseness of language that was the hallmark of his oratory. “Nothing new here except my marrying, which, to me, is a matter of profound wonder.”

And so the Lincolns' marriage began.

FRENCH ALMOND CAKE

 

There are several Lincoln-era versions of this white almond cake. This adaptation is from an 1828 recipe, which advises the cook to allot two days to make the cake as the
almonds need to be blanched, peeled, and pounded into a paste the day before baking. With modern kitchen equipment and ingredients, this cake is ready in an hour or so. The original recipe called for both sweet and bitter almonds. The former are the almonds we buy today. Poisonous bitter almonds are no longer sold. However, pure almond extract is made from those nuts, treated to be safe
.

4 large eggs, separated

½ cup granulated sugar, pulverized

¾ teaspoon pure almond extract

¼ teaspoon pure lemon extract

3 ounces blanched slivered almonds, finely crushed or chopped into 1/16-inch pieces

¼ cup unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted 3 times

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a deep, large (3-quart) bowl beat egg whites until they stand in stiff peaks, then set aside. In a second large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat egg yolks until they are thick and have turned into a light yellow color. This could take as long as 5 minutes. With the mixer running, begin adding the sugar about a tablespoon at a time. Continue beating until the sugar is fully incorporated and the batter is thick. Stir in the almond and lemon extracts and then the almonds. Stir in the flour. With a flexible rubber spatula, fold about one-third of the beaten egg whites into the egg yolk batter to lighten it up. Then gently fold this lightened batter into the remaining egg whites.
Pour the batter into an
ungreased
tube pan. Bake until the cake is firm and lightly browned on top, about 25 to 30 minutes. Invert the pan over a bottle to cool completely before removing the cake from the pan.

TIPS FOR SUCCESS:
There are a few tricks to making this cake successfully. Nineteenth-century white
sugar came in a compressed cone. Cooks snipped off what they needed with sugar shears and then pulverized it into fine crystals. For the French almond cake recipe, I put the ½ cup of granulated sugar in a plastic bag and pulverized it by pressing my rolling pin over it a few times. The resulting finer sugar blends more easily with the egg yolks. Stiffly beaten egg whites provide structure for this cake. It is lightest when baked until light brown in an ungreased angel food cake pan, then turned upside down until it is completely cool. I have also baked it in an antique tube pan with fluted sides. To get it out successfully, I greased just the bottom of the pan (top of cake), turned it upside down to cool completely, and then gently pressed against the cake, pulling it away from the sides. You can grease and flour the sides of the baking pan and cool the cake right side up. But the resulting cake, while delicious, will not be nearly as light.

Makes one 10-inch-diameter cake to serve 8 to 10

ADAPTED FROM “FRENCH ALMOND CAKE,” MISS ELIZA LESLIE,
SEVENTY-FIVE RECEIPTS FOR PASTRY, CAKES, AND SWEETMEATS
,1828.

ALMOND POUND CAKE

 

The same rich lemon-almond flavors infuse this cake as in the French Almond Cake. Both cakes are delicious. The pound cake structure is sturdier and some people like the buttery richness more than the light angel-food style
.

½ cup (1 stick) salted butter, at room temperature

½ cup sugar

3 large eggs

¼ teaspoon ground mace

¼ teaspoon pure almond extract

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

4 ounces blanched slivered almonds, finely crushed or chopped into 1/16-inch pieces

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

½ cup white wine

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour an 8½ × 4½–inch loaf pan. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the mace, almond extract, lemon zest and juice, and almonds. Stir in ½ cup of the flour, followed by the wine and then the remaining ½ cup flour, mixing well after each addition. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until the cake is lightly browned and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 to 50 minutes.

Makes 1 pound cake, for 10 to 12 slices

ADAPTED FROM “ALMOND POUND CAKE,” MRS. LETTICE BRYAN,
THE KENTUCKY HOUSEWIFE
, 1839.