On April 4, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln took his son Tad into the city of Richmond, Virginia. The city had fallen the day before into Union hands two days before. It was Tad’s 12th birthday.
Tad was born Thomas Lincoln III, in 1853. He was named after Lincoln’s somewhat estranged father, but everyone called him Tad because as an infant he had a large head and was as wiggly as a tadpole. Tad was born with a partial cleft palate that was not externally noticeable but gave him a lisp and made his speech difficult to understand. He and Willie ran ramshackle over the White House until Willie’s premature demise, after which Lincoln doted on Tad to the extreme.
In late March 1865, General Grant had invited Lincoln to City Point (near Petersburg), to which Lincoln immediately accepted. He was not alone; Mary insisted on joining him, so a party including Tad Lincoln, a maid, a bodyguard, and a military aide boarded the River Queen on March 23 for the trip. Son Robert, now an adjunct to Grant’s army, met them on their arrival the next evening. Lincoln took time to visit the troops and confer with Generals Grant and Sherman and Admiral David Porter. Overall it was a restful but productive visit. That changed when Mary Lincoln flew into a jealous rage at seeing General Ord’s wife riding “too close” to her husband, after which Lincoln sent Mary back to Washington. Soon after her departure, however, the Union captured Richmond, which the Confederate leadership had abandoned. She insisted on returning, this time bringing a large entourage that included her ex-slave dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley, who had been born in nearby Petersburg.
During Mary’s absence, Lincoln took Tad into Richmond. After landing at the docks, Lincoln and Tad walked the mile or so to the Confederate White House that had served until a few days earlier as Jefferson Davis’s office. Surrounding him along the way were hundreds of ex-slaves who wanted to see the “Great Emancipator,” while anxious white southerners stared suspiciously from their windows.
Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet had fled the city on April 2nd, boarding the last open railroad line further south. Retreating soldiers set fire to bridges, the Richmond armory, and various supply warehouses. Untended, the fires grew out of control and large parts of Richmond were destroyed. The city was surrendered to Union officers the next day. Since Lincoln was relatively nearby, he chose to visit the former Confederate capital, bringing along Tad. For Tad, this was a best birthday celebration ever, as he enjoyed wearing military uniforms and “playing soldier,” much to the chagrin of the White House staff and cabinet.
A statue of Lincoln and Tad was erected in modern times at the site of Tredegar Iron Works.
Before heading back to Washington, Lincoln visited the Depot Field Hospital at City Point. Over the course of a full day he shook the hands of more than 6,000 patients, including a few sick and wounded Confederate soldiers. Feeling the pressure of business, Lincoln left City Point to return to Washington on the evening of April 8. The next day, Lee surrendered his army to General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the war.
A week later Lincoln would die from an assassin’s bullet.
Tad survived the trauma of his father’s assassination and his mother’s near-insanity only to die at 18 years old when a common cold developed into severe damage to his lungs. Of Abraham and Mary’s four children, only the oldest, Robert, would live to adulthood.
[Adapted in part from my book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America]
[Photo Credit of Lincoln and Tad statue: Riverfront.com]
David J. Kent is an avid science traveler and the author of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, in Barnes and Noble stores now. His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.
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