The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln

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For four years in the 1830s, in Springfield, Illinois, a young state legislator shared a bed with his best friend, Joshua Speed. The legislator was Abraham Lincoln. When Speed moved home to Kentucky in 1841 and Lincoln's engagement to Mary Todd was broken off, Lincoln suffered an emotional crisis. An underground campaign has been accumulating about Abraham Lincoln for years, focusing on his intimate relationships. He was famously awkward around single women. Before Mary Todd, he was engaged to another woman, but his fiancée called off the marriage on the grounds that he was "lacking smaller attentions." His marriage to Mary was troubled. Meanwhile, throughout his adult life, he enjoyed close relationships with a number of men — disclosed here for the first time, including an affair with an army captain when Mrs. Lincoln was away. This extensive study by renowned psychologist, therapist, and sex researcher C.A. Tripp examines not only Lincoln's sexuality but aims to make sense of the whole man.