THE GRANDSON THE PRESIDENT NEVER MET

If you’ve ever held a penny, memorized the Gettysburg Address in school or visited that big marble memorial in Washington, you’ve heard of Abraham Lincoln.

But you’ve probably never heard of Abraham Lincoln II. Since we honor our presidents in February, this is the perfect time to introduce you to the grandson Abe Lincoln never met.

The story begins with Lincoln’s end. On the morning of April 14, 1865 young Robert Lincoln was at the White House, fresh from serving with Grant’s army. Robert E. Lee had surrendered five days earlier and, with the Civil War in its last days, the president was ready to unwind. He invited his eldest son to accompany him to a play that evening.

I’m tired, Robert said, you and mom go.

We all know what happened at Ford’s Theater that night. Robert spent the next 60 years in anguish, believing that if he’d been with his father Lincoln would have lived.

Robert married three years later, moved to Chicago and began his career. He had three children: two daughters and a boy in the middle named Abraham Lincoln II.

From earliest childhood he was called Jack. He would have to earn the right, he was told, to be called by his martyred grandfather’s name.

By all accounts, Jack Lincoln was a nice kid. Intelligent and a good student, liked by other children, adventurous and athletic.

He was playing with friends one day when a baseball shattered a window in a nearby house. All the boys ran off except Jack. The homeowner, a crotchety old man, stormed out and grabbed Jack’s arm. “What is your name?” he barked.

“Abraham Lincoln, sir,” Jack said with innocent sincerity.

The old man was dumbstruck, then quietly retreated into his house.

Jack spent hours on the floor at home with history books open and Civil War battle maps spread out, carefully studying each movement in the bloody conflict his namesake had commanded.

He kept interesting rocks in a box labeled, “Collection Illustrating Rounded Pebbles and Sharp Stones. A. Lincoln.”

The signature is telling. That was exactly how President Lincoln signed his name. Jack was fascinated by his grandfather’s handwriting and spent so much time copying it that his penmanship eventually became identical to the first Abraham’s.

Robert’s career took off. In 1881 he became Secretary of War (forerunner of today’s Secretary of Defense). In early 1889 he had big news: he’d been appointed ambassador to Britain. The Lincolns were moving to London.

Jack responded like any adolescent. He didn’t want to leave his school and friends and was dead set against it. But ever the dutiful son, he went.

That summer his parents accompanied the now teenage Jack to Paris, where he was enrolled in a French school.

In November, Jack cut his left arm (possibly the result of a teacher’s discipline). A boil appeared below the left armpit. Doctors lanced it. But an infection developed and entered his bloodstream. Jack grew seriously ill.

His mother wanted to move him to their London residence. Too risky, doctors warned. A wintry English Channel crossing could become life-threatening if Jack caught a cold or the flu.

Jack’s condition steadily worsened. As 1890 began his parents decided to chance it. They brought their boy home. He arrived safely on January 17. Robert assembled some of the finest British physicians (including several who served Queen Victoria) to attend to his son. For ten days he seemed to improve. Then he relapsed. In the days before antibiotics there was little the doctors could do.

Then pleurisy set in. (Ironically, it was the same disease that had killed Jack’s Uncle Tad two years before Jack’s birth. He was Abraham Lincoln’s youngest child and yet another relative Jack never got to meet.)

Jack bore his illness, in his father’s words, “with pluck and determination.” But they weren’t enough.

The end came on March 5 after 17 painful weeks. Robert was talking with an embassy staffer when his daughter burst in and shouted, “Go upstairs, quickly!” Robert returned ten minutes later and said simply, “It’s all over.”

Abraham Lincoln II was dead at age 16.

A nasty argument played out in the press with the British doctors blaming their French counterparts, and vice versa, for the boy’s death.

Jack was buried near his famous grandfather inside the family tomb in Springfield, Illinois. Nearly 40 years later, after his father died, he was moved to Arlington National Cemetery where he now rests beside his parents.

As for Robert, his remaining days were lived in endless torment. Jack had begged him not to move to London. Robert believed if he had had heeded that plea, Jack would have reached adulthood.

Robert Lincoln was haunted the rest of his life by memories of both the father and the son he could not save.

And the rest of us are left to wonder how American history might have been different if a second Abraham Lincoln had made it to manhood.

Did you find this enjoyable? Please continue to join me each week, and I invite you to read Tell it Like Tupper and share your review!

Curious about Tell It Like Tupper? Here’s a chance to see for yourself. Take a sneak peek at a couple chapters in this free downloadable excerpt.