She had met the cynical criticism at
first with dignity, reserve, and contempt. But as it increased in
violence and virulence she had more than once lost her temper. She had
never been blessed with the serenity of spirit that with Lincoln in his
trying hours touched the heights of genius.
She was just a human little woman who loved her husband devotedly and
hated every man and woman who hated him. And when her patience was
exhausted she said things as she thought them, with a contempt for
consequences as sublime as it was dangerous.
From the moment of the opening of the war she hated the South, not only
because the Southern people had flung the shadow of death over her
splendid social career and blighted the brightest dream of her life by
war, but she had a more intimate and personal reason for this hatred.
Her own flesh and blood had gone into the struggle against her and the
husband she loved. Both her brothers born in the South, were in the
Confederate army fighting to tear the house down over her head. One of
these brothers had been made the Commandant of Libby Prison in Richmond.
The woman in her could never forgive them.
And yet men in the North who sought the destruction of her husband saw
how they might use the fact of her Southern kin to their own gain, and
did it with the most cruel and bitter malignity.
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