To organize his government, mary launched her own campaigns hosting family and friends, greeting diplomats and statesmen, anticipating her new set of duties, and she sought to maneuver the treacherous shoals of secession. The coldness and snobbery of easterners was wearing her down. She confronted one of the most idiosyncratic of american institutions Washington Society. At the heart of the citys bow monday, the toughened core of social arbiters were known as cave dwellers. Their tenure and tenacity gave them influence over the parade of newcomers who straggled into the city at irregular but certainly every fouryear intervals. The inner city of d. C. Society was surrounded by the money bags whose rung on the ladder was bought, and then there were the high brows, whose station was secured by talent regardless of wealth although it was considered felicitous when the two went together. Three outer rings applied steady social pressure jockeying for improved position, the diplomats, the army and navy crowd, and the politicos, but clearly it is the cave dwellers, particularly women like mary clemor and Laura Holloway who influenced the pecking order among the capitals society. Fanny ems, mrs. Charles, maintained an eclectic sunday salon at her 14th and 8th street salon while her sister Marion Campbell was embedded when several knickerbocker circles. Mrs. Eames in d. C. And she would later befriend 345irmary lincoln. The physical attributes of the district did not recommend it. Noah brooks described the streets as canals of liquid mud. It would be difficult to could be receive of a meaner street in architectural adornments than pennsylvania avenue, and as we just heard maybe the architect architectureal recommendations of real estate on pennsylvania avenue remain there. There were of course areas of the city which boasted palatial homes, the finest aide of Stephen Douglass near i street and jersey avenue where his wife adelle a legendary beauty, nearly 25 years his junior held equally sumptuous was the mansion built by senator William Gwynn from california who spent 75,000 to furnish his home. Gwen harbor was arrested on charges of disloyalty when the war began was imprisoned until 1863. Then he went off to paris and became involved in a scheme for the colonization of southerners of the state of son nora in mexico. In consequence, he was sometimes called the duke of sonora. The retiring president James Buchanan supplemented his white House Entertainment budget with personal funds as he needed more than his salary to keep up with demands. The buchanan white house had undergone extensive renovations and run with great efficiencies. Ten servants took care of the household needs. The butler was belgium but all other servants were irish or british because buchanan believed that britishtrained servants were preferable. By the way, he was an ulsterman. You can go to belfast and find the only i believe James Buchanan myrrhal in the world. Harriet lane buchanans niece who assumed the role of white house hostess left the lincolns a very detailed list on how to manage the executive mansion. She met with mrs. Lincoln in advance and arranged a meal for the newcomers on inaugural day. But she was not impressed, and she wrote cattily that lincoln resembled the irish door keeper while mrs. Lincoln is awfully western and loud and unrefined. Araving into town with such rigid social snobbery mrs. Lincoln immediately placed a addressmaking order with mrs. Keckley. Elizabeth keckley was a prominent mixed race seamstress favored by the washington elite. It was perhaps no accident that one of her former clients was varina davis. Assuming the role herself soon of first lady of the confederacy. However, mary lincolns first battleground would be the inaugural ball. This invitational ball was held in a large tent dubbed the white muslin palace of aladdin where 5,000 would be on hand to rub shoulders and inspect the lincoln entourage. Mrs. Lincoln glided into view wearing silk bedecked with gold and diamonds and pearls while lincoln left at midnight his wife stayed on dancing into the night. She surprised the washington snobs. They commented on her exquisite toilette. The New York Herald weighed in again, thats the newspaper, not our harold, she is more selfpossessed than lincoln and is accommodated more readily than her taller half to the exalted station to which she has so strangely advanced from the simple social life of the little inland capital of illinois. She wore the pearls that her husband had bought her at tiffanys that night and shortly thereafter we find copies being made by washington jewelers for the hoi polloi. Like the proverbial cinderella after the ball she had wicked step sisters with whom she had to contend, sometimes literally with con fed rat kin. The republicans were flocking into town in droves but they were slow to roll out the welcome wagon. Elizabeth blair lee, daughter frances presson blair suggested the women kind are give mrs. Lincoln the Cold Shoulder and the republicans ought to rally. Developments in Southern States created department rifts. Washingtonians had weathered many crises, particularly during the 1850s, who could forget bully brooks and sumners empty seat in the senate well. However, by april 1861, the atmosphere was intense and in the extreme. One society lady said, i went to Early Service at st. Johns to avoid my many friends who do not think as i do about states rights so church going even became a divided enterprise. Lincolns election, like Andrew Jacksons decades before, represented a seismic social shifert in the district of columbia. Mainline washington elites treated the lincolns like pariahs and one observer complained both the president and his wife were mercilessly lampooned, yet mrs. Lincoln was the peer of any woman in washington in education and character. Mary might have likened herself to a bird in a gilded cage, denied the social butterfly role that she had long aspired to, but the cage was not exactly 2k3wi8ded. Visitors were quite shocked by the shabby run down condition of the president s residence. The fur nirning in the red room which the lincolns claims for private callers had pieces left over from the madison era. There were only ten matching place settings in the white house china collection. Springfield friends commented that the executive mansion really resembled a second rate hotel with its threadbare carpets and chopped up drapes. Mary was determined to set a very High Standard and prove her refinement to the washington social arbiters. Her increasing isolation might have hastened her plans. London journalist William Howard russell discovered that even after a month the washington ladies had not yet made up their minds that mrs. Lincoln is the fashion. They missed their southern friends and constantly draw comparisons between them and the vulgar yankee women who are now in power. Mary decided she would have to make a splash to prove herself and was looking forward to the summer when she might regroup and redecorate hoping once congress recessed, the crowd will be gradually leaving the city and we may hope for more leisure. But events intervened. And following the attack on ft. Sumter and lincolns call to arm, her new home became the nerve center of the divided nation. White house drawing rooms were open to soldiers who marched into the east room where quote under the gorgeous gas chandeliers, they disposed themselves in picturesque biv wak on the brilliant patterned velvet carpet. A remarkable vortex of events kept the Lincoln White house under the microscope and within crosshairs. Mary wanted to serve her husbands cause by allowing the white house to maintain business as usual. In the past, especially during the Buchanan Administration the white house offered weekly dinners with 40 or more guests which forced edd lincolns pred soror to dip into his own pocket. Once mrs. Lincoln saw what the cost would be to maintain the elegant style to which she aspired, she decided to revise protocol. She suggested they stop the customary state dinners. She suggested they substitute large receptions because it would be more in keeping with the institutions of our country. When she first broached the subject, her husband was skeptical, but her arguments and im sure her 3p persuasive nagging won out. One of lincolns secretaries, john nicolet, proclaimed le wren has determined to abrogate dinners and she got her way. While sher husband concentrated on holding the union together, mary lincoln demonstrated that the United States remained open for business despite the rebellion. She would continue her own at homes on saturday afternoons and the newspapers announced levees will be held in the mansion every tuesday evening during the remainedder of the session of congress. They were obligatory and staff found them wearying. Nicolet confided they are both novel and pleasant to the hundreds of mere passersby who linger a day or two to quote, do washington, but for us who have to surf the infliction once a week they get to be intolerable bores. A congressional wife complained to the president looking more and more gaunt and care worn. To relieve the teat yum, mrs. Lincoln introduced the program of bringing artists and performers into the executive mansion. Lincolns favorite singers actors, and others might be singled out for recognition when one of p. T. Barnums most famous acts, colonel tom thumb would be extended an invitation as mrs. Lincoln recognized the power of a white house request. First lady decided to throw a very large ball in february of 1862 and was in the thick of her plans by the end of january. Her lavish gestures and grand manners invited criticism. Mary decided to issue 700 invitations and planned to funnel all these guests into the east room, not only the labor required for such an event but the worries associated with such an enterprise became immediate and acute to the lincoln sergeants who by now had nicknamed her hell cat. While the president they dubbed the tycoon. Mary was firmly convinced that diversion was an absolute necessity. She ignored senator Benjamin Wade who wrote indignantly, are the president and mrs. Lincoln aware that there is a civil war . If they are not, mr. And mrs. Wade are and for that reason decline to participate in dancing and feasting. But feast they did. As heaping plates of partridge, quail, duck, turkey foie gras, beef, and the president s favorite oysters, greeted guests as well as an elegantly appointed Abraham Lincoln with his wife mary at his side. A cake in the shape of a fort as well as elegant spun sugar deserts amused the throng. The marine band played mary lincolns polka and the washington star pronounced it the most superb affair of its kind ever seen. Mary had taken nearly a year hoping to banish the memory of her predecessors reign in the white house. Hair yet lane had been both a popular socialite and an impeccable style setter. Mary clemor, one of the dragon ladies of d. C. , gave lane very high marks and remarked her superb physique gave the impression of intense harmonious vitality. Her eyes of deep violet shed a constant steady light as they could flash with rebuke kindle with humor, or soften with tenderness. Her classic head was crowned with masses of golden hair. Marys gold when she took over the executive mansion focused on e ray sure of memories of when this blond younger model made Washington Society dance to her tune. Clemor suggested that mary had an Impossible Task to fulfill and further she was doomed at the outset. In reviewing the character of president s wives, we shall see that there was never one who entered the white house with such a feeling of selfsatisfaction. To her it was the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition and mary lincoln made her jurn why i to washington a triumphant passage. With all of marys faults as Margaret Leech has argued, in her first years in the white house, mrs. Lincoln received more personal publicity in the Northern Press than the president. And most of it was unfavorable. Marey marys poor relations with the press form a mainstay of my by graphical treatment. She and her husband were unforgiving of what they felt was an abusive fourth estate. Lincoln had his battles with journalists and these contests considerably cooled White House Press relations. William Howard Russell of the times recalled running into the couple while on a carriage ride and the president was not so good humored nor mrs. Lincoln affable. My unpopularity is spreading because i will not bow my knee to the degraded creatures who have made the very name of a free press odious to honorable men. Mrs. Lincoln claimed to be immune to newspaper attacks but she was acutely aware of the power of political gossip and the washington pecking order. She longed to rule uncontested and win over the public. Her social ambitions were at best extravagant, at worst ludicrous. But she carried on her parlor campaign and fervently as a statesman wheeling in and out of her husbands office. She felt frustrated when harriet lanes vacuum was filled by kate chase, the devoted daughter of lincolns republican rival. The senator from ohio was appointed secretary of the treasury, yet his daughter continued to harbor president ial ambitions for her father. She set up a rival court just ten blocks from the white house in the chase home at 6th and e. Quite a good place this clara barton, mathew brady nexus. This contest began even before lincolns assumption of office and the two women sparred dramatically throughout wartime washington. More of kates story can be gleaned from john allers new book, american queen, the rise and fall of kate chase sprague which tells us as much about society in 19th Century America as it does about this womans fascinating life. Rumors in washington suggest that the Chase Lincoln feud had its roots in the earliest days of the lincoln administration. The lincolns made their way slowly to washington via train in the early weeks of 1861. The couple visited at the home of governor William Dennison of ohio on february 13th the day after lincolns 52nd birthday. The president elect enjoyed a speech at the capitol and then they spent the eke being entertained, including a military ball. Some have suggested the ohio stopover initiated this battle between the women as rumors circulated that mrs. Lincoln was angered by her husbands dancing with a beguiling 20yearold beauty that night, which, of course, was impossible because she wasnt in town. And so the counter story was that mary lincoln was angry that the chases were not in attendance, but both fanciful tales seem manufactured, lylely in retrospect and for effect. Chase certainly played on mary lincolns vindictiveness in her rendition of the rivalry in later years particularly when mrs. Lincolns unpopularity peaked in the postwar years. Kate chase and miry lincoln were introduced at the First White House levee in 1861. Kate was escorted by Charles Sumner who later became a favorite and a confidant of mrs. Lk. This young eligible daughter of a wealthy cabinet member enjoyed a wide circle of admirers. Anne richardson french, wife of sculptor Daniel Chester french, described kate as a professional beauty. She was tall and slim with an unusually long white neck and a slow dibeliberate way of turning it when she glanced about. French concluded both chases striking appearance and her distinctive manner demanded that when she appeared, people dropped back in order to watch her. When she returned to the white house for the lincolns first state dinner on march 28th battle lines were clearly being drawn as the story is repeated that mrs. Lincoln said to her as she left i shall be glad to see you anytime, miss chase and chase allegedly replied, mrs. Lincoln, i shall be glad to have you call on me anytime. This might be mistaken as a polite or genteel interaction but i think we know that both parties were giving thinly veiled signals of the rough seas ahead. Mrs. Lincoln knew that the gauntlet had been thrown down. Her white house receptions and levees were by tradition open to the public. Meanwhile kate chase hosted exclusive breakfasts four or five times a week to lure a coterie of power brokers to keep her fathers reputation in the forefront. Mr. Lincoln may have won in 1960 but kate was looking ahead to 64. Jay cook was a frequent vil for and many other wealthy financier financiers financiers. She held receptions every wednesday afternoon. Afternoon gathers would drift in evening meals and entertainments to lure and lull the Wheeler Dealers who might advance her fathers career. Kate chases Charm Offensive targeted several eligible bachelors as she flirted with the unattached ambassador from england apparently leading him on a very merry chase. And she was not shy about worming her way into lincolns inner circle attending the theater with john hey and extending him invitations to pry out of him Lincoln Office gossip and he could report back all the lavish parties going on at the chases. He stayed in the picture and was manipulated by kate after her marriage to the political wunder kind William Sprague who was by all accounts a bounder when he clamped his eyes on kate. But as one of the richest men in america, the youngest man elected at 26 to lead a state sprague cut a dashing figure and these were his credentials before his house was his horse was shot out from under him at bull run and he became a war hero. Sprague was a favorite of lincolns and lincoln surmised kate chase was a worthy challenger to his wifes title as most likely to commit mayhem to ruthlessly advance her true loves career. Trying to keep the peace in the parlor politics of washington the president was extraordinarily kind even solicitous of kate. This was to acknowledge her influence as chases daughter or perhaps as