The future wife of the man who would sign the Emancipation Proclamation was born Dec. 13, 1818, in Lexington, Kentucky, a slave state, and grew up with a "Mammy." It is said that when she was a young girl, Mary Todd bragged that she would marry a man who would one day be president. She had a temperamental, difficult, but vivacious personality from the start, and it is likely that she suffered from bipolar disorder. Mary was one of 16 children in her family. When she was very young only 6 and a half, her mother died, and her father remarried. Mary had a strained relationship with her stepmother, and she attended boarding school, perhaps both to cultivate her sharp mind and to keep her away from an awkward situation at home. When Mary was a young adult, she went to live with her sister, Elizabeth Edwards, and brother-in-law, Ninian Wirt Edwards, in Springfield, Illinois. This brought her into contact with a "coterie" of young politicians who included Stephen A. Douglas, whom Mary dated for a time - and Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd were engaged in 1840, but then the engagement was abruptly called off on the "fatal First" of January, 1841. It is debated whether Abraham decided he didn't really love Mary, or whether he simply got cold feet. In any event, the couple reunited the following year and, of course, were married, on Nov. 4, 1842. They had four children, Eddie, Willie, Thomas ("Tad), and Robert. Only Robert and Tad lived to adulthood, and only Robert, the oldest, outlived Mary.

The early years of the Lincolns' marriage was difficult for Mary, because she was often left alone while Abraham was out riding the circuit around the state as a judge. She often had neighbor boys or men stay over at the Lincoln house to keep her company, especially during thunderstorms, which frightened her.

When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the South seceded from the Union, and Mary's home state of Kentucky was on the brink of secession itself. She was looked at by many Northerners as a traitor because of her "Southern" upbringing. In turn, many Southerners saw Mary as a traitor as well, because she had married a man who was seen as an opponent of slavery. So she was a very unpopular First Lady. Her high-strung temperament, and the extravagant (perhaps manic) shopping sprees she went on, also did not endear her to the American people, especially during a time of war when most people found it difficult to make ends meet. Still, she was good for Abraham Lincoln, comforting him when he was depressed and making sure he ate. Abraham had come to encompass her entire world, along with their children.

When Abraham was assassinated in April 1865, Mary's world was shattered. She grieved excessively, perhaps plunged into a clinical depression by the shock. She wandered the globe, and rather than move back into the Springfield house that held so many now-painful memories, she lived in a series of boardinghouses. Her manic shopping sprees continued, with her buying things like gloves in mass quantities, or lace curtains for windows on a house she did not own, or dresses she would not wear because she was perpetually in mourning. She continually called for money from Congress to help her in her "poverty," which she exaggerated in her own mind (and which her shopping frenzies did not help). An effort to sell her old clothes made her a laughingstock, though in more recent years similar events have resulted in the sale of, e.g., Princess Diana's old ball gowns, with that being considered socially acceptable. Mary was just a bit ahead of her time.

In the 1870s, Mary's behavior grew so bizarre, involving delusions and hallucinations, that her son Robert had her placed in an insane asylum. She only remained in the asylum for a few months before being released, her condition having improved considerably. She never forgave Robert for having her declared legally "insane."

Mary Lincoln died July 16, 1882, at the home of her sister Elizabeth Edwards, where she had been living for a time, and where she had gotten a reputation as the "crazy lady" who kept the draperies drawn and lived by candlelight (and who still left a place in bed for her deceased husband). She left behind trunks and trunks full of items from her shopping sprees.

At her funeral, the preacher compared the Lincolns to two intertwined trees, where when one was struck down, the other withered slowly, agonizingly, until mercifully joining the first in death. Mary Todd Lincoln had a difficult life, and especially if she suffered from bipolar disorder that contributed to her problems, she deserves sympathy rather than the censure that many historians have given her.

Authors who have written about Mary Todd Lincoln include:

• Jean Harvey Baker
• Ruth Painter Randall (one of Mary Lincoln's greatest apologists)
• Ishbel Ross
• Gerry van der Heuvel
• Jason Emerson ("The Madness of Mary Lincoln")
• W.A. Evans
• Michael Burlingame (a largely negative portrayal of her in "The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln")
• Jennifer Bach (an article in "The Journal of Illinois History," from Fall 2005, detailing why Mary probably suffered from bipolar disorder)