These friendly
writers make her a gentle, lovely, Christian creature, too delicate long
to survive the roughness of frontier life and the fellowship of the
shiftless rover to whom she was unfittingly wedded.[14] Whatever she may
have been, her picture is exceeding dim, and has been made upon scant
and not unquestionable evidence. Mr. Lincoln seems not often to have
referred to her; but when he did so it was with expressions of affection
for her character and respect for her mental qualities, provided at
least that it was really of her, and not of his stepmother, that he was
speaking,--a matter not clear from doubt.[15]
On June 10, 1806, Thomas Lincoln gave bond in the "just and full sum of
fifty pounds" to marry Nancy Hanks, and two days later, June 12, he did
so, in Washington County, Kentucky.[16] She was then twenty-three years
old. February 12, 1807, their daughter Sarah was born, who was married
and died leaving no issue. February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born;
no other children came save a boy who lived only a few days.
The domestic surroundings amid which the babe came into life were
wretched in the extreme. All the trustworthy evidence depicts a
condition of what civilized people call misery. It is just as well to
acknowledge a fact which cannot now be obscured by any amount of
euphemism. Yet very many of Lincoln's biographers have been greatly
concerned to color this truth, which he himself, with his honest nature,
was never willing to misrepresent, however much he resisted efforts to
give it a general publicity.
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