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To celebrate Lincoln’s Birthday and Valentine’s Day: a look back at the touching, moving, fake love letters of Abraham Lincoln and Ann Rutledge. In 1929, the Atlantic got taken in by one of the great historical hoaxes, inspiring its editors to publish the tastefully named three-part story “Lincoln the Lover.” It was quickly debunked by young scholar Paul M. Angle, later the director of the Chicago Historical Society. If you like fake histories, it’s great reading. Unfortunately, the stories are behind a paywall, but here are some excerpts:
Ann.
[Next, she sent him a Bible]
My Beloved Abe
. . . I have been saying over and over to myself surely my traditional bad luck cannot reach me again through my beloved. I do long to confirm the confidence you have in heaven — but should anything serious occur to you I fear my faith would be eternally broken. . . . My fervent love is with you
