Abraham Lincoln was the greatest president of the United States ever – ending slavery and ensuring the unity of the country after a bloody civil war. His deserved godlike status has made it almost impossible to consider his very obvious status as one of America’s LGBT heroes.
Contemporary voices recognised Lincoln’s preference for same sex relations but ever since, what I term ‘hetero-historians’ have been engaged in a relentless attempt at gay erasure. Almost as if to recognise his LGBT status undermines his greatness. It does not. In fact, it makes Lincoln an even more admirable figure.
Full details and evidence of Lincoln’s LGBT life are included in my new book: Jack the Ripper and Abraham Lincoln – more details below this post. Make sure to get your copy, available on Amazon and other online stores.
Lincoln’s bed hopping with men
Lincoln enjoyed a string of relationships with men that evinced both an emotional intensity and a wry sense of humour, that is often overlooked. Instead, as the historian Gore Vidal once quipped, we get a dry husk of a man, devoid of expression, and followed everywhere by a gospel choir.
Among Lincoln’s male conquests were:
- Joshua Fry Speed – a young man that Lincoln, as a trainee lawyer, met in his family’s dry goods store. Speed offered Lincoln a room to rent – his own room – with just one bed. The hetero-historians claim that two men sharing the same bed wasn’t unusual in these poverty-stricken times. Yes – for short stays. Not four years!
- William “Billy” Greene – another man who shared a bed with Lincoln commenting on the future president’s “perfect” thighs. Greene was showered with favours when Lincoln moved into the White House.
- Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth – the first Union army officer to die in the American civil war. A handsome fellow described by Lincoln as “the greatest little man I ever met”. The two shared a bed and Lincoln broke down in tears when told by a journalist about Elmer’s death.
- Abner Ellis – another bed sharer who confirmed Lincoln’s penchant for very dirty stories. Reports of them being “intimately acquainted” send hetero-historians on to the defensive countering this was merely a Victorian turn of phrase.
- Captain David D. Derickson – while Lincoln’s bed sharing with Speed was during a period when Lincoln was financially hard up, his between the sheets frolics with Derickson occurred during his presidency. Derickson was the presidential head of security who Lincoln felt needed to continue his onerous duties in the presidential bed. This bed, incidentally, was never frequented by the First Lady who slept elsewhere. Derickson was the subject of scandalised letters from those in the know and even, it was claimed, wore one of Lincoln’s nightshirts. The hetero-historians have struggled with this one.
DISCOVER: How some in Britain aided the Confederacy
Lincoln and same-sex marriage
In 1829, a young Lincoln penned an extraordinary poem titled The First Chronicles of Reuben. It detailed a same-sex marriage. It began:
I will tell you a joke about Jewel and Mary / It is neither a joke nor a story / For Reuben and Charles have married two girls / But Billy has married a boy.
The poem went on to describe them giving birth to a very unusual baby – more details in my book!
DISCOVER: Lewis Powell – handsome but brutal assassin of Lincoln
Biographers recognised the LGBT President Lincoln
A century ago, Carl Sandburg was recognised as one of Lincoln’s foremost biographers. Commenting on Lincoln’s relationship with Speed, he remarked that a “streak of lavender” ran through Lincoln and that he had “spots soft as May violets”. This was later excised by Sandburg.
Despite the best efforts of the hetero-historians to gloss over these words, the reference to lavender reflects 20th century urban slang about gay people. In the 1950s, when the anti-communist senator Joe McCarthy decided it was his mission to root homosexuals out of the federal governments, as potential traitors as he saw it, this was referred to as the “Lavender Scare”.
As for violets, these were worn by lovers of the Greek poet, Sappho. The symbolism was obvious to any readers at the time.
President James Buchanan – falling out of the closet
Abraham Lincoln wasn’t the first LGBT President of the United States – that honour surely goes to James Buchanan, his immediate predecessor. Buchanan was practically falling out of the closet. He was what the Victorians liked to call ‘a confirmed bachelor’ – in fact, the only unmarried president American has ever voted into office.
As I detail in my book, Buchanan lived with a politician, William Rufus DeVane King, described as being his best friend. Former president Andrew Jackson was in no doubt over the nature of their relationship referring to King as “Miss Nancy” to Buchanan’s “Aunt Fancy”. As an aside, King’s first two names – William Rufus – was also an eleventh century English king (William II, the red head) branded a sodomite by the church and his enemies before dying in an apparent hunting accident, long suspected as murder.
Buchanan and King were often seen strolling around Washington DC, becoming known as the “Siamese Twins” – a contemporary slang reference for gay and lesbian couples. When King was called away to become the United States ambassador in Paris, Buchanan wrote a forlorn letter to a female friend saying he had “gone a wooing to several gentlemen” but none could fill the gap in his house left by King.
