First published January 26, 2005, in the Chicago Free Press.
C. A. Tripp's posthumously published book The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln has caused considerable controversy for its presentation of extensive historical and psychologically penetrating evidence that Lincoln was bisexual and probably predominantly homosexual.
Tripp argues: that Lincoln did not want to marry, married only for political purposes and the marriage was a disaster, that he far preferred the company of men to women, that early puberty like Lincoln's correlates with greater homosexuality, that Lincoln's known sleeping arrangements with at last three men (Greene, Speed and Derickson) and perhaps a fourth (Ellis) strongly suggest sexual intimacy and that he was infatuated with a fifth man (Ellsworth).
New York Times reviewer Richard Brookhiser cautiously accepted Tripp's view, as did historical novelist Gore Vidal writing in Vanity Fair Online. But in a 13-page "Respectful Dissent" at the end of Tripp's book, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame asserts that Tripp "does a disservice to history for the evidence Dr. Tripp adduced fails to support his case."
And in a vengeful 6,500-word attack published in the anti-gay Weekly Standard, Tripp's former editorial assistant Philip Nobile called the book "a hoax and a fraud," claiming that Tripp "massaged favorable indicators, buried negative ones, and papered over holes in his story with inventions."
Although not all of Tripp's interpretations are equally convincing, and critics have pointed to some apparent errors, the critics seem to make mistakes of their own, misread what Tripp wrote, pick on insubstantial disagreements and demonstrate strong resistance to the idea that male intimacy might involve anything like homosexuality.
But what would convince doubters like the Lincoln expert who told Tripp he would not believe Lincoln were gay even if Lincoln himself told him so? There are no photographs of Lincoln in bed with a man, no surviving letters discussing sexual episodes. So we have to search for previously overlooked indications in contemporary records and recollections.
But most of us are not scholars of the vast and contradictory literature about Lincoln so all we can do is see how well the objections of Tripp's critics hold up under careful scrutiny. So far, not well. Some examples: Tripp notes that immediately upon meeting Lincoln Joshua Speed invited him to sleep in the same bed with him, which Lincoln then did for four years. Critics object that it was common for men to sleep in the same bed for short periods or when traveling. Tripp himself explicitly acknowledges just that fully four times (pp. xxix, 30, 47, 128), but Tripp adds, "though to stay on for years was not."
Tripp says that Speed was the only person on whom Lincoln "repeatedly lavished his most personal and most endearing 'Yours forever' " in his letters. Critics countered that Lincoln used the closing in letters to six other men. But Tripp's point is that Lincoln used it "repeatedly" with Speed but rarely with others - and never with women.
Citing a comment about Lincoln's lanky frame by a man who met him when Lincoln was 10, Tripp places Lincoln's puberty at a remarkably early 9 or 10, and points out that Kinsey's found that men with very earlier puberty had higher rates of homosexuality.
Nobile complains that Tripp's source is unclear about the age for Lincoln's sudden growth. But the chart on page 35 shows little difference in the incidence of homosexuality between men who reached puberty at ages of 10 or 12, so even if Tripp misread his source, his point remains valid.
Billy Greene told an early Lincoln biographer that he thought Lincoln was "well and firmly built: his thighs were as perfect as a human being could be." The two men regularly shared a cot "so narrow that when one turned over the other had to do likewise," Greene said.
As the critics argue, Tripp may over-interpret Greene comment about Lincoln's thighs as indicating a preference for femoral intercourse. But the sleeping arrangement itself implies close intimacy. And how often do heterosexual men comment on another man's "perfect thighs"?
Contrary to the critics, Tripp makes no claim that Lincoln had sexual contact with the "definitely and explicitly heterosexual" Elmer Ellsworth. But Lincoln was clearly infatuated, probably in love with him. That is as significant in assessing Lincoln's orientation as sexual contact.
Lincoln had "a special interest" in Ellsworth, one friend wrote, intrigued to lure him to Springfield and called him "the greatest little man I ever met." On becoming President, Lincoln obtained preferential assignments for him and when Ellsworth was killed early in the Civil War Lincoln was inconsolable. Finally, it is reliably reported that Lincoln particularly befriended one of his security detail, David Derickson, and often invited him to share his bed - when Mary was out of town. But Lincoln and his wife slept in separate bedrooms, so Lincoln cannot have just wanted to remedy an unaccustomed solitude in bed. He must have wanted Mary not to notice.
