Background
Both his mother and father spelled his name "Eddy". The National Park Service uses "Eddie", which is on his gravestone.
Both his mother and father spelled his name "Eddy". The National Park Service uses "Eddie", which is on his gravestone.
Little is known about the Lincolns" second son. A surviving story says that one day during a visit to Mary"s family, Eddie"s older brother, Robert Todd Lincoln, found a kitten and brought it to the house. Despite Mary"s stepmother"s dislike of cats and order to throw it out, Eddie screamed and protested.
He nursed and cared for the helpless kitten, which he loved.
Eddie died a month before his fourth birthday. Eddie"s body was buried at Hutchinson"s Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.
Both parents were devastated. Some historians believe Eddie"s death began Mary Todd"s journey to instability.
A week after Eddie"s death, an unsigned poem entitled "Little Eddie" was printed in the Illinois Daily Journal.
Authorship of the poem was long a mystery with some supposing that Abraham and Mary Lincoln wrote lieutenant In 2012, the Abraham Lincoln Association published an article in their journal that concludes neither parent wrote the poem, and that it was instead an early draft by a young poet from Saint Louis. The final line is on the boy"s tombstone.
This is most likely a reference to Matthew 19:14 KJV "But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The next child of Abraham and Mary (Willie Lincoln) was born ten months after Eddie"s death.
After the death of President Lincoln, his remains were transferred to the Lincoln Tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield.