Chapter 2 - Riggs Villa - from Lincoln's Other White House by Elizabeth Smith Brownstein

incoln's Long Journey to the Soldiers' Home

...

Chapter

he Riggs Villa

THE COTTAGE MARY DEARLY LOVED at the Soldiers’ Home had been built in 1842 in the “Rural Gothic” style for a

prominent, wealthy young Washingtonian, George W. Riggs. One look at it shows how carefully Riggs and the builder,

William H. Degges, followed the recommendations of the predominant tastemaker of the 1830s and 1840s, Andrew

Jackson Downing. Downing’s views on what was architecturally suitable for country residences for rich and poor alike

had begun to percolate nationally in the 1830s, when he was in his midtwenties. His 1841 Treatise on the Theory and

Practice of Landscape

Gardening was a best-seller despite its high price ($3.50), and would become one of the most

influential books on the subject published in the nineteenth century. His Cottage Residences of 1842 put the final seal of

approval on the Gothic Revival style.

It was clear that Riggs, as “a retired gentleman of fortune,” should build a “beautiful and picturesque villa” in the Rural

Gothic style, Downing wrote, “the lines of which point upwards in the pyramidal gables, tall clusters of chimneys, finials

and the several other portions of its varied outline, harmoniz[ing] easily with the tall trees, and tapering masses of foliage,

or the surrounding hills.” Even if the villa did not have its unique connection with Abraham Lincoln, the cottage would

stand by itself as a rare survivor of early

Gothic Revival architecture in the nation’s capital. In this “perfect gem of a

country residence,” Riggs intended to introduce his growing family to the charms and benefits of the rural life that he’d

enjoyed as a child on his family’s Maryland plantations, where slavery had made life easier. He’d already made what

would amount to millions today in the banking business with his older partner, William Corcoran, known as “the

American Rothschild” and a connoisseur and collector of art. But Riggs was more conservative,

and growing tired of the

risks and worries Corcoran thrived on. He was uncomfortable with the bank’s heavy investments in loans to the federal

government for the war in Mexico, in railroads, and in land speculation. “I think it wrong,” he wrote, “for persons who

do a banking or collecting business to operate in stocks unless possessed of money to carry on such operations without

taking from the regular business. Our situation here induces many people to put confidence in us such as would not be

placed if it were known that we speculated largely.”

So finally, in January 1849 (he’d already tried to convince his father to “keep out of Wall Street a little”), Riggs explained

to a friend, I am engaged in winding up my affairs with Corcoran & Riggs, in which I had an interest. After that is over I

shall have my whole time to devote to my family and my little farm. I have not the large fortune that the public give me

but I have enough to live on if I live moderately and I want to try to do so [George Riggs was being modest here about

his fortune, for a young man of thirtyfive, his net worth already must have exceeded two hundred thousand dollars—a

very large figure for his day] . . . I am confident I

have adopted the prudent and wise course in withdrawing. I am a

happier, if poorer man. Contentment is, after all, riches, not possession of money.

A year later, he wrote the friend again: I am living quietly in the country, out of business entirely, excepting the charge of

the books of the old firm of Corcoran & Riggs. But a year and a half later, to the same, probably astonished friend,

Riggs announced that: this last winter, I sold my country place to the Government for a site for a military asylum. I did it

at the earnest request and advice of my father & brother . . . both of whom are desirous to have me

remove to New

York or the vicinity.

The death at the farm of their youngest daughter may have haunted the Riggses away, just as Willie’s death would make

the Lincolns eager to escape the White House. In any event, the $58,111.75 Riggs received from the government for the

house, out-buildings,

and 256 acres was not a bad price for the time. Riggs was soon back in business—in Washington

again—with a bank of his own. Lincoln had deposited his first paycheck at George Riggs’s bank on April 5, 1861 (for

the month of March he earned $2,083.33), but

that was nothing new for the Riggs Bank. President John Tyler before

him had banked with Corcoran & Riggs, and most of Lincoln’s cabinet already had accounts at Riggs. But Lincoln and

George Riggs never met. According to the vehement testimony of Riggs’s two granddaughters, Riggs was a “Lincoln

hater” and made it clear to his many friends in the Washington establishment that Lincoln would not be welcome in his

house. It didn’t help that Riggs was treasurer of the national committee of the Southern wing of the Democratic Party

that in 1860 had nominated John C. Breckinridge, who had been defeated by Lincoln.

Among the many other ironies of Lincoln’s attachment to the Soldiers’ Home was that one of the prime movers in

Congress to establish the Soldiers’ Home institution was log cabin–born Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, later

president of the Confederacy.

And as far back as 1840, Major Robert Anderson, who would be in command at Fort

Sumter in April 1861, was pleading for its creation. “Let the soldier know that a home is prepared for him, where he will

be kindly welcomed and well taken care of, and he will be more active and zealous in the discharge of his duties, more

willing to incur fatigue and danger, than can now be the case, when he knows that the greater the suffering he endures,

the sooner is his constitution destroyed, and he, by discharge, deprived of the means of obtaining his daily bread.”

(General Winfield Scott, Lincoln’s first military adviser, was the third cofounder.)

The Riggs cottage would be enlarged before the Lincolns came to use it, in order to serve temporarily as the “inmates’”

living quarters, and from the records of their meetings, it’s clear the governors of the institution didn’t care to spend their

limited funds on amenities. Major Thomas Alexander, a very nice, considerate man who ran

the institution during the

time the Lincolns used it, and who visited them often, pleaded for a modest sum to furnish his quarters. In six years, he

said, he’d received nothing and was having a hard time getting along with what was there. His own property had been

destroyed in a fire at his previous post. (Much of the Lincolns’ Springfield furniture had been sold when they left for

Washington and was also destroyed in the great Chicago fire of 1871.) That history of parsimony surely explains why it

took a long train of wagons

to transport the Lincolns’ belongings from the White House when they moved out for the

summer and explains the long list of embellishments (gilt paper and borders, lace curtains, mirrors, and more) Mary

ordered to refurbish the cottage for what would turn out to be their final summer of residence, 1864.

Mary was not unaccustomed to luxury when she’d married Lincoln, and she had done her best with their modest home

in Springfield. She would struggle to turn the White House into a glittering symbol of national pride. For Mary had been

raised in great comfort in Lexington, Kentucky, the daughter of a wealthy aristocrat, Robert Todd. She’d been

accustomed to life with slaves and politically influential family friends, including Henry Clay, and was given a superior

education. Marrying Lincoln had changed all that. She had to learn to cook, sew, and keep house, with the help of a

servant or two, none of whom stayed long. Life with Lincoln was made no easier, she also knew, by their “opposite

natures.” So their house at Eighth and Jackson in Springfield is a monument

to the many things that kept the two

devoted to each other to the end, as eyewitnesses to their days at the Soldiers’ Home would later confirm. What bound

them was their ambition and fascination with politics, their love of children and friends, shared memories of their

“desolate” childhoods, their passion for poetry, theater, books . . .and each other.

It is likely the Lincolns had separate bedrooms at the Soldiers’ Home, just as they had at the house in Springfield and in

the White House, an arrangement expected of couples in their respectable position in those days. Perhaps, too, at the

Soldiers’ Home Lincoln continued his practice of occasionally receiving visitors in his bedroom as he did at the White

House, where he was sometimes so exhausted he had to meet with colleagues while in bed. Given his nightmares and

Mary’s migraines, such an arrangement was even more practical. In Springfield, it may also have been a means of

spacing the births of their four children.

We know that there were, at the very least, seventy visitors to the Soldiers’ Home during their stays: old friends,

generals, politicians, members of the cabinet, the brazen, and the curious. If the Lincolns entertained at all, it was not

remotely on the scale of their efforts in Springfield, where five hundred people were invited to one party (“owing to an

unlucky rain, three hundred only favored us by their presence,” Mary wrote to her sister, Emily Todd Helm). Anguish

over Willie’s death in the White House in February 1862 was too constant, and massive public receptions there more than

took care of their social and political obligations. These White House events were usually open to all, as the soldiers of

Lincoln’s guard reported in their letters home and in their memoirs. Sergeant Smith Stimmel, a member of the Union

Light Guard of Ohio, Lincoln’s cavalry escort to and from the Soldiers’ Home in 1863, wrote: When not on duty, it was

our privilege to attend his public receptions if we wished to do so. . . . One evening three or four of us boys concluded

to slick up and take in the President’s reception . . . we stood in the anteroom for some time, watching the dignitaries

pass in, before we could make up our minds to venture into the presence of the President. Cabinet Ministers, the Judges

of the Supreme Court, Senators and Congressmen, Foreign Ambassadors in their dazzling uniforms, accompanied by

their wives,

army and navy officers of high rank, and the aristocracy of the city, all in full evening dress, were there.

Naturally we boys in the garb of the common soldier, felt a little timid in the presence of such an assemblage . . . the

door-keeper said ‘Go on in, boys, he would rather see you boys than all the rest of these people.’ So we plucked up

courage and went in. The President gave us a cordial shake of the hand. We bowed to Mrs. Lincoln and the others and

passed on into the large East room with the rest of the guests. At first it was a little like taking a cold bath when the

water is a little extra chilly, but the first douse took off the chill, and after that we felt quite at home.

Private Willard Cutter decided not to go to the New Year’s reception in 1863, “for fear I would jerk old Abe off his legs .

. . [the guests] shook old Abe most to pieces. I guess he was glad when they shut the House up.”

Cutter was only partly

right. No one really could shut the White House up. Walt Whitman had seen firsthand what Lincoln would face there as

he began his presidency on March 4, 1861. The only peace Lincoln could hope to get was when he left it.

A few tantalizing clues now suggest that the Lincolns may also have at times occupied another house on the Soldiers’

Home grounds during their residency there. The National Trust is still pursuing these leads as it continues its extensive

restoration of the Riggs villa.