The Library › Reel VI · The Roommate
Did Lincoln write that he was jealous when Speed got married?
VERDICTTRUE
Yes. On February 25, 1842, answering Speed’s news that he and Fanny Henning were “no more twain, but one flesh,” Lincoln wrote: “I feel somewhat jealous of both of you now; you will be so exclusively concerned for one another, that I shall be forgotten entirely.” In the same letter: “I shall be verry lonesome without you.” The jealousy covers both of them, which helps nobody settle anything.
The receipts
- Abraham Lincoln to Joshua F. Speed, 25 February 1842, The Papers of Abraham Lincoln
The comedy version
The untold story of Abraham Lincoln and the man who lent him half a bed.
Play The Roommate ☞More from this shelf
- Did Lincoln really move into Joshua Speed’s bed because he could not afford seventeen dollars of bedding?True
- Was it normal for two men to share a bed in the 1830s?True
- What happened on Lincoln’s “fatal first of January” 1841?Disputed
- Did Lincoln really call himself “the most miserable man living”?True
- Did Lincoln visit Joshua Speed’s family plantation in Kentucky?True
- Did Lincoln ask Speed whether marriage was worth it, a month before his own wedding?True