The Last Lincolns: The Rise & Fall of a Great American Family - Hardcover

Lachman, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1402758901 ISBN 13: 9781402758904

Publisher: Union Square Press, 2008

Synopsis

Most books about Abraham Lincoln end on April 14, 1865, the day he was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre. But that historic event takes place near the beginning of The Last Lincolns, a singular title in the vast output of Lincolnia and one of the most unusual books ever written on the sixteenth president and his family. Going far beyond that fateful day into uncharted territory, it’s a gripping page turner written by a TV producer with proven storytelling skills.
This absorbing American tragedy tells the largely unknown story of the acrimony that consumed the Lincolns in the months and years that followed the president’s murder. This was not a family that came together in mourning and mutual sadness; instead, they fell out over the anguished mental condition of the widowed Mary. In 1875, Robert the handsome but resentful eldest Lincoln child engineered her arrest and forcible commitment to an insane asylum. In each succeeding generation, the Lincolns’ misfortunes multiplied, as a litany of alcohol abuse, squandered fortunes, burned family papers, and outright dissipation led to the downfall of this once-great family.
Charles Lachman traces the story right up to the last generation of Lincoln descendants: great-grandson Bob Lincoln Beckwith, his estranged wife, Annemarie, and her son, Timothy Lincoln Beckwith. Bob, who was according to all medical evidence sterile, believes the son who bears the Lincoln name was the product of an adulterous affair. Annemarie, however, wanted the boy to be a Lincoln,” putting the child in line for a vast inheritance. There’s even evidence uncovered by Lachman for the first time that a scheme to obtain possession of the Lincoln fortune was orchestrated by Bob Beckwith’s chauffer, who may have been the notorious outlaw and skyjacker, D.B. Cooper.
Published in advance of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday in February 2009, The Last Lincolns provides an unforgettable glimpse into the personal legacy left by the man who could unite a nation but not his own family.

 

 

 An Unusual Family History Reveals That:
-Abraham and Mary Lincoln were very lenient with their younger sons and  rarely imposed discipline on them.
-At age 12, young Tad Lincoln whose education during the family’s White House years was very lax could still not read. 
-Eldest son Robert Lincoln objected to the intense attention the media paid to the Lincoln family.
-After her husband’s assassination, Mary Lincoln pleaded for financial assistance from family friends and people in government.
-Mary’s erratic behavior led Robert to swear out a warrant for her arrest and institutionalization.

About this title

About the Author:

Charles Lachman is a TV producer.

From School Library Journal:

Lachman's (executive producer, Inside Edition) focus on the Lincoln family from after the assassination until as close to the present as a dwindling genealogy allows is not riveting reading. Did this family ever actually "rise"? Surely Lincoln is one of those isolates of history; his family's conduct over the next generations perhaps simply reflects the heartaches and character flaws so many of us share. So to some extent the book's troubles may be blamed on the descendants themselves, starting with Robert Todd Lincoln (1843–1926), the only one of Lincoln's children to survive to adulthood and a less than appealing personality. His part in the committal of his mother, the grief-stricken and volatile Mary Todd Lincoln, to an asylum is well known (and Lachman praises Jean H. Baker's Mary Todd Lincoln), as are her subsequent travels domestically and abroad. Lachman himself has to travel nearer and nearer to our time to cover bits of this depressing story that haven't been broadly addressed before. The moral: no one is of interest simply because she or he is descended from someone who was. Lachman himself may know this, which is why he strives to make something of a connection between a Lincoln descendant and lost highjacker D.B. Cooper. For public libraries wishing to extend the focus of their Lincoln collections.—Margaret Heilbrun, Library Journal
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About this edition

• Publisher: Union Square Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1402758901
• ISBN 13: 9781402758904
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 496