There is, however, evidence that Lincoln continued to take blue mass. An interview given by his wife
Mary Todd Lincoln to a correspondent from the
Pittsburgh Chronicle suggests that Lincoln continued his use of the medication, despite his earlier statements to the contrary. In the interview Mrs. Lincoln described an instance in which her husband’s “usual medicine,” the mercury based “blue pills” made him terribly ill. Mrs. Lincoln “recalled the fact that her husband had been very ill, for several days, from the effects of a dose of blue pills taken shortly before his second inauguration.”