Mary Lincoln would certainly have gone down in History as a rock star had it not been so lucrative an occupation slicing and dicing her. One man in particular was mostly responsible- not only wrote a book as THE expert on her, filled actual lecture halls ( I forget how much tickets cost..... )- then his book got sourced by the next guy looking for source info, then of course the next, into 2020. William The Misogynistic Blowhard Herndon, an ex-law partner of Lincoln. Herndon interestingly also made the claim he was THE ex-law partner- there were 3. Herndon features in my vocabulary as The Man Lincoln Forgot To Punch In The Head.
There were others. Lincoln pointed out how much easier it was for his enemies to attack his wife than it was to square up to him, for one thing.She also couldn't win. Born Southern ' aristocracy ', she married the enemiest-enemy of them all- THEN couldn't be accepted by Northern elites because she was Southern.... . Like I said, couldn't win. There's a lot more to it- she sure didn't suffer fools gladly but had a wonderfully compassionate side, too. I'm not sure I've ever read anything that captures more than an elusive glimpse of who she really was. It's a shame- like I said, yes, she'd have been a rock star.