Edward Baker Lincoln

Edward Baker Lincoln was born on March 10, 1846, at the Lincoln Home in Springfield, Illinois. Little is known about his life, but a surviving story says that one day during a visit to his grandfather Robert Todd's home in Lexington, Kentucky, Eddie's older brother, Robert, found a kitten and brought it to the house. Mary Lincoln wrote to her husband about the incident: "[As] soon as Eddy, spied [the kitten], his tenderness, broke forth, he made them bring it water, fed it with bread himself, with his own dear hands, he was a delighted little creature over it." ==Death==

Eddie died at the age of 47 months on February 1, 1850. Census records list "chronic consumption" (tuberculosis) as the cause. An alternate theory suggests that Eddie died of a different type of wasting disease, medullary thyroid cancer, part of the MEN2B genetic cancer syndrome that he possibly inherited from his father. However, this familial MEN2B theory is principally challenged by the fact that Eddie's father, Abraham Lincoln, was 56 at the time of his death. The untreated disease usually causes death around 21 years of age. Most researchers and historians subscribe to the idea that Eddie's death was caused by tuberculosis and not the MEN2B theory. Abraham Lincoln referenced Eddie's death in a letter to his stepbrother John D. Johnston, noting that Eddie was "sick fifty-two days," and "We miss him very much." Eddie's funeral was held at the Lincoln home by the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Both parents were devastated. A week after his death, an unsigned poem entitled "Little Eddie" was printed in the Illinois Daily Journal. {{blockquote| Those midnight stars are sadly dimmed, That late so brilliantly shone, And the crimson tinge from cheek and lip, With the heart's warm life has flown— The angel death was hovering nigh, And the lovely boy was called to die. The silken waves of his glossy hair Lie still over his marble brow, And the pallid lip and pearly cheek The presence of Death avow. Pure little bud in kindness given, In mercy taken to bloom in heaven. Happier far is the angel child With the harp and the crown of gold, Who warbles now at the Saviour's feet The glories to us untold. Eddie, meet blossom of heavenly love, Dwells in the spirit-world above. Angel boy—fare thee well, farewell Sweet Eddie, we bid thee adieu! Affection's wail cannot reach thee now Deep though it be, and true. Bright is the home to him now given, For "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Authorship of the poem was long a mystery with some supposing that Abraham and Mary wrote it. In 2012, the Abraham Lincoln Association published an article in their journal that concludes neither of them did, and that it was instead an early draft by a young poet from St. Louis. ==See also==