Smith conducted Eddy’s funeral in the Lincoln home. He no doubt encouraged the Lincolns to surrender to God’s will, perhaps explaining that their son’s death was somehow part of God’s divine plan. James Smith, the new pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Springfield. Her sisters tried to comfort her, as did Rev. Mary Lincoln’s cries echoed throughout the dark house. Īfter lingering for fifty-two days, Eddy died on a cold and rainy February morning. Commonly called consumption, it killed more Americans in 1850 than any other disease: half its victims were under the age of five. Though doctors thought he was suffering from diphtheria, Eddy was probably in the final stages of pulmonary tuberculosis. Unable to eat or rest, nothing seemed to ease his suffering. He developed a dangerously high fever and endured furious coughing fits, followed by periods of intense exhaustion. The three year old’s last days began the day before his mother’s thirty-first birthday. He had been ill throughout much of his father’s term in Congress, and though he periodically showed signs of improvement, he was probably suffering from a chronic illness.
Edward Baker Lincoln (1846–1850), Abraham and Mary Lincoln’s second son, was never a healthy child.
