Abraham Lincoln Gay? 9 Pieces of Evidence From the New Documentary Lover of Men

In the new documentary Lover of Men: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln, a group of scholars argue that the 16th President of the United States had sexual relationships with multiple men during his life.

Here are nine pieces of historical evidence cited in Lover of Men.

But First

The following evidence comes from letters from Lincoln himself and the people who knew him, many of which are available to the public in the Library of Congress.

Lover of Men zeroes in on four different men with whom Lincoln at the very least had close friendships with, but at the most, could have had sexual relationships with. These include his general store coworker Billy Greene; army officer Elmer Ellsworth; Lincoln's bodyguard David Derickson, and his best friend, Joshua Speed.

There is no direct physical evidence that Lincoln had sex with men. While some scholars argue that he was gay or bisexual, there are others who disagree. Of course, Lincoln spent 22 years married to Mary Todd Lincoln, with whom he had four children.

We leave these letters up to your interpretation.

Billy Greene

First, there was William G. Greene, also known as Billy Greene. Lincoln worked with him in a general store owned by Denton Offutt in New Salem, Illinois. During this time, Lincoln and Greene shared a small cot.

Greene himself described their sleeping arrangements in an 1865 letter: “Mr. Lincoln and I clerked together for Offutt about 18 months and slept in the same cot. And when one turned over the other had to do likewise."

Now, some academics argue that simply sharing a bed with another man was not out of the ordinary in the 1800s, when mattresses were expensive and beds were scarce.

But those in favor of the idea that Lincoln and Greene were romantically involved argue that they could have found a way to avoid sharing such a small cot, likely only about two and a half feet wide, if they had not wanted to bunk together.

“There almost certainly was the option to not share the cot,” historian Dr. Thomas Balcerski, author of  Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King, says in the documentary.

"His Thighs Were as Perfect as a Human Being Could Be"

Another comment that Greene made in an 1865 letter further underscores the possibility that there was an erotic element to their friendship.

“The first time I saw Abraham Lincoln, he was at that time well and firmly built. His thighs were as perfect as a human being could be," Greene wrote.

Joshua Speed

Lover of Men also argues that Lincoln's well-documented friendship with businessman Joshua Speed was more than just platonic. Some historians refer to him as the love of Lincoln's life.

The two met when Lincoln was looking for a place to stay in Springfield, Illinois and walked into Speed's store looking for a room to rent. With little money, he accepted an offer to share a bed with Speed.

While this may have been due at first to financial hardship, the two men lived together and shared a bed for a total of 4 years, continuing this sleeping arrangement long after Lincoln had begun making a lawyer's salary.

Indeed, in an 1875 interview between one of Lincoln's friends, William Butler, and Lincoln's private secretary John Nicolay, Butler said he offered Lincoln his own bed during this time:

“Now I want you to come down here and board here and make my house your home," Butler told Lincoln. But Lincoln chose instead to continue to live with Speed.

"The Fatal First"

Lincoln and Speed's living arrangement ended when Speed moved back to his father's plantation in Kentucky.

Lincoln used the term "the fatal first" to describe January 1, 1841, the day he saw a notice in the newspaper that Speed had sold his general store and was moving away.

Speed's absence caused Lincoln to go into a period of depression, which he himself described in a letter to his law partner John Stuart in 1841:

“I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributable to the whole human family there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I cannot tell. I awfully forbode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better, it appears to me," Lincoln wrote.

"10 Hours"

However, Lincoln and Speed remained in contact, writing each other emotional letters.

It was Speed who introduced Lincoln to his future wife, Mary Todd. Speed, too, took a wife, as it was an expectation for men of high social standing to be married and have children.

Speed wrote a letter to Lincoln in February 1842 explaining that he had consummated his marriage to Fanny Henning. About a week later, Lincoln replied: “I opened the letter with intense anxiety and trepidation. So much that although it turned out better than I expected, I’ve hardly yet at the distance of 10 hours become calm."

Dr. Charles Strozier, a psychoanalyst, remarked in Lover of Men: “He consummated his marriage, and the first thing he wanted to do was to tell Abraham Lincoln that the sky didn’t fall."

Strozier adds: “For 10 hours after he reads of Speed’s successful consummation of his marriage, he’s shaking. 10 hours! This is a 33-year-old man.”

"Yours Forever"

Lincoln sometimes signed his letters to Speed with the affectionate line, "Yours forever, Lincoln." Scholars in the documentary note that he did not sign his letters to his wife Mary Todd this way.

In another letter to Speed, Lincoln describes his disappointment over hearing that Speed and his wife Fanny would live in Kentucky, not near him in Illinois.

"Dear Speed, I feel somewhat jealous of both of you now. You’ll be so exclusively concerned for one another that I shall be forgotten entirely. I regret to learn that you have resolved not to return to Illinois. I shall be very lonesome without you," Lincoln wrote.

"How miserable things seem to be arranged in this world. If we have no friends, we have no pleasure. And if we have them, we are sure to lose them, and be doubly pained by the loss. I did hope she and you would make your home here, but I own I have no right to insist… write me often and believe me. Yours forever, Lincoln."

"Streak of Lavender"

In a 1926 book called Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, author Carl Sandburg described Lincoln and Speed's relationship as having "a streak of lavender":

"Joshua Speed was a deep-chested man of large sockets, with broad measurement between the ears. A streak of lavender ran through him. He had spots soft as May violets. Lincoln too had a streak of Lavender , and spots soft as May violets."

This passage was removed from later editions of the book. But this passage, from a letter Lincoln wrote to Speed, remained:

“I do not feel my own sorrow more keenly than I do yours... you know my desire to befriend you is everlasting.”

"The Greatest Little Man I Ever Met"

Later in his life, Lincoln had another close relationship with an army officer in the Civil War named Elmer Ellsworth.

Lincoln described Ellsworth as "the greatest little man I ever met," according to an account by sculptor Leonard Wells Volk printed in the December 1881 issue of Century Magazine, which was reprinted in the 1945 book Intimate Memories of Lincoln by Rufus Rockwell Wilson.

Ellsworth became the first casualty of the Civil War. He died at age 24 after being shot in the chest by inn keeper James W. Jackson, who was angry that Ellsworth and others had removed a Confederate flag from his roof.

According to the 1960 book Colonel Elmer Ellsworth: A Biography of Lincoln's Friend and First Hero of the Civil War by Ruth Painter Randall, Lincoln "burst into tears" upon hearing of Ellsworth's death and cried, "My boy! My boy!"

Lincoln also insisted that Ellsworth's funeral be held in the White House.

Captain Derickson

Lincoln's final close male relationship was with his bodyguard during the Civil War, Captain David Derickson. When Lincoln was staying at his cottage — now the Soldiers' Home National Monument — in Washington, D.C., he became very close with Derickson and the two would often share a bed, according to multiple accounts.

A diary entry from neighbor Virginia Woodbury Fox written on Nov. 16, 1862, reprinted in The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln by C.A. Tripp, reads:

“Tish says there is a Bucktail soldier here devoted to the President, drives with him and when Mrs. L is not home, sleeps with him. What stuff!”

Another account says that Derickson was seen wearing one of Lincoln's night shirts.

In a historical record called History of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, Second Regiment, Ducktail Brigade, Derickson's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Chamberlain, writes:

“Captain Derickson, in particular, advanced so far in the President’s confidence and esteem that, in Mrs. Lincoln’s absence, he frequently spent the night at his cottage, sleeping in the same bed with him, and — it is said — making use of His Excellency’s night-shirts! Thus began an intimacy which continued unbroken until the following spring.”

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