Abe shared a bed. So what?

diane

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Is that all it takes to be considered gay? Then everybody was! Bed sharing was customary because beds were scarce.

The history of the bed, and why the bedstead was considered a family treasure is quite interesting. When I was a housekeeper for Pop Steele, who (honest injun) came over with the pioneers and was at least as old as the town, he bragged happily about the big cherry wood bed in the master bedroom. It had seen more of the world than he had - it originated in Germany, travelled to England, then New England and finally made its way to California via the Mormon Trail. They threw out everything along the way, including the piano, but not the bed. Every patriarch of his family had been born in that bed and had died in it! (He did, too...)

It was quite a status symbol if you got hold of a bed...and everybody who knew about it would want to share it with you. Most people had hay stuffed in ticking or some variation of that - trundle, rope, something like that. The term 'hit the hay' meant that literally - before you slept you hit the hay to run the bugs out of it! If you and your roommate were fortunate enough to get a place with a real bed - the both of you were in it and it meant nothing else! I think probably the strangest bed partnership was Patrick Cleburne. He and his buddy shared a bed for about five years, then the roomie got married...and Cleburne still shared the bed. Ummm...I think about then I'd be saying, Pat, love ya like a brother but you need to find some other arrangements... The privacy we enjoy today just didn't exist then!
 

jgoodguy

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Is that all it takes to be considered gay? Then everybody was! Bed sharing was customary because beds were scarce.

The history of the bed, and why the bedstead was considered a family treasure is quite interesting. When I was a housekeeper for Pop Steele, who (honest injun) came over with the pioneers and was at least as old as the town, he bragged happily about the big cherry wood bed in the master bedroom. It had seen more of the world than he had - it originated in Germany, travelled to England, then New England and finally made its way to California via the Mormon Trail. They threw out everything along the way, including the piano, but not the bed. Every patriarch of his family had been born in that bed and had died in it! (He did, too...)

It was quite a status symbol if you got hold of a bed...and everybody who knew about it would want to share it with you. Most people had hay stuffed in ticking or some variation of that - trundle, rope, something like that. The term 'hit the hay' meant that literally - before you slept you hit the hay to run the bugs out of it! If you and your roommate were fortunate enough to get a place with a real bed - the both of you were in it and it meant nothing else! I think probably the strangest bed partnership was Patrick Cleburne. He and his buddy shared a bed for about five years, then the roomie got married...and Cleburne still shared the bed. Ummm...I think about then I'd be saying, Pat, love ya like a brother but you need to find some other arrangements... The privacy we enjoy today just didn't exist then!
More of that presentism stuff. Assuming the past was just like the future only without the internet.
 

diane

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More of that presentism stuff. Assuming the past was just like the future only without the internet.
Yes, today that might be very odd or point to a preference, but not then. U S Grant once got a nice room while in Washington - big cooshy bed and all. His aides shared the room but refused to share the bed so he crawled in alone. He got to feeling like a sailor marooned in a lonely raft on the wide open sea! Sat up - all the aides were curled up on the floor. Guys, get in here, there's room enough for all of us.... Bam! He had company!
 

jgoodguy

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Then there was the warmth issue. Lots of 98F furnaces close by makes things toasty in an unheated room.
 

diane

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That warmth thing was why Lee and his aide Taylor sometimes shared a bed - Lee had arthritis and Taylor made a good heating pad!
 

jgoodguy

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1 Kings
1When King David was very old, he could not keep warm even when they put covers over him. 2So his attendants said to him, “Let us look for a young virgin to serve the king and take care of him. She can lie beside him so that our lord the king may keep warm.”
 

O' Be Joyful

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1 Kings
1When King David was very old, he could not keep warm even when they put covers over him. 2So his attendants said to him, “Let us look for a young virgin to serve the king and take care of him. She can lie beside him so that our lord the king may keep warm.”

In my Book virgins are not required. I prefer experience. :p
 

5fish

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Gay Abe K-rap
I guess the white House did not have enough beds for capt. Derickson .... Lincoln wrote a guy love poem...

There was an older thread on this which I missed sadly... Before let learn from the LGBTQ community...

We do know that same-sex love and gender nonconformity have been with us throughout US history and during pre-European contact and colonial times. But how those have been defined and documented has shifted considerably in recent decades, causing modern-day historians to struggle with labeling people who mostly shunned such labels, or who had different or more secret ways to define themselves. We also must be alert for the many code words that LGBTQ people used among themselves, as well as the epithets that others used against them: “confirmed bachelor,” “Friend of Dorothy,” “freak,” “batting for the other side,” “third sex.” Author Larry Kramer in his novel The American People uses the phrase “hushmarked” to define the hidden world of homosexual American colonists and pioneers.2 It is as good a word to start with as any. Kramer and others have rightfully pointed out the lunacy of the contortions some historians have gone through to avoid giving their subjects a hint of what British Lord Alfred Douglas called “the love that dare not speak its name.”3 They in effect are rewriting history by leaving out important aspects of their subjects’ lives, or outright denying key facts. They try to mask things in historical “context” by explaining away grown 1 Susan Stryker and Jim Van Buskirk, Gay by the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1996), 5. 2 Larry Kramer, The American People, Volume 1: Search for My Heart, A Novel (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015). 3 Lord Alfred Douglas, “Two Loves” (poem), The Chameleon 1, no. 1 (December 1894), accessed April 15, 2016, Sex, Love, and Relationships 17-3 men sleeping together in the same bed for years, as with Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed who shared a home in Springfield, Illinois before Lincoln became President.5 They dismiss as gossip the intimate nature of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s long relationship with journalist Lorena Hickok; the two traveled extensively together, but did not cohabit.6 They also dismiss the relationships of women living decades under the same roof and sharing everything together, as with Jane Addams and Mary Rozet Smith at Hull House in Chicago, Illinois.7

I open with this because historians refuse to believe what they read or heard at times ...
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/lgbtqheritage/upload/lgbtqtheme-love.pdf

Here is comparing to eyewitness reports about Lincoln and Derickson...

Lincoln's relationship with Derickson should be viewed not simply as an interpretive question but also as a problem subject to the test of evidence. And a careful look at the two sources suggests that they are neither as authoritative nor independent as they appear at first sight:

Fox: "Tish says, 'there is a Bucktail soldier here

Chamberlin: "Captain Derickson, in particular,

Fox: devoted to the President, drives with him, and

Chamberlin: advanced so far in the President's confidence and esteem that,

Fox: when Mrs. L is not home,

Chamberlin: in Mrs. Lincoln's absence,

Fox: sleeps with him.'

Chamberlin: he frequently spent the night at his cottage, sleeping in the same bed with him,

Fox: What stuff!'"

Chamberlin: and—it is said—making use of His Excellency's night-shirt!"

The order of topics in these five phrases is remarkably similar. First, both accounts begin with a phrase identifying the soldier in question; both then present a phrase on the emotional bond between the two men; third, both mention that Mary is not present; fourth, both state that the men slept together; and fifth, both conclude with a kind of editorial comment ending with an exclamation mark. Both reports also contain a source phrase indicating that their evidence is hearsay, Fox by noting "Tish says," and Chamberlin by "it is said." Several differences are also apparent: Fox states that the two men rode together in a carriage, while Chamberlin mentions a nightshirt; in Fox's diary, it is Derickson who is devoted to Lincoln, while Chamberlin's history mentions Lincoln's feelings toward Derickson.Yet, when one considers the virtually unlimited ways this information could have been presented, there is a remarkable congruity between these two quite different sources, one a contemporary private diary, the other a public history written thirty years later. The most likely explanation is that the two accounts are not independent but are in fact related. In that case, there are two possibilities: either Chamberlin knew of the Fox diary, or the two sources share the same source.

Given that the Levi Woodbury family papers containing Fox's diary did not enter the Library of Congress until 1903 at the earliest, it seems unlikely that Chamberlin could have consulted them as a source for his history, which judging from internal evidence was written in the 1890s and was first published in 1895.[12] None of the extended Woodbury/Fox clan has obvious connections to the 150th Regiment, so there is no clear reason that Chamberlin would consult the papers even had he known of their existence. Nor do any other sources available to Chamberlin reveal a familiarity with the materials in the Fox diary.[13] On first glance, the use of an exclamation mark by both Fox and Chamberlin might appear to support the thesis that Chamberlin consulted and copied Fox's diary, but this creates the seemingly insurmountable problem of where Chamberlin acquired the nightshirt detail and Derickson's name. Both Chamberlin and Fox liberally sprinkled exclamation marks throughout their accounts; the similar punctuation is evidently a coincidence.


Here are two separate reports recorded by different people about the same period in Lincoln's life..
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2...yguard-another-look-at?rgn=main;view=fulltext

Let's go back Lincoln wrote a poem about Gay marriage...

Lincoln wrote a poem that described a marriage-like relation between two men, which included the lines:

“ For Reuben and Charles have married two girls,
But Billy has married a boy.
The girls he had tried on every side,
But none he could get to agree;
All was in vain, he went home again,
And since that he's married to Natty. ”

This poem was included in the first edition of the 1889 biography of Lincoln by his friend and colleague William Herndon.[27] It was expurgated from subsequent editions until 1942, when the editor Paul Angle restored it. This is an example of what Mark Blechner calls "the closeting of history,"[28] in which evidence that suggests a degree of homosexuality or bisexuality in a major historical figure is suppressed or hidden.

I want to point out family lore has William Herndon as a gay man and a picture of him

In 2012, Sylvia Rhue, a filmmaker and activist, interviewed Reverend Cindi Love about her family history and research. Love, a descendant of William Herndon, noted that family tradition held that Herndon was gay and the lover of Lincoln.[25]




King David
 

5fish

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Then we have the genes...

At least one of his last direct descendants was gay... them genes'''

Mary Lincoln "Peggy" Beckwith (August 22, 1898 – July 10, 1975)

Beckwith later in life became an eccentric recluse at Hildene. She never married or had children, and was apparently a lesbian.[12]

Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith (July 19, 1904 – December 24, 1985)
 

5fish

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His work associates...

Here is a better take on William Herndon ...

One day I was having lunch with Rev. Cindi Love, the executive director of Soulforce. I was telling her about my family history, my burgeoning love affair with Abraham Lincoln and my quest for more information. “I have been researching Lincoln and found a lot about his relationships with men, and I am getting this from a many sources,” I told her. “But I am puzzled about one thing: William Herndon has not mentioned or written anything that would indicate that Lincoln was gay.”

She gave me a telling look and said, “Well, here is the missing piece of your puzzle. My maiden name is Herndon. William Herndon was my great-great-uncle, and he was gay, and he was Lincoln’s lover.” She went on to talk about how this information was handed down from generation to generation in the Herndon family.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/sylv...-evidence-that-lincoln-was-gay_b_2169482.html


Herndon worked for Speed too...

Mr. Lincoln’s previous partners – John T. Stuart and Logan – were both older and in the ways of the law, initially wiser than Mr. Lincoln. Nine years younger than Mr. Lincoln, Herndon had studied law at the firm of Logan and Lincoln. Herndon had also clerked at Joshua Speed’s general store and hung around the rear fireplace where local and national political issues were talked through. Herndon’s father Archer was one of the Long Nine who represented Sangamon County in the State Legislature. Billy Herndon was as fervent an abolitionist Whig as his father was a pro-slavery Democrat. He had left his father’s home over differences concerning slavery.

http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/the-lawyers/william-herndon/
 

Attachments

5fish

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Then there is this story to the first death...

Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth:

LINK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer...h (April 11,House inn in Alexandria, Virginia.

Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth (April 11, 1837 – May 24, 1861) was a law clerk and United States Army soldier who was the first conspicuous casualty and the first Union officer to die in the American Civil War. He was killed while removing a Confederate flag from the roof of the Marshall House inn in Alexandria, Virginia.

Here is Lincoln behavior kind of a lovers loss... order his body back to the white house a mourning lover...

Before the war, Ellsworth led a touring military drill team, the "Zouave Cadets of Chicago". He was a close personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, who as President later eulogized him as "the greatest little man I ever met". After his death, Ellsworth's body lay in state at the White House. The phrase, "Remember Ellsworth", became a rallying cry and tool for recruiting Union soldiers.

Lincoln was deeply saddened by his friend's death and ordered an honor guard to bring his friend's body to the White House, where he lay in state in the East Room.[2][15][16] Ellsworth's body was then taken to the City Hall in New York City, where thousands of Union supporters came to see the first man to fall for the Union cause.[15] Ellsworth was then buried in his hometown of Mechanicville, in the Hudson View Cemetery (see:
Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth Monument and Grave)

Snip... He was a pretty boy....

1593042307911.png
Portrait of Elmer Ellsworth by unknown artist after Matthew Brady photograph


Here some more detail acting like a grief stricken lover....

As recounted in Charles M. Segal's book Conversations With Lincoln, a New York Herald reporter, who accompanied Sen. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts to the White House a few hours after Ellsworth's death, encountered Lincoln just minutes after he got the news. They found the President gazing out a window, wracked by grief. "Excuse me, but I cannot talk," said Lincoln. Suddenly, Lincoln burst into tears, which he tried to conceal with his handkerchief. Finally, after walking around the room for a few minutes, Lincoln regained his composure. "I make no apology, gentlemen, for my weakness," he explained. "I knew poor Ellsworth well, and held him in high regard."
 

Jim Klag

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Then we have the genes...

At least one of his last direct descendants was gay... them genes'''

Mary Lincoln "Peggy" Beckwith (August 22, 1898 – July 10, 1975)

Beckwith later in life became an eccentric recluse at Hildene. She never married or had children, and was apparently a lesbian.[12]

Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith (July 19, 1904 – December 24, 1985)
Who says gay/straight is genetic? My best friend's father was gay and his son is a raving heterosexual with a zillion kids and grandkids.
 

5fish

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But more his letter to his parents form Lincoln... But look what he did over this one soldier not any other soldier just this one he grieved like a lover...

So much of promised usefulness to one's country, and of bright hopes for one's self and friends, have rarely been so suddenly dashed, as in his fall. In size, in years, and in youthful appearance, a boy only, his power to command men, was surpassingly great. This power, combined with a fine intellect, an indomitable energy, and a taste altogether military, constituted in him, as seemed to me, the best natural talent, in that department, I ever knew....

My acquaintance with him began less than two years ago; yet through the latter half of the intervening period, it was as intimate as the disparity of our ages, and my engrossing engagements, would permit. To me, he appeared to have no indulgences or pastimes; and I never heard him utter a profane, or intemperate word. What was conclusive of his good heart, he never forgot his parents.

Lincoln's closing was a particularly poignant one: "Sincerely your friend in a common affliction."
 

5fish

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Who says gay/straight is genetic?
They say there is not a strong correlation

LINK: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/scienc...gene-sexuality-is-just-complex-study-confirms

This GWAS study found that, like with many human behaviors, sexuality doesn’t have a strong genetic backing.
When the team looked for DNA patterns that had strong correlations, they found that no one gene could account for any more than 1 percent of people’s sexuality. The strongest signals came from five random genes.

Two of those genes correlated with same-sex sexuality in males, one of which is known to influence the sense of smell. One gene cropped up for females and two others showed solid patterns in both males and females. But their individual scores never passed this 1-percent mark — meaning they are all minor contributors to same-sex sexual behavior.

When the team looked more broadly across all the genomes — across the thousands of genes that they screened for the nearly 500,000 subjects — the genes similarities they found could only account for 8 to 25 percent of same-sex sexual behavior.
“It’s effectively impossible to predict an individual’s sexual behavior from their genome,”
said Ben Neale, a geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute who led the study. “Genetics is less than half of this story for sexual

Moreover, the researchers found that sexuality is polygenic — meaning hundreds or even thousands of genes make tiny contributions to the trait. That pattern is similar to other heritable (but complex) characteristics like height or a proclivity toward trying new things. (Things like red/green colorblindness, freckles and dimples can be traced back to single genes). But polygenic traits can be strongly influenced by the environment, meaning there’s no clear winner in this “nature versus nurture” debate.


It seems in the womb may issues... seems to run in families....

LINK: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/12/homosexuality-may-start-womb

From a strictly Darwinian viewpoint, homosexuality shouldn't still be around. It isn't the best way to pass along one's genes, and to complicate the picture further, no "gay genes" have even been identified. According to a newly released hypothesis, the explanation may not lie in DNA itself. Instead, as an embryo develops, sex-related genes are turned on and off in response to fluctuating levels of hormones in the womb, produced by both mother and child. This tug of war benefits the unborn child, keeping male or female development on a steady course even amid spikes in hormones. But if these so-called epigenetic changes persist once the child is born and has children of its own, some of those offspring may be homosexual, the study proposes.
Evolutionary geneticist William Rice of the University of California, Santa Barbara, felt there had to be a reason why homosexuality didn't just fade away down the generations. Research estimates that about 8% of the population is gay, and homosexuality is known to run in families. If one of a set of identical twins is gay, there's a 20% probability that the other will be, too.

Furthermore, Rice notes, "homosexuality isn't just a human thing." Among California gulls, which he watches from his office window, about 14% of pairs are female-female. In Australian black swans, some 6% of pairs are male-male, and 8% of male sheep are attracted exclusively to male partners.

 
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