By the way, Willie's death led his mother on a very weird journey through spiritualism. Interest in this was growing during the CW and continued for some time. One of the many mediums Mary consulted was a con artist of considerable ability who also happened to be drinking buddies with John Wilkes Booth...who was also into spiritualism. While Lincoln was rumored to attend these White House seances, he actually only attended one. After it was done he took his wife gently by the arm to a window and pointed out the insane asylum. "If you continue with these seances," he said, "you will end there!" And...years later we have a connection to Harry Houdini, the original ghost buster - he loved Abraham Lincoln and had a huge collection of Lincoln stuff. He was good friends with Robert Todd Lincoln, who spoke to him about his mother's near obsession with mediums. One had sent him some eery information - Harry visited the medium and outed him as a fraud. And he was off nailing them left and right! There was only one he couldn't get and he remarked, "She's either a far better magician than I am or she's the real thing!"
For Mary, however, she was convinced her son visited her every night, sometimes bringing other family members and his little brother. She lost a lot of loved ones during the war.