Employees and Staff: Rebecca R. Pomroy (1817-1884)

On their arrival they visited the Green Room, where Willie’s remains lay in state, and then passed on to the President’s chamber, where Mrs. Lincoln was lying sick, the President sitting beside her. He gave her a warm grasp of the hand, and said, ‘I am heartily glad to see you, and feel that you can comfort us and the poor sick boy.’ She was soon taken to the sick room of little Tad, introduced to the two physicians who sat in the hall just outside his door, who before leaving gave directions regarding medicine and treatment for every half-hour in the night.
At half past six the President came in and invited her down to dine with him; but she kept her station by the bedside of the little sufferer, who lay tossing with typhoid, and at intervals weeping for his dear brother Willie, ‘who would never speak to him any more.” The President came in about ten o’clock, sat down on the opposite side of the bed, and commenced inquiries. ‘Are you Miss or Mrs.? What of your family”
She says, “I told him I had a husband and two children in the other world, and a son on the battle-field.” “What is your age? What prompted you to come so far to look after these poor boys?” She told him of her nineteen years’ education in the school of affliction, and that after her loved ones had been laid away, and the battle-cry had been sounded, nothing remained but for her to go, so strong was her desire. ‘Did you always feel that you could say, ‘Thy will be done?’”
And here the father’s heart seemed agonized for a reply.
She said, ‘No; not at the first blow, nor at the second. It was months after my affliction that God met me when at a camp-meeting.”
Here he showed great interest, and, she says, ‘While I was telling him my history, and, above all, of God’s love and care for me through it all, he covered his face with his hands while the tears streamed through his fingers. Then he told me of his dear Willie’s sickness and death. In walking the room, he would say: ‘This is the hardest trial of my life. Why is it? Oh, why is it’ I tried to comfort him by telling him there were thousands of prayers going up for im daily. He said, ‘I am glad of that.’ Then he gave way to another outburst of grief.
The next night he seated himself in the same position, and begged me to go over the same recital, leaving nothing out. He would question me upon special points to learn how I obtained my faith in God, and the secret of placing myself in the Divine hands. Again, on the third night, he made a similar request, showing the same degree of interest as at first.”¹

Mr. Lincoln, who was sent for from the White House, immediately went for Mrs. Pomroy. She accompanied him at once, and for three weeks was a close attendant, night and day, in the sick room. At the end of that time Mrs. Lincoln so far recovered as to be able to journey, and her nurse, refusing an urgent invitation to accompany her, returned to the hospital, suffering severely in health from her long and close confinement.
During this sojourn in Mr. Lincoln’s family, her sympathies were deeply enlisted. Mr. Lincoln went to her in his troubles as to a family friend. An attack upon his person was expected at any time. To Mrs. Pomroy’s question, “What will you do about showing yourself in public?” he said, ‘I can do nothing different from what I am doing; I shall leave it all with my Heavenly Father.’
The battle of Vicksburg was raging, and then came the fearful loss of life at Gettysburg, then the battle of Port Hudson. “The Lord have mercy on those poor fellows!” he said, as he walked the floor in an agony of distress. ‘This is a righteous war, and God will protect the right. Many lives will be sacrificed on both sides, but I have done the best I could, trusting in God. If they gain this important point we are lost, but if we could only gain it, we shall have carried a great point, and I think we shall have a great deal to thank God for; for we have Vicksburg and Gettysburg already.”
She said: “Mr. Lincoln, prayer will do what nothing else will; can you not pray?”
“Yes, I will;” while the tears were dropping down his haggard and worn face. ‘Pray for me;” and he went alone to his room. Could the nation have heard his earnest petition, as the nurse did, they would have fallen on their knees in reverential sympathy.
At twelve o’clock at night, while the soldiers were guarding the house, a sentinel, riding quickly, halted in front of the house, with a telegram, that was carried up to the President. A few moments after, the door opened into the sick room where sat the weary nurse, and the President, standing under the chandelier, with one of his most radiant expressions, said, “Good news! Good news! Port Hudson is ours! The victory is ours, and God is good!”
She said, “nothing like prayer in times of trouble.”
He answered, ‘Yes, O, yes! Praise too; for prayer and praise go together.”⁴

While an occupant of the White House, a poor widow who had a soldier son lying dead, had tried day after day to see the President, and as often had been repulsed by the ushers on duty. At last she found out Mrs. Pomroy, and pour into her sympathetic ear the story of her troubles.
“Could she see the President, and would he listen to her?
Mrs. Pomroy promised to see him at once, and he replied to her request: “Let her come at eight o’clock, immediately after breakfast, and I will hear her the first one.”
She came, and told him her sad story, begging that she might have the dead body of her son to take home with her. In tones of sympathy, he said to her: “God will pity you, and I will give you a note; if it is possible, you may cross the lines, but I am afraid it is not.”
Mr. Lincoln felt more than ever his obligation towards Mrs. Pomroy in ‘saving Mrs. Lincoln’s life,’ (as he told his friends at the White House) and was ready to grant any request she might deem reasonable.⁸