Mary Lincoln wrote to Caroline Wright on February 15, 1865, about a visit, dinner and the disruption of work at the Executive Mansion. The Library of Congress's October 21 account says the recently acquired letter has been digitized in its Mary Todd Lincoln Papers.
Its interest lies partly in how ordinary its business is. A friend needs somewhere to stay; the house is being worked on; an invitation still stands. Reading only through the later assassination can obscure what the writer was actually trying to arrange that day.
An invitation, a postscript and a wreath
The Library points out a sideways postscript and black-bordered stationery. Those details are part of the letter alongside the invitation and the news of work at the house. The digitized document makes both the writing and its physical arrangement available to readers.
The Library's acquisition notice adds a second history to the wreath in the letter. Caroline Wright commissioned a hairwork eagle as a fundraising project for sick and wounded Civil War soldiers. The Library says historians believe that object is the wreath Lincoln mentions. The letter thanks Wright for a wreath; the connection to the hairwork eagle is the historians’ interpretation cited by the Library.
The notice links the digitized Mary Todd Lincoln correspondence collection. That collection-level record is useful for finding surrounding material and for avoiding an easy chronological mistake. February 1865 is the date of the correspondence, while October 2026 is the public announcement about the acquisition and online access. A newly accessible letter can change what readers can inspect without making its contents a newly discovered event in Lincoln's life.
