Are You Prepared for the Storm of Love Making?: Letters of Love and Lust from the White House

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For Our Daughter, Ellen

Introduction

This is a book of love stories. Every one of them involved a president of the United States, and we will tell their stories through letters they wrote. Through this collection of carefully chosen letters, we reveal the writers at their most vulnerable, providing a surprisingly intimate and deeply personal portrait that is often obscured by the public persona. The private face of presidents, as with other men, was not always the side they showed to the public. These letters reveal the tender romantics among the men who occupied the White House as well as those who were inept in matters of the heart. The letters also show the presidents who were surprisingly sexy and expose those who were consummate philanderers.

When these men wooed the women they wanted to marry or seduce, they could be playful, passionate, tender, consumed by desire. No president of the twentieth century appeared more straitlaced than Woodrow Wilson. Yet after ten years of married life, Wilson, about to return home after a long absence, wrote to his first wife, Ellen, Do you think you can stand the innumerable kisses and the passionate embraces you will receive? Are you prepared for the storm of love making with which you will be assailed?

The letters, too, often reveal the character of the writer. Lyndon B. Johnson, who wrote courtship letters to Lady Bird Taylor on House of Representatives stationery, jotted anxious little notes above the letterhead, such as Question—Attention: Who do you love?

The correspondence between the presidents and their wives also says much about their relationships and offers an unexpected window into the quiet but undeniable power that many of the early First Ladies were able to wield in the background.

John and Abigail Adams were remarkable for the respect they showed each other. The first time John met her, when she was only fifteen, he called her a wit. She had no hesitation in cautioning him to remember the ladies when he was helping to write the Constitution. (His reply showed that he was something of a wit himself.) Their more than two thousand letters are full of clever sparring matches.

John and Abigail’s son John Quincy had a very different marriage with his wife. Imperious by nature, he excluded his wife, Louisa Catherine, from his diplomatic and political careers as much as possible. Louisa once wrote, I have nothing to do with the disposal of affairs and have never but once been consulted.

The marriage of James K. Polk and his wife, Sarah Childress, was quite the opposite. One of his relatives commented after meeting her that she displayed a great deal of spice and more independence of judgment than was fitting in any one woman. Polk was fortunate in his choice of a mate; she played an active role in his career, clipping and even writing articles in newspapers, giving advice (which he took), and taking care of their plantation while he was elsewhere campaigning. All of their letters are more concerned with politics than romance.

As married people know, marriages are not all smooth sailing. Some of the letters are poignant and heartbreaking, reflecting times of loss, such as the death of a child. A great many reveal the hardships of separation, for many times letter writers were away on the battlefield. The weight of the office and the difficult decisions these men confronted also comes across in the correspondence.

Harry S. Truman wrote the following to his wife, Bess, after feeling she was unsympathetic to the problems he faced as president: You can never appreciate what it means to come home as I did the other evening after doing at least one hundred things I didn’t want to do and have the only person in the world whose approval and good opinion I value look at me like I’m something the cat dragged in. But Truman, a wise man who had been in love with Bess since he was five years old, put the letter aside. His daughter found it in his desk after he died. Several presidents also had extramarital affairs. It is not surprising that fewer of these letters have been preserved. In fact, the provocative letters written by Warren G. Harding to Carrie Phillips were later used to blackmail him. Nevertheless, his letters to Phillips are among the most passionate, and explicit, of presidential letters. Writing to Phillips, Harding recalled their dalliance the year before when our hearts sang the rapture without words and we greeted the New Year from the hallowed heights of heaven…

While we strived to include letters by every president, not all are represented in this book. Some letters were destroyed, such as those of Thomas Jefferson, whose wife’s dying wish was that he not only burn the letters he had written to her but that he not marry again. (She had been raised by a stepmother who treated her cruelly and she didn’t want her two daughters by Jefferson to suffer the same fate.)

Other letters were lost or forgotten. Martin Van Buren’s wife died eighteen years before he became president and is not even mentioned in his autobiography. Zachary Taylor wrote many letters during his service in the Mexican War, but none that he wrote to his wife were salvaged. This doesn’t mean that Van Buren or Taylor wrote no letters; it reflects the attitude of their times that such intimate letters were private, and to be kept that way.

Although Herbert and Lou Hoover were together for most of their adult lives, the Hoover Presidential Library assured us that they have no letters. Laura Bush, wife of George W. Bush, wrote in her autobiography that she and George only spent one day apart from the moment they met as adults until the day of their wedding. Hence, no courtship letters. (He had spent that one day with his extended family in Maine, where he missed Laura so much that he immediately flew back to Texas.) We contacted every other living former president but their letters were not available. In a digital era of tweets, texts, and emails, we are unlikely to ever get such an intimate look at our modern presidents through records of private, handwritten letters.

The letters in this book are divided into four sections: Romancing, Separation, Adversity, and Lovers. Before each letter, we note the name of the president who wrote the letter, and to whom he sent it. You may find letters from a single president in different sections. While many presidents weren’t great at spelling or grammar, we’ve left the letters just as they were written to provide the most authentic reading experience, except where we deleted a few unnecessary commas. The letters also reflect the writing conventions of the time, which we have also left intact, adding a bracketed note in the text for clarity when needed.

Lastly, in writing about our presidents, we realize that history has revealed their many strengths but also their flaws—from misogyny and racism to ineptitude and misconduct. With rare exceptions, those who held office in the early years of the republic were enslavers.

So we stress that in this book, we write about the presidents as men who fell in love and expressed their feelings as other men did. That was one aspect of their lives, not the only one. Through this lens, we hope to understand them as we never have before.

PART 1

Romancing

Introduction

When a man writes a letter to a woman he is in love with, he generally has one purpose: to persuade her to love him. There are many ways to do this. Some are clever; some are not. Perhaps the clumsiest in this section is in Ulysses S. Grant’s letter to Julia Dent. He drew twenty-one long dashes on the paper and wrote, Read these blank lines just as I intend them, and they will express more than words.

Well, of course Julia wanted words more than dashes, but she had to specifically ask him to express his affections—and, eventually, she received them. You’ll find those in this section, too.

At the other extreme might be John Tyler, who expressed himself in language as flowery as any Southern gentleman of the 1810s would: From the first moment of my acquaintance with you, I felt the influence of genuine affection; but now, when I reflect upon the sacrifice which you make to virtue and to feeling, by conferring your hand upon me, who have nothing to boast of but an honest and upright soul, and a heart of purest love, I feel gratitude superadded to affection by you.

It worked for Tyler. In fact, it worked twice, because after his first wife passed away, he wooed and won another. His second wife, Julia Gardiner, was thirty years younger than Tyler, and in time they had seven children. Closer to our own time is the courtship of Claudia Alta Lady Bird Taylor by Lyndon B. Johnson. As a congressman later, Johnson was known for winning votes through sheer persistence—what some called twisting arms. That was the way he won Lady Bird, too. He met her in Texas in September 1934, and after he returned to Washington, DC, wrote her every day with sentiments like this: Again I repeat—I love you—only you—Want to always love—only you… He demanded that she write him just as often. After more than two months of this, she agreed to marry him, and they wed in November 1934. They remained together for the rest of his life.

In the end, maybe the best approach is for the lover to convince his beloved that the one thing above all others that he’d rather do is write to her; as John Adams expressed it to Abigail Smith: Now Letter-Writing is, to me, the most agreeable Amusement, and Writing to you, the most entertaining and Agreeable of all Letter-Writing.

Reading the letters is entertaining, too, as we hope you’ll discover.

George Washington to Martha Dandridge Custis Washington

At the end of her life, Martha Washington tried to burn all the letters she had ever received from her husband. Fortunately for us, she missed a few. Scholars disagree on which of the remaining ones are genuine. Only two are generally accepted as coming from Washington’s hand. Here is one, and you will find the other in Part 2.

Neither of these was written during their courtship, but George’s feelings toward Martha are evident from the letter below. We do know that their courtship began in the spring of 1758 when Colonel and Mrs. Richard Chamberlayne invited their neighbor, Martha Custis, to pay a visit to their plantation on the Pamunkey River in Virginia. While she was there, Chamberlayne was out for a stroll when he encountered his friend George Washington and invited him to stay for dinner.

Chamberlayne may not have known it, but he was playing Cupid. Martha’s husband, Daniel Parke Custis, had died the year before, leaving his widow a fortune and a grand home named, coincidentally, the White House. Martha was only twenty-six and beautiful. She also had two children and was doubtless looking for someone to be a father to them.

Washington tried to beg off from the invitation. He was the commander of the Virginia militia and was headed for Williamsburg, the colony’s capital, to meet with the governor. However, after Chamberlayne pointed out the desirability of his houseguest, Washington accepted the invitation.

Although called the Father of the Country, George Washington had no known biological children. The two young children in this picture are Martha’s grandchildren. The boy was named after George Washington.

The dinner was a success, and Washington stayed the night. He finally did leave to keep his appointment with the governor, but it wasn’t long before he called on Martha again. They were married on January 6, 1759, at Martha’s home.

Neither could have guessed that more than sixteen years later, Washington would be chosen to lead the colonies in rebellion against Britain. He was the logical man for the job, because no one else had as much military experience as he did. But it carried obvious personal risks. He would assume command immediately and did not even have the time to return to Virginia to say goodbye to his wife. He wrote the following note without knowing when, or if, he would meet her again.

Phila. June 23d 1775.

My dearest,

As I am within a few Minutes of leaving this City, I could not think of departing from it without dropping you a line; especially as I do not know whether it may be in my power to write again until I get to the Camp at Boston—I go fully trusting in that Providence, which has been more bountiful to me than I deserve, & in full confidence of a happy meeting with you sometime in the Fall—I have not time to add more, as I am surrounded with company to take Leave of me—I retain an unalterable affection for you, which neither time or distance can change, my best love to Jack & Nelly [her children] & regard for the rest of the Family concludes me with the utmost truth & sincerity.

Yr entire,

Go: Washington

Actually, Martha was able to visit him, and the troops he commanded, each winter for the next eight years when the fighting halted. The soldiers were impressed by Martha’s visits, for she knitted socks and other things for them and offered encouragement. The Marquis de Lafayette, the French nobleman who had joined Washington’s army, recalled that she loved her husband madly.

John Adams to Abigail Smith

John Adams and Abigail Smith Adams more than made up for Martha Washington’s reluctance to make her husband’s letters public. The second president and his wife were separated so often that there are about eleven hundred letters between them. They first met when John was a struggling twenty-four-year-old lawyer and Abigail was only fifteen. Both were strong-willed and it was not a case of love at first sight.

Over time, a mutual attraction grew between the two and they married after a three-year courtship. Abigail’s mother tried to discourage the union because she didn’t think John could earn enough to support a wife. But he persisted and before long he developed a pet name for her, which he used on the following bill.

Octr. 4th, 1762

Miss Adorable

By the same Token that the Bearer hereof satt up with you last night I hereby order you to give him, as many Kisses, and as many Hours of your Company after 9 OClock as he shall please to Demand and charge them to my Account.… I presume I have good Right to draw upon you for the Kisses as I have given two or three Millions at least, when one has been recd, [received] and of Consequence the Account between us is immensely in favour of yours

John Adams

Abigail saw beneath the surface of the homely young lawyer. He had what she most respected: a good education. The daughter of a minister, she had been taught the basics by her mother and through reading whichever books she found in her father’s library. She was thirsty for more.

Against the advice of her parents, she and John became engaged in 1764, when she was nineteen. Evidently she encouraged John’s advice on how she could improve herself, leading to the next letter, an unusual one for a fiancé to write. Even more unusual—to our modern eyes—are the supposed faults he found in her. Across the centuries, we might discern a twinkle in the young man’s eye as he responds to her request, for his suggestions have a wry tone that implies that Abigail’s imperfections were really very trivial.

Boston May 7th. 1764

I promised you, Sometime agone, a Catalogue of your Faults, Imperfections, Defects—or whatever you please to call them… But I must caution you, before I proceed to recollect yourself, [that] instead of being vexed or fretted or thrown into a Passion, to resolve upon a Reformation—for this is my sincere Aim, in laying before you, this Picture of yourself.

In the first Place, then, give me leave to say, you have been extreamly negligent, in attending so little to Cards. You have very little Inclination, to that noble and elegant Diversion, and whenever you have taken a Hand you have held it but awkwardly and played it, with a very uncourtly, and indifferent, Air…

Another Thing, which ought to be mentioned, and by all means amended, is, the Effect of a Country Life and Education, I mean, a certain Modesty, sensibility, Bashfulness, call it by which of these Names you will, that enkindles Blushes forsooth at every Violation of Decency, in Company, and lays a most insupportable Constraint on the freedom of Behavior…

In the Third Place, you could never yet be prevail’d on to learn to sing. This I take very soberly to be an Imperfection of the most moment of any. An Ear for Musick would be a source of much Pleasure…

In the Fourth Place you very often hang your Head like a Bulrush. You do not sit, erected as you ought [and so] it happens that you appear too short for a Beauty, and the Company looses the sweet smiles of that Countenance and the bright sparkles of those Eyes. This Fault is the Effect and Consequence of another, still more inexcusable in a Lady, I mean the Habit of Reading, Writing and Thinking. But both the Cause and the Effect ought to be repented and amended as soon as possible.

Another Fault, which seems to have been obstinately persisted in, after frequent Remonstrances, Advices and Admonitions of your Friends, is that of sitting with the Leggs across. This ruins the figure and… injures the Health. And springs I fear from the former source, vizt [such as] too much Thinking. These Things ought not to be!

A sixth Imperfection is that of Walking, with the Toes bending inward. This Imperfection is commonly called Parrot-toed, I think, I know not for what Reason.…

Thus have I given a faithful Portraiture of all the Spotts, I have hitherto discerned… Nearly Three Weeks have I conned and studied for more, but more are not to be discovered. All the rest is bright and luminous.…

Lysander

John signed the letter with the pet name Abigail had given him. Lysander was a Trojan military hero. This held a tinge of irony since John was not a military man and never took up arms in the Revolution. Abigail responded to this letter in the same spirit, writing, I thank you for your Catalogue, but must confess I was so hardened as to read over most of my Faults with as much pleasure, as an other person would have read their perfections. And Lysander must excuse me if I still persist in some of them, at least till I am convinced that an alteration would contribute to his happiness… but you know I think that a gentleman has no business to concern himself about the Leggs of a Lady. For my part I do not apprehend any bad effects from the practice, yet since you desire it, and that you may not for the future trouble yourself so much about it, will reform.

Thirty-five years after they met, John would become the second president of a nation that didn’t exist when he and Abigail first met each other. He served from 1797 to 1801.

Theirs would be a marriage of equals, unusual for the times.

James Madison to Dolley Payne Todd

At age forty-six, James Madison had never been married. He had once fallen in love with Kitty Floyd, a fifteen-year-old girl, and proposed to her—by letter. She accepted, but he wanted to wait until Congress adjourned for the year. This proved to be a mistake, for she accepted another man’s offer and sent Madison a rejection—by letter.

So, when he became aware of a young widow whose mother ran a boardinghouse, he didn’t tarry. He asked Aaron Burr, who had stayed in the boardinghouse, to make an introduction.

Dolley Payne grew up in a Quaker family and married a Quaker lawyer in 1790, when she was twenty-two. Soon she was the mother of two sons, but then tragedy struck. An epidemic of yellow fever swept through Philadelphia, home to many of the Quaker faith. Dolley’s husband, John Todd, succumbed to the disease and so did one of their sons. Widows seldom had a way to earn a living in those days, unless they inherited a fortune from their husbands, which wasn’t the case with Dolley.

Physically, James Madison must not have seemed a good catch. Shy and short (at five feet, four inches, he was the shortest president). But he had a brilliant mind and was the principal author of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. George Washington, not a lawyer, often consulted Madison and asked him to write his inaugural address. (The House of Representatives then asked him to write the official reply to Washington’s address.)

When Madison asked for Dolley’s hand, once again the courtship began by letter. This time, Madison used allies. He asked Dolley’s cousin, the wife of a congressman, to tell Dolley how much in love with her he was: To begin, he thinks so much of you in the day that he has Lost his Tongue, at night he Dreames of you… Calling on you to relieve his Flame for he Burns to such an excess that he will be shortly consumed & he hopes that your Heart will be calous to every other swain but himself. Dolley finally consented to his proposal, although the letter she sent has been lost. Here is Madison’s reply to the happy news.

Orange, NJ

Aug 18, [1794]

I read some days ago your precious favor [letter] from Fredg. [Fredericksburg, PA, where she had gone to escape the epidemic] but hope you will conceive the joy it gave me. The delay in hearing of your leaving… which I regarded as the only satisfactory proof of your recovery had filled me with extreme disquietude, and the communication of the welcome event was endeared to me by the stile in which it was conveyed. I hope you will never have another deliberation [in other words, change her mind] on that subject. If the sentiments of my heart can guarantee those of yours, they assure me there can never be a cause for it. [The letter has been damaged, making its contents difficult to read.]

Dolley and James were married on September 15, 1794. The following day, she wrote her best friend "to tell you in short, that in the course of this day I give my Hand to the Man who of all other’s I most admire.… In this Union I have everything that is soothing and greatful in prospect—& my little Payne [her surviving son] will have a generous & tender protector. She signed the letter Dolley Payne Todd, and then, realizing her mistake, wrote, Dolley Madison! Alass!" In time, however, she would fall deeply in love with Madison. Because she married an Episcopalian, Dolley was expelled from the Quakers. It was just as well, because she later became known for her fashionable clothing and the weekly parties she gave while First Lady. Serving as hostess for Jefferson, the third president (whose wife had died), and as the wife of Madison, the fourth president, she set the standard for presidential wives.

The Madisons’ marriage was by all accounts a happy one. In an 1877 article in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, a woman who claimed to have visited the Madisons in 1835, when James was over eighty years old, recounted this giddy scene:

Mr. and Mrs. Madison would in private sometimes romp and tease each other like two children, and engage in antics that would astonish the muse of history. Mrs. Madison was stronger as well as larger than he. She could—and did—seize his hands, draw him upon her back and go round the room with him whenever she particularly wished to impress him with a due sense of man’s inferiority.

When Dolley Madison died, thirteen years after her husband, Congress adjourned for a day in her honor.

John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson

Twenty-seven-year-old John Quincy Adams could not have known that he was destined to become the United States’ sixth president when he arrived in Europe in 1794. President George Washington had just appointed him the US ambassador to the Netherlands, a job John Quincy was well suited for, because his father, John Adams, now vice president, had served in the same post earlier.

John Quincy, at that time only eleven, had accompanied him, spending much of his childhood in Europe.

His new assignment did not keep John Quincy in the Netherlands for long. He was ordered to go to London to take over the duties of the American ambassador, who was busy negotiating a treaty in Spain. On this trip John Quincy met Joshua Johnson, the American consul in London, and became smitten with twenty-one-year-old Louisa Catherine, one of Johnson’s daughters—enough so that John Quincy had a miniature portrait of himself