Herndon, William H. (1 81 8-1 891) author, lawyer William Henry Herndon was best known as Abraham Lincoln’s law partner and biographer. He was born on Christmas Day in 1818 in Greensburg, Kentucky, and in 1820 his family moved to Illinois. Herndon attended Illinois College, where he learned strong antislavery principles. To earn money, he worked briefly as a clerk in a Springfield store, renting the room above the store for living quarters, which he shared with a number of friends at different times, including Lincoln.
Herndon was admitted to the Illinois bar and in 1844 joined Lincoln’s law firm. They remained partners until 1861, when president-elect Lincoln left Springfield for Washington, D. C. Lincoln and Herndon complemented each other well. Herndon managed the office and provided stability while Lincoln was gone for months at a time working the law circuit. They shared similar political convictions. Both were passionate Whigs and then Republicans; both were also protemperance, supported federal programs to aid economic growth, and opposed the expansion of slavery into the territories. Indeed, Herndon was one of Lincoln’s most enthusiastic political supporters.
After Lincoln’s death in 1865, Herndon’s business failed. Married with eight children, he struggled with alcoholism and depression. He became obsessed with the idea of writing a “true” history of Lincoln’s life, as opposed to the worshipful biographies so popular at the time. Determined to publish an accurate representation, he traveled to Kentucky and Indiana, where he recorded numerous oral interviews with surviving Lincoln relatives and friends. His three-volume biography, Herndon’s Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, was published in 1889.
Many people attacked Herndon’s Lincoln. Herndon claimed that Lincoln loved only one woman in his life, Ann Rutledge. Her early death, according to Herndon, caused Lincoln’s lifelong melancholy. Family members, including Mary Todd Lincoln, denied this story. Other controversies erupted over Herndon’s revelation that Nancy Hanks Lincoln was illegitimate. Historians have proved this assertion to be erroneous and found many other errors as well. Nevertheless, the collected reminiscences have been invaluable to generations of Lincoln scholars. Herndon died on March 18, 1891.
Further reading: David Herbert Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1948).
World History
