Note: Please see Day 3 (October 11) of the sale that features rare material relating to the Gettysburg Address.

Grand Presidential Party engraved invitation completed in manuscript. [Washington, D.C.], 5 February [1862]. 5 1/4 x 2 5/8 in. 

An extremely scarce printed invitation to the “Grand Presidential Party” at the Executive Mansion, the White House ball hosted by President Abraham Lincoln and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln on February 5, 1862, held in the midst of the Civil War and as their son Willie lay gravely ill.

Conceived and arranged by Mary Lincoln as a lavish wartime reception, the event drew Washington’s elite and quickly became the social occasion of the season. Approximately 700 invitations were issued for the affair. The Evening Star reported: “by ten o'clock the arrivals were thick and fast, and from that hour until midnight the East Room presented a brilliant spectacle indeed. The President and Mrs. Lincoln occupied the center of the room, no formal presentations being made to them, but the guests on arriving advancing to pay their respects to each.”

Behind the glitzy affair ran a heartbreaking undercurrent. Earlier that month, Willie Lincoln had fallen ill with a fever believed to be typhoid. His condition turned acute on the very night of the party, too late to cancel. The President and First Lady forced themselves to preside, with Mary repeatedly slipping away to her son’s bedside before returning, reluctantly, to her duties as hostess. Willie succumbed days later, on February 20, 1862.

A rare and deeply poignant piece of Lincoln-era White House ephemera, uniting high society pageantry with the private sorrow of the First Family.

[Abraham Lincoln, Politics, Mary Todd Lincoln, 1860 Election, Election of 1860, 1864 Election, Election of 1864,  Lincoln Assassination, John Wilkes Booth] [Ephemera, Pamphlets, Publications, Booklets]