He Had Rare Lights

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Willie has rare lights...rare lights!" Abraham Lincoln said to his secretary John Hay November 4, 1861 after the publication of Willie's poem "Lines on the Death of Colonel Baker' in the Washington Newspaper National Republican. The short life of William Wallace Lincoln has been given little attention in the biographies of his father, or in other writings on the Lincoln family. In 1850, in the Lincoln home in Springfield, Illinois, there came, just four days before Christmas on December 21 the winter solstice, a real live Christmas present, a baby boy. The child was named William Wallace after his Uncle Dr. William Smith Wallace originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania who had married Mary Lincoln's sister Frances Todd. He was of course, promptly called Willie. Ruth Painter Randall and Julia (Taft) Bayne have published books that do some shed some light on Willie's life but do not give Willie his due as a remarkable gifted boy, the favorite of his father and indeed most like him in temperament, intelligence, empathy and wit. When Willie tragically died in the White House at age 11 on February 20, 1862 of multiple diseases, most notably typhoid and smallpox, Lincoln was devastated. Willie's funeral on February 24 was the only time the whole federal government was shut down other than for a president. After years of research and two previously published historical novels featuring Willie Lincoln, the author has tracked down everything ever written about and everything Willie was alleged to have said from primary and secondary sources to finally bring this special lost son of Lincoln back to life and perhaps, as Willie had told his tutor Alexander Williamson in 1861 that he wanted to be a teacher or preacher, had he lived he may have even been president.