The Lady as Loyal as Steel

This entry comes from My Diary North and South by William Howard Russell.

Russell was an Irish reporter with The Times and is considered to have been one of the first modern war correspondents. Here he comments on Mary Todd Lincoln.

November 3rd. [1861] —For some reason or another, a certain set of papers have lately taken to flatter Mrs. Lincoln in the most noisome manner, whilst others deal in dark insinuations against her loyalty, Union principles, and honesty. The poor lady is loyal as steel to her family and to Lincoln the first; but she is accessible to the influence of flattery, and has permitted her society to be infested by men who would not be received in any respectable private house in New York.

Mary Todd Lincoln, from the Library of Congress Collection