In 1875, ten years after the Great Emancipator was assassinated, Congress voted to give his widow Mary Todd Lincoln a government pension of $3,000 a year. She had petitioned and fought bitterly and inveigled and at last with the help of powerful friends was finally victorious. Mary took off for Florida to a healing spring; waters that were said to be curative. Her urethra was torn giving birth to Tad; she had arthritis and diabetes and "took the waters"  for her health.
Soon though, as everywhere Mary went, trouble ensued. She began to have delusions that son Robert was going to be killed. She wrote him two frantic letters, then precipitously left for Chicago, where she found him alive and well. She could not stay with Robert and his wife Mary Harlan--the two women couldn't stand each other. (Mary Todd had written a friend that her daughter in law was a closet drinker.) Robert later confided to a friend that his mother had almost destroyed his marriage.
Mary Todd moved into a hotel and shopped compulsively. She began having hallucinations; hearing voices in the walls and floors. She thought her coffee had been poisoned. A maid reported finding her shrieking and disheveled.  A panel of distinguished men was impaneled and a jury found her insane and needed treatment in an insane asylum.  Robert testified against her, for which she never forgave him. It was decided to send her to Dr. Patterson, a doctor with progressive methods of treatment--his asylum was an estate with a beautiful house on landscaped grounds.
While these arrangements were being made, two Pinkerton guards were posted to keep her from leaving her hotel room. She had a maid to stay with her. But when Mary Todd decided to leave, she walked out and the guards would not stop Mrs. Abraham Lincoln. They followed her. She went to a chemist and asked for laudanum. The chemist was leery--he gave her a bottle of sugar water. Mary Todd drank it in the stairwell of the hotel. When nothing happened, she went back twice more and asked for laudanum and was given sugar water. Her suicide attempts had failed.
Before being taken to Dr. Patterson's, Mary was forced to rip out the pockets she had sewn into her petticoats where she had secreted her bonds and securities and turn them over to son Robert as conservator, along with her other monies. At the asylum, she had freedom of the grounds and could take carriage rides into town. She had her own bathroom, and could dine with the Patterson's if she chose. Mary cleverly sneaked out a letter begging for help right under Dr. Patterson's nose.
Two women, a lady reporter and a lady lawyer came to see her and took up her cause. The dowdy little woman they spoke to seemed perfectly sane. It was headline news and once again Robert had been dragged into his mother's turmoil. She caused so much trouble that Robert was finished with her. Another jury was impaneled that found her sane (after 11 weeks) and she was set free, demanding Robert return everything he had taken from her, and he did. He contacted Mary's sister Lizzie in Springfield who agreed to take her.
Mary seemed contented for a while, then decided to go into self exile at Pau, France, at a spa resort famous for its healing waters. She was aggrieved when Gen. Ulysses Grant and his cross eyed wife Julia came to Pau and never contacted her or even left a message of Hello. Mary was restless again.
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