The History of the Civil War in Kentucky: Chapter 9 – The Ones Left Behind, Lincoln’s “Little Sister”

November 23, 2024

“The Civil War in Kentucky” is a 10-part series recently published in my Journey Log entitled “Surrounding Fort Knox, including Southern Indiana.” It deals primarily with the Central Kentucky Theater. I present it here as a series of individual blogs for my readers. Links to the previously published chapters will be provided at the end of each blog. Look for them on each Saturday morning! (A link to the book and its Table of Contents is found here.)

War is often glorified for the courage and sacrifice of combatants. Not enough, perhaps, is focused on the consequences of their actions in regard to those who survive and are left behind. Emilie Todd Helm was one of those who survived after her husband from Elizabethtown, Confederate Brig. General Benjamin Hardin Helm, was killed in 1863 leading a charge at the Battle of Chickamauga. And she was a favorite half-sister of Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of the President of the United States. Her husband died fighting him, or at least fighting the thought of him.

Emilie Pariet Todd [1836-1930] was born in Lexington, Kentucky to the son of one of Lexington’s Founders, Levi Todd [1756-1807]. Her father, Robert Smith Todd [1791-1849] married twice. His first wife was Elizabeth “Eliza” Parker [1794-1825], who bore him seven children. Their fourth child was Mary Ann Todd [1818-1882], who would marry Abraham Lincoln in 1842 in Springfield, Illinois. Soon after the death of his first wife [related to childbirth], Robert Todd married Elizabeth “Betsy” Humphreys [1801-1874]. She gave birth to nine children, the sixth of which is the subject of this essay, Emilie Pariet Todd.

Emilie was 18 years younger than her half-sister, Mary Todd Lincoln. When the future President met Emilie in Lexington, she was only ten years old. He quickly developed a family fondness for her, calling her “Little Sister.” Emilie was also a favorite of her “Big Sister,” Mary, Lincoln’s new wife. Their father died of Cholera in 1849, creating a financial crisis in the family. Five years later, after turning 18, Emilie traveled to Illinois, spending six months with the Lincoln family.

The complexity of such a large family of Todds would prove trying, as that family split in support for different sides in the Civil War. It became particularly troubling for President Abraham Lincoln as he tried to provide support to his wife Mary’s extended family and solace to Emilie. Here is what happened.

Emilie was described as a “petite” woman with black hair and big eyes. Daguerreotype images show her to have a handsome look and a sweet oval face. In 1856, she married Benjamin Hardin Helm [1831-1863] of a distinguished Elizabethtown, Kentucky family. Helm was tall at six feet, with brown hair and blue eyes. They would have three children, but no further heirs from them.

Ben Hardin Helm was a lawyer, trained at the University of Louisville and Harvard University. And he also developed a family relationship with the Lincolns. As the Civil War started, President Lincoln, at the White House, offered Helm a commission in the United States Army. Instead, Helm chose the Confederacy and, on October 19, 1861, became a Colonel in the First Kentucky Cavalry. While moving south with Confederate forces after Grant’s victory at Ft. Donelson on the Cumberland River [February 1862], his young wife, Emilie, followed with their two small children, giving birth to a third child [Benjamin Hardin Helm, Jr., 1862-1946] in Alabama just after the Battle of Shiloh. At that battle, Emilie’s 32-year-old brother, Samuel Brown Todd [1830-1862] died as a Confederate Soldier.

Later in 1862, Helm, now a Brigadier General, commanded a Confederate Brigade in the battle to take back Baton Rouge from Union Admiral David Farragut. On August 5, 1862, the Confederate forces attacked. Initially successful, the Confederates were routed by federal gunboats. Helm was injured, but his aide-de-camp, young Alexander Humphreys Todd [1839-1862], Emilie’s 23-year-old brother, was killed.

In February 1863, Confederate General Ben Hardin Helm was promoted to Commander of the Confederate First Kentucky Brigade, originally raised in Kentucky by former United States Senator and United States Vice President, John C. Breckinridge. Known later as the “Orphan Brigade,” it was comprised, at different times, of six Infantry Regiments and three Artillery batteries. In 1862, the Brigade numbered about 4,000 men. By 1864, its size had diminished to less than a quarter of that number.

Earlier that year, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln suffered the death of their 11-year-old son, William “Willie” Wallace Lincoln [named for one of Mary’s brothers-in-law] of Typhoid Fever. At the White House, Mary took to her bed for three weeks suffering after the death of her child. The Todd family losses were rising.

Then, in September 1863, Confederate General Braxton Bragg turned and counterattacked the Union forces of Union General William Rosecrans, whose army had taken Chattanooga. Bragg had escaped Kentucky after his failed invasion of Kentucky in 1862. Rosecrans had replaced Union General Don Carlos Buell, who was criticized for not crushing Bragg in Kentucky. Rosecrans was sent to track Bragg’s army down.

At Chickamauga Creek, about five miles south of Chattanooga [and slightly into Georgia], two armies, each with about 60,000 men, collided in battle. The Confederates were initially successful but were unable to follow up and take back Chattanooga. General Ben Hardin Helm was felled by a sharpshooter’s bullet while leading the charge of his men on horseback on the right flank. Wounded in the chest, he died the next day, September 21, 1863. Fully one third of the Orphan Brigade had been killed or wounded in that battle.

The next month, Union General Ulysses S. Grant replaced General Rosecrans and, in November of 1863, counterattacked the Confederates, driving them back south into Georgia. Some have called these battles the “Death Knell of the Confederacy.” Union General William Tecumseh Sherman would soon begin his march south, taking Atlanta in July 1864 and beginning his “March to the Sea.”

After Shiloh, Emilie Helm had written, “… I was very sorry I could not get with the Kentucky troops … I want to identify my destiny with them.” Now she had only just enough time to reach Atlanta for her husband’s funeral. His body was placed in a tin box, inserted into a wooden coffin, and buried with full honors in Atlanta’s Citizen’s Graveyard.

It must have been extremely difficult for the young 26-year-old widow with three children. After the funeral, she received around $200 in back pay and her husband’s trunk, which, when opened, proved empty. General Ben Hardin Helm had been only 32 years old.

Abraham Lincoln and his wife Nancy greatly mourned the death of yet another family member. Emilie and her children now wanted to go back home to Kentucky, but she needed a Union Pass to cross back over Union lines. Confederate General Bragg had asked General Grant for one, but he refused. Emilie’s mother, however, was successful in obtaining a Pass to go south and bring her daughter back.

At Union Fort Monroe in Virginia, where they could cross back north, Emilie was denied entry. She had refused to sign an Oath of Loyalty to the United States. When a clarifying inquiry was made to the White House, Lincoln telegraphed back, “Send her to me.” And with her mother taking the two younger children back to Lexington, Emilie and her 6-year-old daughter, Katherine, arrived at the White House in December 1863.

In her diary [which she would later burn], Emilie reported that, “Mr. Lincoln and my sister met me with the warmest affection, we were all too-grief-stricken at first for speech. I have lost my husband, they have lost their fine little son Willie and Mary and I have lost brothers in the Confederate service. … Our tears gathered silently … as with choking voices we tried to talk of immaterial things.”

Word of the wife of a Confederate General staying at the Lincoln White House was of concern in the Washington community. After about a week and some complaints about her presence, Emilie talked further with the President about her deceased husband. Lincoln said, “You know, Little Sister, I tried to have [him] come with me. I hope you do not feel any bitterness or that I am in any way to blame for all this sorrow.” Emilie replied that it was the nature of war and that her husband “loved him and had been deeply grateful to him … Mr. Lincoln put his arms around me and we both wept.”

Upon her departure, Lincoln gave her a note to ease passage. It said:

“To Whom It May Concern,

It is my wish that Mrs. Emily T. Helm (widow of the late Gen. B.H. Helm, who fell in Confederate service), now returning to Kentucky, may have the protection of person and property, except as to slaves, of which I say nothing.”

It was dated December 14, 1863 and signed, “A. Lincoln.”

Emilie returned to her family in Lexington. But times were difficult. In November 1864, she wrote Lincoln for a Pass to travel south and sell some cotton assets. But Lincoln was being criticized for another Pass he had granted one of Mary’s other sisters. And she had been accused of transporting contraband!

Emilie’s request was denied. Perhaps it did not help that she wrote to Lincoln stating, “I also would remind you that your minie balls made us what we are today and I feel that I have that additional claim on you.” Emilie would neither see nor communicate with the Lincolns again. Five months later, Abraham Lincoln would be assassinated.

Emile never remarried. For a time, she moved to Madison, Indiana, where she gave piano lessons. Her relationship with Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln, grew, however, and with his assistance, she became Postmistress for Elizabethtown from 1883 to 1895.

Perhaps it is not surprising that Emilie remained loyal to her family, which had included President Abraham Lincoln. And in a meaningful way, her support touches again upon the stories described further in this SurroundingÔ Journey.

On February 12, 1909, Emilie and her children were present when President Roosevelt laid the cornerstone for the Lincoln Birthplace Monument outside Hodgenville. And in May of that same year, before 10,000 onlookers, she unveiled the bronze statue of Lincoln that still stands in the Hodgenville square. Robert Todd Lincoln, then President of the Pullman Railroad Car Company, also attended. Two years later, in November 1911, Emilie would be present for the unveiling of the Lincoln statue that is still present in the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s Capitol Rotunda.

Emilie moved back to Lexington in 1912, where she lived until she died at the age of 93. She was buried next to her brothers in the Lexington Cemetery. In 1884, the body of Confederate General Ben Hardin Helm was reinterred at the Helm Place in Elizabethtown.

Previous Chapters

Chapter 1: The History of the Civil War in Kentucky

Chapter 2: Surrounding Sherman and Grant

Chapter 3: William Tecumseh Sherman in Kentucky

Chapter 4: Civil War Camp Nevin and Nolin Station

Chapter 5: West Point, Sherman, and Fort Duffield

Chapter 6: The Confederate Invasion of Kentucky

Chapter 7: Morgan’s Raiders During the Invasion of Kentucky and After the Battle of Perryville

Chapter 8: Surrounding Morgan’s Great Raid

Life and Landscapes Blog Site is at www.vanstockum.blog/lookin

www.facebook.com/reggievanstockum

www.instagram.com/reggievanstockum