what was abe lincoln's wife name?
Mary Todd Lincoln
entailment
 Lincoln 's mother , Nancy , is widely assumed to have been the daughter of Lucy Hanks , although no record of Nancy Hanks ' birth has ever been found . According to William Ensign Lincoln 's book The Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln , Nancy was the daughter of Joseph Hanks ; however , the debate continues over whether she was born out of wedlock . Still another researcher , Adin Baber , claims that Nancy Hanks was the daughter of Abraham Hanks and Sarah Harper of Virginia . 

entailment
 Lincoln 's first romantic interest was Ann Rutledge , whom he met when he first moved to New Salem ; by 1835 , they were in a relationship but not formally engaged . She died at the age of 22 on August 25 , 1835 , most likely of typhoid fever . In the early 1830s , he met Mary Owens from Kentucky when she was visiting her sister . 

neutral
 Abbie is hinted to be Abe 's illegitimate daughter and Homer 's half sister from a relationship he had with a British woman named Edwina during World War II . 

entailment
 Several significant family events took place during Lincoln 's youth in Indiana . On October 5 , 1818 , Nancy Lincoln died of milk sickness , leaving eleven @-@ year @-@ old Sarah in charge of a household that included her father , nine @-@ year @-@ old Abraham , and Dennis Hanks , Nancy 's nineteen @-@ year @-@ old orphaned cousin . On December 2 , 1819 , Lincoln 's father married Sarah " Sally " Bush Johnston , a widow from Elizabethtown , Kentucky , with three children of her own . Abraham became very close to his stepmother , whom he referred to as " Mother " . Those who knew Lincoln as a teenager later recalled him being very distraught over his sister Sarah 's death on January 20 , 1828 , while giving birth to a stillborn son . 

contradiction
 A legend told by Pickett 's widow stated that when the Union Army marched into Richmond , she received a surprise visitor . He acted graciously and inquired whether he had found the Pickett house . Abraham Lincoln himself had come to determine the fate of an old acquaintance before the wars , and Sallie , astonished , admitted she was his wife and held out her infant for the president to cradle . Lincoln historian Gerald J. Prokopowicz has called this story a " fantasy " . 
