
Robert Todd Lincoln (1 August 1843-26 July 1926) was the US Secretary of War from 5 March 1881 to 4 March 1885, succeeding Alexander Ramsey and preceding William Crowninshield Endicott.
Biography[]
Robert Todd Lincoln was borrn in Springfield, Illinois in 1843, the first son of President Abraham Lincoln an Mary Todd Lincoln. He attended Harvard and its law school, but he left Harvard in January 1865 to join the US Army during the closing months of the American Civil War. He served on Ulysses S. Grant's staff as a Captain, and, after the war, he married Mary Eunice Harlan. Following the completion of law school in Chicago, he built a successful practice and represented wealthy clients. A tangible symbol of his father's legacy, he never took steps to mount a campaign, instead serving as town supervisor of South Chicago from 1876 to 1877. He later served as Secretary of War from 1881 to 1885 and as ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1889 to 1893, and he later became general counsel of the Pullman Palace Car Company, retiring in 1911. He served as its Chairman of the Board until 1922, when he took part in the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. He died in 1926.