Abraham Lincoln Loved and Shared Bed With a Man for 4 Years Before Falling Into 'Suicidal Depression'

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th and one of the greatest presidents America has ever seen. He was the one who had a strong stance during the Civil War and also the one who ended the concept of slavery in the country.  A very controversial documentary is circulating about a side nobody knew about Lincoln before. The name of the documentary is Lover of Men. The film is about the story of Lincoln having a relationship with several other men.

The documentary suggests he may have been gay or bisexual. This claim is strong but the documentary showed several pieces of evidence supporting this claim. The one person that the documentary talked the most about was Joshua Speed. According to the claim, both Lincoln and Speed lived together for four years in Springfield, Illinois. The documentary also talked about how they shared a bed from 1837 to 1841. At that time, it is said that Lincoln was in his late 20s and early 30s. Their meet was named "lust at first sight," as per People. 

The documentary further claims when Lincoln learned that Speed would be moving out of the home (and bed) they shared and heading back to his birthplace of Kentucky to take over his mother's farm, he was devasted. One expert in the doc says, "Lincoln is devastated," while another calls the days weeks and months that followed Speed's departure "the period of his darkest depression." "Then Lincoln goes into a suicidal depression," the commentator continues. "They established a kind of suicide watch. His friends removed his razor kit and any other sharp objects, like a knife. And he wrote to his law partner that 'I am the most miserable man living."

Speed wasn't the only one that the documentary talks about; there were other men too. One of them was William Greene, whom Lincoln met in his early 20s. They "slept in the same cot" for about 18 months and it was also said that when one turned over, the other had to as well. The film also talked about his bodyguard, David Derickson. A woman named Virginia Woodbury Fox wrote in her diary: "There is a Bucktail Soldier here devoted to the president, drives with him, and when Mrs. L is not home, sleeps with him. What stuff!" One historian in the documentary says, "I think it suggests Lincoln may have been a virgin at 33." That's how old he was when he married Mary Todd.

But the documentary doesn't ignore Lincoln's marriage. The peculiar thing the film revealed was that it was Speed who introduced Lincoln to Todd. Lincoln and Todd were engaged but it didn't work out for long and according to the film, they broke it off because he still had feelings for Speed. Lincoln did marry Todd in 1842. They had four children together. The documentary argues that Speed, not Todd, was the "real woman behind Abraham Lincoln the man." The film uses letters and other writings to make its case. It also interviews historians and experts. One of them, Thomas Balcerski, said, "If there were no letters if there were no records, if there was no documentary evidence, I could not conclude in good faith that Lincoln was a lover of men. But we have the receipts."

This article originally appeared 3 months ago.