My parents returned to the State of Illinois when it was a territory, my father and mother liberating the slaves they had held in the State of Missouri. We resided at Marion, Williamson County, Illinois, during my childhood, but subsequently, my father being made Registrar of the Land Office at Shawneetown, Illinois, under Pierce’s administration, we removed to that place. I attended school at the Convent of St. Vincent, near Uniontown, Kentucky, which is a branch of the far-famed Nazareth School, graduating from that school in 1855. I came home and soon after met my husband, General John A. Logan, who served during the War with Mexico with my father, and to whom I am said to have been given by my father when I was a child. We were married on the 27th day of November, 1855.
I was very young when we were married and little suited for the duties and responsibilities of the wife of a promising young attorney. We removed to Franklin County, Benton, Illinois, as my husband was then Prosecuting Attorney for the third judicial district of the State of Illinois, which embraced sixteen counties. In those days we were not furnished with the blanks for everything as we are today, and I began to assist my husband in writing indictments for minor offenses, and in that was gradually drifted into taking part in everything which he did.
We had the same struggle that all young people without money had in those early days, but the fact that in 1858 my husband was elected to Congress shows that we were not altogether unsuccessful. At the breaking out of the Rebellion, General Logan was still a member of Congress from the old District. His history is well-known. I can only claim to have made the best fight possible at home surrounded by very bitter political opponents, who sympathized very strongly with the Rebellion, and who, from regarding General Logan as little less than an idol, became his bitter enemies and persecuted him and his adherents in the vilest manner they could. I am glad, however, that in the end they repented of their rash acts and became his devoted friends.
During these five years I went through everything that a human being could endure, but had the satisfaction of aiding him in his own magnificent efforts to succeed and in the conversion of his old friends to the support of the Government and his political aspirations.
After the War he was elected to Congress again from the State at large, and we came back to Washington and for more than twenty years we worked day and night together. We had very much pleasure in this work and our need for success. Through it all I have the conscientious gratification of knowing that I did the best that I could and have no regrets, except that I am sorry I had not the ability and power to do more to aid in his career.
He devoted his whole life to the public service and advancement of the welfare of his country and his friends, and if I had any share in it, I have been well repaid by his generous recognition of all I have tried to do. Since his death I have devoted myself absolutely to the perpetuation of his memory and in trying to prove that I was worthy of the great confidence which he had in me and his partial estimation in my ability.
There were three children born to us. The first born died when he was one year old; the second, now Mrs. Mary Logan Tucker, wife of Lt. Col. W. F. Tucker, US. Army, has two sons, one twenty-five and one thirteen years of age.
Our beloved son, Major John A. Logan, Jr., served during the Cuban War as an Adjutant General on the staff of General John C. Bates, returning at the close of the campaign more dead than alive from malarial fever. I met him at Montauk point and brought him home and nursed him back to health.
Hostilities being renewed in the Philippines, he insisted upon again entering the army, and was appointed Major of the 33rd U.S. Infantry, reaching Manilla October 29th, 1899. He succeeded in getting their regiment assigned to the command of General Lloyd Wheaton and went immediately to northern Luzon; making the first reconnoiter of the command he secured the advance of the attack upon the entrenched Filipinos at San Jacinto and was killed by a Filipino who was secreted in the top of a tree which towered above his battalion as he was leading them in a charge, falling as he would have fallen on the very point of his advancing battalion.
They subsequently routed the enemy. In his death I lost my all, and can never again have the same interest in life, as he was, in the sense that he bore his father’s name and lineage, my idol.
He left a widow and three lovely children, two girls and a boy, John A. Logan, III. But for the tenderness and sympathy accorded me by the nation I could not have survived this second overwhelming blow.
I have written for a number of periodicals, edited the Home Magazine for six years, and am sorry to say through the mismanagement of one of its proprietors it was discontinued, but not without having scored the phenomenal success of reaching three hundred thousand subscribers. It has been revived and I am again associate editor with P. V. Collins, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, its present proprietor and publisher, and hope to win back my old friends and many new ones to its support.
I am now and have been for more than two years on the editorial staff of the Hearst Syndicate, of New York.
I have never been identified with any organization, except being a member of the Women’s Relief Corps, auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, and a member of the Spanish War Veteran’s Auxiliary, because I have always felt that I could do better if I helped all organizations the best that I could without being a member, or in any way identified with them in the matter of election of officers, etc.
I have always tried to do all the charity in my power, and have done my best to help deserving women in their efforts to be self-sustaining. I cannot but feel that we must count it very little that we can do in this world. We are always under obligation in having received more than we have been able to give.
My greatest ambition after General Logan’s death was to live to see the completion and unveiling of the great statues erected to his memory in Chicago and Washington, and it is a source of infinite ratification to me to have had my prayers answered. These statues are without question the very best in the United States and were unveiled under the most gratifying auspices. The orations on the occasions of the unveilings by Hon. George R. Peck in Chicago, and President McKinley and Hon. Chauncey Depew in Washington have been pronounced classic tributes to General Logan, and I should be ungrateful and not insatiable in my desire were I not satisfied.
I have traveled very much in Europe since General Logan’s death for study and for occupation away from the channels which had so many sad memories for me. I have met nearly all the Crowned Heads of Europe.
In 1896, I had the pleasure of witnessing the Coronation of the Czar and Czarina of Russia and also seeing the Queen Regent of Spain, and consider myself fortunate in having visited that country before the Spanish-American War.
During the summer of 1904, between June 10th and August 29th, I gave thirty lectures before Chautauquas and assemblies in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, and South Dakota, traveling over twenty-five thousand miles to fill these engagements without having experienced any excessive fatigue or ill health from the labor required to perform the arduous work necessary to accomplish so much in so short a time.
My health is perfect, thanks to Him who holds us all in the hollow of His hand.
I have very much for which to be thankful, having enjoyed the confidence and respect of all in authority and position in my own country and abroad, and feel that I owe it all to the honored name I bear, which has been made illustrious by husband and son, John A. Logan, 3rd, Major Logan’s son, being the sole representative in the male line left to perpetuate the name.
I hope in the few brief years left to me to do something with my pen to aid in the advancement of that civilization for which husband and son offered up their precious lives.” —– Mary I. Logan
John Logan died December 26, 1886 in Washington, D.C. and Mary (Cunningham) Logan died on February 22, 1922 in Washington, D.C.
Sam’s Notes: Mary Cunningham grew up in her family home on East Main Street where the first dedicated Marion High School would later be erected. This school would later be converted to a grade school and was named Logan Grade School.
(Extracted from an article “Mary Logan: In Her Own Words”, 1989 Sesquicentennial History, WCHS)