President Lincoln’s wife and his law partner snipped at each other for decades.

William H. Herndon called Mary Todd Lincoln “cold as a chunk of ice,” a “she-wolf,”  and “the female cat of the age.”

She called him “a dirty dog.”

Their antagonism for each other is significant because Herndon compiled much of the information known about his law partner’s early adult life, and his dislike of Mrs. Lincoln’s may have influenced the information he included.