Polly Rogers and Her Husband’s Lawyer

Polly Rogers and Her Husband’s Lawyer

by Stacy Lynn

“The allegation of adultery against the said defendant was muted in the complainant’s bill, for no other cause, than through tenderness to the said defendant’s character.”

—Abraham Lincoln, affidavit for his divorce-case client Samuel Rogers, October 20, 1838

On October 4, 1835, in Sangamon County, Illinois, Polly Offill married Samuel Rogers, a Petersburg farmer. She left him a week later. She must have had her reasons, because separation and divorce from husbands was not an easy choice in antebellum America, even in Illinois where divorce law was progressive. While single women in America could own property and make contracts, married women’s legal standing became one with their husbands. As well, women in antebellum America had limited economic opportunities outside the family home, and divorce often meant harsh religious and social stigma. Legal and economic context and nineteenth-century expectations for women’s obedience to their husbands be damned, Polly walked away from her new husband. Her desertion was, regardless of the circumstances, a brave assertation of independence.

On November 7, 1835, Samuel Rogers published a public notice about his wife’s desertion in the Springfield Sangamo Journal. The text, which was typical of such legal notices, revealed much about women’s status in 1835: “My wife Polly, having left my bed and board, without any just cause or provocation, I hereby forewarn any person from harboring her on my account, as I am determined to pay no debts of her contracting after this date.” In publishing the notice, Samuel Rogers was protecting himself from any debts his wife might incur in his name. For the next two years, the couple lived apart.

In the summer of 1838, Samuel Rogers walked into Abraham Lincoln’s second-story law office on Hoffman’s Row, across from the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield. He explained to Lincoln that his wife had run off with another man and that he wanted a divorce. Lincoln listened while Rogers shared all the details of his failed marriage, discussing his loneliness and her alleged adulterous relationship with a man named William Short. While Lincoln heard his client’s tale of marital woe, he also envisioned the circumstances of the woman at the center of the tale. Even though she was not in the office telling her side of the story. Even as she might have been to blame for the breakup of the marriage. Even though Polly Rogers was not his client who would pay his fees.

When Samuel Rogers finished explaining the details of his marriage to his lawyer, Lincoln explained that a divorce was possible on the grounds of his wife’s desertion alone. Polly had been gone from his home for the two years Illinois law required for desertion as grounds for divorce. Lincoln urged his client to omit the adultery allegation. Lincoln would obtain the divorce so Samuel would be free to remarry, but there was no reason to drag his wife’s reputation through public mud. Samuel Rogers trusted Lincoln’s legal advice. Lincoln then drafted the one-page bill for divorce, which cited the grounds of desertion, and he filed the case in the Sangamon County Circuit Court.

Polly Rogers defaulted in the case. Like Samuel Rogers, she wanted the divorce, and she saw no need to fight it. On October 20, 1838, the court granted the divorce based on desertion and ordered Samuel Rogers to pay his wife $1,000 in alimony. The award was a dear sum in 1838, and Samuel Rogers was shocked and annoyed with his lawyer. Abraham Lincoln, with help from his experienced law partner John Stuart, asked the court for leave to amend the bill for divorce. To reduce the alimony, he needed to introduce the adultery charge. In the affidavit Lincoln wrote and signed for himself, he admitted to the court he knew about the adultery charge but counseled his client against citing it. In the affidavit he prepared for Samuel Rogers to sign, Lincoln admitted he had muted the charge of adultery out of concern for the reputation of Polly Rogers. For no other cause than tenderness, Lincoln had made a legal blunder. His extraordinary admission of that blunder is striking.

With the adultery charge now in play, Polly Rogers hired an attorney, denied the accusation of adultery, and averred she left her husband to escape his abuse and adultery against her. The judge continued the case to the next court term. It was a he-said-she-said story, but two things were clear. First, the marriage was irreconcilable. Second, while Lincoln’s advice to his client was a legal blunder, it is also a window into his character. It illustrates his concern for women, even a woman who was not his own client.

On March 15, 1839, a jury heard the Rogers case. Female litigants, particularly those in divorce actions, were at the mercy of all-male juries to hear and to judge the most intimate details of their lives. These male jurors had the power to determine alimony and to make decisions about child custody. Polly Rogers had no children to worry about losing, and there is no indication that she was in dire economic circumstances. The jury in her divorce case considered the evidence, which included a detailed accounting of Samuel Rogers’s wealth and, typical of the era’s trials, rendered a decision on the same day. The jury ruled that Polly Rogers had abandoned her husband but was innocent of adultery. The court ordered the marriage dissolution and Samuel Rogers to pay Polly Rogers an initial payment of $126 and subsequent $39 semi-annual payments—a much more manageable settlement for Lincoln’s client. Polly Rogers would remarry or move away before Samuel Rogers would have to pay her anywhere near $1,000. Both parties were now free to remarry, which Samuel Rogers did just three months later. The jury had muted the charge of adultery to spare Polly Rogers the stigma, but it had lowered the alimony because of it.

Polly Rogers was one of 220 women who were litigants in divorce cases in Sangamon County from 1837 to 1860, during Lincoln’s law career. While many lawyers of his era eschewed divorce cases, Lincoln handled 147 divorces during his twenty-five-year legal career. He was the attorney of record in 40 percent of all the divorce cases appearing on the docket in his home county. More than half of the divorce litigants Lincoln represented were women. The Rogers case was typical of divorce cases of the era, involving the most common ground of desertion. However, the rehearing on alimony and Lincoln’s bad lawyer-good human mistake makes a messy, remarkable story out of a simple, good one.

The rest of Polly Rogers’ extraordinary story is lost to history, but one of the momentous events of her life tied her to Abraham Lincoln. I often wonder about the women who knew the lawyer Lincoln in quiet county seats in antebellum Illinois and what they thought about his rise to the presidency. I would have been telling all my friends and anyone who would listen: “Lincoln was my lawyer,” or “He was my rotten ex-husband’s divorce lawyer,” or “I knew him before he was famous.” Polly Rogers might have told her daughters, who told their daughters, who told their daughters, and the story is still alive in family memories somewhere out there in the world today. I hope so.

As for Abraham Lincoln, the Rogers case was instructive. Like any good novice learning on the job, Lincoln learned from his mistakes and moved on from them. The Rogers case was one of the first divorce cases he handled, acquainting him not only with the Illinois divorce statute but making clear to him that the law could be a dangerous place for women. Lincoln would never repeat the blunder that jeopardized the legal outcome for his client Samuel Rogers, but I suspect, in his heart, he was not sorry he had first proceeded in tender consideration for his client’s wife.

Stacy Lynn edited the papers of Abraham Lincoln for twenty years and is currently associate editor of the Jane Addams Papers. She is the author or editor of five books, including Mary Lincoln: Southern Girl, Northern Woman. This article is excerpted from her forthcoming book, Loving Lincoln: A Personal History of the Women Who Shaped Lincoln’s Life and Legacy. Printed with permission. Copyright © 2025 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University.