How many children did Abraham Lincoln have?

Abraham Lincoln had four children: Robert, Edward, William, and Thomas, commonly called Tad. Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln married in 1842 and raised their family during Lincoln’s legal and political careers in Illinois and Washington, D.C.

Their children were born between 1843 and 1853. Robert Todd Lincoln, the oldest, was the only Lincoln child to survive into adulthood. Edward died in 1850 at about four years old, and William died in the White House in 1862 at age 11. Thomas, known as Tad, died in 1871 at age 18.

A common mix-up is confusing Lincoln’s four children with the number who survived him. Lincoln himself was assassinated in April 1865, by which time only Robert and Tad were living. Robert later became a lawyer, businessman, and U.S. secretary of war. The family’s losses deeply affected both Abraham and Mary, especially during the Civil War.