Kate Chase - Marriage and Divorce

Marriage and Divorce

Kate Chase married Rhode Island Governor William Sprague, a textile magnate, in 1863.

The wedding took place on November 12, 1863, at Chase's home in Washington, and was the social event of the season. Sprague's wedding gift to Kate was a tiara of matched pearls and diamonds that cost more than $50,000. As the bride entered the room, the U.S. Marine Band played "The Kate Chase March" that composer Thomas Mark Clark had written for the occasion. President Lincoln attended the reception; his wife did not.

They had four children: William (b. 1865), Ethel (b. 1869), Catherine (b. 1872) (who was mentally disabled) and Portia (b. 1873). Sprague had problems with alcohol, had affairs with other women, and lost huge sums of money in poorly-conceived business ventures. Some evidence also suggests that he engaged in illegal cotton trading activities during the war.

William Sprague became a U.S. Senator in 1863. During the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, presided over by Salmon Chase as Chief Justice, Sprague kept his intentions to himself but ended up voting with most Republican senators for conviction. This may have furthered his rift with Kate, whose father's chances for the 1868 Republican Presidential nomination would have been damaged had Johnson been removed from office. Next in line to the Presidency, under the law at the time, was radical Republican President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate, Benjamin Wade, who could have then run as an incumbent. In the end, Johnson was acquitted by a single vote.

The marriage ended in divorce in 1882. Before the divorce, Kate was accused of having an affair with the flamboyant and powerful New York Senator Roscoe Conkling. According to a well-known story, buttressed by contemporaneous press reports, Sprague confronted the philandering couple at Sprague's Rhode Island summer home and pursued Conkling with a shotgun and threatened to throw Kate out of a second story window.

Willie Sprague continued to live with his father, while the daughters went with Kate Chase, who took back her maiden name after the divorce.