Was Mrs. Lincoln really insane?

I read in the “NY Times Upfront Magazine”, about the 1875 trial of Mrs. Mary Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln.  In the article, it asked the question, was Mary Todd Lincoln insane or very depressed?  Most of Mrs. Lincoln’s family died of disease and her husband had been assassinated ten years earlier.  In her grief, she insisted on communicating with her dead family.  Also, Mrs. Lincoln acted paranoid insisting that retired confederate soldiers wanted to poison her; because of this her son requested a judge put her in an insane asylum. 

The magazine article poses the idea that she was not really insane but depressed.  Was she really insane?  The Associate Press published September 24, 2012, that the Lincoln Presidential Library hosted an insanity retrial in Chicago using modern laws.  Modern laws say that two physicians must agree that a person is a danger to themselves before they are put in a psychiatric mental health ward.  So now Mrs. Lincoln gets a new trial with modern laws that will most likely have different results then the original trial.

In the State Journal Register on Oct 1, Mary Lincoln was tried at the Presidential Library, with area judges as the lawyers, and the audience as the Jury.  More than twice as many jury members said she was not insane and she should not have been committed.