The Biggest Bombshells from Abraham Lincoln Documentary “Lover of Men”:“ ”Lust, Marriage and 'Perfect' Thighs

The documentary takes a close look at the life and loves of the 16th U.S. president

The new documentary Lover of Men: The Untold History of Abraham Lincoln goes behind the scenes of the 16th president's life — and into his bedroom.

Was Lincoln queer? In recent years, there's been mounting speculation that he was, and Lover of Men makes its case through the writings of Lincoln and his contemporaries (letters, biographies, etc.) as well as commentary from assorted historians and scholars.

The documentary, which debuted in select theaters Sept. 6, details Lincoln's difficult childhood, which was marked by the death of his mother when he was 9 and his contentious relationship with his father.

Lover of Men focuses on his relationships with four men — William Greene, Elmer Ellsworth, David Derickson and Joshua Speed — while also examining the sexual and social customs of the times.

Related: Abraham Lincoln Shared Bed with a Man for 4 Years, Fell Into 'Suicidal Depression' When He Left, Doc Says (Exclusive)

The four men played pivotal roles in his Lincoln's life and, according to the documentary, all were romantically involved with him at various points. Speed, in particular, is described as "the love of Lincoln's life."

"If there were no letters, if there were no records, if there was no documentary evidence, I could not conclude in good faith that Lincoln was a lover of men," Occidental College professor Thomas Balcerski, who is one of the experts featured in the film, tells PEOPLE. "But we have the receipts."

Here are some of the documentary's most surprising revelations and allegations.

As a young man, Lincoln was not especially interested in the company of women

The documentary quotes letters in which contemporaries of Lincoln wrote about his general distaste for "the girls." "There is a lot of documentation of Lincoln really not being interested in women," said historian Jonathan Ned Katz. "There's a surprising amount of comments about that."

In response to what professor Michael Chesson of the University of Massachusetts calls "Lincoln's avoidance or aversion to young women," and further evidence that he had little interest in the opposite sex during his younger years, historian Dr. Charles Strozier says, "I think it suggests Lincoln may have been a virgin at 33." That's how old he was in 1842 when he married Mary Todd, who would one day be first lady of the United States. The couple went on to have four children together.

Balcerski, though, respectfully disagrees with Strozier's assessment of Lincoln as possibly being a 33-year-old virgin. "We don't have any sources that show Lincoln ever being sexually passionate with women before his marriage to Mary Todd," he tells PEOPLE. "I don't see these supposed romances that scholars have held on to for generations, including one fabricated one with Ann Rutledge."

So, he adds, "You have two theories: He's a virgin, which I dismiss, or his sexual needs were being met through men.... I can conclude that Lincoln had his physical needs met through contact with other men, and I can see it as a pattern in his life."

In his early 20s, Lincoln slept in the same cot as a male colleague

Lincoln was in his early 20s when he moved to New Salem, Ill., where he met William Greene, a worker in a local general store. According to the documentary, Greene would become the first key man in Lincoln's life, and the two were inseparable for a time, even while sleeping.

Greene wrote in an 1865 letter that's presented in the documentary: "Mr. Lincoln and I clerked together for about 18 months and slept in the same cot. And when one turned over, the other had to do likewise."

Chesson elaborates on the sleeping arrangement: "They were sleeping pressed together so they wouldn't fall off the cot — spooning. I can't imagine sleeping like that would have been tolerable for either one of them if they didn't like it."

When Lincoln first met Joshua Speed it was 'lust at first sight'

In the spring of 1837, Lincoln moved to Springfield, Ill., after he had passed the bar and officially become a lawyer. One of the first people he met there, while looking for material for a bed, was Joshua Speed, the co-owner of a local general store. When Lincoln said he didn't have $17 to buy a mattress, according to the doc, "Joshua Speed says, 'Well, I have a big double bed upstairs. Go upstairs and check it out.' "

One Lincoln associate, William Butler, the documentary notes, offered him a single bed in his home, but Lincoln opted to bunk with Speed instead. Over the course of the four years they lived together and slept side-by-side in that bed, Chesson says, "It grew into something far more than lust."

Speed made Lincoln more presidential

Lover of Men suggests that Speed, not Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, was the person who truly groomed Lincoln for the presidency. "Who's the real woman behind Abraham Lincoln the man? Joshua Speed," Balcerski says. "Mary Todd gets the credit. Joshua Speed did the work."

"Lincoln was an uncouth country bumpkin, very folksy in his mannerisms and his speech. He wore highwater pants," Chesson says. Adds Harvard professor John Stauffer, "Lincoln always had a bad-hair day."

Speed gave him an extreme makeover, helping him become more metrosexual, to use a modern term that didn't exist in the 19th century, and presidential in appearance.

Lincoln fell into a suicidal depression when Speed left to move back home

At the beginning of 1841, Lincoln learned that Speed was moving back to his home state of Kentucky to help his mother run the family farm following the death of his father. A period of dark "suicidal depression" followed, during which Lincoln's friends are said to have "established a kind of suicide watch," hiding away all sharp objects and anything else Lincoln might use to inflict self-harm.

Following Speed's departure, Lincoln wrote a letter to his law partner, John Stuart, in which he declared, "I'm now the most miserable man living. If what I am feeling were distributed to the whole human family, there would not be a cheerful face on the earth."

Lincoln and Mary Todd never would've married if not for Speed

Before his departure back to Kentucky, Speed introduced Lincoln to Mary Todd, who was from a wealthy slave-owning Southern family.

Lincoln started a relationship with Todd, much to the annoyance of Speed, according to the documentary. They became engaged before Lincoln abruptly broke it off. "Lincoln realizes that this courtship with Mary Todd has set into motion an estrangement with his dearest companion, his bedmate and lover," Balcerski says in the documentary. "So Lincoln chose to break the engagement."

While Lincoln was visiting Speed in Kentucky, where he witnessed the horrors of slavery up close for the first time, Speed got engaged. After consummating his marriage, he wrote to Lincoln to share the news, according to the doc. "Joshua Speed, in that moment, assured Lincoln, for his own wellness, that sex with women was manageable," says Balcerski.

A series of intensely passionate letters from Lincoln to Speed that the future U.S. president signed "Yours forever" followed. By the spring of 1842, Lincoln had resumed courting Mary Todd, and he married her in November of that same year. "He was reluctant to marry, but Lincoln marries up," says Stauffer. "That helped Lincoln a lot, and Lincoln knew he would be a better politician with Mary Todd as his wife. She was very important to Lincoln's rise in politics."

When his wife was away, Lincoln would sleep with a certain 'Bucktail Soldier'

In detailing Lincoln's "emotional intimacy as well as physical intimacy" with his bodyguard Capt. David Derickson, the documentary quotes a November 1862 entry from the diary of Virginia Woodbury Fox, the wife of Lincoln's assistant secretary of the Navy. She wrote: "There is a Bucktail Soldier here devoted to the president, drives with him, and when Mrs. L is not home, sleeps with him. What stuff!"

"What stuff?" historian Dr. Jean Baker asks rhetorically. "What should we think about that? To me, I'm happy that Lincoln felt sufficiently strong in his own sexuality to have sex with the captain or simply have the captain hold his hand."

Lincoln's law partner and biographer adored his 'perfect' thighs

William Herndon, a contemporary of Lincoln, who was his law partner beginning in the mid 1840s and his eventual biographer, wrote adoringly of Lincoln. Lover of Men excerpts a passage in which he praised Lincoln's physical presence: "The first time I saw Lincoln, he was at that time well and firmly built. His thighs were as perfect as a human being could be."

Herndon, who is considered one of the preeminent Lincoln biographers, is said to have had a strained relationship with Mary Todd. He died in 1891 at age 72 and was buried in Springfield's Oak Ridge Cemetery, the site of the Lincoln Tomb.

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