ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a dirt-floor, one-room log cabin three miles south of  Hodgenville in Hardin (now Larue) County, Kentucky. His father was Thomas Lincoln (1778-1851) farmer, carpenter and his mother was Nancy Hanks Lincoln (1784-1818). 

He had one oldest sister to live maturity-Mrs. Sarah Grigsby, who died in childbirth at 21 years of age. 

Lincoln married Mary Todd when he was 33 and she was 23 years of age on November 4, 1842, at the home of the bride’s sister Mrs. Ninian Edwards in Springfield, Illinois. They had three sons to survive infancy- Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926), William “willie” Wallace Lincoln (1850-1862) and Thomas “Tad” Lincoln (1853-1871). 

Lincoln estimated that altogether he had about one year of formal education. In Kentucky Lincoln learned to read and write from Zachariah Rinley and Cabel Hazel. In Indiana he was taught by Andrew Crawford, James Swaney and Azel Dorsey. 

He served in the Volunteers Army during the Black Hawk War. Abraham enlisted in April 1832 and was soon elected captain of a company of volunteers. He served for a few months until July 1832. He served in a few different public positions-Postmaster of New Salem, Illinois (1833-1836), Member of Illinois Legislature (1834-1842), U.S. Representative (1847-1849). 

Abraham Lincoln was nominated to the presidency by the Republicans in Chicago in May 1960. His Vice-presidents were Hannibal Hamlin (1809-1891) who served 1861-1865 and Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) served as vice-president March-April 1865, he succeeded to the presidency on the assassination of President Lincoln. 

President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated April 14, 1865 10:15 PM. At Ford’s Theater, Washington D.C. the president and his wife joined major Henry Rathbone and Miss Clara Harris in the presidential box of Ford’s Theater to see the performance of a comedy “Our American Cousin” starring Laura  Keene. A shot rang out from behind the president. John Wilkes Booth, 27, a deranged actor sympathetic to the south, had slipped into the presidential box while Lincoln’s bodyguard John F Parker was away from his post. Abraham Lincoln was shot in the back of his head with a .44 single-shot derringer.

First Inaugural Speech   Second Inaugural speech

 

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