Abraham Lincoln

I

Introduction

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th president of the United States (1861-1865) and one of the great leaders in American history. A humane, far-sighted statesman in his lifetime, he became a legend and a folk hero after his death.

Lincoln rose from humble backwoods origins to become one of the great presidents of the United States. In his effort to preserve the Union during the Civil War, he assumed more power than any preceding president. If necessity made him almost a dictator, by fervent conviction he was always a democrat. A superb politician, he persuaded the people with reasoned word and thoughtful deed to look to him for leadership. He had a lasting influence on American political institutions, most importantly in setting the precedent of vigorous executive action in time of national emergency.

II

Early Life

Abraham Lincoln's ancestry on his father's side has been traced to Samuel Lincoln, a weaver who emigrated from Hingham, England, to Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1637. The president's forebears were pioneers who moved west with the expanding frontier from Massachusetts to Berks County, Pennsylvania, and then to Virginia. Abraham's father, Thomas Lincoln, was born in Rockingham County in backcountry Virginia in 1778. In 1781 Thomas Lincoln's father, who was also named Abraham, took his family to Hughes Station on the Green River, 32 km (20 mi) east of Louisville, Kentucky. In 1786 a Native American killed the first Abraham Lincoln while he was at work clearing land for a farm in the forest.

Thomas Lincoln continued to live in Kentucky. He saw it develop from a frontier wilderness into a rapidly growing state. But like his ancestors he preferred the rugged life on the frontier. In a brief autobiography written for a political campaign, Lincoln said that his father “even in childhood was a wandering labor boy, and grew up literally without education. He never did more in the way of writing than to bunglingly sign his own name.”

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Despite Thomas Lincoln's apparent shiftlessness, he became a skilled carpenter, and he never lacked the basic necessities of life. At one time he owned title to two farms. He always possessed one or more horses. He paid his taxes, and, like his neighbors, he accepted jury duty and militia duty when called.

On June 12, 1806, Thomas Lincoln married Nancy Hanks. Little is known about Abe Lincoln's mother except that she came from a very poor Virginia family. She was completely illiterate and signed her name with an X. After their marriage the Lincolns moved from a farm on Mill Creek in Hardin County, Kentucky, to nearby Elizabethtown. There Thomas Lincoln earned his living as a carpenter and handyman. In 1807 a daughter, Sarah, was born.

In December 1808 the Lincolns moved to a 141-hectare (348-acre) farm on the south fork of Nolin Creek near what is now Hodgenville, Kentucky. On February 12, 1809, in a log cabin that Thomas Lincoln had built, a son, Abraham, was born. Later the Lincolns had a second son who died in infancy.

When Abraham Lincoln was two, the family moved to another farm on nearby Knob Creek. Life was lonely and hard. There was little time for play. Most of the day was spent hunting, farming, fishing, and doing chores. Land titles in Kentucky were confused and often subject to dispute. Thomas Lincoln lost his title to the Mill Creek farm, and his claims to both the Nolin Creek and Knob Creek tracts were challenged in court. In 1816, therefore, the Lincolns decided to move to Indiana, where the land was surveyed and sold by the federal government.

In the winter of 1816 the Lincolns took their meager possessions, ferried across the Ohio River, and settled near Pigeon Creek, close to what is now Gentryville, Indiana. Because it was winter, Thomas Lincoln immediately built a crude, three-sided shelter that served as home until he could build a log cabin. A fire at the open end of the shelter kept the family warm. At this time southern Indiana was a heavily forested wilderness. Lincoln described it as a “wild region, with many bears and other wild animals in the woods.” Later some of Nancy Hanks's relatives moved near the site the Lincolns had chosen, and a thriving frontier community gradually developed.

In 1818 an epidemic of the milk sick broke out. This was not actually a disease. It was caused by drinking poisoned milk from cows that had eaten the wild snakeroot plant. One of the first victims of the milk sick was Nancy Hanks Lincoln. She died October 5, 1818. The next year, Thomas Lincoln journeyed to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and married Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow with three children. Abe Lincoln was very much attached to his kind stepmother, and he later referred to her as “my angel mother.”

One of the most important jobs on a frontier farm was clearing the forest. Young Abe Lincoln quickly became skilled with an axe. In his autobiographical sketch written in the third person, Lincoln stated that “the clearing away of surplus wood was the great task ahead. Abraham, though very young, was large for his age, and had an axe put in his hands at once. From that till within his twenty-third year, he was almost constantly handling that most useful instrument.” One of his chores with an axe was to make fence rails by splitting poles. Later, as a presidential candidate, Lincoln was known as the Railsplitter.

A

Education

When his father could spare him from chores, Lincoln attended an ABC school. Such schools were held in log cabins, and often the teachers were barely more educated than their pupils. According to Lincoln, “no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond readin', writin', and cipherin', to the Rule of Three.” Including a few weeks at a similar school in Kentucky, Lincoln had less than one full year of formal education in his entire life.

Abe's stepmother encouraged his quest for knowledge. At an early age he could read, write, and do simple arithmetic. Books were scarce on the Indiana frontier, but besides the family Bible, which Lincoln knew well, he was able to read the classical authors Aesop, John Bunyan, and Daniel Defoe, as well as William Grimshaw's History of the United States (1820) and Mason Locke Weems's Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington (about 1800). This biography of George Washington made a lasting impression on Lincoln, and he made the ideals of Washington and the founding fathers of the United States his own.

By the time Lincoln was 19 years old, he had reached his full height of 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in). He was lean and muscular, with long arms and big hands that gave him an awkward appearance. Although he had remarkable strength, he never liked farm work. He preferred instead the easy congeniality that he found at the general store in nearby Gentryville. A neighbor recalled “Abe was awful lazy, he would laugh and talk and crack jokes and tell stories all the time.”

The Pigeon Creek farm was near the Ohio River, and Lincoln often earned money ferrying passengers and baggage to riverboats waiting in midstream. In 1828, when he was 19, he was hired by the local merchant James Gentry to take a cargo-laden flatboat down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.

B

Move to Illinois

In 1830 another epidemic of milk sick was rumored to be breaking out in Indiana. Already the Hanks family had moved west to Illinois, and their enthusiastic letters describing their new home rekindled the pioneering spirit in Thomas Lincoln. In March 1830 the Lincoln family set out for the Illinois country. They settled at the junction of woodland and prairie on the north bank of the Sangamon River, 16 km (10 mi) west of what is now Decatur, Illinois. Lincoln helped his father build a log cabin and fence in 4 hectares (10 acres) to grow corn. Then he hired out to neighbors, helping them to split rails. That year, Lincoln attended a political rally and was persuaded to speak on behalf of a local candidate. It was his first political speech. A witness recalled that Lincoln “was frightened but got warmed up and made the best speech of the day.”

In 1831 Lincoln made a second trip to New Orleans. He was hired, along with his stepbrother and a cousin, by Denton Offutt, a Kentucky trader and speculator, to build a flatboat and take it down the Mississippi with a load of cargo. The pay was 50 cents a day plus a fee of $60. According to legend, Lincoln saw his first slave auction in New Orleans. Referring to the practice of slavery, he is thought to have said, “If I ever get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard.”

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