10 Fascinating Facts About Abraham Lincoln
Many historians consider him America's greatest president. Buildings and streets bear his name in almost every city. Still, there are many little-known facts about
Abraham Lincoln that your grade-school textbooks might have missed. In honor of the 200th anniversary of his birth on Thursday, February 12, take the time to learn more about our remarkable 16th president in this gallery of fascinating facts and images.
10. Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated
On April 14, 1865, in Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., actor John Wilkes Booth shot United States president Abraham Lincoln in the head. The president died the next day at 7:20 a.m. He had been president for four years (1861-1865) when he was assassinated. Eerily, one week before his death, Lincoln had a dream of someone crying in the White House; when he found the room, he looked in and asked who had passed away. The man in the room said the president had. When he looked in the coffin it was his own face he saw. Lincoln's last direct descendant, his great-grandson Robert Lincoln Beckwith, died in 1984. He left no heirs.
9. Lincoln struggled with depression
Lincoln was known as a storyteller and jokester among family and friends, but he also suffered from deep depression. While most modern speculation attributes his depression to genetic predisposition, ideas vary as to what brought it out of dormancy. Lincoln wept openly in public, recited sentimental poetry and spoke of suicide on several occasions. "No element of Mr. Lincoln's character," said his associate Henry Clay Whitney, "was so marked, obvious and ingrained as his mysterious and profound melancholy." William Herdon, Lincoln's law partner, said, "His melancholy dripped from him as he walked."
8. Lincoln was an animal lover
Even though he was strong, a talented wrestler and proficient with an ax (he was known as "the Rail-Splitter"), Lincoln avoided hunting and fishing because he disliked killing and harming animals, even for food. Fond of pets, Lincoln owned horses, cats, dogs and even a turkey.
7. Lincoln was the tallest U.S. president
Truly a gentle giant, Lincoln was our tallest president at 6 feet 4 inches. (If you figure in his favorite stovepipe hat, he must have towered even higher, cutting quite a formidable figure!) As you can see in this image of Lincoln at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, he stands at least a head taller than all the other men pictured -- even sans stovepipe!
6. John Wilkes Booth's brother saved the life of Lincoln's son
In a strange coincidence, around 1863 or 1864 in Jersey City, N.J., Edwin Booth saved Robert Lincoln's life. A crowd of people were waiting for a sleeping car late at night when Robert was pressed against the train. When the train began to move he lost his footing and fell into the space between the train and the platform. Edwin Booth quickly pulled him to safety. Booth was considered the finest actor of his generation and was very well known. Historians doubt Robert Lincoln ever told his parents of this incident.
5. Lincoln was an avid reader and largely self-educated
Abraham Lincoln's desire to learn and his efforts to educate himself have become legendary. What's less known is that because he grew up in poverty in Kentucky and Indiana, Lincoln had little formal education -- only about 18 months -- and minimal access to books. As a boy, he would often read at night by the light of the fire in his family's cabin. 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."
4. Lincoln first encountered slavery as a boat hand on the Mississippi
In 1831, Abraham Lincoln and two others were hired to take a flatboat full of cargo down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, La. Denton Offutt, a Kentucky trader and speculator, paid them 50 cents a day plus a $60 fee. According to popular legend, Lincoln saw his first slave auction while on this trip. Referring to the practice of slavery, he is said to have declared at the time, "If I ever get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard."
3. Lincoln's in-laws disapproved of him
In 1840, Lincoln met a cultured, high-strung Kentucky woman named Mary Todd, who was staying with a married sister in Springfield. After a long courtship, they were married on Nov. 4, 1842. A week later, Lincoln wrote a fellow lawyer, "Nothing new here, except my marrying, which to me is a matter of profound wonder." Mary Todd Lincoln came from a prominent family of slaveholders. Her parents disapproved of her marriage to Lincoln because he came from a poor family. Lincoln supposedly said that while God made do with one "d," the Todds demanded two.
2. His debating skills first earned him national recognition
In 1858, Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln battled it out in a series of debates to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate. When Douglas was told that Lincoln was his opponent, he said, "I shall have my hands full. He is the strong man of the party -- full of wit, facts, dates -- and the best stump speaker, with his droll ways and dry jokes, in the West." Douglas defended popular sovereignty and accused Lincoln of trying to divide the nation. To Lincoln, however, slavery was both a political and a moral issue, and was incompatible with American democracy. In the debate at Freeport, Lincoln cornered Douglas by asking whether the people of a territory could lawfully exclude slavery prior to the formation of a state constitution. Douglas replied that slavery could be excluded from a territory, despite the Dred Scott decision, if the people refused to enact the necessary local laws for its protection. This opinion, known as the Freeport Doctrine, cost Douglas much of his support among Southern Democrats who were thinking of him as a presidential candidate in 1860. Though Lincoln lost the election, these debates with Douglas brought Lincoln national recognition.
1. The Gettysburg Address was not his best speech
Though it may be the most famous, the Gettysburg Address is generally not considered Lincoln's best speech. In 1856, Lincoln publicly identified himself as a Republican, and in May he attended the Republican state convention at Bloomington. The moderate antislavery resolutions of this convention were acceptable to Lincoln. He signified his approval of the new party by giving the main address at the convention, speaking before dozens of reporters and over 1,000 people. This speech, considered by many to have been his most compelling, has been lost. It is said that those in attendance were so captivated by his speech that no one remembered to take notes.
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