The 16th President, Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12th, 1809. A one room log cabin with a dirt floor in Hardin County, Kentucky served as his first home. His family was Baptist and opposed slavery. He had an older sister named Sarah and a younger brother Thomas who died as a baby.
When he was seven years old he moved with his family to Little Pigeon Creek in southern Indiana. "It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods," Lincoln later wrote about Indiana.
During the tragic year of 1818 his Mother died from milk sickness. That same year while working at a gristmill young Lincoln was kicked in the head by his horse and nearly killed. Some folks around Little Pigeon Creek even said he was brought back from the dead! His Father remarried a woman that brought with her three children.
Out on the frontier a schoolhouse education was hard to come by and Lincoln had only a year of formal schooling. Even though his Father was illiterate, Abraham learned to read and write. One of his favorite books was a biography of George Washington. It goes without saying that Washington was one of Lincoln's role models. I believe that Parson Weem's book helped to propel Lincoln along the way to the White House.
In 1828 his sister Sarah Lincoln-Grigsby died during childbirth. Later that year Lincoln traveled by flatboat to New Orleans. By 1830 the Lincoln family had moved west to the State of Illinois.
Abraham Lincoln worked at many trades before becoming the 16th President of the United States, he was employed as a rail-splitter, a clerk, a postmaster, a ferryboat captain and a lawyer.
His first true love was Ann Rutledge a native of Henderson, Kentucky whom Abraham met in New Saleam, Illinois. She passed away from typhoid fever at 22 years of age leaving Abraham devastated by the loss. His mentor Graham consoled him by saying...
"God had a greater purpose for his life." He later married the southern belle Mary Todd from Lexington, Kentucky. Her family lineage traced back to Scotland, with an ancestor arriving to Pennsylvania in 1735, then to Rockbridge County in Virginia.
At the Republican convention in Chicago, Illinois in 1860 the party chose Abraham Lincoln to run in the presidental campaign. Andrew Jackson of Tennessee was chosen as his running mate. Previously, Lincoln had been elected to serve in the House of Representatives. Although, Lincoln did not win the race by the popular vote, he won the electoral vote to become the president elect.
In March of 1861 he moved his wife and his 'splendid fellows' to the White House. Little did the family realize then that he was nearing the end of his life. It would prove to be a very long four years for America, and a very short remaining lifespan for President Lincoln.
During the Civil War campaign of 1861, the Confederate forces out maneuvered the stronger Union Army. The President responded by saying, "delay is killing us."
As 1862 rolled around Robert E. Lee and his rag-tag army of the south once again beat back McClellan's superior fighting force.
Four of Lincoln's brother-in-laws served in the Confederate Army. It was even rumored that his own wife was a confederate spy. Mary Todd Lincoln was deeply disturbed by such vicious gossip. The death of their son William in 1862 at age eleven from typhoid fever further crushed the First Lady. Earlier, the couple had lost their second son Edward to tuberculosis. Little Eddie who loved to play with kittens was only four years of age when he left this world. The Lincoln's had two other sons Robert and Thomas. Robert severed in the Union over his Mother's protest.
In 1862 President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act which granted 160 acres of land to anyone willing to farm the land for five years. Many of those who had voted for or against Lincoln in the election packed their belongings and headed west. Vice President Andrew Jackson had been a leading spokesman for the Homestead Movement.
On July 2nd in 1863, Mary Todd Lincoln was thrown out of her carriage during an accident which occurred just outside of Washington. Her head hit a rock which caused head trauma from which she never fully recovered.
President Lincoln disliked the nickname Abe. He was the first president to wear a beard while serving in office. He is remembered for his honesty, for preserving the Union and for ending of slavery in America.

“Out of me unworthy and unknown, The vibrations of deathless music! ‘With malice toward none, with charity for all’. Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, And the beneficent face of a nation, Shining with justice and truth. I am Ann Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, Beloved of Abraham Lincoln, Wedded to him, not through union, But through separation. Bloom forever, O Republic, From the dust of my bosom!” epitaph on tombstone of Ann Rutledge, written by Edgar Lee Masters in 1890.