Abraham Lincoln 4 Essay, Research Paper

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in Kentucky. When

he was two, the Lincoln s moved a few miles to another farm on the old

Cumberland Trail. A year later, his mother gave birth to another boy,

Thomas, but he died a few days later. When Lincoln was seven his family

moved to Indiana. In 1818, Lincoln s mother died from a deadly disease

called the milk-sick. Then ten years later his sister died and left him with

only his father and stepmother.

Lincoln traveled to New Salem in April 1831 and settled there the

following July. In the fall of 1836 he and Mrs. Bennett Abell had a deal

that if she brought her single sister to New Salem he had to promise to

marry her. When she arrived he was not to pleased with her because her

skin was full of fat. Around seven months later he asked Mrs. Orville

Browning to marry him but she said no. Lincoln met his wife to be, Mary

Todd, at the grand cotillion in honor of the completion of the new capital

building in 1839. They got engaged and a while later he broke off the

engagement because she was seeing other men. Around a year later in

Springfield on November 4, 1842 Abraham and Mary got married. In 1844,

Abraham and his wife were able to purchase their own house in

Springfield. It was a one-and-a-half story frame cottage. In May 1843,

the Lincoln s had a son and named him Robert, after the addition to the

family they made the house a full two story house. Lincoln had three

more sons Edward Baker, William Wallace, and Thomas. Edward died at

the age of three, the cause of death was either consumption or

pulmonary tuberculosis.

In 1832 Lincoln announced himself a candidate for the state

legislature but he was defeated. Then a year later he was appointed

postmaster of New Salem and in the fall he became deputy county

surveyor. He really wanted a seat in the Illinois legislature so he ran again

and was elected with bipartisan support.

Lincoln was very interested in being a lawyer, he would walk fifteen

miles just to watch the court cases in Boonville, Indiana. Lincoln got a

license to practice law after several hard years of teaching himself. By

the early 1850s, the Lincoln-Herndon law office had become a leading

Springfield firm.

Chairman of the Senate s Committee on Territories, Stephen A.

Douglas of Illinois came out with a new congressional act. Lincoln

thought the Kansas-Nebraska Act was just wrong. In the summer of 1854

Lincoln decided to campaign for a position in the Illinois State Assembly.

In November he won but resigned because he wanted a seat in the

United States Senate, where he thought he could make a real difference.

He was defeated by Lyman Trumbull but in 1856, Lincoln was helping to

create a new political party in Illinois called the Republicans. The new

party s first and primary goal was to prevent Democrat James Buchanan

from winning the Presidency, it failed. Then two days after Buchanan s

inauguration the Supreme Court ruled the Missouri Compromise

unconstitutional and denied that Negros could never be considered

American citizens. On June 16, 1858 the Illinois State Republican

Convention nominated Lincoln to run against Stephen Douglas for the

United States Senate. The seven Lincoln-Douglas debates during the late

summer and fall of 1858 were the highlight of the campaign, in towns all

over the state. Ten thousand people attended the opening three-hour

debate in Ottawa, Illinois, and there were fifteen thousand at the second

in Freeport. Douglas won the Senate race, but the debates launched

Lincoln on his own path to presidency.

In 1861, on March 4 Lincoln was inaugurated as President. Lincoln s

first official act was the appointment of John G. Nicolay as his private

secretary. One month after he had taken office he got word that the 6th

Massachusetts Infantry was on its way to defend Washington, which had

been attacked by a Baltimore mob leaving thirteen people dead.

In May of 1861 Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas joined the

Confederacy. The first important battle of the war takes place near

Manassas along a sluggish creek called Bull Run, 20 miles southwest of

Washington. The battle killed 847 people and more than 2,500 were

wounded.

Lincoln felt for the slaves and tried to do alot to help them out by

signing a law giving freedom to slaves who are being used by

Confederates to help in the war effort.

On February 20, 1862 the Lincoln s eleven-year-old son, Willie died

of bilious fever. He died in the Prince of Wales Room in the White House.

The first White House funeral for a child was conducted in the East Room,

he was buried in a borrowed vault at Georgetown s Oak Hill Cemetery.

Lincoln was so heart broken he went to the cemetery twice the week

after he died and opened the coffin and looked at his son.

On July 11, 1862 paper currency was approved. Secretary of the

Treasurer Chase, put his own picture on it instead of Lincoln s. A day later

Lincoln signed a bill creating the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The Battle of Antietam happened on September 17, 1862 and it

was fought in the countryside near the small Maryland town of

Sharpsburg and along the Antietam Creek. It killed and wounded 26,000

men, it was and still is the single bloodiest day in all of American History.

The Sioux Indians were starving and mad that they were taken from

their land and killed more than 200 settlers in one day. They held trials for

two months to decide upon the fate of the Indians. They decided to

execute 303 Indians. Lincoln disliked most of the death sentences and

cut the number of Indians being executed down to the thirty-nine he

thought were the most guilty, but on December 26 in Mankato, Minnesota

thirty-eight Indians were hung.

On September 22, 1862 Lincoln announced his preliminary

Emancipation Proclamation to his entire Cabinet. The proclamation

promised that on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, one

thousand-eight hundred and sixty three, all persons held as slaves shall be

then, thenceforth and forever free. Then on January 1, 1863 Lincoln

signed the Emancipation Proclamation, it did not only declare slaves free

but also that blacks will be received into the armed services of the

United States.

The eighty-seventh anniversary of the Declaration of

Independence was a mournful holiday for some but a sigh of relief for

others. In a terrible three day battle between the Union and

Confederate Armies a total of 51,000 men were killed. At the funeral for

the men that had died in the battle, he gave the Gettysburg Address.

On the morning of April 14, 1865 Lincoln woke up in the best mood

he had been in for four months. The President was happy his son was

home and that the war was finally over. He usually had his hair flying in

every direction possible but that morning it was neatly combed. Lincoln

usually has a solitary egg but instead he and his family had a enjoyable

breakfast. What Lincoln did not know is that his assassination was being

planned on this joyous day.

John Wilkes Booth s hatred of Lincoln and the North grew so intense

he couldn t handle it any more, he had to do something about it. He

believed the country was for the white man not for the black. The first

idea he had was to kidnap the President but he needed help. The first to

join him in the kidnapping were his old friends, Sam Arnold and Michael

O Laughlin. He then added John Surratt to his team, whose mother was

keeping a Washington boardinghouse. Then David Herold and George

Atzerodt joined Booth in his quest to kidnap Lincoln. The most brutal to join

Booth was Lewis Powell. Once Booth spoke a word of murdering Lincoln,

Arnold and O Laughlin did not want to be a part of this any more. Booth

just replaced them with Mary Surratt, she was going to run errands and

messages for him and John Lloyd, he was going to supply the rifles for him

and his clan, Edman Spangler was a scene-shifter at Ford s Theater, and

Dr. Samuel Mudd. Booth s plan was to capture and then smuggle Lincoln

across the Potomac River into Confederate hands and they would use

him to blackmail the North into coming to terms. On the day the war

ended Booth was angry and found out Lincoln was to be attending the

theater and his was out to murder. During the afternoon he went to

Ford s Theater, climbed up to the President s box, made a peephole, then

fashioned a simple wooden doorjamb that would lock the box from the

inside. Booth had planned not only to assassinate the President but also

to have Secretary of State Seward and Vice President Johnson killed.

On the evening of April 14, 1865 Lincoln accompanied his wife and

their guests, Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancee, Clara Harris, to Ford s

Theater to see the comedy Our American Cousin. Shortly after 10 P.M.

John Wilkes Booth entered the Presidential box and fired a pistol at the

left side of Lincoln s head as he was looking to his left. Booth then

stabbed Rathbone and then leaped onto the stage, shouting Sic

semper tyrannis . He broke a small bone in his leg from the jump but still

made an escape. Lincoln was fatally wounded and was taken to a

house across the street. Seward was stabbed by Lewis Paine but

recovered and Johnson s intended assassin, George A. Atzerodt made no

attempt on the Vice President s life. Lincoln s family and members of the

cabinet gathered in the room around the President, he never regained

consciousness and died at 7:22 the next morning. Private funeral

ceremonies were held in the East Room of the White House on April 19.

They put his body in the U.S. Capital were the public could come and pay

their last respects. On April 21, a special funeral train began the journey

back to Springfield, making stops in several cities along the way. The train

arrived in Springfield on May 3, 1865, and Lincoln was buried there in a

hillside tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery.

On April 26, 1865, Booth was shot and killed by federal troops who

cornered him in a burning barn near Port Royal, Virginia. Seven men and

one woman were arrested as accomplices to Booth. Herold, Paine, and

Atzerodt were the most active accomplices and were sentenced to

death by hanging. O Laughlin, Arnold, Dr. Mudd were unjustly accused

with helping plan the murder, but got life sentences. Edman Spangler got

six years and Mary Surratt was sentenced to death for having Booth s riffle

waiting for him that night. On July 7, the three men and one woman

were hung.

Lincoln did not stay buried at the Oak Ridge Cemetery. His body

was kidnapped by a band of ransom-hungry grave robbers, therefore, his

body was moved around for the next 36 years. Lincoln was then buried

at a spacious memorial of eight acres but grave robbers struck again and

as the coffin was half out the police showed up. Under Robert Lincoln s

instructions a hole thirteen feet deep was dug below the main catacomb

floor, a four-foot base of cement was laid and an iron cage sunk into it.

The coffin would be lowered into the cage and cement poured, creating

a block eight feet deep. Finally, Abraham Lincoln can rest in peace.