Term: 16th President of the United States (1861-1865)
Vice President: Hannibal Hamlin (1861 - 1865) • Andrew Johnson (1865)
Born: February 12, 1809, Hardin (now Larue) County, Kentucky
Nickname: "Honest Abe"; "Illinois Rail-Splitter"
Religion: No formal affiliation
Marriage: November 4, 1842, to Mary Todd (1818-1882)
Children: Robert Todd (1843-1926), Edward Baker (1846-1850), William Wallace (1850-1862), Thomas "Tad" (1853-1871)
Career: Lawyer
Political Party: Whig; Republican
Writings:Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols., 1953-55), ed. by Roy P. Basler
Died: April 15, 1865, Washington, D.C.
Buried: Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois
Abraham Lincoln Trivia:
No formal education. On April 12, 1861 Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina setting off the Civil War. Lincoln quickly mobilized the Union by executive order. January 1, 1863 he formally issued the Emancipation Proclamation. On November 19, of that same year he delivered the Gettysburg Address. On April 9, 1865 Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant signed term of Confederate surrender at Appomattox, Virginia. Five days later, on April 14, 1865 Lincoln went to Ford's Theater to watch "Our American Cousin" and was shot by actor John Wilkes Booth. He died the next morning at Petersen's Boarding House. Lincoln was the first president to die by assassination. At 6 feet 4 inches he was the tallest president. Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd, had a brother, half-brothers and brothers-in-law who fought in the Confederate Army. Lincoln was the only president to receive a patent, for a device for lifting boats over shoals. He was the first president to wear a beard. His son Robert Todd Lincoln, was in Washington, D.C. when Lincoln was killed, was also on the scene when President Garfield was shot in 1881, and President McKinley was assassinated in 1901. A poll of historians named Lincoln the nation's greatest president. Washington was second.
