Abraham Lincoln spoke in a high-pitched voice and had disproportionately large hands and a long neck. Walt Whitman wrote that Lincoln’s face was “so awful ugly it becomes beautiful.”

Lincoln didn’t speak a lot. His law partner said “He was the most shut-mouthed man that ever existed.” He was careful not to express certainty, once stating, “I am almost ready to say this is probably true.” He sought out the opinions of his opponents and looked at questions from every side. He had a keen sense of humor. He never officially joined a church, but he became deeply religious after becoming president.

Abe was born in a log cabin his father built on February 12, 1809 near Elizabethtown, Kentucky. His parents attended an anti-slavery Baptist church. Lincoln didn’t have much formal education. He attended a one-room school off and on, only totaling about three or four months of schooling over a five-year period. He read aloud throughout his life.

His father decided to move due to a land title problem with his farm when Abe was 7. He moved to Indiana because it was a free state. Abe learned carpentry from his father and helped build furniture. He was large for his age and helped cut timber to clear the land. Abe referred to the axe as “that most useful instrument.”

At 8, he shot a wild turkey, but felt bad about it and vowed never to shoot any larger game. At 9, his mother died of “milk sick”, a disease caused by drinking milk from cows who ate a poisonous plant. His father remarried Sarah Bush, a widow with three children, who became a good stepmother to Abe. He wasn’t close to his father who was said to have knocked him down.

At 10, he almost died after being kicked by a horse. He had little formal schooling, but taught himself with borrowed books. He read the Bible and memorized large sections of it, especially Psalms. He also read Aesop’s Fables. When he was a little older, he found a drunk man nearly frozen on the road. He carried him aways and built a fire for him to get warm. At 12, he worked with his father to build a new Baptist meetinghouse.

Although his family were Baptists, Lincoln himself didn’t join, which would have been remarked upon. It’s not known why he didn’t join. He attended sometimes and would repeat the preacher’s sermons word for word in front of other children while standing on a stump. His father didn’t approve of this and told him to get back to work.

When he was 13 or 14, he hired himself out to work for other farmers. At 16, his skill with an ax made him a great rail splitter, a woodsman who cut trees into rails (typically 10 feet long) to make fences. He also split cordwood for steamboats. He once built a boat and ferried a couple men and their luggage to a steamer. They gave him a dollar tip, the most money he’d ever made in a day.

After a few more passengers, he was tried with operating a ferryboat without a licence. He was found innocent however, since he didn’t carry passengers all the way across the river, he only carried them to their steamer in the river.

When he was 18, his older sister Sarah died in childbirth. At 19, during a journey to New Orleans to trade goods, Lincoln and his friend were attacked by seven robbers, but managed to fight them off. At 21, he moved with his family to Illinois. He was now 6 foot 4 and known for his physical strength. He rejected the macho culture of alcohol, tobacco, and guns. He made his first political speech in Decatur’s town square wearing a straw hat. He delighted the crowd by refuting the previous speaker and using humor.

At 22, he left his father and stepmother and got a job at a grocery store in New Salem, Illinois. He and his coworker slept together on a cot in the back storeroom. Later, he’d board with various families. He gained a reputation as a good wrestler. Because of his height, there was a gap between the bottom of his pantaloons and the top of his shoes.

He gained experience navigating boats up the Sangamon River. At 23, he ran for state legislature, but this was put on hold for the Black Hawk War which Lincoln volunteered for. He was elected to be captain of his unit. He never saw combat. Once, his unit wanted to kill an Indian named Jack who appeared in their camp, but Lincoln stepped in front of him to prevent them.

He returned to campaigning. During a speech, he saw his friend being attacked in the crowd. He left the platform, picked up the attacker, and threw him six feet. Then he finished his speech. He lost the election due to being unknown outside New Salem.

He joined the local debating society and learned grammar. He read works by Volney and Tom Paine which criticized religion. He wrote a paper questioning scripture, but when he read it in public, a friend snatched the paper and threw it in the fire.

The store Lincoln worked for closed down and he started a store with a friend, but when his friend began selling alcohol, Lincoln who didn’t drink, sold his share and the store closed down.

Lincoln became postmaster of New Salem in 1833, despite not being a supporter of Andrew Jackson, because the post was so insignificant. Lincoln placed letters in his hat when he delivered them to customers. He would sometimes undercharge, and he read the newspapers to people who came to pick up their mail. Postmaster was just a part-time position, so he also got work as a surveyor.

The next year, he ran for Illinois legislature again, but this time he was more well known. He was a Whig, but ran as a bipartisan candidate. Once when he was campaigning, he met men in a field who said they wouldn’t vote for a man “unless he could make a hand”. He helped them harvest their grain and got their vote. He won the election. At 25, he was one of the youngest representatives.

He returned home to find his store partner had died, leaving him deeply in debt. He had to sell his horse, house, and surveying equipment just to pay off one creditor. Fortunately, his friend bought all his stuff and returned them to him.

He got the nickname Honest Abe because when his store “winked out” he didn’t cut and run as was usual on the frontier, he stayed and paid back what he called his “National Debt”. His friend John Todd Stuart thought Lincoln would make a good lawyer and began mentoring him.

Stephen A. Douglas joined Lincoln in the state legislature in 1836. He was only five feet tall, but spoke with a deep baritone. He was nicknamed the “Little Giant”. Although Illinois was technically a free state, most of its settlers came from the South and brought their slaves with them.

In 1837, Lincoln moved to Springfield and received his license as a lawyer. As a frontier lawyer, Lincoln would travel the circuit on horseback. Some days not encountering another person. Some hotels were so crowded, people would sleep two or three to a bed or even on the floor. He was in court by day and sat around a fireplace swapping humorous stories by night. Traveling the circuit as a lawyer also doubled as campaigning since people got to know him.

He was shy, but paradoxically, was often the center of attention due to his stories and wit. He was at home at political meetings, but uncomfortable in ordinary social gatherings. He did speak at meetings of temperance societies.

Lincoln’s first fiance, Ann Rutledge, died of “brain fever” in 1835. He was devastated. Her death plunged him into despair. He briefly courted Mary Owens a year later, but it didn’t work out.

Mary Elizabeth Todd was a child of privilege, part of one of Kentucky’s leading political families. Her father was a slave owner. Her mother died from the birth of her seventh child when Mary was six. Her father remarried and had nine children with her step mother. Unusual for the time, her father made sure his daughters were educated. She was a passionate Whig from the age of 10. She was five foot two. She was often seen in the company of Stephen Douglas. Her cousin was Lincoln’s law partner and Lincoln attended a party thrown by her sister.

Lincoln approached her and said, “Miss Todd, I want to dance with you in the worst way.” After the dance, Mary remarked, “And he certainly did.” (Lincoln was not a very good dancer.) They were opposites in many ways. He was tall, she was short. She received many years of formal education while he was largely self-taught. She was beautiful, while he was ugly. She was high class while he was low class. Her father was a slave-holder, while his family despised slavery.

However, they both loved ideas, politics, and the poetry of Robert Burns which they would read aloud to each other. Mary often led their conversations while Lincoln listened and gazed on her with wonder. However, Lincoln was still paying off his “National Debt” and didn’t think he could support a wife. Mary’s older sister opposed the relationship, believing Lincoln was beneath her sister. Marriage manuals at the time encouraged women to test partners by throwing obstacles in the way to measure the depth of his love. Mary was adept at this.

In 1840, the two entered into an “understanding”, not a formal engagement, but an understanding that they would one day marry. However, they broke up by the end of the year. Lincoln was thrown into depression at the breakup. His friend Joshua Speed was so worried about what Lincoln might do, he took his razor from him. Mary missed him as well. In 1842, their mutual friend Eliza Francis invited Mary and Abe to her home without telling them the other would be there. They reconciled and began meeting again.

During an economic crisis, Lincoln wrote a letter to the newspaper ridiculing the state auditor James Shields, who challenged him to a duel. Knowing Shields was a skilled marksman, Lincoln chose broadswords as the dueling weapon instead of guns. Lincoln’s height gave him an advantage in a sword fight. They crossed the border to Missouri where dueling was legal and squared off. Lincoln demonstrated his reach by cutting off the limb of a willow tree high above their heads and Shields backed down. Lincoln was embarrassed by the whole affair and never wanted to speak of it again.

On November 4, 1842, Abraham and Mary announced their intention to marry… that evening. (Perhaps relatedly, their first son was born nine months after their wedding.) They gave no one any advanced notice. Everything had to be arranged suddenly. Mary’s sister Elizabeth offered to have the ceremony at her house, even though she was opposed to the marriage. Elizabeth went to the only bakery in town for gingerbread and beer. She later decided to bake a cake, which did not turn out well.

In 1843, Lincoln ran for the US House of Representatives. Because of his recent marriage, he was labeled a wealthy elitist, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact he wasn’t a member of any church also hurt his political prospects. He ended up dropping out.

The Lincolns began their married life renting a room at a tavern. After their child was born, they rented a three-room house. Lincoln was a successful lawyer and close to paying off his debt. They bought their first house in 1844, buying the house of the reverend who had married them.

Lincoln was elected to the US Congress in 1847. He met John Quincy Adams shortly before he died. Whigs were opposed to the Mexican American War which President Polk was waging in order to gain more land to expand slavery. While in Washington, Lincoln lived in a boarding house with other anti-slavery congressmen. He would interrupt tense conversations by telling anecdotes that calmed both sides.

Lincoln challenged Polk’s claim that Mexico had been the aggressor by issuing several resolutions. Some confused his attacks on the president as attacks on the troops even though he voted to supply the troops and gave speeches supporting them.

Lincoln didn’t spend his free time drinking, using tobacco, or gambling like the other congressmen did. He didn’t even swear. Instead, he would read books from the Library of Congress in order to educate himself.

In the presidential election of 1848, Lincoln favored the Whig candidate Zachary Taylor over the Democrat Lewis Cass. He mocked Cass’s military record and pointed out Cass didn’t see any more combat than he did. Lincoln made the audience laugh, exclaiming, “If he saw any live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did; but I had a good many bloody struggles with mosquitoes!”

In 1849, when he was forty, Lincoln applied for a patent, the only president to have done so. Always a mechanically-minded fellow, Lincoln developed a device to help lift boats over sandbars or shoals. It didn’t get put into widespread use, however. The same year, his single term in congress ended due to his stand against the Mexican American War. He was offered the governorship of Oregon, but declined. He decided to become a full-time lawyer instead.

Lincoln didn’t keep his law office clean. In fact, one person noticed discarded fruit seeds had sprouted in the dust and dirt. He read both pro- and anti-slavery newspapers, wanting to get both sides of the story. The law had changed since Lincoln began practicing. It was more formal, there was less speaking off the cuff. Legal precedent was now more important than a good argument. Legal technicalities were more important than the spirit of the law. Making a good speech filled with rhetoric and literary allusions to Shakespeare was no longer prized as much. He advised his clients to compromise and settle whenever possible. Even though it would mean less business for him, he knew there would always be business enough.

In 1850, his son Eddie died of what was probably pulmonary tuberculosis. He was just three years old. In 1851, his father died. Lincoln inherited the farm, but didn’t want to benefit from it, so he sold it to his stepbrother for one dollar.

Lincoln was brought back into politics with the passage of Stephen Douglas’s Kansas Nebraska Act, which overturned previous compromises on slavery. Lincoln spoke against the extension of slavery into free territory. However he also urged his listeners to consider the other side: “If we were situated as they are, we should act and feel as they do; and if they were situated as we are, they should act and feel as we do.”

In the 1840s, immigration from Europe and the famine in Ireland surged, prompting the formation of the anti-immigrant Know Nothing party. In the 1850s, a new anti-slavery party called the Republicans was also formed.

When he returned to Illinois, Stephen Douglas was a pariah. He joked he’d be able to find his way home from the light of the burning effigies. When he arrived in Chicago to give a speech, the bells of local churches played a funeral dirge to sound their disapproval. The crowd taunted and hissed.

Douglas refused to debate Lincoln, but Lincoln answered Douglas with speeches of his own. Lincoln challenged Douglas with his own words, quoting the Douglas of 1849 who spoke in favor of the Missouri Compromise. He appealed to the Declaration of Independence which stated all men are created equal. He pointed out that Thomas Jefferson hadn’t wanted slavery to expand into new states even though he was a slaveholder himself.

Lincoln became a prominent lawyer. In one case, he got the Illinois Central Railroad exempt from paying county taxes, saving them $500,000. He was one of the lawyers involved in the $400,000 Reaper Case over patent infringement for a harvesting machine. One of his fellow lawyers, Edwin Stanton, pushed Lincoln out of the case and treated him poorly, but Lincoln didn’t hold that against him.

One of his jokes: a woman riding through the wood met an ugly man on horseback and exclaimed, “Well, for land sake, you are the homeliest man I ever saw.” He replied, “Yes madam, but I can’t help it.” She said, “No, I suppose not, but you might stay at home.”

Staying at a hotel where the host summoned guests to meals with a gong, his friends asked Lincoln to do something about the annoying noise. Lincoln hid the gong between two layers of the dining table and the proprietor couldn’t find it.

Lincoln became a Republican and nearly got the party’s nomination for vice president in 1856. He campaigned for the Republican candidate Frémont, making 50 speeches. He didn’t attack any man’s motives or character, but instead attacked only ideas. His wife Mary, however, said she was too Southern to support anyone but Fillmore who was running as candidate for the Know Nothing party. In the end, Buchanan won.

Lincoln spoke out against the Dred Scott decision when it came out, once again opposing Douglas who was in favor of it.

He was involved in another high profile legal case involving a steam ship crashing into a railroad bridge and suing the railroad company. To prepare for the case, Lincoln visited the bridge, had another steamer pass through so he could study the effects of the currents and the wind. In his arguments, he pointed out only 7 of 959 boats suffered damage passing under the bridge. Boat captains just had to get used to the bridge being there. Besides, more people traveled the railroad than the river and the railroad was better for the growth of the nation.

He had a model of the boat and discussed his past experience as a boatman, angular positions of the piers, course of the river, speed of the currents, depth of the channel, and speed of the boat, indicating the crash was caused by the pilot’s carelessness as well as the starboard wheel not working. The jury was deadlocked and the case wasn’t settled until years later in favor of the railroad.

He then had a murder trial to defend his friend’s son. A key witness claimed to see everything clearly due to the full moon, but Lincoln called for an almanac which stated the moon had set by the time the fight took place. He gave a tearful closing statement telling the jury of how the defendant’s father took him in and fed and clothed him when he was poor. Duff Armstrong was declared innocent and Lincoln didn’t charge his widowed mother a cent for defending him.

In Kansas, the city of Lecompton gave voters the option of voting for “no slavery” (which legalized already existing slavery) or “with slavery” which allowed new slavery. Anti-slavery advocates boycotted the vote and the pro-slavery faction won the sham election. Douglas, who had favored the Kansas Nebraska Act, now opposed the Lecompton vote as rule of the minority. (He was also upset at President Buchanan for not making him an adviser to the administration.)

Lincoln ran for Senate, attempting to unseat Douglas. Despite the fact Douglas opposed the Lecompton vote, he was still friendly to the institution of slavery. The two had a series of debates across the state which drew large crowds, sometimes larger than the population of the town they were in.

Douglas accused Lincoln of wanting blacks and whites to be equal (an idea that horrified most voters at the time). Lincoln said he was against slavery, not in favor of full equality. He responded to Douglas’s angry rants with humor. At one debate, Lincoln had to climb through a window to get to the podium. He remarked, “Well, at last I have gone through college.”

He ended up losing the election, which was decided not by popular vote, but by the state legislature. All the Democrats in the state legislature voted for Douglas, while all the Republicans voted for Lincoln. He returned to lawyering, while friends and newspapers were suggesting he run for president in 1860.

In 1859, Douglas began speaking in other states to help Democrat candidates and Lincoln likewise began speaking in other states to promote Republicans. In order to promote party unity, Lincoln advised against Republicans opposing the Fugitive Slave Law and insisted he was only opposed to the expansion of slavery, although he would like to see it gradually end in the existing slave states as well.

To counter Douglas’s claim that the founding fathers wanted slavery to expand, he pointed out that Congress forbade slavery in Indiana with the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, even though Indiana repeatedly requested the Ordinance be ended. Republicans won in several states that year and Lincoln was declared a “giant killer” for defeating Douglas.

In May 1860, he won the Republican nomination for president. Hannibal Hamlin was picked as his vice president. Meanwhile, the Democrats were divided with northern Democrats picking Stephen Douglas who wouldn’t commit to expanding slavery and southern Democrats picking Buchanan’s vice president John C. Breckinridge who was pro-slavery. With the Democrats divided, Lincoln was pretty much assured victory.

Unlike other wives of candidates, Mary Lincoln was intensely interested in politics and offered Lincoln advice on who to trust. She engaged in a letter-writing campaign and hosted the throngs of people who came to their house in the lead up to the election. She was basically his chief adviser.

During a campaign rally, a crowd stampeded Lincoln’s carriage, lifted him above the mob, and carried him to the speaker’s stand.

Douglas attacked Lincoln for taking part in a duel. He accused Lincoln of being a Deist, being against the troops in the Mexican-American War, claimed he was secretly a Know-Nothing, and claimed he was in favor of Negro equality.

Lincoln reminded people he wasn’t against slavery continuing to exist where it already was, but southerners didn’t believe him. 82.2 percent of eligible voters voted, the second-highest turnout in history. Although he won the popular vote, Lincoln only got 39.9 percent of the popular vote because it was divided four ways. The Republicans didn’t win either chamber of Congress and Lincoln didn’t get a single vote in ten southern states.

He built his presidential cabinet not from his friends, but from his political rivals, balanced between ex-Democrats and ex-Whigs. He asked several southerners to join his cabinet, but they all declined except for one who took the position of postmaster general.

In December 1860, South Carolina voted to secede from the Union. Several other states followed suit and began taking over federal forts and arsenals. While Lincoln was preparing for his inauguration, Jefferson Davis was elected the president of the Confederacy with Lincoln’s friend Alexander Stephens as vice president.

Detective Allan Pinkerton warned Lincoln of a plot to assassinate him and urged him to travel to Washington secretly by night. When he arrived, his friend Congressman Washburne recognized him and grabbed hold of him. Pinkerton, thinking Washburne an assassin, punched him.

In his inaugural address, Lincoln once again assured southerners he wasn’t going to take their slaves away and even said he’d support the Fugitive Slave Act. He vowed not to start a war with the dissatisfied states. Southern newspapers once again ignored what he said and insisted he did want to take their slaves away.

An infrequent church goer, Lincoln started attending Presbyterian church more regularly after becoming president.

His first challenge as president was Fort Sumter. Confederates had laid seige to it. It was holding them off, but would need to be resupplied. If Lincoln resupplied, it would be considered an act of war. If he surrendered, the Confederates might be emboldened to take more forts. He took his time gathering information and considering all options before finally deciding to resupply the fort. He notified the Confederates of his decision and stressed it was a resupply-only mission, not an attack.

The Confederates attacked Fort Sumter and forced it to surrender before the resupply boats got there. They had fired the first shot of the Civil War.

Nearly a third of the national army defected to the Confederacy. Alexandria, across the river from Washington, waved Confederate flags. The commander of the army, Winfield Scott, was too old to command the US forces, but recommended Colonel Robert E. Lee. When Lincoln asked Lee to be commander of the US Army, Lee said he was against the Confederate rebellion, but he couldn’t take up arms against his home state. He then defected a week later.

Lincoln called for volunteers from state militias to defend the nation. There was overwhelming support in the northern and northwestern states, but the border states were more hesitant. When troops arrived in Baltimore, pro-slavery protesters threw bricks and stones at them. The troops opened fire and several troops and civilians died. Since there were no casualties at Fort Sumter, Baltimore was the first blood of the Civil War.

Southern sympathizers cut telegraph wires and burnt bridges to cut Washington off from the north. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Now people could be arrested and held without specific charges. The Constitution states that habeas corpus can be suspended during a rebellion or invasion in the interests of public safety. However, Chief Justice Roger Taney of Dred Scott fame, ruled only Congress had this power, not the president.

James W. Ellsworth, the first commissioned officer to die in the civil war, was like a son to Lincoln. He read law in Lincoln’s office and acted as an older brother to his sons. Ellsworth was shot by a hotel owner after he removed a Confederate flag from the hotel.

Almost half the Democrats in Congress defected. Southerners who supported Lincoln, including Andrew Johnson, were known as the War Democrats. Stephen Douglas, Lincoln’s longtime rival, died at only 48 years old, probably due to cirrhosis of the liver. He had supported Lincoln by the end.

Lincoln called a special session of Congress to meet on July 4th and got bipartisan support to raise funds for an army. In order to get this bipartisan support, he didn’t mention slavery in his address, only preserving the Union.

Troops from all over the north met in Washington, but no major military engagement had yet occurred. The army and navy were woefully unprepared to go to battle, but Lincoln knew delay would dampen public support. He ordered an attack on Virginia.

Both sides were inexperienced. The Union ended up losing at Bull Run where Confederate general Thomas Jackson earned his Stonewall nickname by not fleeing with the rest of his army and held until reinforcements arrived by railroad. After the defeat, Lincoln decided to delegate less and be a more involved commander in chief than any president before. He threw himself into studying military strategy, reading all the books he could about it.

General George B. McClellan had pushed the Confederates out of western Virginia and the people had formed a new state loyal to the United States called West Virginia. Lincoln chose him to lead the troops. He was experienced in the Mexican American War, was educated at West Point, and spent a year in Europe studying the Crimean War. He could read military books in French, German, and Russian. He became general in chief of the whole army after Scott retired.

The border state of Kentucky remained neutral at the start of the war. Confederates violated Kentucky’s neutrality by seizing Columbus. Ulysses S. Grant moved in and took control of the mouth of the Tennessee River. Although Kentucky officially remained neutral, it became Union for all intents and purposes.

Missouri was another strategically important border state which hadn’t yet declared a side. There were skirmishes between pro- and anti-slavery factions in St. Louis. Lincoln sent in John C. Frémont who only made matters worse by issuing a proclamation freeing all slaves in the state. Lincoln asked him to retract the letter as it would cause the slave-holding supporters of the United States to turn against them. He also viewed freeing slaves to be unconstitutional.

Frémont sent his wife Jessie Benton Frémont to Washington to defend his actions. She argued the war could not be won by force of arms alone and said her husband was smarter than Lincoln. Lincoln had to restrain himself from arguing with her. Lincoln fired Frémont, but public opinion was on Frémont’s side.

By the end of 1861, Lincoln had finally come around to the idea of freeing slaves and proposed compensating slaveholders in Delaware $400 per slave. The bill was introduced to the Delaware legislature, but didn’t go anywhere.

The secretary of war was incompetent. Lincoln made him minister to Russia to save his dignity. In keeping with his policy of appointing rivals rather than friends, the new secretary of war he picked was Democrat Edward M. Stanton, the lawyer who forced Lincoln out of the Reaper trial seven years before.

Lincoln’s son Willie was sick with “bilious fever” off and on at the beginning of the year and eventually died on February 20th at the age of 11. Abe was devastated and his wife Mary would never stop mourning. She never again set foot in Willie’s room and avoided anything or anyone that reminded her of him.

With their oldest son Robert attending Harvard, their youngest remaining son Tad was suddenly alone. He used to sleep in the same bed as Willie. Now, he slept with his father. Abe became the boy’s chief companion. Abe would bring Tad along to official meetings where the boy would sit on his lap or perch on his shoulder.

McClellan continued to delay even though Confederates controlled the Potomac both above and below Washington. Finally, in March, he sent boats to rebuild the bridge at Harper’s Ferry, but it turned out the boats were too wide to fit through the lock. It was an expensive waste of time. There were rumors McClellan was secretly a Confederate. McClellan delayed further, tricked into thinking he was outnumbered by painted black logs that looked like artillery at Manassas, and again being tricked about the size of the enemy at Yorktown.

Frustrated, Lincoln took charge of the troops himself and sent the Confederates packing from Norfolk. He demoted McClellan from being in charge of the whole army to just the Army of the Potomac. McClellan finally got to Richmond in May, but again thought he was outnumbered when he wasn’t and the Confederates held him off.

In April 1862, Lincoln outlawed slavery in Washington DC, and all federal territories in June, reversing the Dred Scott decision. He tried to convince border states to give up their slaves in return for compensation, but they rejected his plan. He started thinking about emancipation, but wanted to wait for a victory before announcing it, so it wouldn’t look like an act of desperation.

In August 1862, newspaper editor Horace Greeley published a letter calling on Lincoln to emancipate, pointing out that if the Civil War ended but slavery remained, the Confederates would just continue to rebel. The issue had to be settled once and for all. Lincoln replied he only wanted to save the Union, whether that included freeing slaves or not. Although he’d written the Emancipation Proclamation by this point, he wasn’t ready to make it public yet.

In August, an army at the Second Battle of Bull Run needed reinforcements, but McClellan didn’t send them, making excuses instead. McClellan was popular with the troops though, so Lincoln not only kept him, but put him in charge again.

Robert E. Lee saw the United States was weakened and decided to strike. He moved his men into Maryland, just 40 miles from Washington. Since there were a lot of slaveholders in Maryland, he thought the Confederates would be welcomed, but the people supported the United States instead. Lee made the risky decision to split his army into four or five parts, and one of his messages got intercepted, so the US knew his plans. Unfortunately, McClellan again delayed in acting. By the time he issued his orders, Lee had already reformed his army.

The Battle of Antietam was the most violent day of the Civil War. There were so many dead bodies, it was said one could walk across the thirty acre battlefield without touching the ground. McClellan had once again lost his advantage with his characteristic delays. He outnumbered the enemy 2 to 1, but as usual, thought they outnumbered him, so he held back 20,000 troops in reserve instead of simply overwhelming the enemy. The Confederates ended up retreating back to Virginia, but both sides had tremendous casualties.

It wasn’t much of a victory, but Lincoln decided now was the time to issue the Emancipation Proclamation which freed the slaves in rebellious states and offered compensation to slaveholders who remained loyal to the US.

McClellan didn’t pursue Lee into Virginia and Lincoln proclaimed the army wasn’t really an army, but rather McClellan’s bodyguard. Lincoln had enough. He replaced McClellan with Ambrose P. Burnside.

In his annual address, Lincoln said, “Without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue.” He proposed a plan to abolish slavery by 1900 and send black people to other countries.

Burnside had a defeat at Fredericksburg. Disappointed at this defeat, senators who couldn’t directly attack Lincoln called for the Secretary of State Seward to be dismissed and Seward resigned. However, Treasury Secretary Chase was the real man behind the push to remove Seward. Lincoln met with the senators and his cabinet separately, then with the cabinet and senators together so they’d be unable to say different things in front of different people. Chase’s duplicity was revealed and he offered his resignation. However, Lincoln accepted neither resignation and got the cabinet to work together again.

His generals Burnside and Halleck both offered to resign and he didn’t accept their resignations either. After another failure, however, Lincoln replaced Burnside with Joseph Hooker, a man notorious for having female camp followers known as “hookers”.

Lincoln had been hesitant about arming black men since most white people at the time would be horrified at the idea, but now he set up black regiments. Many US soldiers who opposed the Emancipation Proclamation deserted. In March 1863, the Conscription Act was passed, the first federal military draft. Protesters murdered recruitment officers and encouraged young men to desert.

Hooker lost to Lee at Chancellorsville despite outnumbering him, because he held back his reserve troops. However, the Confederacy was also dealt a severe blow when Lee’s right-hand man Stonewall Jackson was killed by friendly fire.

In response to mounting criticism, Lincoln wrote public letters to the newspapers explaining himself. He pointed out the Confederates had been preparing for this war for 30 years. He said he should have suspended habeas corpus sooner so he could have arrested Robert E. Lee and other rebel officers before they defected. He pointed out Andrew Jackson had made arrests under martial law during the War of 1812.

In June 1863, Lee moved his troops north again. His troops were spread out and would have been easy for Hooker to overwhelm, but Hooker didn’t take the opportunity to attack as Lincoln recommended, remaining on a defensive foot. Lincoln selected George Meade to replace Hooker.

In July, the two armies happened to meet in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania which neither side had planned on. Meade defeated Lee on July 3rd, and in the west, Ulysses S. Grant captured Vicksburg on the Fourth of July. However, Meade failed to counterattack and Lee was able to escape.

In Missouri, there was conflict between the “Charcoals” who favored immediate emancipation and the “Snowflakes” who wanted to keep slavery. Lincoln gave the following advice to his general there: “If both factions, or neither, shall abuse you, you will probably be about right.”

In November, he was invited to speak at the dedication of the nation’s first military cemetery in Gettysburg. This is where he gave his famous “Four score and seven years ago” speech.

In April 1864, Confederates attacked Fort Pillow which was defended by 580 troops, 292 of whom were black. When they surrendered, the Confederates murdered the black soldiers. Members of Lincoln’s cabinet wanted to execute Confederate prisoners in revenge.

Grant was now in charge of the army and put Lee on the defensive. Unlike earlier commanders, Grant was determined to never stop pressing forward. However, at Spotsylvania, the Confederates were dug into trenches and the casualties were massive, a preview of the trench warfare that would take place in WWI. The war once again was not going well.

Lincoln was nominated to run for president again, but John C. Frémont ran against him as a third party candidate. For vice president, Hamlin, who had grown increasingly radical, was replaced by the nominating convention with Andrew Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat.

In July, Confederates marched on Washington and a sharp shooter’s bullet nearly hit Lincoln. By August, it looked like Lincoln would lose reelection. The Democrats nominated General George B. McClellan for president. He was given the impossible task of being both in favor and against the war in order to please both factions of the party. In the end, he couldn’t stand the thought that all those soldiers’ deaths were in vain, so he came out in favor of the war.

In September, news arrived that the United States had taken Atlanta and public sentiment shifted. Lincoln won reelection by an overwhelming margin.

Despite being warned of danger all along, President Lincoln still rode alone from the White House. Once, a rifle shot rang out causing his horse, named Old Abe, to take off at break-neck speed. The President just joked about it. “I tell you there is no time on record equal to that made by the two Old Abes on that occasion.”

Lincoln appointed Salmon Chase, a man who ran against him in the Republican primaries and who criticized him behind his back, to be on the Supreme Court. He was once again picking a rival, although one who would support emancipation.

A proposed Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery (except as punishment for committing a crime) failed to pass Congress. Republicans won the majority in Congress, but the new Congress wouldn’t meet for four months. Lincoln wasn’t willing to wait that long, so he lobbied Democrats in the current Congress and got it passed.

At Lincoln’s second inaugural address, John Wilkes Booth, an actor Lincoln had seen perform at Ford’s Theatre, was present. Booth was planning on abducting the president, but wasn’t able to do it. On the eve of victory, Lincoln used the speech not to gloat or celebrate, but to ask for reconciliation “with malice towards none; with charity towards all.”

Thousands crowded Lincoln at the reception afterward to shake his hand. Frederick Douglas was told no black people were allowed in, but when Lincoln found out, he allowed Douglas in, shook his hand, and asked his opinion, telling him he valued no one else’s opinion more. In April, the Confederates finally abandoned Richmond. Lincoln went down to visit the capital of the Confederacy where he was greeted as a savior by the black residents.

Lee surrendered shortly afterward. Lincoln began planning Reconstruction. He wasn’t yet ready to grant all black men the right to vote, but said in a speech that “very intelligent” black men and the nearly two hundred thousand who had served in the military should be able to vote. Furious, John Wilkes Booth told a friend this would be the last speech Lincoln would ever make.

On the morning of April 14, 1865, Lincoln woke from a dream. He was on a ship traveling to a distant shore. He told Mary he wasn’t concerned because he’d had similar dreams before US victories in the past.

He met with Grant and told him of his dream. He thought it meant Johnston had surrendered to Sherman in North Carolina. He invited the Grants to see a play with him and Mary that night called Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre, but the Grants had plans to visit their sons instead.

Mary was in a bad mood. She accused Julia Grant of wanting to succeed her in the White House and accused Lincoln of flirting with an officer’s wife. Lincoln tried to calm her down. She had a headache and didn’t want to go to the theater, but their plans had been announced in the papers, so Lincoln felt they had to go.

One of his last acts as president was pardoning a Confederate spy so he wouldn’t be put to death. Lincoln told a White House guard, William H. Crook, who wanted to accompany him to the theatre, to instead take the night off since he’d had a long day already.

They arrived to the play late. When they arrived, the play stopped and the audience cheered for them. John F. Parker, another White House guard who was supposed to stand in front of the door to Lincoln’s box, instead found a seat so he could watch the play.

Lincoln was too exhausted to pay attention to the play. Mary had to explain to him what was happening on stage. During the third act, John Wilkes Booth entered the unguarded box, pointed a small derringer at the back of Lincoln’s head, and fired the fatal shot. He then leapt from the box to the stage and yelled “Sic semper tyrannis!” Lincoln survived the night, but died the next morning.

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As I’ve been reading through presidential biographies, I’ve been rating presidents based on how many people’s lives have been lost or saved because of their actions. This biography doesn’t mention the Trent Affair in which Lincoln saved lives by avoiding war with Britain. It also doesn’t mention The Dakota War of 1862 in which 661 people lost their lives after the Dakota attacked white settlers. Lincoln sent an army in to defend the settlers, but since this was a defensive war, I don’t think these deaths should be counted against him. In fact, Lincoln saved the lives of 265 Dakota who were sentenced to death by commuting their sentences.

The main event of Lincoln’s presidency, of course, is the Civil War. He did his best to avoid the war and the Confederates were the aggressors, so we could count this as a defensive war. He even pardoned 64 Confederates who would have been put to death. Most people count the Civil War (along with World War II) as one of the few “good” or necessary wars. The previous president, Buchanan, could have prevented the Civil War in the first place if he’d sent in troops before the Confederacy had time to organize, so we could say all those deaths are his fault.

By the time Lincoln was president, the war was already underway. It was too late for him to stop it, except by allowing the United States to split apart into two separate nations. If he’d done that, the Confederacy had plans to expand slavery into the western US, Cuba, Mexico, and South America. So even if Lincoln gave the Confederacy everything they wanted, he’d only be delaying war. The Confederacy would just clash with the United States in the future when they tried to expand their territory. While Lincoln originally fought the war not to end slavery, but to preserve the Union, he did come around to ending slavery, which might be the best thing a president ever did. Countless lives were saved and improved by abolishing slavery.

If Lincoln fighting the Civil War was justified, was he responsible for any unnecessary deaths? In retrospect, I think the United States would have won the war much sooner and with much less loss of life if Ulysses S. Grant had been in charge of the entire army right from the start, but there’s no way Lincoln could have known all the generals he put in charge previous to Grant wouldn’t be bold enough to bring the war to a speedy conclusion.

Lincoln is often ranked as the best president of the United States, and it’s hard to disagree. The immense amount of causalities in the Civil War is horrifying and can’t be ignored, but if the United States had allowed the Confederacy to continue to spread slavery throughout the world, things would have been much worse for much more people.