Abe Lincoln History

• How did he die?
  President Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at the Ford Theatre in Washington D.C. He died the next day on April 15, 1865.
  

• Lincoln was seeing the play, 'Our American Cousin', when he was shot.
• Lincoln was the first president to have a beard while in office.
• Lincoln, Nebraska was named after Abraham Lincoln.
• A plot was developed to steal Lincoln's body, so a secret society to guard his tomb was formed.
• Lincoln was the tallest president. He was 6 feet and four inches tall.
• Lincoln once had a dream right before the fall of Richmond that he would die. He dreamt that he was in the White House, he heard crying and when he found the room it was coming from he asked who had died. The man said the President. He looked in the coffin and saw his own face. A week later Lincoln died.

Summary of Abe Lincoln's Major Accomplishments

1. Abraham Lincoln made the decision to fight to prevent the nation from splitting apart.

2. Abraham Lincoln was an unfaltering commander in chief during the Civil War which preserved the United States as one nation.

3. Abraham Lincoln's foreign policy was successful in preventing other countries from intervening in America's Civil War.

4. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which began the process of freedom for America's slaves. The document also allowed black soldiers to fight for the Union.

5. Abraham Lincoln was a strong supporter of the Thirteenth Amendment that formally ended slavery in the United States.

6. Legislation Abraham Lincoln signed into law included the Homestead Act, the Morrill Act, the National Banking Act, and a bill that chartered the first transcontinental railroad.

7. Abraham Lincoln set an example of strong character, leadership, and honesty which succeeding presidents tried to emulate. Barack Obama stated during his campaign that he would look to Lincoln as a model.

8. Abraham Lincoln gave a series of great speeches before and during his presidency including the House Divided Speech, the Cooper Union Address, the First Inaugural Address, the Gettysburg Address, and the Second Inaugural Address.

9. Abraham Lincoln wrote a series of famous letters including the letters to Grace Bedell, Horace Greeley, Fanny McCullough, and Lydia Bixby.

10. Abraham Lincoln's quotes are among the most famous quotes in the world.

Abe Lincoln's Legacy

Scorned and ridiculed by many critics during his presidency, Lincoln became a martyr and almost a saint after his death. His words and deeds lived after him and will be revered as long as there is a United States. Indeed, it seems quite likely that without his determined leadership the United States would have ceased to exist. Union victory in the Civil War resolved two fundamental, festering problems that had been left unresolved by the Revolution of 1776 and the Constitution of 1789: whether this republic, "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," would "long endure" or "perish from the earth"; and whether the "monstrous injustice" of slavery would continue to mock those ideals of liberty. The republic endured, and slavery perished. That is Lincoln's legacy.