*Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States, from 1861 until his shocking assassination in 1865. 

*He is best remembered for leading the Union through the Civil War

*While in office, he freed Confederate slaves with the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation

*He delivered the Gettysburg Address, the most famous oration in American history, on November 19,1863.

Death: April 15,1865-(age- 56) Washington, D.C.

He was born in a log cabin and grew up on the American frontier, educated himself by reading borrowed books, and worked splitting fence rails and clerking in a general store, and then as a country lawyer, long before he became president. He served in the Illinois General Assembly for eight years and in the U.S. House of Representatives for one term (1847-49). In 1858, Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860. He was elected and became the nation's first Republican president in 1860. As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy. Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."   His tragic assassination  occurred by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. Upon Lincoln's death, Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency. The Lincoln Memorial, with its famous statue of Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, was dedicated in Washington in 1922.

Extra: He married Mary Anne Todd in 1842. She was the subject of much speculation and questionable patriotism. She was committed to a state hospital for the insane in May of 1875... Lincoln is on the U.S. penny and the five dollar bill. Lincoln also named Salmon P. Chase to be Chief Justice of the United States in 1864, and Chase is on the $10,000 bill. Lincoln was the first president to be born outside the original thirteen states. He was the first president to wear a beard while in office. Lincoln's oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, was present at three assassinations: his father's, President Garfield's in 1881 and President McKinley's in 1901. A famous (and enormous) biography of Lincoln was written by 20th-century author Carl Sandburg. Lincoln had no formal education. He was the tallest President ever at six feet four inches. He grew a beard shortly after he was elected on the advice of a little girl that said "it would soften his look". He was the first president to hold a patent on a device for bouying vessels over shoals. The first attempt to assassinate him was in a train depot on Feb. 11, 1861 in Baltimore, Md. but the plot was discovered. Lincoln proclaimed annual Thanksgiving day on the last Thursday of November. He was a wise, concerned commander-in-chief and fought the Civil War with great determination and to heal the nations wounds, and pardoned all but a few of the rebel leaders.  Lincoln said, "Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." "As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it, "All men are created equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, "All men are created equal except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some other country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, without the base alloy of hypocrisy."He was shot and killed by an actor while attending a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C, just weeks after his reelection. His assassination has to rank as one of the worst tragedies in American history, and changed the course of the nation. On Nov. 7,1876, thieves broke into Lincoln's tomb and attempted to steal his body for ransom but the plot was discovered.  A poll of historians named Lincoln the nation's greatest president.  George Washington was second.