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Abraham Lincoln Presidential $1 Coin — 16th President, 1861 - 1865
• Born: 12 February 1809
• Birthplace: Near Hodgenville, Kentucky
• Died: 15 April 1865 (assassination)
• Best Known As: The Civil War president who wrote the Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States from 1861 until his shocking assassination in 1865. The colorful stories about Lincoln's life really are true: 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) before his election as the nation's first Republican president in 1860. As president he is best remembered for leading the Union through the Civil War and freeing Confederate slaves with the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation; for delivering the Gettysburg Address, the most famous oration in American history, on 19 November 1863; and for his tragic assassination 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.
He married Mary Anne Todd in 1842... Yes, that's Lincoln 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 preceded by James Buchanan, the only president to remain a bachelor for life... 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.
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th U.S. President, was born February 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Ky., into a poor frontier family. A self-taught lawyer, he also served in the Illinois legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1858, while campaigning for a seat in the U.S. Senate, Lincoln engaged incumbent Stephen A. Douglas in a series of debates over slavery. Though he lost the election, Lincoln's eloquence won him national attention, and in 1860, he received the Republican Presidential nomination. Lincoln became President of the United States in 1861 as the Nation descended into the Civil War.
While he was President, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves living in the Confederacy. Although the Confederate States ignored the proclamation, it allowed Union soldiers to free slaves they found in the South and recruit them into their army. By the time the Civil War ended, one out of eight members of the Union Army was black. On November 19, 1863, he delivered his famous Gettysburg Address. His example of assuming sole authority during a time of war was followed by later Presidents, including Woodrow Wilson in World War I and Franklin Roosevelt in World War II. While the Civil War and efforts to abolish slavery dominated his presidency, Lincoln also signed into law the Homestead Act, which made it possible for poor people to buy land provided they agreed to settle and work there for at least five years. This law began the settlement of the American West.
On April 14, 1865—only a few weeks into his second administration and just as the Civil War was ending—Lincoln was shot by Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth, and died the next morning in Washington, D.C.