The Lincoln Institute provides resources for scholars and groups involved in the study of the life of America's 16th President, Abraham Lincoln, and the impact he had on the preservation of the Union, the emancipation of black slaves, and the development of democratic principles. We also encourage the use of primary sources about Abraham Lincoln for use by students and scholars along with understanding of the contemporaries with whom Lincoln worked.
Visit The Lincoln Institute sites for specific information and resources on Abraham Lincoln's life including Abraham Lincoln's White House, Abraham Lincoln & Friends, Abraham Lincoln & New York, Abraham Lincoln & Freedom, as well as Abraham Lincoln's Classroom for teacher resources.
Cotton was a scandal in the Civil War. By the war's conclusion, cotton had become as annoying to the President Abraham Lincoln as the boll weevil was to cotton growers. On the night he was assassinated, Mr. Lincoln met former Massachusetts Congressman George As...
From the beginning of the Civil War, President Lincoln came under considerable pressure from Radical Republicans to take action to free slaves in areas in rebellion against the Federal government. Mr. Lincoln doubted the constitutionality of such plans and sought...
Union Army General Philip "Little Phil" Sheridan was an Army lieutenant at the outbreak of War. He rose through the ranks, first as a quartermaster and later as a cavalry officer and division commander in the West. He stormed Missionary Ridge at the Battle of Cha...
Springfield printer Gilbert J. Greene recalled accompanying Mr. Lincoln in the late 1850s into the country to help a dying woman write her will. Greene remarked on the sympathy and compassion and religious comfort Mr. Lincoln brought the woman - including reading...
Dean Richmond "was one of those original men of great brain-power, force, and character, knowledge of men, and executive ability, of which that period had a number," wrote New York Republican Chauncey M. Depew, who followed Richmond into the railroad business. "Fr...
Lincoln's relationships with women were unsure and uneven - especially in his youth. He had not been schooled in social graces so he was not sometimes artless in his conversation with women. His move in 1831 to New Salem, a small Illinois settlement, was his firs...
They were big men. George Washington was 6-foot-3. Abraham Lincoln was almost 6-4. Their ambitions were equally big -- first for themselves, and then for the nation they would lead.
As young men, both future presidents trained as surveyors at periods when Americans were preoccupied by the development of the frontier and the acquisition of land. Historian John Ferling wrote: "Starting around age fifteen, George learned surveying through self-help books, such as `The Young Man's Companion,' and it is probable that he was tutored by some of the surveyors employed by the Fairfaxes." In his search for self-improvement, 16-year-old Washington famously wrote out the rules for life and behavior from "Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation." That pursuit would continue the rest of his life.
Surveying helped define both men. In 1834 Abraham Lincoln was named as a deputy surveyor of Sangamon County in Illinois; George Washington had been appointed as Culpepper County surveyor in 1749. Ferling observed that, "surveying ... was a respectable and often lucrative occupation in Washington's Virginia, as the population was growing and new frontiers were opening steadily."
Lincoln at Peoria explains how Lincoln's speech at Peoria on October 16, 1854, was the turning point in the development of his antislavery campaign and his political career and thought.
May 21, 1863 Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles writes in his diary: “Had an early call from the President, who brought a communication from Tassara to Seward, complaining of violation of neutral rights by a small pilot-boat, having a gun mounted amidships and believed to be an American vessel, which was annoying Spanish and […]...Read More
