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Birthplace and Childhood
Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin in Kentucky. He grew up on the frontier of America. His mother died while he was young and his father moved the family from Kentucky to Indiana to Illinois where the family finally settled down. -
Marriage and Family
Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd on this day in Springfield, Illinios. The Todd family was a wealthy slave owning family from Kentucky. Abraham and Mary Todd had four children. -
Congressman Lincoln
Abraham LIncoln will enter the United States House of Representatives and will serve for two years. Lincoln was a member of the Whig party and represented them well. He supported protective tariffs for businesses, internal developments, and he also opposed slavery. -
Run for United States Senate
Lincoln - Douglas DebatesLincoln became a nationally recognized figure during his Senate campaign of 1858. He ran against the incumbent Democrat Senator Stephen Douglas. Lincoln had joined the newly created Republican party and the Lincoln - Douglas debates Lincoln used reason and sound arguements to oppose slavery. -
Election of 1860
The election of 1860 split the Democrat party over the issue of slavery. Many southern slave states did not have Lincoln's name on the ballot because of Lincoln's stance on slavery. Lincoln won all the Northern states and because of the split in the Democrat party was able to win the election -
Civil War
After Lincoln's election seven southern states left the Union to form the Confederate States of America. On this day, southern troops fired on Fort Sumter signaling the start of the American Civil War. It would last over four bloody years and claim the lives of over 500,000 men in both blue and gray. -
Assassination
Only days after the surrender of Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army marking the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln went to watch a play at Ford's Theater. While watching the play, a southern sympathizer, John Wilkes Booth snuck into the President's box and shot the president in the back of the head
