98 Fun Facts About Lincoln

In what state was Abraham Lincoln born?

Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring farm, near Hodgenville in Hardin County, Kentucky, on February 12, 1809.

Whom did Abraham Lincoln marry on November 4, 1842?

Mary Todd: Lincoln met her in Springfield in 1839, broke off their engagement in early 1841, and the reconciled couple married on November 4, 1842.

Which profession did Abraham Lincoln teach himself from borrowed books?

Lawyer: Lincoln never studied in an attorney's office; he read law on his own from borrowed books and was licensed to practice in Illinois in September 1836.

Abraham Lincoln served as the 16th president of the United States during which major conflict?

Abraham Lincoln led the United States through the American Civil War, serving as president from 1861 until his assassination in 1865.

Who assassinated Abraham Lincoln?

John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor, shot Lincoln at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, five days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox; he was killed at a Virginia farm on April 26.

What political party did Abraham Lincoln belong to when he was elected president in 1860?

Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, becoming the first president from the newly formed Republican Party. He had previously been a Whig.

Which document, issued by Lincoln, declared enslaved people in Confederate states to be free?

The Emancipation Proclamation declared enslaved people in the states then in rebellion to be free; it left slavery untouched in the loyal border states, which is why a constitutional amendment was later needed.

What famous speech by Lincoln begins with 'Four score and seven years ago...'?

The Gettysburg Address, delivered on November 19, 1863 at the dedication of a soldiers' cemetery, took Lincoln only about two minutes; 'four score and seven' counts back 87 years to 1776.

What was Abraham Lincoln's height?

Lincoln stood 6 feet 4 inches, a full 12 inches taller than his 1860 opponent Stephen A. Douglas, who was 5 feet 4 inches.

In what year did Abraham Lincoln first win election to the Illinois State Legislature?

Lincoln lost his first run for the Illinois General Assembly in 1832, then won a seat in 1834 and went on to serve four consecutive terms in the state House.

What was the name of Abraham Lincoln's stepmother, who encouraged his education?

Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow with three children of her own, married Thomas Lincoln in December 1819 and brought books such as Aesop's Fables and The Pilgrim's Progress into the household.

Lincoln briefly served as a captain in the Illinois Militia during which conflict?

Black Hawk War: in 1832 Lincoln interrupted his first campaign for the Illinois House to serve about three months as an elected militia captain, his only military service; he saw no combat.

Which legal principle against unlawful detention did Lincoln suspend in April 1861?

Habeas corpus: Lincoln suspended the writ along the Philadelphia-Washington rail line on April 27, 1861; Chief Justice Taney ruled in Ex parte Merryman that only Congress could do so, but Lincoln ignored the opinion.

In which city was Lincoln nominated for president on the third ballot in May 1860?

Chicago: the 1860 Republican convention met in the Wigwam, a hall built for the occasion, where Lincoln overtook front-runner William H. Seward of New York on the third ballot.

What was the total amount of formal schooling Abraham Lincoln received during his childhood?

Approximately one year: Lincoln wrote in 1860 that all his schooling, taken 'by littles' in Kentucky and Indiana, 'did not amount to one year'; he was largely self-taught.

What job did Lincoln hold in New Salem, Illinois, in 1831 and 1832?

Store clerk: Lincoln clerked in Denton Offutt's general store in New Salem from 1831; he later co-owned a store there with William Berry, which took out a tavern licence in 1833.

Abraham Lincoln's famous debates in 1858 were against which politician?

Stephen A. Douglas: the 1858 Senate-race debates had an atmosphere 'akin to a prizefight'; the Democrats kept the legislature and re-elected Douglas, but Lincoln came out of them a national figure.

Which Lincoln cabinet member, initially a rival for the Republican nomination, became his Secretary of State?

Doris Kearns Goodwin later called the cabinet a 'team of rivals'; Seward went on to negotiate the purchase of Alaska in 1867.

After a funeral train that crossed seven states, Lincoln was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in which city?

Springfield, Illinois: Lincoln lies in the Lincoln Tomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery with Mary and three of their four sons; the eldest, Robert, is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

To which state did the Lincoln family move from Kentucky in 1816, when Abraham was seven?

Indiana: in December 1816 Thomas Lincoln moved the family to Little Pigeon Creek in what became Spencer County, partly over Kentucky land-title disputes; Abraham lived there until the move to Illinois in 1830.

Lincoln and the 'Long Nine' legislators moved the Illinois capital to Springfield from which town?

Vandalia: in 1837 Lincoln and Sangamon County's nine tall legislators, the 'Long Nine', won passage of the act moving the Illinois capital from Vandalia to Springfield, effective 1839.

What well-known nickname was given to Abraham Lincoln, reflecting his reputation for integrity?

Honest Abe: the nickname dates to his New Salem storekeeping days; 'Old Hickory' was Andrew Jackson, 'The Little Magician' Martin Van Buren and 'Rough Rider' Theodore Roosevelt.

Which 1861 crisis over two Confederate envoys seized from a British ship did Lincoln defuse?

Trent Affair: in November 1861 the USS San Jacinto seized Confederate envoys Mason and Slidell from the British mail steamer Trent; after British protests Lincoln released them, saying 'one war at a time'.

In which state did Lincoln give his two-minute speech dedicating the Soldiers' National Cemetery in 1863?

Pennsylvania: the cemetery at Gettysburg sits on the field where the war's costliest battle was fought on July 1-3, 1863, four and a half months before Lincoln spoke on November 19.

On the advice of 11-year-old Grace Bedell in 1860, Lincoln became the first US president to do what?

Grow a beard: Bedell wrote from Westfield, New York, that whiskers would win votes because 'all the ladies like whiskers'; the newly bearded Lincoln met her there in February 1861 en route to Washington.

Lincoln's portrait appears on the penny and on which US banknote?

$5 bill: Lincoln's portrait has appeared on the five-dollar Federal Reserve Note since the 1914 series and on the one-cent coin since 1909, the centenary of his birth.

At which theater was Abraham Lincoln assassinated?

Ford's Theatre, on Tenth Street in Washington: Lincoln was shot in the presidential box there at about 10:15 pm on April 14, 1865, and died the next morning without regaining consciousness.

How many of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln's four sons lived past age twenty?

One: Robert, born 1843, later Secretary of War and minister to Britain, outlived his father by sixty-one years; Eddie died at 3, Willie at 11 and Tad at 18.

Who gave the two-hour oration that preceded Lincoln's brief remarks at the 1863 Soldiers' National Cemetery dedication?

Everett wrote to Lincoln the next day: 'I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.'

Which 1844 law partner described Lincoln's face as 'long, narrow, sallow, and cadaverous'?

Herndon was the third of Lincoln's three partners after Stuart and Logan, and after Lincoln's death lectured that his old partner had been a religious 'unbeliever'.

Lincoln's December 1863 Reconstruction plan would readmit a state once what share of voters swore loyalty?

Ten percent: Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction of December 8, 1863 offered to recognise a state government once 10% of its 1860 voters took a loyalty oath; he pocket-vetoed Congress's stricter Wade-Davis Bill in 1864.

Which federal stronghold in Charleston harbour did Confederate forces bombard to start the Civil War?

Fort Sumter: Major Robert Anderson had warned his garrison was nearly out of food; Lincoln chose to resupply rather than reinforce, and the Confederate bombardment on April 12 and 13, 1861 rallied the North.

Who was Abraham Lincoln's Vice President during his first term?

Hamlin of Maine, a former Democrat, was chosen to balance the ticket; he was dropped in 1864 in favour of the Southern Unionist Andrew Johnson.

Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died from what illness?

Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died of milk sickness in 1818 when Abraham was nine years old.

Which of these famous quotes is attributed to Abraham Lincoln?

'A house divided against itself cannot stand': Lincoln said it in Springfield on June 16, 1858, accepting the Republican Senate nomination, borrowing the image from the Gospels; the others belong to Patrick Henry, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Nathan Hale.

Which comedy was Abraham Lincoln watching at Ford's Theatre when John Wilkes Booth shot him?

Our American Cousin, a popular comedy, was in its third act when Booth fired, timing the shot to a laugh line so the audience's noise would cover it; he then leapt to the stage and fled.

Lincoln's wife grew up in an elegant 14-room house on West Main Street in which city?

Lexington, Kentucky: Mary Todd was the fourth of seven children of Robert Smith Todd, a wealthy slave-owning banker; the West Main Street house is now a museum, and her cousin John Todd Stuart was Lincoln's first law partner.

Which 1862 law signed by Lincoln opened western government land to settlers at low cost?

Homestead Act: signed May 20, 1862, it offered 160 acres of public land to any settler who lived on and improved the claim for five years, for a small filing fee.

Which constitutional amendment, ratified in December 1865, abolished slavery?

The 13th Amendment passed the House on 31 January 1865 on the second attempt, and three-fourths of the states had ratified it by that December.

Roughly how many words long was Lincoln's Gettysburg Address?

Counts vary by a word or two between the five surviving manuscript copies, which is why 271 and 272 are both quoted; either way it took Lincoln about two minutes.

In 1863 Lincoln proclaimed which national holiday, to be observed on the final Thursday of November?

Thanksgiving: Lincoln's proclamation of October 3, 1863, prompted by editor Sarah Josepha Hale's campaign and the victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, fixed the last Thursday of November as an annual national day of thanks.

At which New York venue did Lincoln's February 1860 speech boost his presidential prospects?

Cooper Union: Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Church in Brooklyn had invited him, but the February 27, 1860 speech moved to Manhattan's Cooper Institute, where Lincoln argued the Founders had restricted slavery in the territories.

Since 1843, Sinking Spring Farm, where Lincoln was born, has sat in which Kentucky county?

LaRue County: at Lincoln's birth in 1809 the farm lay in Hardin County, but LaRue County was carved out of Hardin in 1843, which is why older references disagree.

On what date did Lincoln's final emancipation proclamation take effect?

January 1, 1863: the preliminary proclamation of September 22, 1862, issued days after the Union victory at Antietam, gave the rebelling states 100 days' notice before the final version took effect.

After being shot at Ford's Theatre, Abraham Lincoln was carried across the street to die in which building?

Petersen House, a boarding house opposite the theatre, is where Lincoln died the next morning; it is now part of the Ford's Theatre National Historic Site.

Lincoln's 1858 Senate nomination speech warned the government could not endure permanently in what condition?

Half slave and half free: in the June 1858 speech Lincoln predicted the crisis would end with the nation 'all one thing, or all the other'; friends who previewed it thought the line too radical.

Which of Lincoln's sons died in the White House during his presidency?

William Wallace "Willie" Lincoln died in the White House at the age of 11 in 1862, causing great grief to the Lincoln family.

Abraham Lincoln's father, Thomas Lincoln, primarily worked in what profession?

Farmer: Thomas Lincoln worked frontier farms and also as a carpenter; he regularly hired his son out to neighbouring farms, keeping the boy's wages as the law then allowed.

Lincoln was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in what year?

1992: the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma honoured Lincoln as an 'Outstanding American' for the wrestling reputation he earned as a young man in New Salem, Illinois.

Who, allegedly Lincoln's first love, died of typhoid in New Salem in 1835?

Ann Rutledge: William Herndon publicised the New Salem romance in an 1866 lecture, to Mary Todd Lincoln's fury; some historians think he embellished it to needle her.

Lincoln nearly fought a duel with James Shields after mocking him in letters signed with what name?

Aunt Rebecca: the 1842 'Lost Townships' letters in the Sangamo Journal mocked Shields as state auditor; the broadsword duel was called off on the field, and Lincoln was so embarrassed that he rarely spoke of it.

As a New Salem newcomer, Lincoln won a wrestling match against the leader of which rough gang?

Clary's Grove boys: beating their champion, Jack Armstrong, won Lincoln the gang's loyalty; years later he defended Armstrong's son Duff in a murder trial for free.

After Taylor's 1848 win, Lincoln was offered, and declined, the secretaryship of which territory?

Oregon Territory: Lincoln had wanted to run the General Land Office and lost that plum to Justin Butterfield; he also turned down the Oregon governorship, returning to his Springfield law practice for five years.

In the 1858 Duff Armstrong murder trial, Lincoln discredited a moonlight witness using what?

The almanac showed the Moon was low on the horizon that night, far too dim to see a killing from 150 feet. Armstrong was acquitted.

Which railroad, Lincoln's biggest client in the 1850s, did he have to sue to collect his fee?

Illinois Central: after winning the McLean County tax case for the railroad, Lincoln sued it in 1857 for his $5,000 fee and won, one of the largest fees then paid to an Illinois lawyer.

How many joint debates did Lincoln and Stephen Douglas hold across Illinois in 1858?

Seven: one in each Illinois congressional district where the two had not already spoken (Chicago and Springfield were skipped); each debate ran about three hours with no moderator.

The first of the 1858 Lincoln–Douglas debates took place in which Illinois town?

Ottawa, on August 21, 1858: Douglas opened with an hour, Lincoln replied for ninety minutes and Douglas closed with thirty; the speaking order reversed at each later stop.

Lincoln's question at which 1858 debate produced the 'doctrine' that cost Douglas Southern support?

Freeport: there on August 27, 1858 Douglas answered Lincoln's question by saying settlers could nonetheless keep slavery out despite Dred Scott, pleasing Illinois voters but poisoning his 1860 presidential bid among Southerners.

What share of the popular vote did Lincoln win in the four-way 1860 presidential race?

39.8%: Lincoln carried every free state except New Jersey, which split its electors, and was not even on the ballot in ten Southern states, yet won 180 of 303 electoral votes.

Which of Lincoln's Treasury secretaries did he later put on the Supreme Court as Chief Justice?

Chase had schemed against Lincoln for the 1864 nomination; Lincoln appointed him anyway, confident he would uphold emancipation.

How many Supreme Court justices did Lincoln appoint during his presidency?

Five: Noah Swayne, Samuel Miller and his 1860 campaign manager David Davis in 1862, California Democrat Stephen Field when Congress created a tenth seat in 1863, and a new Chief Justice in 1864.

'Greenbacks', the paper money Lincoln's Treasury issued from 1862, were authorised by which law?

Legal Tender Act: signed February 25, 1862, it authorised a first issue of $150 million in United States Notes; by war's end about $450 million in greenbacks circulated and the national debt had passed $2 billion.

The 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Act, signed by Lincoln, funded what kind of institution in each state?

Agricultural colleges: the act gave each state 30,000 acres of federal land per member of Congress to endow colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts; Cornell and Texas A&M trace their origins to it.

After Lincoln commuted most of the 303 Dakota death sentences in 1862, how many men were hanged?

38: on December 26, 1862 at Mankato, Minnesota, 38 Dakota men were hanged together after Lincoln personally reviewed the trial transcripts and spared the other 265.

Under what banner did Lincoln and Andrew Johnson run together in 1864?

National Union Party: Republicans ran under the name in 1864 to attract War Democrats such as Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat; the label was dropped within a few years of the war's end.

How many electoral votes did George McClellan win against Lincoln in 1864?

21: McClellan carried only Kentucky, Delaware and his adopted home of New Jersey, worth 21 electoral votes to Lincoln's 212; Union soldiers voted overwhelmingly for their former commander's rival.

Where did Lincoln meet Confederate VP Alexander Stephens for peace talks in 1865?

Hampton Roads: on February 3, 1865 Lincoln and Seward met Stephens and two other Confederate commissioners aboard the steamer River Queen; Lincoln insisted on reunion and emancipation, and the talks produced nothing beyond a prisoner-exchange understanding.

Who shared the presidential box with the Lincolns on the night of April 14, 1865?

The Grants had begged off at the last minute; Rathbone was stabbed trying to stop the assassin and married Harris two years later.

Leaping from the box at Ford's Theatre, Booth caught his spur on what and landed badly?

A Treasury Guard flag decorating the box snagged Booth's spur, and the roughly twelve-foot drop to the stage left him with a broken left leg that slowed his twelve-day flight through Maryland and Virginia.

Which actress from that night's cast cradled the wounded Lincoln's head in her lap?

Laura Keene was the star and manager of the company; her bloodstained dress became a grim relic, and swatches cut from it were later acquired by museums.

At what time on April 15, 1865 was Lincoln pronounced dead?

7:22 am: Lincoln never regained consciousness in the roughly nine hours after the shot; Dr. Charles Leale, the young army surgeon first to reach the box, held his hand so he would not feel alone.

Which cabinet member is credited with saying 'Now he belongs to the ages' at Lincoln's deathbed?

Edwin Stanton: witnesses disagree whether he said 'ages' or 'angels'; either way the Secretary of War took charge of the manhunt within hours.

Which Maryland doctor splinted the leg Booth broke during his escape?

Mudd got life at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, won praise for fighting a yellow-fever outbreak there, and was pardoned in 1869.

Which boarding-house keeper was hanged with three Booth conspirators in July 1865?

Mary Surratt: Booth had used her Washington boarding house as a meeting place; hanged on July 7, 1865 with Powell, Herold and Atzerodt, she was the first woman executed by the US federal government.

In 1875 a jury committed Mary Todd Lincoln to Bellevue Place, an asylum in which Illinois town?

Batavia: Bellevue Place was a private sanitarium there; her son Robert had brought the case, but she engineered her release to her sister's Springfield home within four months and was declared sane in June 1876.

Which dressmaker and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln published a tell-all memoir in 1868?

'Behind the Scenes' printed Mary's private letters and ended the friendship; Keckley had bought her own freedom in St. Louis years before.

Robert Todd Lincoln served as Secretary of War under Garfield and then under which president?

Chester A. Arthur: Robert Lincoln stayed on as Secretary of War for Arthur's whole term, 1881-85; he was at the Washington station when Garfield was shot and in Buffalo when McKinley was shot in 1901.

Robert Lincoln became president of which company after its founder died in 1897?

Pullman: Robert Lincoln had been the railcar maker's counsel through the bitter 1894 strike; he ran the company as president from 1897 to 1911 and then chaired its board.

Which actor, brother of his father's killer, saved Robert Lincoln from a train-platform fall?

Edwin Booth: the rescue happened on a crowded Jersey City platform in late 1864 or early 1865; Edwin, the era's leading tragedian, later said knowing he had saved Lincoln's son gave him some comfort.

Whom did Lincoln promote to lieutenant general and command of all Union armies in March 1864?

Ulysses S. Grant: after his victories at Vicksburg and Chattanooga, Lincoln commissioned him lieutenant general on March 9, 1864 and made him general-in-chief of all the Union armies.

Which illness is generally blamed for the death of Lincoln's son Willie?

Typhoid fever, probably caught from Washington's contaminated Potomac water supply, is the usual diagnosis for eleven-year-old Willie's death; his brother Tad fell ill at the same time and recovered.

The Lincoln Memorial's colonnade has how many columns, one per state at the time of his death?

36: one Doric column for each state in the Union at Lincoln's death in 1865; the 48 festoons on the attic above stand for the states of 1922, when the memorial was dedicated.

Who sculpted the seated Lincoln statue inside the Lincoln Memorial?

Daniel Chester French designed the 19-foot seated figure, enlarged from a planned 10 feet so the hall would not dwarf it; the six Piccirilli brothers carved its 28 blocks of Georgia marble.

Which singer gave a 1939 Easter concert at the Lincoln Memorial after the DAR barred her?

Marian Anderson: Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR over the snub, and some 75,000 people heard the contralto sing from the memorial's steps on April 9, 1939.

In 1876, two Chicago criminals tried to steal Abraham Lincoln's body from his Springfield tomb in order to do what?

Hold it for ransom was the plan; after the botched grab the coffin was hidden under debris for years, and Robert Lincoln finally had it sealed in concrete ten feet down in 1901.

For one year, 1943, the Lincoln cent was struck in what material instead of copper?

Zinc-coated steel: copper was diverted to the war effort, and the silvery 1943 steel cents rusted and were often mistaken for dimes, so the Mint returned to a copper alloy in 1944.

Which automaker bought the near-bankrupt Lincoln Motor Company in February 1922?

Henry Ford paid $8 million, a sweet revenge: Lincoln's founder Henry Leland had once forced Ford out of his own earlier company.

The Lincoln Continental got its name from European styling touches including what feature?

It began as a one-off 1939 vacation car for Edsel Ford; the external spare became a 'Continental kit' sold for other cars for decades.

Lincoln, Nebraska was founded in 1856 under what original name?

Lancaster was the village; an Omaha senator proposed renaming the new capital after the just-assassinated president, betting southern-Nebraska lawmakers would balk. They did not.

Which general did Lincoln remove from command of the Army of the Potomac in November 1862?

George B. McClellan: frustrated by his failure to pursue Lee after Antietam, Lincoln relieved him on November 5, 1862 and handed the Army of the Potomac to Ambrose Burnside.

Which state did Lincoln proclaim admitted to the Union on October 31, 1864?

Nevada: Lincoln proclaimed its statehood on October 31, 1864, eight days before the election; the state's entire constitution had been sent to Washington by telegram to beat the deadline.

The Lincoln Tunnel links Midtown Manhattan with which New Jersey municipality?

Weehawken sits at the western end of the Lincoln Tunnel, which was named for Abraham Lincoln; its three tubes opened in 1937, 1945 and 1957, the Holland Tunnel having opened further south in 1927.

The 1913 Lincoln Highway ran from Times Square to a park in which city?

San Francisco: the route ended at Lincoln Park; conceived in 1913 as the first national memorial to Lincoln, nine years before the Washington memorial, it was the road a young Eisenhower's 1919 army convoy struggled along.

Tony Kushner's screenplay for Lincoln (2012) was loosely based on which book?

Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin's 2005 biography, was sold to Spielberg before she had even written it; the film narrows her 900 pages to the fight over the 13th Amendment.

Which detective uncovered the 1861 Baltimore Plot and slipped Lincoln through the city?

Allan Pinkerton: his operative Kate Warne, one of the first female detectives, rode with the disguised Lincoln through Baltimore in the early hours of February 23, 1861; the press mocked the 'Scotch cap' story for years.

Robert Lincoln gave the family's Springfield home to Illinois in 1887 on what condition?

'It stay open to the public free': Robert's 1887 deed required Illinois to keep the house, the only one Lincoln ever owned, in good repair and free of charge to visitors; the National Park Service took it over in 1971.

Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address, in 1861, closes by appealing to 'the better angels of our' what?

'Nature' completes the line; Seward drafted a gentler ending, and Lincoln rewrote it into the 'mystic chords of memory' passage that everyone now quotes.

Lincoln's last known direct descendant, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died in what year?

1985: Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith died on December 24, 1985; none of Robert Lincoln's three grandchildren had children, so the president's direct line ended 120 years after his death.