Knowing your American Heroes ~ ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809-1865) ~ by rldubour

Friday! Time for an American Hero! Today is:

 

Knowing your American Heroes

ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809-1865)

Three miles south of Hodgenville
Was then Nolin Creek, Kentucky.
On a farm called Sinking Springs
For the Lincolns’ was unlucky.

A second child they called Abe
To Nancy Hanks and Tom Lincoln.
Named after his deceased grandfather
Who was killed by a hostile Indian.

Sarah was his older sister
And Thomas a younger brother.
Thomas who died in infancy
Shortly after he lost his mother.

When Abe was nine Tom re-married
Made Indiana their new home.
Her name was Sarah Bush Johnston
She loved young Abe as if her own.

Interested in politics
At the age of twenty-three.
Ran for the General Assembly
As member of the Whig Party.

Was captain in the militia
In a company from Illinois.
He taught himself the rules of law
As a lawyer he would enjoy.

In eighteen-thirty-seven
He was admitted to the bar.
Practice law with Stephen Logan
Abe’s reputation took him far.

November fourth in forty-two
At the age of thirty-three.
Abe Lincoln married Mary Todd
And four children would come to be.

Robert Todd and Edward Baker
Were the first two sons they had.
Abe and Mary would have two more
William Wallace and Thomas Tad.

Several nicknames like Honest Abe
And the Great Emancipator.
The American politician
Equal rights a vindicator.

In eighteen-hundred-and-sixty-one
As president he did possess.
The most famous of his speeches
Was the Gettysburg Address.

Emancipation Proclamation
Ending slavery in the states.
His role he played in history
A hero that’s no mistake.

At Ford’s Theater April fourteenth
In eighteen-hundred-and-sixty-five.
Assassinated by John Wilkes Booth
President Lincoln’s name will survive.

AUTHOR NOTES* Born February 12, 1809; Hardin County, Kentucky (now in LaRue County) Died April 15, 1865; Washington, D.C. Lincoln was more successful in giving the war meaning to Northern civilians through his oratorical skills. Lincoln possessed an extraordinary command of the English language, as evidenced by the Gettysburg Address a speech dedicating a cemetery of Union soldiers from the Battle of Gettysburg that he delivered on November 19, 1863. Lincoln’s choice words resonated across the nation and across history, defying Lincoln’s own prediction that “the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here.” Lincoln’s second inaugural address is also greatly admired and often quoted. In these speeches, Lincoln articulated better than anyone the rationale behind the Union effort. During the Civil War, Lincoln appropriated powers no previous President had wielded: he used his war powers to proclaim a blockade, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, spent money without congressional authorization, and imprisoned 18,000 suspected Confederate sympathizers without trial. All his actions, although vehemently denounced by the Copperheads, were subsequently upheld by Congress and the Courts. Abraham Lincoln was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois, where a 177-foot-tall granite tomb surmounted with several bronze statues of Lincoln was constructed by 1874. Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln and three of his four sons are also buried there (Robert Todd Lincoln is buried in Arlington National Cemetery). Lincoln’s coffin would be encased in concrete several feet thick, surrounded by a cage, and buried beneath a rock slab. On September 26, 1901, Lincoln’s body was exhumed so that it could be reentered in the newly built crypt.