Everybody in the world knows Pa used to split rails!” said Abraham Lincoln’s son Tad.
But in 1861, as Lincoln made his way to the White House, people knew little else about the president-elect. He didn’t like to talk much about his childhood.
He had been a rail splitter, a storekeeper, a one-term congressman, and a lawyer. He was the husband of Mary Todd and the father of four boys, one deceased. Newspapers even got his name wrong.
Many despaired at the surprising election of this obscure Illinois man. One newspaper called him an ignorant backwoods lawyer.
Few suspected that he could succeed in holding the United States together. The nation, struggling over the issues of slavery and states’ rights, was fragmenting.
Across the nation, churches and communities split. Family members argued; deep ties were broken.
In Washington, congressmen and senators argued and even came to blows over the country’s differences. The best political minds had failed. Decades of effort and compromise had come to nothing.
As Lincoln’s train moved east to Washington, Southern states broke their ties to the Union and declared themselves a new nation, the Confederate States of America. As Lincoln entered the White House, Confederate guns pointed toward a federal fort in South Carolina.
The country was in an uproar. All turned their eyes to the tall, ungainly Lincoln and wondered how he could lead them out of this crisis.
Who was this Abraham Lincoln?
