Historian Lewis E. Lehrman points out that President Lincoln asserted the precept of equality perhaps most in his Gettysburg Address when he emphasized that the founders brought forth upon this continent a new nation in 1776. He chose the year of the Declaration of Independence was signed rather than 1788, the year the Constitution was ratified.

Lehrman says Lincoln’s rhetorical and political strategy was necessary because a nation founded upon the proposition of human equality must have been, at its inception, antislavery in principle.

He points out that Lincoln also grounded his lengthy antislavery speech at Peoria on Oct. 16, 1854 on the Declaration: “Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and, with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south — let all Americans — let all lovers of liberty everywhere — join in the great and good work.”

Source: Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point by Lewis E. Lehrman

As President Lincoln delivered the last formal speech of his life from a window of the Executive Mansion on April 11, 1865, his wife Mary and her friend Clara Harris stood at a nearby window chatting so loudly that some people told them to quiet down.

Source: Boston Daily Advertiser 1867

Abraham Lincoln’s military service began in April 1832 when his neighbors in New Salem volunteered for the Black Hawk War and elected him captain of their company.

His company was mustered out of service at the end of May, but Lincoln enlisted in another regiment for 20 days.

When that time was up, he re-enlisted in another company for less than a month.

His military career, prior to being Commander in Chief, lasted about four months.

Any Northern politician who sided with the South on the slavery issue was labelled a “dough face” –meaning  a pliable politician.

Carpenter Jacob Ritterspaugh saw John Wilkes Booth open the back door of the theater after the assassination, but he couldn’t see his face so he didn’t recognize him. He was the first person who got to the door after Booth shut it.

The red silk damask upholstered rocking chair that Abraham Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot is now part of the collection of the Henry Ford Museum.

A stain in the headrest area of the chair was once thought to be blood but it is now recognized as hair oil. The Ford brothers moved the chair from the theater to their private apartment because theater ushers had a habit of sleeping in the chair and letting their hair oil stain the silk material.

George C. Reed was a young drummer boy in Washington on April 14, 1865. He walked into a saloon that afternoon, and a tall, handsome fellow came up to him and offered him a drink. When he declined, the friendly man said, “Have something; take a cigar.”

When the man and his companions left the bar, Reed asked the barkeep who the man was. He told him he was John Wilkes Booth, one of the Booth family of actors, and he was on a drunk.

Before Reed left, the bartender gave him a couple tickets to that night’s performance at Ford’s.

When Reed saw Booth jump to the stage and shout something, he told his companion,” “That’s Wilkes Booth, the actor, and I think he is on a drunk.”

Historian James M. McPherson points out that “United States” was used as a plural noun before 1861, but it became a singular noun after the war.

John Hay

John Hay and Abraham Lincoln first met because Hay’s uncle had a law office next to Lincoln’s in Springfield, Ill.

When Lincoln was looking for an assistant secretary to serve in his White House office, his secretary John Nicolay recommended 22-year-old Hay, a former schoolmate of his. Hay started a lifelong career in government service, save six years as an editor at the New York Tribune.

Hay’s clear, lucid writing tells us much of what we know about Mr. Lincoln. Some believe Hay was the real author of Lincoln’s Letter to Mrs. Bixby, a letter consoling a bereaved mother for the loss of her sons in the war.

Hay went from secretary to secretary of state. He became assistant secretary of state in the Hayes administration and secretary of state in the McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt administrations.

When Mary and Tad Lincoln traveled to New York to escape the Washington heat in September 1863, the president missed her.

He wrote this to her at her Fifth Avenue hotel:

“The air is so clear and cool, and apparently healthy, that I would be glad for you to come. Nothing very particular, but I would be glad to see you and Tad. A. Lincoln”

Source: Abraham Lincoln: The Writer, edited by Harold Holzer