Abraham Lincoln

The 16th President of the United States and the main subject of the biography. Lincoln is born February 12, 1809 and dies April 15, 1865 after being shot by John Wilkes Booth while watching a play at Ford's Theater in Washington. Born in Kentucky, Lincoln's family moves to Illinois while he is young. He becomes a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois and is instrumental in the founding of the Republican party, which nominates him to run for President in 1860. He is elected and is immediately faced with the secession of several southern states, precipitating the Civil War. Lincoln overcomes considerable opposition and many obstacles, but is eventually elected to a second term and oversees the surrender of the Confederacy to the Union. He is assassinated in 1865 at the hands of Booth, a northerner who sympathizes with the South and considers Lincoln a tyrant.

Mary Todd Lincoln

Lincoln's wife. Born and raised among...