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Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, guided his country through the most devastating experience in its national history-the Civil War. He is considered by many historians to have been the greatest American president.
Early Life
Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, 1809, in a log cabin in Hardin County, Ky. Indians had killed his grandfather. This tragedy left his father, Thomas Lincoln, a wandering laboring boy, who grew up without education. Thomas became a skilled carpenter and purchased three farms in Kentucky before the Lincolns left the state. Little is known about Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Abraham had an older sister, Sarah, and a younger brother, Thomas, who died at infancy.
In 1816 the Lincolns moved to Indiana. Land ownership was more secure in Indiana because the Land Ordinance of 1785 provided for surveys by the federal government, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 forbade slavery in the area. Lincoln's parents belonged to a faction of the Baptist church that disapproved of slavery.
Indiana was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. The Lincolns' life near Little Pigeon Creek, in Perry County, was not easy. Lincoln was raised to farm work and recalled life in the forest as a fight with trees and logs and grubs. Lincoln later remembered, he attended some schools, but for less than a year altogether. He remembered, "I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three; but that was all."
Lincoln's mother died in 1818, and the following year his father married a Kentucky widow, Sarah Bush Johnston. She was a good and kind mother. In later years Lincoln could recall memories of his childhood home. His sister died in childbirth the same year.
In 1830 the Lincolns left Indiana for Illinois. Abraham made a flatboat trip to New Orleans, and in 1831 he left home for New Salem, in Sangamon County near Springfield. In New Salem, Lincoln tried various occupations and served briefly in...