137 Fun Facts About Abraham Lincoln

In what year was Abraham Lincoln born?

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a one-room log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm, the second child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln.

Which national holiday did Lincoln proclaim in October 1863?

Lincoln's October 1863 proclamation made Thanksgiving a national holiday on the last Thursday of November; magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale had lobbied presidents for years for a single national day.

What was the name of the theater where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated?

Ford's Theatre is where Lincoln was shot in the presidential box on the night of April 14, 1865; soldiers carried him across the street, where he died the next morning.

Which political party did Abraham Lincoln belong to when elected president?

Lincoln was the first Republican president, elected in 1860. He had previously been a Whig but joined the newly formed Republican Party in the 1850s.

What document did Lincoln sign on January 1, 1863, declaring slaves in Confederate states to be free?

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, declared that all enslaved people in Confederate states were to be set free. It did not immediately free all slaves but transformed the war into a fight for human liberty.

What number president of the United States was Abraham Lincoln?

Lincoln became the 16th president in March 1861 with seven Southern states already gone from the Union, and the war began the following month.

Lincoln had Mary Todd's wedding ring engraved 'Love is' what?

Love is eternal was engraved in the gold band Lincoln ordered for their wedding on November 4, 1842, nearly two years after their first engagement had been broken off.

Before becoming president, what profession did Lincoln practice?

Lincoln was a self-taught lawyer who earned his license in 1836. He practiced law in Springfield, Illinois, and became one of the most respected attorneys in the state before entering politics full-time.

In which state was Abraham Lincoln born?

Kentucky was home until Lincoln was seven, when his father, who had lost his land there in disputes over land titles, moved the family across the Ohio River.

Which speech did Lincoln give at the dedication of a soldiers' cemetery in November 1863?

The Gettysburg Address was billed only as "a few appropriate remarks" to follow the day's main two-hour oration, and Lincoln finished it in about two minutes.

Who assassinated Abraham Lincoln?

John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and Confederate sympathizer, fled on horseback after the shooting and was tracked down and killed in a Virginia barn twelve days later.

Which newspaper editor's 1862 'Prayer of Twenty Millions' prompted Lincoln's 'paramount object' reply?

Horace Greeley printed 'The Prayer of Twenty Millions' in his New York Tribune in August 1862; Lincoln replied that his paramount object was to save the Union, not to save or destroy slavery.

What nickname was commonly used for Abraham Lincoln?

The Rail-Splitter caught on at the 1860 Illinois state convention, where supporters paraded in fence rails he was said to have split as a young man.

Which amendment, championed by Lincoln, formally abolished slavery throughout the United States?

The 13th Amendment cleared Congress on January 31, 1865, and Lincoln signed the resolution the next day though no signature was needed; he was killed before its ratification that December.

Who served as Lincoln's first Vice President?

Hannibal Hamlin of Maine served through the first term; for 1864 the party replaced him with a Southern War Democrat to widen the ticket's appeal.

What play was being performed the night Lincoln was shot?

Tom Taylor's comedy Our American Cousin was in its third act; the assassin timed his shot to the line 'you sockdologizing old man-trap', which always drew loud laughter.

Which Mississippi River stronghold fell to Union forces on July 4, 1863, cutting the Confederacy in two?

Vicksburg surrendered after a 47-day siege, giving the Union control of the river; Lincoln rejoiced that "the Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea."

What did Lincoln's Homestead Act of 1862 provide?

160 acres of public land to settlers who paid a small filing fee and then lived on and improved the plot for five years; about 1.6 million homesteads were eventually granted.

As of 2025, Lincoln holds which presidential record?

Tallest: Lincoln described himself as six feet four inches, "nearly", and a painter who measured him in the White House made it six feet three and three-quarters.

Which general did Lincoln appoint as commander of all Union armies in March 1864?

Ulysses S. Grant became the first full lieutenant general since George Washington and, rather than run the war from a Washington desk, set up his headquarters in the field with the Army of the Potomac.

Lincoln warned that "a house divided against itself cannot stand" on accepting an 1858 nomination for which office?

U.S. Senator was the seat at stake when Lincoln addressed his party's state convention on June 16, 1858; the biblical line warned that the nation could not endure half slave and half free.

How many sons did Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln have?

The Lincolns had four sons; only the eldest lived to adulthood, while the other three died at ages 3, 11 and 18.

What was the first state to secede from the Union after Lincoln's election in 1860?

South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union on December 20, 1860, just six weeks after Lincoln's election. Six more states followed before Lincoln even took office on March 4, 1861.

On which U.S. currency does Abraham Lincoln's portrait appear?

The $5 bill pairs Lincoln's portrait with the Lincoln Memorial on its back; his profile also went on the penny in 1909, to mark the hundredth anniversary of his birth.

Lincoln's 1849 patent covered a device for doing what?

Lifting riverboats over shoals with inflatable chambers was Lincoln's answer to boats he had seen stuck in shallow water; it was never manufactured, yet it made him the only president to hold a patent.

What was Lincoln's position on slavery when he first ran for president in 1860?

Prevent its expansion into new territories: the 1860 platform promised to leave slavery alone in the states where it existed, yet seven states still left the Union before his inauguration.

Where did Robert E. Lee surrender his army on April 9, 1865, days before Lincoln was shot?

Appomattox Court House, Virginia, saw Lee's surrender signal the end of the war, though other Confederate armies fought on for weeks; the terms let his men go home with their horses.

Who sculpted the seated Lincoln statue inside the Lincoln Memorial?

Daniel Chester French designed the 19-foot marble statue of a seated Lincoln, carved by the Piccirilli brothers and unveiled at the Lincoln Memorial's dedication in 1922.

Which 1862 law signed by Lincoln gave states federal land to fund new colleges?

The Morrill Act, signed by Lincoln on July 2, 1862, gave each state public land to sell for college endowments; Cornell and many state universities were founded under it.

Which two jobs did Lincoln hold in the Illinois village where he lived in his twenties?

In the village Lincoln worked as a store clerk and, from 1833, as postmaster; he also surveyed and co-owned a general store whose failure left debts he called his 'national debt'.

An 11-year-old girl's 1860 letter urged Lincoln to do what?

Grow a beard: Grace Bedell of Westfield, New York, wrote that whiskers would improve his thin face and win him votes; on his way to Washington he stopped there, met her and kissed her.

Which Lincoln Secretary of State later arranged the purchase of Alaska from Russia?

William H. Seward had been the front-runner for the 1860 nomination; on the night Lincoln was shot, another conspirator stabbed him in his sickbed, and he survived to close the Alaska deal in 1867.

In which Illinois village did Lincoln spend six years as a young man, from 1831 to 1837?

New Salem is where Lincoln taught himself law in his spare time; the village was nearly abandoned within a few years of his leaving, and what stands there now is a reconstruction.

Lincoln was shot on the evening of which Christian holy day in April 1865?

Good Friday fell on April 14 in 1865, just five days after Lee's surrender; Lincoln went to the theatre that evening and died the next morning.

What did the railroad act Lincoln signed in 1862 authorize?

A line linking the East and West coasts was the goal: the act paid two companies in land grants and government bonds for track laid, and their rails met in Utah in 1869.

Which Lincoln son died in the White House in 1862, devastating both Abraham and Mary?

William (Willie) Lincoln died on February 20, 1862, aged 11, most likely of typhoid fever, after both parents had spent days at his bedside as his condition rose and fell.

What did Lincoln suspend during the Civil War?

Habeas corpus, the right to challenge a detention in court, was first suspended along the route to Washington in April 1861 after mobs attacked Union troops; Chief Justice Taney ruled that only Congress could, and Lincoln ignored him.

What was the highest federal office Lincoln held before becoming president?

U.S. Representative for one term, 1847 to 1849: to win his party's nomination Lincoln had promised not to seek a second, so he went home when it ended.

Who became president after Lincoln's assassination?

Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's second vice president, clashed with Congress over his lenient Reconstruction policies and was impeached in 1868, escaping removal by a single Senate vote.

What was Lincoln's Cooper Union Address in 1860 primarily about?

The Founders' intent to restrict slavery was his theme: Lincoln traced the votes of the 39 signers of the Constitution to show that a majority had backed federal limits on slavery.

Which 2005 Doris Kearns Goodwin book is about Lincoln and his cabinet?

Team of Rivals (2005) chronicles how Lincoln appointed his three main competitors for the 1860 nomination to his cabinet and won their loyalty.

What was the name of the woman Lincoln was reportedly in love with before marrying Mary Todd?

Ann Rutledge, a tavern keeper's daughter, died in an 1835 fever epidemic; Lincoln was said to be left deeply depressed, though historians still debate how close the two really were.

During which conflict did the young Lincoln serve as a captain in the Illinois Militia?

In the 1832 Black Hawk War his fellow volunteers elected him captain, a success he later said gave him more pleasure than any since; he never saw combat.

Which September 1862 Union victory gave Lincoln the opening to announce emancipation?

Antietam (September 17, 1862) was the bloodiest single day in American military history; though tactically a draw, Lee's retreat gave Lincoln enough of a victory to issue his preliminary proclamation five days later.

Which famed orator spoke for two hours just before Lincoln's two-minute remarks at an 1863 cemetery dedication?

Edward Everett wrote to Lincoln afterwards that he wished he had come as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as Lincoln did in two minutes.

What was the 1863 National Banking Act's main purpose?

To charter federal banks and a uniform currency: the new national banks had to back the notes they issued with federal bonds, so the system also helped pay for the war.

Which member of Lincoln's family lived to attend the Lincoln Memorial's dedication in 1922?

His son Robert, the only one of the four boys to reach adulthood, was 78 at the ceremony; in 1875 he had his widowed mother committed to an asylum after an insanity hearing.

What did Secretary of War Edwin Stanton reportedly say at Lincoln's deathbed?

"Now he belongs to the ages" is the line Edwin Stanton is reported to have spoken when Lincoln died at 7:22 a.m. on April 15, 1865, though some accounts have him saying "angels".

Where is Abraham Lincoln buried?

Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, holds the Lincoln Tomb; after counterfeiters tried to steal the body for ransom in 1876, the coffin was eventually reburied deep beneath the tomb's floor.

How many popular votes did Lincoln receive when he won his first presidential election in 1860?

Lincoln polled about 1.86 million popular votes, just under 40% in a four-way race, yet took a decisive 180 of 303 electoral votes.

Lincoln's face is carved on Mount Rushmore beside Washington, Jefferson and which other president?

Theodore Roosevelt completes the four; sculptor Gutzon Borglum chose Lincoln for holding the nation together through its greatest trial.

Lincoln's 1847 'Spot Resolutions' in Congress challenged the start of which war?

As a freshman congressman, Lincoln introduced the Spot Resolutions in December 1847, demanding President Polk name the exact spot where American blood was shed to justify the Mexican-American War.

Which 1862 Lincoln document called the Union 'the last best hope of earth'?

Lincoln's Annual Message to Congress of December 1, 1862, closed by calling the Union 'the last best hope of earth' while urging a plan of gradual, compensated emancipation.

Which weapon did Lincoln choose for his aborted 1842 duel with James Shields?

Challenged by state auditor James Shields over satirical newspaper letters in 1842, Lincoln chose cavalry broadswords to exploit his long reach; seconds negotiated a settlement before anyone swung.

Lincoln won four straight terms in the Illinois legislature from 1834 as a member of which party?

Whig: Lincoln lost his first race in 1832, then won in 1834, 1836, 1838 and 1840, backing internal improvements and a state bank in the spirit of his political hero Henry Clay.

What was the name of Abraham Lincoln's stepmother, who encouraged his education?

Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow with three children, married Thomas Lincoln in December 1819 and brought books of her own into the cabin, encouraging her stepson's appetite for reading.

What share of a state's 1860 voters had to swear loyalty under Lincoln's 1863 Reconstruction plan?

10 percent of a state's 1860 voters taking the oath was enough to form a new government; Congress answered with the Wade-Davis Bill demanding a majority, which Lincoln killed with a pocket veto.

In which city was Lincoln nominated for president on the third ballot in May 1860?

The May 1860 Republican convention met in the Wigwam, a hall built for the occasion in Chicago; the front-runner going in was New York's senator, whom Lincoln overtook on the third ballot.

Roughly how much formal schooling did Abraham Lincoln receive in his whole childhood?

About 1 year in all: Lincoln wrote that his schooling "did not amount to one year", yet he later studied and nearly mastered the six books of Euclid after his term in Congress.

Which federal department did Lincoln sign into existence in 1862, the same year as the Homestead Act?

Department of Agriculture: Lincoln later told Congress it was "peculiarly the people's Department", the one in which they felt more directly concerned than in any other.

Abraham Lincoln's famous debates in 1858 were against which politician?

Stephen A. Douglas won re-election because the state legislature, where the Democrats kept their majority, made the choice; the seven debates still turned Lincoln into a national figure.

Who served as Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy for his entire presidency?

Gideon Welles of Connecticut ran the Navy Department from 1861 to 1869, building the fleet that blockaded Southern ports and choked off the cotton trade that financed the Confederacy.

Which newly captured Southern city did Lincoln walk through on April 4, 1865?

Lincoln toured Richmond, Virginia, two days after the Confederate government fled, and was guided through the streets to the house its president had just abandoned.

Which 1861 crisis over two Confederate envoys seized from a British ship did Lincoln defuse?

In the Trent Affair the North celebrated the November 1861 seizure of envoys Mason and Slidell, Britain protested vehemently, and Lincoln released the pair rather than fight two wars at once.

Which Lincoln speech contains the words 'with malice toward none, with charity for all'?

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, delivered March 4, 1865, closed 'with malice toward none, with charity for all', urging a generous peace six weeks before his death.

Which Latin phrase did Lincoln's assassin reportedly shout after firing the fatal shot?

Sic semper tyrannis, "thus always to tyrants", is Virginia's state motto; it is generally believed he shouted it as he leapt to the stage, though witness accounts of the moment conflict.

Which novelist is Lincoln said to have greeted as "the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war"?

Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, visited the White House in 1862; the famous greeting comes from her son's later account and cannot be verified.

For his 1864 re-election, Lincoln's Republicans joined War Democrats under which temporary party name?

National Union was the name the party adopted for 1864, hoping to attract Democrats who backed the war; it also put a Tennessee Democrat on the ticket in place of the sitting vice president.

Which law partner, who joined Lincoln in 1844, later spent years gathering recollections for a biography of him?

William H. Herndon was Lincoln's last partner; by his account, Lincoln asked on leaving for Washington that their signboard stay up, so they could go on practising law 'as if nothing had ever happened'.

Lincoln's proclamation of January 1, 1863 declared enslaved people free in which areas?

It applied only to the Confederate states still in rebellion, ten states outside Union control, and exempted occupied areas and the loyal border states, which is why a constitutional amendment was still needed.

Which federal fort in Charleston harbour did Confederate forces bombard to start the Civil War?

Fort Sumter's commander, Major Robert Anderson, had warned he was nearly out of food; Lincoln chose to send provisions, and the bombardment of April 12-13, 1861, brought his call for 75,000 volunteers.

Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died from what illness?

Milk sickness came from drinking the milk of cows that had grazed on poisonous white snakeroot; it killed Nancy Hanks Lincoln in 1818, when Abraham was nine.

Which of these famous lines is Abraham Lincoln's?

Four score and seven years ago opens his 1863 cemetery dedication speech: the 87 years count back to 1776 and the Declaration of Independence, which he treated as the nation's founding moment.

Mary Todd Lincoln was born in 1818 into a wealthy banking family in which Kentucky city?

Lexington, Kentucky, was home to her father, a wealthy slave-owning banker; during the war several of Mary's half-brothers fought for the Confederacy while she lived in the White House.

Which act, repealing the Missouri Compromise line, drew Lincoln back into politics?

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 let territorial settlers vote on slavery north of the old Missouri Compromise line; Lincoln's outrage at the repeal pulled him back into politics with his October 1854 Peoria speech.

Which phrase closes Lincoln's First Inaugural Address of March 1861?

Lincoln's First Inaugural Address of March 4, 1861, ended with a plea that the 'mystic chords of memory' be touched 'by the better angels of our nature', hoping to keep secession from sliding into war.

Roughly how many words long was Lincoln's ten-sentence Gettysburg speech in November 1863?

Counts vary by a word or two between the five surviving manuscript copies, which is why 271 and 272 are both quoted; either way it took Lincoln about two minutes.

Sinking Spring Farm, where Lincoln was born, sits today in which local jurisdiction?

At his birth the farm lay in Hardin County; LaRue County was carved out of it in 1843, which is why older references disagree.

After being shot, Lincoln was carried across the street to die in which building?

Petersen House was a boarding house facing the theatre; doctors and officials kept an all-night vigil around a bed in its back bedroom, and Lincoln died there at 7:22 the next morning.

In his famous 1858 defense of Duff Armstrong, Lincoln discredited a witness using what?

Defending Duff Armstrong, son of old friends, Lincoln produced an almanac to show there had not been enough moonlight for the witness to see what he claimed; Armstrong was acquitted.

Abraham Lincoln's father, Thomas Lincoln, primarily worked in what profession?

Thomas Lincoln was a farmer and skilled carpenter who owned several farms in turn; he lost most of his land to faulty titles before moving the family north.

Young Lincoln's skill earned him a place in which sport's national hall of fame?

Wrestling: the National Wrestling Hall of Fame honours Lincoln as an Outstanding American; his best-known match came soon after he settled in a new village, where he took on Jack Armstrong, the town bully.

Whom did Lincoln appoint as Chief Justice after Roger Taney's death in 1864?

Salmon P. Chase had resigned as Lincoln's Treasury secretary only months earlier after angling for the presidency himself; Lincoln named him chief justice anyway, late in 1864.

Which former Union general ran against Lincoln as the Democratic nominee in 1864?

George McClellan had been removed from command by Lincoln in 1862 for his cautious tactics; as the Democratic candidate two years later he carried only three states.

After Zachary Taylor's 1848 win, which post did the administration offer Lincoln, which he declined?

After losing his bid to be commissioner of the General Land Office, Lincoln was offered the secretaryship of the Oregon Territory, then its governorship, and declined both.

Which boarding-house keeper became the first woman executed by the U.S. government, for her part in Lincoln's murder?

Mary Surratt ran the Washington boarding house where the conspirators met; a military tribunal convicted her and she was hanged on July 7, 1865, though the extent of her guilt is still debated.

Which 1963 speech did Martin Luther King Jr. deliver from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial?

I Have a Dream was delivered to an estimated 250,000 people at the March on Washington, staged at Lincoln's memorial in the centennial year of the Emancipation Proclamation.

What was the name of the yellow mixed-breed dog Lincoln left behind in Illinois when he became president?

Fido stayed with a family friend because loud noises and crowds frightened him, and Lincoln handed over the dog's favourite old sofa to keep him comfortable.

Lincoln was known for carrying letters and important documents tucked away in which unusual place?

Inside his hat is where Lincoln filed letters and papers, using the tall silk stovepipe as a portable desk drawer. One of his top hats is now displayed at the Smithsonian.

Which English naturalist was born on exactly the same day as Abraham Lincoln, 12 February of the same year?

Charles Darwin was born at his family's comfortable home in Shrewsbury on the very day Lincoln was born in a log cabin on the American frontier.

Lincoln Logs, the toy timbers named after the cabin-born president, were invented by which architect's son?

Frank Lloyd Wright's second son, John, devised the notched miniature logs around 1916, and the toy entered the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1999.

Which animals did King Mongkut of Siam offer to send to America, a gift Lincoln politely declined?

Elephants were offered as beasts of burden, but Lincoln replied that America's climate might not suit them and that steam engines already did the country's hauling.

Thaddeus Lowe won Lincoln's backing in June 1861 by telegraphing the White House from what, high above the capital?

A tethered balloon called the Enterprise lifted Lowe and a telegraph key about 500 feet, and the next month Lincoln named him Chief Aeronaut of the Union Army Balloon Corps.

Which mail service closed two days after the first transcontinental telegraph carried a message to Lincoln in 1861?

Pony Express riders were made obsolete at a stroke. One of the wire's first messages came from California's chief justice, assuring Lincoln that the state would stay loyal to the Union.

How did Lincoln and several allies try to deny the Illinois legislature a quorum during an 1840 bank dispute?

Jumping out of a window did not work: the Speaker counted Lincoln and the others as present anyway, and the state bank they were trying to protect lost the vote.

What did Lincoln himself use the White House room now known as the Lincoln Bedroom for?

His office and Cabinet room filled the space, and it gained its famous bed only when Harry Truman had the furniture moved in decades later.

Which White House pets of his youngest son did Lincoln call the kindest and best of their kind in the world?

Goats named Nanny and Nanko were a present for the boy, who had asked for one, and he and his brother played with them inside the White House as well as out.

Which actor won an Academy Award for playing the title role in Steven Spielberg's 2012 film Lincoln?

Daniel Day-Lewis took Best Actor for the part, his third win in the category, in a film that earned twelve Oscar nominations.

In a 2012 horror film based on a Seth Grahame-Smith novel, Lincoln secretly spends his life hunting which creatures?

Vampires in the film are a caste of slave owners, and its Lincoln, trained by a mentor named Sturges, fights them with a single-edged felling axe.

Lincoln's 60-foot granite head stands beside Theodore Roosevelt and two other presidents on which mountain?

Mount Rushmore's sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, chose Lincoln to represent the nation's preservation, and carved the heads with help from his own son, who was named Lincoln.

Which poet mourned Lincoln in the elegy O Captain! My Captain!, though the two men never met?

Walt Whitman wrote several poems on Lincoln's death, and this one became the most popular of his lifetime and the first of his to be anthologized.

Which civil rights leader delivered his most famous speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963?

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to more than 250,000 people there, and an inscription cut into the landing in 2003 marks the spot where he stood.

After which creature did Lincoln nickname his youngest son Thomas as a baby?

Tadpole, for the baby's large head and wriggling, was soon shortened to the name the boy carried for life; he had been named after Lincoln's own father.

To which state did Lincoln's family move in 1816, when he was seven, partly for more reliable land titles?

Indiana is where Lincoln grew to adulthood, becoming skilled with an axe as he helped clear his father's land and attending school only now and then.

To which Southern port did the 19-year-old Lincoln travel by flatboat in 1828, his first sight of the Deep South?

New Orleans was his first taste of a big, diverse city; after selling the cargo there, he rode home upriver on a steamboat.

Which wartime adversary of Lincoln was born in the same state as him, only eight months earlier?

Jefferson Davis was the youngest of ten children, and his family carried him south to Mississippi while the Lincolns later headed north across the Ohio River.

Which entertainment pioneer created a talking robotic Lincoln for the Illinois pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair?

Walt Disney's Audio-Animatronic president debuted there, and the show, Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, opened at Disneyland the following year.

Which Southern favourite did Lincoln ask a band to play at the White House the day after Lee's surrender?

Dixie had long been a favourite of his, played at his own campaign rallies, and he told the crowd that the Union had now captured the tune fairly.

Which 1998 war film has General George Marshall read aloud Lincoln's Bixby letter to a widow who lost sons?

Saving Private Ryan uses the letter to launch its rescue mission. Scholars still debate whether Lincoln or his secretary wrote it, and at least two of the widow's sons survived the war.

Which California wilderness did Lincoln sign into protection amid the war in 1864, after lobbying by Galen Clark?

Yosemite Valley and the nearby Mariposa Grove were handed to California to protect, a step that proved critical to the idea of national parks; the national park around them followed in 1890.

Which detective agency founder managed Lincoln's security on the secret train journey to his 1861 inauguration?

Allan Pinkerton had been hired by a railroad to investigate sabotage along the route, and his operatives, among them Kate Warne, reported plots to ambush the president-elect.

Which kind of federal tax did Lincoln sign into law for the first time in 1861 to fund the war?

Income tax arrived as a flat 3% levy on annual earnings above $800, whether they came from property, a profession or a trade.

Which gatherings did a grieving Mary Todd Lincoln attend in the White House after the death of her son in 1862?

Séances with mediums and spiritualists were her attempt to contact the dead boy, and Lincoln himself is said to have sat in on at least one.

Which city erupted in July 1863 in riots against the new military draft, forcing Lincoln to divert regiments there?

New York saw days of violence in Lower Manhattan, and the militia and volunteers Lincoln sent to restore order had only just come off one of the war's largest battlefields.

Architect Henry Bacon modelled the Lincoln Memorial, dedicated in 1922, on which kind of ancient building?

A Greek temple is echoed in the memorial's colonnaded exterior, which is built of Yule marble quarried in Colorado.

To which party, led by Henry Clay, did Lincoln belong during his years in the Illinois legislature and Congress?

The Whigs stood for banks, protective tariffs and internal improvements such as railroads, and measures in that spirit were enacted during Lincoln's own presidency.

Which American military decoration grew from legislation Lincoln signed, first for the Navy in December 1861?

The Medal of Honor gained an Army version in July 1862, and a 1916 review board struck off 29 awards that had gone to the servicemen who guarded Lincoln's funeral.

Which Union general's capture of Atlanta in September 1864 gave a major boost to Lincoln's re-election hopes?

William T. Sherman took the city on 2 September, lifting Union morale weeks before the vote and setting the stage for his March to the Sea.

Lincoln's Northern critics who demanded an immediate peace with the South were nicknamed after which venomous snake?

Copperhead was a label pinned on anti-war Democrats by their opponents; the faction in turn cast Lincoln as a tyrant destroying American values.

What nickname did the paper money issued under Lincoln to pay for the war earn from the ink on its reverse?

Greenbacks were emergency notes not backed by gold or silver reserves, a break from the coin the country had relied on before the war.

Which silver-mining territory was rushed into statehood eight days before Lincoln's 1864 re-election?

Nevada was admitted without the 60,000 residents usually required and took the nickname the Battle Born State from its wartime birth; in the end Lincoln won easily without its help.

Which abolitionist, born into slavery in Maryland, conferred with Lincoln in 1863 about the treatment of Black soldiers?

Frederick Douglass had been recruiting for the Union army with his broadside Men of Color to Arms!, and he returned in 1864 to advise Lincoln again.

Which 1857 Supreme Court ruling did Lincoln attack for treating enslaved people as property rather than persons?

Dred Scott v. Sandford looked to Lincoln like part of a plot to carry slavery into every state, and he pointed out that the Constitution itself calls slaves persons.

Which photographer won Lincoln's permission in 1861 to document the war's battlefields, provided he paid for it himself?

Mathew Brady spent over $100,000 producing more than 10,000 plates of the conflict, and he photographed Lincoln himself on many occasions.

Which German thinker drafted a London workers' association letter congratulating Lincoln on his 1864 re-election?

Karl Marx wrote on behalf of the International Working Men's Association, and Lincoln's brief thanks came back through the American envoy Charles Francis Adams.

Which actor played the future president in the 1939 film Young Mr. Lincoln, a drama about his early life?

Henry Fonda wore a new nose bridge built by the make-up man for the part, and the film was later chosen for the National Film Registry.

Which city keeps 16 April as a holiday, recalling an 1862 act Lincoln signed that freed its enslaved people?

Washington first paraded on the date in 1866; the act compensated loyal owners, an approach Lincoln had first proposed for the city back in 1849.

Which of Lincoln's private secretaries later became Secretary of State under William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt?

John Hay also co-wrote, with fellow secretary John Nicolay, a ten-volume biography that helped shape the murdered president's historical image.

Which sitting vice president ran against Lincoln in 1860 as the Southern Democratic candidate?

John Breckinridge had taken office as vice president at just 36; after losing to Lincoln he went on to serve the Confederacy as a major general.

Which marching clubs of young men in black capes paraded by torchlight for Lincoln in the 1860 campaign?

Wide Awakes wore the capes to keep dripping torch oil off their clothes; the movement began in Hartford, where young shop workers escorted Lincoln to his hotel by torchlight.

Where in the capital's northern defences did Lincoln come under enemy fire while watching a battle in July 1864?

Fort Stevens was under attack when a shot wounded a Union surgeon standing beside Lincoln on the parapet, and an officer brusquely ordered the president to take cover.

On the grounds of which institution did the Lincolns live each summer from 1862 to 1864 to escape the downtown heat?

The Soldiers' Home cottage housed the family from June to November, as it had James Buchanan before them, and Mary later wrote of how dearly she had loved the place.

Which formerly enslaved dressmaker became Mary Todd Lincoln's confidante and wrote the 1868 memoir Behind the Scenes?

Elizabeth Keckley was known as the capital's dressmaker for the extraordinary fit of her garments, and her book told the story of her own years in slavery too.

From which town did Lincoln and the Long Nine campaign to move the Illinois state capital in the 1830s?

Vandalia lost its status to a town further north; the nine legislators behind the move got their nickname because every one of them was above average height.

Which general, nicknamed the Pathfinder, did Lincoln order in 1861 to rescind an edict freeing Missouri slaves?

John C. Frémont had earned the nickname mapping a route across the Rocky Mountains; weeks after the edict, Lincoln removed him from command of the Department of the West.

How did Lincoln block the Wade–Davis Bill of 1864, a congressional plan for a much harsher Reconstruction?

A pocket veto, leaving the bill unsigned, killed a measure that would have made a majority in each rebel state swear they had never supported the rebellion.

Which Italian revolutionary was offered a major general's commission in the Union Army by Lincoln's government in 1861?

Giuseppe Garibaldi replied that he would come only as commander-in-chief with the power to declare slavery abolished, so he never joined the Union army.