Interpretive Panels

When Abraham Lincoln was born to Thomas and Nancy Lincoln in 1809, Kentucky, only seventeen years a state, remained largely unsettled, marked by dense forests, deep valleys, and steep, cone-shaped hills. Thomas, a carpenter and farmer, had married Nancy Hanks in 1806. The couple settled along Nolin Creek near present-day Hodgenville, where their first child, Sarah, was born in 1807. Abraham followed two years later. Though farm work kept him from attending school regularly, Abraham was almost entirely self-taught. He developed an early and lasting love of reading, seizing every opportunity to educate himself.

Opposed to slavery and frustrated by persistent land disputes, Thomas Lincoln left Kentucky in 1816 and moved his family to the free state of Indiana. They settled along Little Pigeon Creek near present-day Lincoln City. Tragedy struck two years later when Nancy Lincoln fell ill with dizziness, nausea, and severe stomach pains. She lapsed into a coma and died on October 5, 1818. Her death was later attributed to milk sickness, caused by drinking milk contaminated by poisonous plants consumed by cows. Unable to endure the loneliness, Thomas remarried in 1819. His new wife, Sarah Bush Johnston, was a widow with three children. Abraham later described her as “a good and kind mother.” She encouraged his education and shared her personal collection of books, helping to nurture his intellectual growth. By 1822, the Little Pigeon Creek community had grown substantially, supporting two general stores, a mill, a tavern, and a Baptist church. In 1826, Abraham’s sister Sarah married and moved with her husband to a cabin two miles south. She became pregnant the following year, but complications during childbirth claimed both her life and that of her child in 1827.

In 1830, the family moved to Illinois, settling along the Sangamon River in Mason County, near present-day Decatur. Ready to make his own way, twenty-two-year-old Abraham struck out for the village of New Salem, about sixty miles northwest of Decatur. Founded in 1828, New Salem stood on a bluff overlooking the Sangamon River, surrounded largely by dense woodland. It was a small, close-knit community whose population never exceeded one hundred. Abraham found work as a clerk in a general store. With his quick wit and gift for storytelling, he drew customers in and, within eight months, had come to know most of the residents. Impressed by his character and intelligence, friends encouraged him to run for the Illinois General Assembly in March 1832. Speaking in a plain, folksy manner, he campaigned on practical improvements, better roads and canals, and proposed dredging the Sangamon River to make it navigable for steamboats.

In April, however, his campaign was abruptly interrupted when Mahkatêwe-meshi-kêhkêhkwa (Black Hawk), a Sauk leader, crossed the Mississippi River with several hundred followers. Although his band sought to resettle peacefully, Illinois militia forces mobilized, and volunteers were called up. Abraham enlisted and marched with his company, though he saw no combat. When he returned to New Salem in July, he attempted to revive his campaign, but the momentum had faded. In the August election, he finished eighth out of thirteen candidates. Still, he took pride in winning 177 of the 300 votes cast in the New Salem precinct. After the election, Abraham resumed life as a frontier merchant, supplementing his income by splitting rails and later serving as postmaster and assistant surveyor, roles that further strengthened his ties to the community and broadened his experience.

Between 1834 and 1840, Abraham Lincoln served as a Whig in the Illinois General Assembly. Legislators earned only three dollars a day while the Assembly was in session, so Lincoln needed another profession to support himself. That opportunity came when fellow representative John Todd Stuart encouraged him to study law. In those days, aspiring lawyers did not attend law school; instead, they “read law” in the office of a practicing attorney until they were prepared to pass the bar examination. In 1836, Lincoln was licensed to practice law, and in 1837 he became a junior partner in Stuart’s law office in the new state capital of Springfield.

Springfield in the late 1830s was still very much a frontier town. Its streets were unpaved, livestock wandered freely, and many buildings were simple wooden structures. Yet it was the most sophisticated community Lincoln had ever lived in, and he would consider it his home for the rest of his life. Beginning in 1837, Lincoln rode the Eighth Judicial Circuit, traveling twice a year to bring court proceedings to communities across central Illinois. The circuit included counties such as Champaign, DeWitt, Macon, Mason, McLean, Menard, Sangamon, and Tazewell; Christian, Logan, Shelby, and Woodford were added in 1840. Covering nearly five hundred miles, the journey typically lasted about eleven weeks. Lincoln continued riding the circuit until his nomination for the presidency in 1860, building his legal reputation, sharpening his skills, and becoming widely known throughout the region. Near the end of 1839, Lincoln met Mary Todd at a dance in Springfield. After a sometimes turbulent courtship, they married in November 1842. The couple had four sons, Robert (1843), Edward “Eddie” (1846), William “Willie” (1850), and Thomas “Tad” (1853), though only Robert lived to adulthood.

In 1847, when Abraham arrived in Washington to take his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, the nation had already been at war with Mexico for more than a year. President James K. Polk had asserted that Mexico had shed American blood on American soil in a disputed region along the Texas border and asked Congress to declare war. Polk, determined to expand the nation’s territory, received that authorization. Abraham strongly opposed the conflict. In December 1847, he introduced his “Spot Resolutions,” calling on President Polk to identify the precise “spot” where American blood had been spilled. Polk never provided the clarification. Abraham’s stance drew sharp criticism from Democrats and even members of his own Whig Party. He later defended his position, arguing that to accept the President’s word without question was to allow him to “make war at pleasure”—to invade another nation whenever he deemed it necessary.

The war ended on February 2nd, 1848, with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ceded vast western territories to the United States. Yet Abraham’s constitutional concerns were soon overshadowed by the fierce national debate that followed: whether the newly acquired lands would permit slavery or remain free. Choosing not to seek a second term, he returned to Springfield and resumed his law practice. Just a few years later, in March 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, after first serializing it in an antislavery newspaper. The novel brought the human reality of slavery into homes across the North, particularly for readers who had not previously confronted the issue directly. Within a year, it had sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the United States and more than a million worldwide, helping to galvanize Northern opposition to slavery and deepen the sectional divide.

Abraham Lincoln returned to politics in 1854 in response to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, introduced by Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas. The Act allowed the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide the issue of slavery through popular sovereignty, effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had prohibited slavery north of the 36°30′ line (except Missouri). The law reignited national conflict over the expansion of slavery.

The Act hastened the collapse of the Whig Party and led to the formation of the Republican Party later in 1854. The new party united anti-slavery Whigs, Free Soilers, and anti-Nebraska Democrats around opposition to the expansion of slavery into the western territories. Some opposed slavery on moral grounds; others feared that slave labor would undermine free labor opportunities.

By 1856, violence erupted in Kansas between pro-slavery “Border Ruffians” and anti-slavery “Free-Staters,” a conflict dubbed “Bleeding Kansas” by newspaper editor Horace Greeley. That same year, sectional tensions spilled into Congress when Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina caned Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts after an anti-slavery speech, further deepening the divide between North and South.

In June 1858, Abraham Lincoln spoke at the Illinois Republican State Convention in Springfield after being nominated as the party’s candidate for the U.S. Senate against the incumbent, Stephen A. Douglas. It was there that Lincoln declared, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” 

He then challenged Douglas to a series of seven political debates held in late summer and early fall during the Senate campaign. Drawing thousands of spectators—people cheering and waving, bands playing, and cannons booming—Lincoln and Douglas debated in Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton. After much “fizzlegigs and fireworks,” as Lincoln called them, the crowds quieted to listen as the candidates addressed the issue foremost on the nation’s mind: slavery. Although Lincoln ultimately lost the election when the Illinois legislature chose Douglas, the debates propelled him into the national spotlight.

The presidential election of 1860 was tumultuous. The dominant Democratic Party split into two factions over slavery, with each faction holding its own convention to nominate a candidate. In the end, Stephen A. Douglas, a supporter of popular sovereignty, was nominated by the Northern Democrats, while Southern Democrats chose John C. Breckinridge, the sitting Vice President, who supported federal protection of slavery in the territories. Lincoln was nominated by the Republican Party, and a fourth candidate, John Bell, represented the Constitutional Union Party, pledging to preserve the Union and avoid sectional conflict. On Election Day, November 6th, 1860, Lincoln and fellow Republicans gathered at the Illinois State Capitol to hear election returns relayed by telegraph.

On November 7th, Abraham Lincoln was declared President-elect of the United States.

In December 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed in January 1861. In February, these states formed the Confederate States of America and elected Jefferson Davis, a former U.S. senator from Mississippi, as its president. On February 11, 1861, Abraham Lincoln stood at the Great Western Railroad depot in Springfield, Illinois, to bid farewell to his friends and neighbors as he departed for Washington, D.C.

“My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail...let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope your prayers will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.”

It was the last time Abraham would see his hometown alive.

In 1842, Charles Dickens described Washington as “a city of magnificent intentions,” observing the sharp contrast between its grand aspirations and its muddy, fetid, and often unpleasant reality. By 1861, little had changed. Streets were shin-deep in mud or dust, depending on the season. Livestock roamed freely, grazing in the shadow of the half-completed Washington Monument. The Washington City Canal, once envisioned as a commercial transportation system, had become a defunct and putrid reservoir of sewage and refuse. It flowed past the White House, its noxious odors overwhelming residents during the summer months.

On February 23rd, 1861, Abraham arrived in Washington under tight security after Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, uncovered a plot to assassinate him as his train passed through the pro-Southern city of Baltimore. Traveling in disguise and under guard, he entered the capital several hours earlier than originally scheduled. At noon on March 4th, under a partly cloudy sky, Abraham stood before the Capitol and delivered his inaugural address to a crowd estimated at around 30,000 people.

During his four years as President, he faced immense challenges. Even after his inauguration, four additional states seceded from the Union. He struggled with generals reluctant to act decisively and managed a Cabinet often as divided as the nation itself. Overshadowed by his most famous achievements—the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and his strong support for the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery—are other significant legislative actions. At the outset of the Civil War, he approved legislation authorizing what became the Congressional Medal of Honor, awarded for acts of valor. In 1865, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, a Civil War surgeon, became the first, and remains the only, woman to receive the Medal of Honor for her service.

Additionally, Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act in 1862, which encouraged expansion into the western territories by allowing a homesteader, man or woman, to acquire 160 acres of undeveloped federal land. He also signed the Morrill Land-Grant Act in 1862, which granted federally controlled land to states to fund public colleges. This legislation led to the establishment of many institutions, including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Lincoln signed legislation establishing a national currency through the National Banking Acts, and he approved the Pacific Railway Act, authorizing construction of the first transcontinental railroad and making coast-to-coast rail travel possible.

In November 1864, Lincoln was re-elected President. On April 9th, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, effectively ending the Civil War. On April 14th, 1865, while attending the British comedy Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. He died the following morning, April 15th. Thousands of mourners paid their respects in Washington, and his funeral train carried his body through several cities before burial in Springfield, Illinois.

After Lincoln’s death, Mary Todd Lincoln lived in Chicago with her sons Tad and Robert. After Tad’s death in 1871 from tuberculosis, Mary’s behavior became increasingly erratic. In 1875, Robert had her declared insane and committed to Bellevue Place in Batavia, Illinois. Upon her release later that year, she moved in with her sister Elizabeth Edwards in Springfield. She later spent several years abroad before returning permanently to Springfield. Mary Todd Lincoln died on July 16th, 1882.

Robert Todd Lincoln entered Harvard College in 1860 and graduated in 1864. He briefly attended Harvard Law School but left to join General Grant’s military staff in early 1865. He was present at Appomattox during Lee’s surrender. In 1868, he married Mary Harlan, and they had three children. After his father’s death, Robert moved his mother and brother to Chicago, where he lived for much of the rest of his life. He became a successful lawyer and, in 1881, was appointed Secretary of War under President James A. Garfield, continuing under President Chester A. Arthur until 1885. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom, a post he held until 1893. Robert Todd Lincoln died on July 26th, 1926.