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......
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