Abraham Lincoln: a life

v.1 "I have seen a good deal of the back side of this world": Childhood in Kentucky (1809-1816)

"I used to be a slave": boyhood and adolescence in Indiana (1816-1830)

"Separated from his father, he studied English grammar": New Salem (1831-1834)

"A Napoleon of astuteness and political finesse": frontier legislator (1834-1837)

"We must fight the devil with fire": Slasher-Gaff Politico in Springfield (1837-1841)

"It would just kill me to marry Mary Todd": courtship and marriage (1840-1842)

"I have got the preacher by the balls": pursuing a seat in congress (1843-1847)

"A strong but judicious enemy to slavery": Congressman Lincoln (1847-1849)

"I was losing interest in politics and went to the practice of law with greater earnestness than ever before": confronting mortality (1849-1854)

"Aroused as he had never been before": reentering politics, (1854-1855)

"Unite with us, and help us to triumph": building the Illinois Republican Party (1855-1857)

"A house divided": Lincoln vs. Douglas (1857-1858)

"A David greater than the Democratic Goliath": The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)

That presidential grub gnaws deep: pursuing the Republican nomination (1859-1860)

"The most available presidential candidate for unadulterated Republicans": The Chicago Convention (May 1860)

"I have been elected mainly on the cry 'honest old Abe'": the presidential campaign (May- November 1860)

"I will suffer death before I will consent to any concession or compromise": President-elect in Springfield, 1860-1861

"What if I appoint Cameron, whose very name stinks in the nostrils of the people for his corruption?": cabinet-making in Springfield, 1860-1861.

v.2 "The man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am, but it may be necessary to put the food down firmly": from Springfield to Washington (February 11-22, 1861)

"I am now going to be master": inauguration (February 23- March 4, 1861)

"A man so busy letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can't stop to put out the fire that is burning in the other": distribution patronage (March-April 1861)

"You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors": the Fort Sumter crisis (March-April 1861)

"I intend to give blows": the hundred days (April-July 1861)

Sitzkrieg: the phony war (August 1861-January 1862)

"This damned old house": the Lincoln family in the executive mansion

:I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or congress or the country forsakes me": from the slough of despond to the gates of Richmond (January-July 1862)

"The hour comes for dealing with slavery": playing the last trump card (January-July 1862)

"Would you prosecute the war with Elder-Stalk Squirts, charged with rose water?": the Emancipation Proclamation (July-September 1862)

"I am not a bold man, but I have the knack of sticking to my promises!": the Emancipation Proclamation (September-December 1862)

"Go forward, and give us victories": from the mud march to Gettysburg (January-July 1863)

"The signs look better": victory at the polls and in the field (July-November 1863)

"I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the county's cause": reconstruction and renomination (November 1863-June 1864)

"Hold on with a Bulldog grip and chew and choke as much as possible": the grand offense (May- August 1864)

"The wisest radical of all reelection (September- November 1864)

"Let the thing be pressed": victory at last (November 1864-April 1865)

"I feel a presentiment that I shall not outlast the rebellion. When it is over, my work will be done." the final days (April 9-15, 1865).