Lincoln was born on the twelfth of February 1809 in a cabin three miles outside of Hodgenville, Kentucky. He was later forced to move to Indiana. As a child Lincoln worked on his family’s farm clearing fields and tending crops. He liked to read but unfortunately received hardly any formal education. In fact, his entire schooling only amounted to about one year of attendance. (Brit. 23) In 1830 Lincoln’s family moved to Illinois. Lincoln didn’t want to be a farmer, so he tried other professions: rail-splitter, flatboat man, storekeeper, postmaster, surveyor, an army man, and a profession in Law.

In 1932 Lincoln, at twenty-three years old, decided to run for the Illinois State legislature. Lincoln was to campaign for local improvements such as better roads and canals. However, a war with the Indians b

When Lincoln was inaugurated he said he did not have the right to emancipate. However, as a wartime measure he felt he did have the power to do so. So, Lincoln devised a plan to crush slavery in the rebel states but preserve the loyalty of the Union slave states. His plan was called the Emancipation Proclamation.

In the election of 1864 recent Union victories gave Lincoln much support and sure enough, Lincoln was reelected on November 8, 1865. He had won by almost half a million votes out of some four million cast. Lincoln felt he should now, after winning the election, push for a Constitutional Amendment permanently outlawing slavery everywhere in the United States. Lincoln pressured anti-abolition Congressmen who apposed the amendment in the winter of ’64. Finally, on January 31, 1865 Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution outlawing slavery “within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

In May 1864 the offensive began. Grant marched down to Virginia but was met my Lee’s newly rebuilt army in a densely wooded area call the Wilderness. Grant fought three major battles near Richmond but still could not take the city. During Grant’s Wilderness campaign roughly 54,000 Union soldiers were killed or wounded. Things were better for Sherman. After a long siege at Atlanta the city fell and was evacuated. Sherman’s men then went into the city and destroyed everything that could be used by the South for war. Sherman then marched through Georgia ruining everything in his path: crops, houses, livestock etc. Meanwhile, Grant was slowly taking hold of Richmond. By November the end of the war was in sight for the Union.

The Civil War had lasted almost four years. More than 600,000 United States men had died. That’s more than the total number of lives lost from every war the U.S has fought in combined. Neither side had expected the war to last as long as it did or for the war to put an end to slavery.

In 1858, Lincoln won the Republican Nomination for the Illinois Senate seat. He wanted the seat of his long time rival, Senator Stephen Douglas. In Lincoln’s first speech for his Senate campaign Lincoln said, “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free.” Lincoln warned his opponents that the spread of slavery must be stopped or else it would become “lawful in all the states; old as well as new- north as well as south.”

Some common words found in the essay are:
Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, Illinois Lincoln, Davis Mississippi, Scott Scott, America Habeas, Delaware Lincoln, Kansas Nebraska, Copperheads Lincoln, Martial Law, emancipation proclamation, civil war, war lincoln, martial law, slavery existed, abraham lincoln, battle gettysburg, slavery lincoln, northern democrats, lincoln found, senator stephen douglas, civil war lincoln, kentucky congressman lincoln, confederacy civil war, lincoln start emancipation,
Approximate Word count = 5089
Approximate Pages = 20 (250 words per page double spaced)