Abraham Lincoln

"Introduction and Acknowledgments 1. ""I Have Seen a Good Deal of the Back Side of This World"": Childhood in Kentucky (1809-1816) 2. ""I Used to be a Slave"": Boyhood and Adolescence in Indiana (1816-1830) 3. ""Separated from His Father, He Studied English Grammar"": New Salem (1831-1834) 4. ""A Napoleon of Astuteness and Political Finesse"": Frontier Legislator (1834-1837) 5. ""We Must Fight the Devil With Fire"": Slasher-Gaff Politico in Springfield (1837-1841) 6. ""It Would Just Kill Me to Marry Mary Todd"": Courtship and Marriage (1840-1842) 7. ""I Have Got the Preacher by the Balls"": Pursuing a Seat in Congress (1843-1847) 8. ""A Strong but Judicious Enemy to Slavery"": Congressman Lincoln (1847-1849) 9. ""I Was Losing Interest in Politics and Went to the Practice of Law with Greater Earnestness Than Ever Before"": Mid-Life Crisis (1849-1854) 10. ""Aroused As He Had Never Been Before"": Reentering Politics (1854-1855) 11. ""Unite with Us, and Help Us to Triumph"": Building the Illinois Republican Party (1855-1857) 12. ""A House Divided"": Lincoln vs. Douglas (1857-1858) 13. ""A David Greater than the Democratic Goliath"": The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858) 14. That Presidential Grub Gnaws Deep: Pursuing the Republican Nomination (1859-1860) 15. ""The Most Available Presidential Candidate for Unadulterated Republicans"": The Chicago Convention (May 1860) 16. ""I Have Been Elected Mainly on the Cry 'Honest Old Abe'"": The Presidential Campaign (May-November 1860) 17. ""I Will Suffer Death Before I Will Consent to Any Concession or Compromise"": President-elect in Springfield (1860-1861) 18. ""What If I Appoint Cameron, Whose Very Name Stinks in the Nostrils of the People for His Corruption?"": Cabinet-Making in Springfield (1860-1861) 19. ""The Man Does Not Live Who Is More Devoted to Peace Than I Am, But It May Be Necessary to Put the Foot Down Firmly"": From Springfield to Washington (February 11-22, 1861) 20. ""I Am Now Going To Be Master"": Inauguration (February 23-March 4, 1861) 21. ""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"": Distributing Patronage (March-April 1861) 22. ""You Can Have No Conflict Without Being Yourselves the Aggressors"": The Fort Sumter Crisis (March-April 1861) 23. ""I Intend to Give Blows"": The Hundred Days (April-July 1861) 24. Sitzkrieg: The Phony War (August 1861-January 1862) 25. ""This Damned Old House"": The Lincoln Family in the Executive Mansion 26. ""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) 27. ""The Hour Comes for Dealing with Slavery"": Playing the Last Trump Card (January-July 1862) 28. ""Would You Prosecute the War with Elder-Stalk Squirts, Charged with Rose Water?"": The Soft War Turns Hard (July-September 1862) 29. ""I Am Not a Bold Man, But I Have the Knack of Sticking to My Promises!"": The Emancipation Proclamation (September-December 1862) 30. ""Go Forward, and Give Us Victories"": From the Mud March to Gettysburg (January-July 1863) 31. ""The Signs Look Better"": Victory at the Polls and in the Field (July-November 1863) 32. ""I Hope to Stand Firm Enough to Not Go Backward, and Yet Not Go Forward Fast Enough to Wreck the Country's Cause"": Reconstruction and Renomination (November 1863-June 1864) 33. ""Hold On with a Bulldog Grip and Chew and Choke as Much as Possible"": The Grand Offensive (May-August 1864) 34. ""The Wisest Radical of All"": Reelection (September-November 1864) 35. ""Let the Thing Be Pressed"": Victory at Last (November 1864-April 8, 1865) 36. ""This War Is Eating My Life Out; I Have a Strong Impression That I Shall Not Live to See the End"": (April 9-15, 1865) Notes Index"