Abraham Lincoln was the nation's 16th president and his leadership during one of the most trying
times in our nation's history, his ability to preserve the Union, and his Emancipation
Proclamation often lead him at the top of lists of polls of professional historians who tried to rank
the nation's chief executives. In fact, a survey of 24 major polls of professional historians
regarding presidential greatness conducted between 1948 and 2022, Abraham Lincoln finished
top in 13 of those polls and in the top three in all of them. He also tends to rank highly
when the general public is polled regarding who was the greatest president. And yet there still
is a lot about the life of Abraham Lincoln of which the public seems to be mostly unaware,
among other things, Abraham Lincoln was perhaps the most eccentric of our nation's presidents.
And there is a lot weird about Abraham Lincoln that deserves to be remembered.
Born in Hardin County Kentucky on February 12, 1809, Lincoln was the second child of Thomas
Lincoln, a farmer and carpenter, and Nancy Hanks. Having relocated to Southern Indiana at a place
called Little Creek Settlement in 1816, Lincoln found himself working to help support his family;
it was there that his mother died. Her cause of death was milk sickness, once a common cause of
death in the American midwest, milk sickness is caused by the poison trimmitol produced by
the perennial herb white snakeroot. In the midwest cattle were often left to forage in the wild, and
particularly in drought years where pasture was thin, the cattle grazed on the snakeroot. People
who drank the milk from these cattle could receive a lethal dose of the poison that causes trembling,
vomiting and severe intestinal pain. Nancy Hanks Lincoln died on October 5th 1818.
The cause of milk sickness was not determined until the 1830s.
It was a year later that another little-known event occurred that may have affected the
famous president more than has been realized. In a short campaign biography written in 1860,
while running for president, Lincoln wrote, speaking of himself in the third person,
“In his 10th year he was kicked by a horse and apparently killed for a time.”
The event he mentions occurred sometime in 1819. According to several Lincoln biographies,
while leading his mare on the wheel of a local corn mill, Lincoln was keeping the
horse moving with a whip and saying “Get up you old hussy! Get up you old hussy!” Just
as he yelled the words get up again, the unshoed horse kicked backwards knocking the boy senseless.
Ten-year-old Lincoln was taken to his father's house where he remained unconscious so that some
in the community thought him to be either dead or near death, but he regained consciousness the
next day. A story, possibly apocryphal, says that he woke up quickly and shouted “You old hussy!”
While the event has rarely been mentioned, psychiatrist Edward Kempf wrote in a November
2020 edition of the Digital Illinois History Library Journal that the two
life masks made of Lincoln in 1860 and 1865 show evidence that Lincoln actually received
a skull fracture on his left forehead. Dr Kempf notes that “While there seems to be no mention
by doctors at the time of any lasting effects from the event. This omission is not surprising
for it was not until 1890, upon application of x-ray photography, that neurophysiology learned
how to explain some of the cerebral effects and nervous consequences of fractures of the skull.
The extent to which the injury may have affected the future president is hard to determine,
as the doctor explains, “Modern neurology requires for diagnosis a far more complete
examination of the living subject for positive or negative evidence of nervous impairment. However
the doctor speculates, “That the effects of the injury, coupled with his childhood experiences
may have significantly impacted Lincoln's personality, including his
well-documented tendency towards melancholia.” From which Dr Kemp surmises,
“He protected himself by cultivating a practical common sense, philosophy of humanism, and humor.”
That is, the Abraham Lincoln of whose wit and wisdom we are so familiar,
might substantially have been a product of being kicked by a horse.
But the event also represents an irony as Lincoln was also notably fond of animals.
While in the White House Lincoln kept many pets. The family's two goats, Nanny and Nanko
would often ride in the presidential carriage. A turkey named Jack escaped from being the family
dinner at the intervention of his son Tad. The family kept horses and rabbits for pets,
and perhaps most well-known, two cats named Tabby and Dixie presented to him as kittens by Secretary
of State William Seward. He was quoted during his first term of having said “Dixie is smarter than
my whole cabinet, and furthermore, she doesn't talk back.” And while his wife Mary objected to
him feeding Tabby at the table with the gold presidential fork he said,
“If the gold fork was good enough for former president James Buchanan, I think it's good enough
for Tabby.” Whatever effects he got from old hussy in 1819, he seems not to have carried a grudge.
In the spring of 1831, at the age of 22, Lincoln relocated to New Salem Illinois
on the Sangamon River. By some accounts he was traveling to New Orleans when his
barge got stuck and he decided to stay. It was here that another Lincoln legend was born.
According to Dr Christian McWhirter the Lincoln historian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential
Library and Museum in Springfield Illinois quoted on Chicago WGN 9 News last February,
“Lincoln was working as a store clerk when his boss,
Denton Offutt, bet that Lincoln could out-wrestle the strongest member of a gang of local toughs.
The man he wrestled was named Jack Armstrong, a much feared wrestler, but Lincoln was a six foot
four inch tall rail splitter from the frontier. From the start Lincoln handed out a thrashing,
when Armstrong began fouling Lincoln picked up his opponent, dashed him to the ground and
knocked him out. His success earned him the friendship and respect of the group and other
males in his community. Locals later recalled that he could beat any of them in wrestling. This led
to a legend that Lincoln was a prize wrestler who won many bouts at county fairs earning him
a spot in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater Oklahoma. According to the Hall
of Fame, Lincoln began wrestling at age 19 when he defended his step brother's river barge from
natchez thugs by throwing the hijackers overboard. While some accounts claim that Lincoln only ever
lost one match out of hundreds, McWhirter notes there's not a lot of evidence for a lot of them.
Still, the wrestling bout with Jack Armstrong was well documented,
and the reputation that he earned there might have served young Abraham Lincoln a year later.
Lincoln's career as a soldier is also little remembered. In April 1832,
a mixed group of Native Americans crossed the Mississippi river into Illinois
apparently over a dispute regarding the 1804 Treaty of St Louis. The Black Hawk War lasted
just over four months, and the natives, led by a leader of the Sauk people named Black Hawk,
clashed with militia units, regular army and other Native Americans. Lincoln volunteered
with the Illinois militia, and perhaps because of his popularity earned by defeating Jack Armstrong,
was elected captain of a militia company. While he was never involved in combat he was tasked
with bearing the dead in the aftermath of two battles. His service certainly impacted him. In an
autobiography he wrote in 1860, he mentioned that since becoming a captain during the war, he had
not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction. Perhaps more importantly,
several Lincoln biographers have concluded that his service allowed him to cultivate
connections in Illinois that would serve him in his later political career. Still he was always
self-deprecating about his service. Saying in an 1848 speech before congress, “That while he saw no
live fighting Indians, he had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes.”
After the war Lincoln partnered with a friend from New Salem named William Berry, and the two opened
a store called Lincoln and Berry. The store sold liquor and was issued a liquor license on March 6
1833. This led to the claim that Abraham Lincoln was the only US President to have
been a licensed bartender. However there is some controversy regarding the claim. Historian Dr Neil
Gale writing in the 2020 edition of the Digital Research Library of the Illinois History Journal
notes that multiple experts have determined that the signature on the license is not that
of Abraham Lincoln. Moreover, the document seems to have been issued to William Berry in the name
of Barry and Lincoln and it is a license for the store, not for Lincoln personally.
In fact, Gale argues Lincoln denied ever owning a grocery, and the license might have been a
forgery made after his death. It's also possible that Lincoln sold his interest in the store after
Berry made the decision to sell liquor. In any case the website procaffeination notes that
Lincoln later denied ever having sold liquor by the drink, and thus was never an actual bartender.
Lincoln left the business, was appointed postmaster of New Salem but in 1835 Berry
died and Lincoln assumed the debts from the failed business. These debts were
not fully paid off until 1848 during lincoln's career as a congressman.
Lincoln was elected to Congress in August of 1846. His election was notable because he was
a member of the Whig Party and the Whigs were struggling in Illinois. He was the only Whig
elected to congress that year, but his time was limited. It was, according to a 1912 issue of the
Portland Oregon Sunday Journal, in his district a peculiar tradition to his party, the Whig,
that no member shall seek re-election. That is, when his term ended on March 4th 1849, Lincoln was
not on the ballot for another term. This left him with limited prospects, but one possibility that
again is not well known was rather intriguing. That year the Taylor administration offered
him the governorship of Oregon territory. In many ways Oregon offered better electoral possibilities
than Illinois where Whig candidates were still struggling. The Sunday Journal explains, “Friends
of Lincoln advised him to accept the Oregon tender reasoning that the territory must in a few years
achieve statehood, and that a seat in the Senate of the United States might be most reasonably
expected at the hands of the Oregonians.” However Mary did not want to move that far, nor live so
far out on the frontier. Lincoln declined and his name was never submitted to the Senate. It is
interesting to speculate how US and Oregon history might have been different had Lincoln accepted.
Certainly there was political opportunity there. The Sunday Journal speculated that “He would
still have ranked large as a factor in national affairs, and would in some great way have come to
be considered as one of the nation, rather than one of any state, there can be little question.”
But the Journal continues, “The nation might have suffered for it. It is difficult to imagine any
combination of circumstances that would have made him president at the hour of national crisis.”
Lincoln returned to his law practice in Springfield Illinois, but that was not
his only interest.
Lincoln had a knack for machinery and tinkering with mechanical appliances.
His law partner William A Herndon expressed how he advised a decent bent towards machinery
or mechanical appliances, a trait he doubtlessly inherited from his father
who was himself something of a mechanic, and therefore skilled in the use of tools.
This became apparent when Lincoln found himself on a boat stranded on a sandbar in 1848.
Those on board were ordered to use empty cages and planks of wood to buoy the boat off the sand.
After witnessing this Lincoln worked tirelessly between sessions of Congress to develop a device
to help boats when they come across sandbars and shallow areas. He applied for a patent,
the application described his device, “Invented a new and improved manner of combining adjustable
buoyant air chambers with a steam boat or other vessel for the purpose of enabling their draft
of water to be readily lessened, enabling them to pass over bars or through shallow water.”
On May 22nd 1849, patent number 6469 was approved. While his invention was never
implemented on steam boats, Lincoln is the only US president to have earned a patent himself.
Lincoln's term in office was of course famous and included notable eccentricities, including holding
seances in the White House a practice that was not only quite a common fad at the time but not at all
surprising for a family that had lost two children at an early age. One, Willie died at age 11 of
typhoid fever during Lincoln's term of office in February 1862. According to the White House
historical association, after attending seances in Washington, Mary started hosting her own seances
in the Red Room of the White House. There's evidence to suggest that she hosted as many as
eight seances in the White House and that her husband was even in attendance for a few of them.
Of his many accomplishments and travails while in office one part that is often forgotten was his
role on the creation of the Thanksgiving holiday. The holiday had originally been proclaimed by
George Washington on November 26th 1789. While presidents made their own proclamations about
the holiday, Lincoln's significant contribution was to proclaim that it should occur regularly
on the last Thursday in November. “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of this
United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set
apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our
beneficent father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the
inscriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also with
humble pendants for our national pervasiveness and disobedience. Commend to his tender care all
those who become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife
in which we are unavoidably engaged. And fervently implore the interposition of the almighty hand to
heal the wounds of the nation, and restore it as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes
to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union.” According to History,
Art and Archives, a collaborative project between the Office of the Historian and the Clerk of the
House Office of Art and Archives of the US House of Representatives, the third Thursday remained
the tradition although Thanksgiving was not made an official national holiday until 1870.
But the president could still set the date and in 1938, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
moved the holiday up to the third Thursday in order to, History Art and Archives notes,
“Extend the Christmas shopping season in order to help businesses still suffering from the lingering
effects of the Great Depression.” When FDR again moved up to date in 1940, Congress finally acted
in the direct confrontation between the will of Abraham Lincoln and FDR,
two presidents who regularly figure in the top three when ranked by historians,
Lincoln's will won out. New York congressman Alexander Treadwell explained, “I feel the
example which Massachusetts and New England offer in the retention of long-standing custom should
be given very careful consideration before ruthlessly permitting it to be sacrificed for
mercenary considerations.” On October 6 1941, Congress passed a bill standardizing the holiday
on the last Thursday in November to the eternal admiration of traditionalists who,
like Abraham Lincoln, think the Christmas season is long enough already.
And of course Abraham Lincoln is associated with another celebration.
In 1926, a group called The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History or, ASNLH,
founded by Harvard University history Professor Carter Woodson, sponsored a National Negro History
Week the second week in February. So timed because that represented the birthdays of both Abraham
Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, and of course that celebration eventually became Black History Month,
officially recognized by President Gerald Ford in 1976. Given all his accomplishments it's not
surprising that there are many place names in America named after Abraham Lincoln. No less
than 17 states have Lincoln Counties named after Abraham Lincoln, but that can be confusing because
five states, Georgia, Missouri, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee have Lincoln
Counties that are not named after Abraham Lincoln, but after revolutionary war General
Benjamin Lincoln. There are so many reasons to appreciate Abraham Lincoln for what he
did as the nation's 16th president but he was more than a president,
he was a singular personality, perhaps the most unique of the 45 men who have led this nation.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the History Guy. Check out our community on
the historyguyguild.local.com, our webpage at thehistoryguy.com, and our merchandise
at teespring.com or book a special message from the History Guy on Cameo.
And if you'd like more episodes of forgotten history, all you have to do is subscribe.