Abraham lincoln history

"As a youngster he shot a wild turkey and was so disgusted he claimed he never again raised a weapon to kill an animal." The story comes from a short The plan did not succeed in accomplishing their primary objective. Whatever issues the men had encountered herding the pigs while they were healthy, those problems had now been compounded by their blindness. "In their blind condition they could not be driven out of the lot or field they were in," Lincoln recalled. "This expedient failing, they were tied and hauled on carts to the boat." Lincoln biographer Harold Holzer, who won the 2015 Gilder-Lehrman Lincoln Prize, wrote to Salon that modern readers should hesitate before judging the Great Emancipator too harshly. While he acknowledged that Lincoln's story "of course sounds grotesque," the man himself was a product of early 19th-century American prairie life. People from that background were raised to have a very callous attitude toward animals, particularly livestock. "Animals might be pets (Lincoln preferred cats to dogs), but more often were either living 'investments' or dangerous prey," Holzer explained. "Farm animals were raised to produce dairy products (milk and eggs) and/or to be slaughtered for food. I don't think Lincoln or his contemporaries attached any romance or sympathy to the beasts they owned or hunted." Analyzing his actions from this vantage point, one sees that Lincoln and the others on his flatboat crew "suddenly found their load of frightened live pigs...

1831 Lincoln makes a second flatboat trip to New Orleans after being hired by Denton Offutt with two others. When the Lincoln family moves again, Abraham stays behind and settles in New Salem, Illinois, working at Denton Offutt’s store. Lincoln boards at a local tavern and befriends the owner’s daughter, Ann Rutledge. The Black Hawk War breaks out in April and Lincoln forms the 31st Regiment of the Illinois Militia with his neighbors, who elect him as captain. His company is mustered out of service at the end of May and he enlists in another regiment for 20 days, then joins Captain Jacob M. Early’s spy company from mid-June to July 10, when the company musters out. (In that era, "spy" was what is called "scout" today, and a scout back then was a spy.) Lincoln saw no military action during his months of service but does accompany a detail to retrieve and bury the bodies of several militiamen killed in a skirmish. 1833 In January, Lincoln and William F. Berry purchase a store in New Salem, which fails by spring. In May, Lincoln is appointed Postmaster of New Salem. In the fall, the county surveyor also offers him a job as deputy county surveyor, which he would hold until 1837. He also meets a woman named Mary Owens, who lives in Kentucky and was visiting her sister in New Salem; they begin a courtship. 1834 Lincoln runs for public office again and on August 4, at the age of 24, is elected to the Illinois General Assembly as a member of the Whig Party. In the summer, he begin...