Abraham Lincoln 4 Essay Research Paper Abraham — страница 2

thirteen people dead. In May of 1861 Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas joined the Confederacy. The first important battle of the war takes place near Manassas along a sluggish creek called Bull Run, 20 miles southwest of Washington. The battle killed 847 people and more than 2,500 were wounded. Lincoln felt for the slaves and tried to do alot to help them out by signing a law giving freedom to slaves who are being used by Confederates to help in the war effort. On February 20, 1862 the Lincoln s eleven-year-old son, Willie died of bilious fever. He died in the Prince of Wales Room in the White House. The first White House funeral for a child was conducted in the East Room, he was buried in a borrowed vault at Georgetown s Oak Hill Cemetery. Lincoln was so heart broken he

went to the cemetery twice the week after he died and opened the coffin and looked at his son. On July 11, 1862 paper currency was approved. Secretary of the Treasurer Chase, put his own picture on it instead of Lincoln s. A day later Lincoln signed a bill creating the Congressional Medal of Honor. The Battle of Antietam happened on September 17, 1862 and it was fought in the countryside near the small Maryland town of Sharpsburg and along the Antietam Creek. It killed and wounded 26,000 men, it was and still is the single bloodiest day in all of American History. The Sioux Indians were starving and mad that they were taken from their land and killed more than 200 settlers in one day. They held trials for two months to decide upon the fate of the Indians. They decided to execute

303 Indians. Lincoln disliked most of the death sentences and cut the number of Indians being executed down to the thirty-nine he thought were the most guilty, but on December 26 in Mankato, Minnesota thirty-eight Indians were hung. On September 22, 1862 Lincoln announced his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to his entire Cabinet. The proclamation promised that on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, one thousand-eight hundred and sixty three, all persons held as slaves shall be then, thenceforth and forever free. Then on January 1, 1863 Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, it did not only declare slaves free but also that blacks will be received into the armed services of the United States. The eighty-seventh anniversary of the Declaration of

Independence was a mournful holiday for some but a sigh of relief for others. In a terrible three day battle between the Union and Confederate Armies a total of 51,000 men were killed. At the funeral for the men that had died in the battle, he gave the Gettysburg Address. On the morning of April 14, 1865 Lincoln woke up in the best mood he had been in for four months. The President was happy his son was home and that the war was finally over. He usually had his hair flying in every direction possible but that morning it was neatly combed. Lincoln usually has a solitary egg but instead he and his family had a enjoyable breakfast. What Lincoln did not know is that his assassination was being planned on this joyous day. John Wilkes Booth s hatred of Lincoln and the North grew so

intense he couldn t handle it any more, he had to do something about it. He believed the country was for the white man not for the black. The first idea he had was to kidnap the President but he needed help. The first to join him in the kidnapping were his old friends, Sam Arnold and Michael O Laughlin. He then added John Surratt to his team, whose mother was keeping a Washington boardinghouse. Then David Herold and George Atzerodt joined Booth in his quest to kidnap Lincoln. The most brutal to join Booth was Lewis Powell. Once Booth spoke a word of murdering Lincoln, Arnold and O Laughlin did not want to be a part of this any more. Booth just replaced them with Mary Surratt, she was going to run errands and messages for him and John Lloyd, he was going to supply the rifles for

him and his clan, Edman Spangler was a scene-shifter at Ford s Theater, and Dr. Samuel Mudd. Booth s plan was to capture and then smuggle Lincoln across the Potomac River into Confederate hands and they would use him to blackmail the North into coming to terms. On the day the war ended Booth was angry and found out Lincoln was to be attending the theater and his was out to murder. During the afternoon he went to Ford s Theater, climbed up to the President s box, made a peephole, then fashioned a simple wooden doorjamb that would lock the box from the inside. Booth had planned not only to assassinate the President but also to have Secretary of State Seward and Vice President Johnson killed. On the evening of April 14, 1865 Lincoln accompanied his wife and their guests, Major Henry