Originally published in 1886, this biography of the sixteenth president of the United States is based on interviews conducted with his peers of the era. From his birth in a Kentucky cabin through his legal career in Illinois to his final fate as Washington D. C.'s Commander-in-Chief, Chicago journalist Francis F. Browne's life story of Abraham Lincoln reveals a true portrait of the revered statesman from personal accounts by those who knew and worked with him. Prone to melancholy, yet full of humor, Lincoln accepted the challenges and responsibilities of the Oval Office, leading a nation in crisis and a citizenry in fear with oratory wit and wisdom and a moral center—whether debating Stephen Douglas, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, or delivering the Gettysburg Address. A time and place as complex as Civil War America needed a leader as complex as Abraham Lincoln. These stories reveal new depths of our sixteenth President as a family man, a statesman, and a leader. Diversion Books's Civil War Classics offer seminal works of the era: stories told by the men and women who led, who fought, and who lived in an America that had come apart at the seams.