The Life Of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was a tall spare man with large bones and towering up tosix feet and four inches. He leaned forward and stooped as he walked...Therewas no grace... » 

Abraham Lincoln was a tall spare man with large bones and towering up tosix feet and four inches. He leaned forward and stooped as he walked...Therewas no grace in his movements but an expression of awkwardness combined withforce and vigor. By nature he was diffident and when in crowds not speakingand conscious of being observed he seemed to shrink with bashfulness...Hisforehead was broad and high his hair was rather stiff and coarse and nearlyblack his eyebrows heavy his eyes dark grey clear very expressive andvarying with every mood now sparkling with humor and fun then flashing withwit stern with indignation at wrong and injustice then kind and genial andthen again dreamy and melancholy. Isaac N. Arnolds word picture oweseverything to personal observation because he knew Abraham Lincoln well for aquarter of a century. Eventually an adviser to the sixteenth president Arnoldattended his inaugurations heard his great speeches visited him at the WhiteHouse and on a spring day in 1865 joined the procession that carried his slainbody there. Twenty years later he published this biography giving a detailedsense of Lincoln the entertaining storyteller the shrewd politician thesteadfast visionary. Here is the story of Lincolns rise from humble origins tothe presidency backgrounded by events leading inexorably to the Civil War.Boyhood in Kentucky and Illinois legal and legislative experiences marriageto Mary Todd namemaking debates with Stephen Douglas struggles as presidentto end slavery and shore up the union conduct of Northern forces as commanderinchief murder at Fords Theater all fuel the narrative drive of The LifeofAbraham Lincoln. «