10 Abraham Lincoln Facts
Sometimes we’re so excited to have President’s Day off work that we forget what it’s really about. President’s Day honors the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. You might be interested in these Abraham Lincoln facts and trivia. What follows are some mind-blowing facts about Abraham Lincoln. Hold on to your stovepipe hats…
10. Lincoln Under-Utilized his Pockets
- Abraham Lincoln’s actual stovepipe hat
Speaking of top hats, Lincoln’s stovepipe top hat served as more than fashionable headwear. He used it to store and carry notes, letters, even bills. Why do they call it a stovepipe hat? Well, the rise is so tall and straight with no flair that it resembles a length of pipe. They’re hard to come by nowadays, the traditional top hat being much more current, but still pretty “retro”. Best you go to a custom haberdashery to get one made just for you.
9. Lincoln was Really Tall
That stovepipe hat just made a tall guy a whole lot taller. Lincoln was 6’4”, making him our country’s tallest president. That of course raises the question, who was our shortest president? That would be our 4th president, James Madison, who stood a stately 5’4”, making him an entire foot shorter than Honest Abe – even without his hat!
8. Lincoln has No Living Heirs
Despite the fact that the marriage between Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln yielded 4 sons, there are no living heirs. Three of the four sons died before their 20th birthdays: Edward died at 4 years of age, Willie at 12 years, at Tad at 18. Robert was the only child who lived into adulthood and his last descendant died sometime in the 1980’s.
7. Lincoln’s Son was a Death-Magnet
Robert Lincoln
Robert Lincoln was sort of a magnet for tragedy. More specifically, presidential assassination tragedy. While he was not present when his dad was killed, he was an eyewitness to Garfield’s assassination, and at the same World’s Fair where McKinley was assassinated. Another interesting fact about Robert, he was saved from a train accident by Edwin Booth, the brother of his father’s killer, John Wilkes Booth.
6. Lincoln Like to Tinker
Lincoln's patent: "A Device for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals"
Lincoln really liked machines and gadgets. He liked to take them apart to see how they worked and try to put them together again. He even tried his hand at inventing, and in 1849 had a patent issued for “A Device for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals”. The machine never made it, but the patent was a new thing for a president, and no president has held a patent since.
5. Lincoln & Kennedy
You didn’t think we’d leave it out, did you? There are some pretty bizarre coincidences between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Here are a couple:
- Both were shot in the head with one bullet on a Friday.
- Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846, Kennedy in 1946.
- Lincoln’s successor (named Johnson) was born in 1808. Kennedy’s successor (also named Johnson) was born in 1908.
4. Lincoln was Kind of Psychic
In the weeks before his death, Lincoln was extremely melancholy. He had seen portents of his own death, and had been dreaming of death as well. On one occasion looked in the mirror and saw a double reflection, one image much paler and blurrier than the other. He told his wife that he thought it meant that he had survived his first term, but wouldn’t survive his second. The week prior to his death, Lincoln had a dream of hearing crying in a distant room of the White House. He sought out the room and found that it had a coffin in it. He asked the weeping person who had died and the person responded that it was the President. In his dream, Lincoln looked into the coffin and saw himself. Read more in The Psychic Life of Abraham Lincoln
3. Lincoln Dabbled in the Occult
Not only did he get premonitions, he also believed in the occult. Well, if he didn’t believe then he was at least willing to go along with it. Because he and Mary had lost little Edward and Willie at such young ages, they actually held seances in the White House trying to contact their dearly departed. Mrs. Lincoln also attended seances at the homes of famous mediums of the day. Whether or not they made contact is unknown.
2. Lincoln was Spiritual, not Religious
Despite the last two facts, Lincoln said he was still a Christian. He didn’t, however, feel it necessary to subscribe to a particular brand of Christianity. Though many different sects try to claim him, Lincoln was 100% non-denominational. He never joined a church, didn’t say grace before meals, and spoke on a more spiritual level, rather than religious. He did read the Bible quite often, and did have a highly developed spiritual governance. When asked if he thought the Lord was on the side of the North in the Civil War, Lincoln responded, “I am not at all concerned about that…But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.”
1. Lincoln had a Way with Words
Not only was Lincoln spiritual and intelligent, he was also a heck of a speech writer. He wrote his own speeches, and it is said that his famous Gettysburg Address wasn’t even the best one! Rumor has it that the speech Lincoln made to the Illinois Republican Convention on May 29, 1856 was his best, but it was either so enthralling that nobody remembered to take notes, or it was so controversial that nobody was allowed to print them. Either way, no record of it exists.
There is a book that I have that lists unknown facts about the Presidents. Lincoln was awesome, so I’m glad for this list. =)
Cool list! #7 is just weird… and it’s a shame he doesn’t have any more heirs. We could do with more Lincolns around nowadays. =)
I’ve got one! Not only was he very tall – 6’4″ – but he was also thin for his height – about 180 lbs. I remember a grade school teacher using Lincoln’s’ height versus his own as an example of ratios. He weighed the same as Lincoln but was a lot shorter. My dad was the same height, but weighed more.
Lincoln also declared martial law, suspended habeus corpus and jailed dissenters without due process. Yeah, we really need more Lincolns around.
Fact 11: His own adult son, Robert, never saw combat during the war, despite the fact that he utilized conscription to force other familes to send their sons, husbands, and fathers into the Union army. He also lured young European immigrants into America with promises of guaranteed employment, not explaining that the job title waiting for them was Union army private.
Fact 12: His administration endorsed a plan to deport the Southern black population overseas, including an experimental colony on an island off the coast of Haiti, which failed miserably. When the Ambassador representing Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua found out about a similar scheme for Central America, his government threatened to use force to repel the “invasion.”
Fact 13: Ironically, as the first U. S. President to fall from an assassin’s bullet, he commanded an army that attempted to assassinate Jefferson Davis, Judah P. Benjamin, and other Confederate officials in an 1864 incident known as the Dahlgren Raid. That debacle made John Wilkes Booth very angry.
Fact 14: To placate the South during the secession crisis, he supported the establishment of a Constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed the preservation of slavery. Moreover, his Emancipation Proclamation explicitly preserved slavery in six slave-holding states and several other population centers under Union control. When he publicized this decree in September 1862, he gave the Confederates more than three months’ time to return to the Union with slavery fully preserved. If the Confederates only cared about slavery, rather than political and economic independence from the North, they would have returned to the Union, satisfied that they had fought the Union army to a standstill.
Agreed! Finally, an educated person upon us!
Hmm..When Abe kept things “under his hat”, he really did it! Must have been too many notes, et al, to stuff in his pockets (if he had any!)
Oh, you have no idea, Terry! Abe and his crazy wife Mary were also into the occult and held seances in the White House – to contact their two dead little boys.
Here’s one for you: Abe is THE favorite president. No other president is invoked more often! Clearly, Gary has done some actual reading, though, and realizes that our icon was still human. One thing is certain, though: Lincoln preserved the nation. He could have never succeeded in today’s political environment and might have a unique perception of the “Frost/Nixon” line, “I’m saying that if the President does it, it isn’t illegal.” Lincoln: The Republican adopted by Obama to produce a Democrat presidency…
Indeed, I have done some reading, and one of the things I’ve learned about Lincoln is that doesn’t deserve any of our adulation. That’s hard for me to say, too, since he was my 4th cousin, 5 times removed.
Lincoln “preserved” a growing monster, which has evolved, over time, into the fascistic regime it is today. This was made possible in 1787 by the Federalists, who were agents of the Rothschilds of London. They were the force behind the creation of our Constitution, which contained the seeds of a large central government, ever expanding its scope and power. The Constitution replaced our original constitution, the Articles of Confederation, which, among other superior features, did NOT provide for a President of the United States (no president, no possibility of a dictator arising). But, the most important feature of the Articles was that it provided that the several states should coin their own money – which was done to prevent the possibility of a central bank from arising and controlling our nation via debt to foreign interests, which is exactly what has happened since the Constitution was ratified. There were several attempts by agents of the Rothschilds to establish a central bank in America, but the one that finally succeeded was the Federal Reserve, which was created illegally in 1913. All the economic turmoil we are seeing today is the result of that event.
To his credit, Lincoln tried to resist one of the earlier attempts at a central bank, by having the U.S. Treasury issue “Greenbacks,” which were free of debt and competed with the currency of the central bank. This is believed to be the real reason for Lincoln’s assassination. Incidentally, John F. Kennedy made a similar attempt, to circumvent the Federal Reserve in 1963, by issuing gold and silver backed currency and writing an executive order that would have abolished the Fed. He was assassinated six weeks later and Johnson had his new currency removed from circulation and squelched the executive order to terminate the Fed. Anyone doubting any of this need only Google it to find out the truth. We are living in a nation that has been hijacked by an international banking cartel 95 years ago. It controls our government, our media, our entire culture and society, via an interlocking web of pyramidal organizations in which only those ate the top of each organization know the full agenda. Google these terms: “New World Order,” “CFR,” “Trilateral Commission,” “Operartion Northwoods,” and visit the links on my website, The Free Zone with Gary Rea. Also, visit Infowars Dot Com. Everything you think you know is WRONG.
What about the this supposed fact that Lincoln had a high pitched voice? That should be on the list! Its awesome!
I heard that he suffered from depression and so did his wife after he died. or they think now he had some mental illness or something.
hy
lincolm was killed by central bank like jfk and father (and garfiled and mckinley) cause he removed from them the monetary sovereignty or rather it prevented them to send forth coin!!!
So he soon wa killed!!
Why top tenz doesn’t remember the most important thing in common with Jfk?
What it is afraid of?Afraid of bank?
bye
It is said that Lincoln had a facial deformity, giving him his unique look.
He also smoked tha ganja!
Kennedy was shot with three bullets not one.
Last sentence of #7, oh irony.
hmmmm 4th cousin , five times removed…we are related…hahahahahaha…
OKAY here is a very interesting fact about one of lincolns son, im pretty sure it was the older one
but after lincoln died his son was walking by a train station by the train tracks, there was a train coming and he saw a boy about his age fall onto the tracks lincolns son quickly helped him to his feet before the train ran him over, they started talking and come to find out, the boy who fell was actually the son of lincolns assassiner, can you say irony??
and this is a true, yet unknown story, my dads college teacher told him this story
What about the fact that Lincoln’s race is disputed? There is evidence that suggests Lincoln had African ancestry. That’s right, he was black!
In Herndon’s book entitled “The Hidden Lincoln” he says that Thomas Lincoln could not have been Abraham Lincoln’s father because he was sterile from childhood mumps and was later castrated. Lincoln’s presidential opponents made cartoon drawings depicting him as a Negro and nicknamed him “Abraham Africanus the First.”
Wow! I hope you all get a little more respect when you’re dead and unable to defend yourselves.
As I teach History, I take great pains to never speak anything as fact that cannot be documented by official record, close friends, family or the actual person in question. Even then we must consider the motives and bias of the recorder. Just imagine the slander your neighbor, co-worker, or the pernicious relative you never got along with could with your name and reputation.
this is an awesome president man
mary lincoln did suffer from depression. she never ever came close to a theater again in her life.
it is cool how he could have seen his death a week before. Could’nt he have prevented it if he new
HOW MANY SHOOTS HE GOT IN THE HEAD
did you know that Lincoln owned dogs. cats, horses, and a turkey?