Q: Where was Abraham Lincoln born?
A: According to Lincoln, he was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky. He wrote, “I was born on February 12, 1809, in the then Hardin County, Kentucky, at a point within the now county of LaRue, a mile or a mile and a half from where Hodgen’s Mill now is.”
Lincoln’s parents, Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, lived on the 348-acre Sinking Spring Farm, located near present-day Hodgenville. Two years later, the family moved ten miles away to their Knob Creek Farm. Lincoln later stated, “My earliest recollection is of the Knob Creek Place.” He first went to school in a log schoolhouse near this farm.
Lincoln’s birthplace is now commemorated at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site in Hodgenville. The Knob Creek Farm is interpreted at the Lincoln Boyhood Home at Knob Creek, which is also a National Park.
Q: What were Lincoln’s wife’s Kentucky family connections?
A: Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, was a Kentuckian. Her grandfather, Levi Todd, was a pioneer founder of Lexington, Kentucky, and her great-uncle, Robert Todd, cast the deciding vote to make Frankfort the Bluegrass State’s capital. Another great-uncle, John Todd, was killed at the Battle of Blue Licks, Kentucky, one of the last battles of the Revolutionary War. Todd County, Kentucky, is named in his honor.
Mary Todd Lincoln’s father was Robert S. Todd, a merchant, banker, politician, and attorney. Born on February 25, 1791, Robert was Levi Todd’s seventh child. Robert entered Transylvania University at age fourteen and, upon graduation, studied law. After serving in the War of 1812, Todd married Eliza Parker and opened a grocery in downtown Lexington. He served as clerk of the Kentucky House of Representatives, was on the Fayette County Court, and became a prominent Whig politician. In July 1825, after giving birth to son George Rogers Clark Todd, Eliza Todd died. Robert, thirty-four years old, was left a widower with six small children, including young Mary Ann, the future first lady. Robert later married Betsy Humphreys, and the future Mary Todd Lincoln had frequent quarrels with her stepmother. Robert S. Todd died on July 16, 1849.
Mary Ann Todd was the fourth child of Robert and Eliza Todd. Born in Lexington on December 13, 1818, Mary studied in local academies before moving to Springfield, Illinois, in 1839. According to Jean Baker, author of Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography, Mary’s “twelve years in school made her one of the best-educated women of her era.” While in Springfield, Mary lived with her sister, Elizabeth Edwards. Here, she met Abraham Lincoln, then an attorney and state legislator. They married, after once breaking off the engagement, in November 1842.
Five years later, Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress, and Mary and their children joined him in Washington. After Lincoln’s election in 1860, Mary, as first lady, worked to improve the White House, visited the wounded in area hospitals, and raised money for the Federal war effort. The death of son Willie in the White House in February 1862, coupled with the stresses that the Civil War brought upon her family, sank Mary into a deep depression. Her husband’s assassination three years later was another in a long line of tragedies.
In the years following President Lincoln’s death, Mary suffered financial problems (partly alleviated by a Congressional pension) and avoided the public limelight. She lived in Germany for several years, and, after her return, her son Tad also died. In 1875, her surviving son, Robert, a successful attorney, had her committed to a sanitarium in Illinois. Procuring her release nearly four months later, Mary moved to France. She returned, as her health failed, in 1880. She died on July 16, 1882, at her sister’s home in Springfield, Illinois.
Q: Who was Lincoln’s best friend?
A: Lincoln’s best friend, Joshua Speed, was a Kentuckian. Speed, a Louisville native, met Lincoln when the future president moved to Springfield, Illinois, in 1837. Speed owned a store, and Speed and Lincoln lived in the building as roommates. Speed eventually moved back to Louisville where he lived at Farmington, his family home. During the Civil War, Speed was a close confidant to President Lincoln. Joshua Speed’s brother, James Speed, served as U. S. attorney general for the Lincoln administration.
Q: What political figure did Lincoln most admire?
A: Lincoln’s political idol, Henry Clay, was a Kentuckian. Clay was the founder of the Whig Party’s “American System,” which advocated higher tariffs, a national bank, and internal improvements, including roads and canals. Clay and his supporters believed that these measures would spur economic development for the western states. Clay, a lawyer from Lexington, served in the Kentucky legislature, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate. Clay unsuccessfully ran for President several times and was Kentucky’s most prominent nineteenth-century politician. Clay was a good friend of Mary Todd Lincoln’s family, an alliance that impressed Lincoln when courting his future wife.
Q: Did Kentuckians support Lincoln when he ran for President?
A: Kentuckians did not vote for Abraham Lincoln during the crucial presidential election of 1860. That year, four candidates ran for the presidency: Lincoln (Republican), Kentuckian John C. Breckinridge (Southern Democrat), Stephen Douglas (Northern Democrat), and John Bell (Constitutional Union). Most Kentuckians supported Bell, who called for the preservation of the Union. Lincoln received only 1,364 votes in Kentucky. Of these, only five came from Fayette County, the home of his in-laws.
Kentuckians also failed to support Lincoln in 1864, when he ran for his second term. His opponent, Union Major General George B. McClellan, garnered 61,478 votes in Kentucky, while Lincoln secured 26,592. Most Kentuckians did not support Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and, by 1864, were angered over the enlistment of African American soldiers and what they perceived to be heavy-handed Union military policy in the Bluegrass State.
Q: What was the governor of Kentucky's reaction to the Civil War?
A: Following the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to suppress the rebellion. This call to arms against the seceded states pushed several of the middle states, including Virginia and Tennessee, to join the Confederacy. Lincoln asked Kentucky to provide four regiments. At the time, Kentucky was trying to remain neutral in the conflict and was hoping that the Bluegrass State could lead the way in forging a compromise between the warring sections. In response to Lincoln’s request for soldiers, Governor Beriah Magoffin refused, stating, “Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern states.”
Although Kentucky did not initially furnish any state troops, the commonwealth’s neutral stance quickly crumbled as Union and Confederate recruiting agents scoured the Bluegrass State. Eventually, more than 100,000 Kentuckians served in the contending armies, with approximately 75,000 on the Union side and 30,000 serving the Confederacy.
Q: What was Lincoln’s view of Kentucky during the Civil War?
A: Lincoln understood the importance of the border state of Kentucky. He reputedly said, “I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky.” Early in the conflict, Lincoln told a U.S. senator, “I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky gone, we can not hold Missouri, nor, as I think, Maryland. These all against us, and the job on our hands is too large for us. We would as well consent to separation at once, including the surrender of this capitol.” He knew the importance that the Bluegrass State would play during the Civil War.
Q: What side did Mary Todd Lincoln’s family support?
A: Most of Lincoln’s in-laws, the Todd family of Kentucky, supported the Confederacy. When the conflict erupted, Lincoln offered the post of paymaster to his brother-in-law, Benjamin Hardin Helm. Helm, from Bardstown, Kentucky, was married to Emilie Todd, who was Mary Todd Lincoln’s half-sister. Helm turned down this post. Instead, he joined the Confederate army and eventually led the famed “Orphan Brigade,” which was Kentucky’s most famous infantry unit. Helm was killed on September 20, 1863, at the Battle of Chickamauga. Lincoln reportedly wept when he heard the news.
After Helm’s death, his widow, Emilie Todd Helm, visited Abraham and Mary Lincoln in the White House. This created a stir in Washington, and newspapers complained when Lincoln’s rebel sister-in-law visited. Union General Daniel Sickles told Lincoln, “You should not have that rebel in your house.” The president retorted, “General Sickles, my wife and I are in the habit of choosing our own guests. We do not need from our friends either advice or assistance in the manner.” These divisions created bitterness in the family. Later, when Emilie was seeking the president’s permission to travel into the Confederacy to sell cotton, she told Lincoln that she had been “a quiet citizen and request only the right which humanity and Justice always give to Widows and orphans. I also would remind you that your Minnie bullets have made us what we are & I feel I have that additional claim upon you.”
Helm’s death was not the only tragedy to strike the family. Mary’s half-brother, Samuel Todd, was killed at the April 1862, Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee, while fighting for the Confederacy. Another half-brother, Alexander Todd, was killed at the Battle of Baton Rouge while serving as Helm’s aide-de-camp.
Several of Mary Todd Lincoln’s other siblings were also Confederate soldiers or sympathizers. Her brother, George Rogers Clark Todd, was a Confederate surgeon, and half-brother David H. Todd was a captain in the Southern army. David also served as commandant of the controversial Libby Prison in Richmond, where many Union prisoners of war died.
Mary’s half-sister, Martha, was married to Clement White, a Southern sympathizer. Lincoln was criticized for allowing her to freely travel between Northern and Southern states. Newspapers charged that during these trips Martha carried contraband goods into the Confederacy. Another one of Mary Lincoln’s half-sisters, Elodie, married N. H. R. Dawson, a Confederate captain from Alabama.
The Todd family’s connections to the Confederacy continued even after the Civil War. In 1866, Mary Lincoln’s half-sister, Katherine, married William Wallace Herr of Louisville, who had been a Confederate soldier. Herr served in the 1st Kentucky Cavalry, which Ben Hardin Helm helped organize. The Herrs ventured to name one of their children after Helm.
The Civil War split other prominent Kentucky families. U. S. Senator John J. Crittenden had one son who was a Union general and another who was a Confederate general. Union Colonel Charles Hanson, who led the 20th Kentucky Infantry Regiment, had two brothers fight for the Confederacy, including Brigadier General Roger Hanson, who was killed at the Battle of Stones River, Tennessee. The Reverend Robert J. Breckinridge, a staunch Unionist who helped sway Federal military policy in Kentucky, had two sons fight for the North and two fight for the South. These scenarios were repeated in scores of Bluegrass families. Kentucky truly was a state divided.
Q: How has Kentucky remembered President Lincoln?
A: Kentucky has commemorated—and interpreted—Abraham Lincoln through museums, statues, highway markers, and monuments. Kentuckians have preserved Lincoln heritage sites so that future generations can gain a greater understanding of America’s sixteenth president.
Some of the following sites interpret Lincoln and his policies:
Lincoln Homestead State Park, Springfield
The Lincoln Homestead State Park interprets the ancestry and family of Abraham Lincoln. Several buildings are on site, including the Lincoln Cabin (a replica of the home of Lincoln’s grandmother, Bersheba), the Francis Berry House (an original log structure), the blacksmith shop (a replica of a shop similar to the one where Thomas Lincoln learned his trade), and the Mordecai Lincoln House (built by Lincoln’s uncle).
Abraham Lincoln Birthplace and Boyhood Home National Historic Site, Hodgenville
Known as the Sinking Spring Farm, this is where Thomas Lincoln and his wife, Sarah, moved into a one-room log cabin. Here, Abraham Lincoln was born. This National Park includes a memorial building that holds the Lincoln cabin, the Sinking Spring, and hiking trails. The nearby Lincoln Boyhood Home at Knob Creek is also a National Park.
Mary Todd Lincoln House, Lexington
Located in downtown Lexington, this house museum interprets the Todd family and Mary Todd Lincoln. Mary Todd Lincoln’s family moved here in 1832, when Mary was fourteen. In 1839, Mary moved to Springfield, Illinois, to live with her sister. There, she met Abraham Lincoln.
The Lincoln Museum, Hodgenville
Located on the Hodgenville town square, the Lincoln Museum interprets phases of the president’s life though lifelike wax figures. The museum also includes other memorabilia related to Lincoln and the Civil War.
The Lincoln Statue, Hodgenville Public Square
Across from the Lincoln Museum is a Lincoln statue depicting a seated, reflective president. Created by Adolph A. Weinman, a replica of this statue is on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison. The statue commemorates Hodgenville’s most honored son.
The Lincoln Statue, Capitol Rotunda, Frankfort
Another Adolph A. Weinman statue of President Lincoln stands in the State Capitol Rotunda in Frankfort. Cast in 1911, this statue was commissioned by Lincoln’s friend J. B. Speed and was created at the Roman Bronzeworks in New York. When the statue was presented to the commonwealth, it was unveiled by President William H. Taft. The piece is surrounded by statues of other notable Kentuckians, including Henry Clay, Ephraim McDowell (the father of modern surgery), Alben Barkley, and Jefferson Davis.
Farmington, Louisville
This house museum, built in 1810 by John Speed, interprets the Speed family, including Lincoln’s best friend, Joshua. Speed and his brother, James, were important Kentucky Unionists during the Civil War. Lincoln visited this house in 1841.
Camp Nelson, Jessamine County
Camp Nelson, the nation’s largest African American recruiting ground during the Civil War, interprets the role of the United States Colored Troops, who were African American soldiers who fought for the Union. The enlistment of African Americans was a policy that Lincoln advocated, despite the fact that the policy angered many Kentuckians.
Abraham Lincoln Highway Markers
More than fifty Kentucky Historical Highway Markers, produced by the Kentucky Historical Society in partnership with local communities, interpret Lincoln’s life from birth to his assassination. Located across Kentucky, these markers relate to Lincoln, his family, and his policies.