// The Chapters
From the Log Cabin to the Marble Memorial
Six acts. Fifty-six years. One war that defined a nation. One man who held it all together.
1809 - 1836 · The Frontier
Self-Made on the Prairie
A boy who owned nothing but a borrowed book and a will to become something more.
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a one-room log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. His family moved to Indiana when he was seven, fleeing a land-title dispute. His mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of milk sickness in 1818 when Abraham was nine. His father Thomas remarried Sarah Bush Johnston, who encouraged the boy's voracious reading. Lincoln had less than a year of formal schooling in his entire life. He read the Bible, Aesop's Fables, Robinson Crusoe, and Weems' Life of Washington by firelight. At 22, he settled in New Salem, Illinois, where he worked as a shopkeeper, postmaster, and surveyor before winning election to the Illinois state legislature in 1834.
The Log Cabin
February 12, 1809 · Sinking Spring Farm, Kentucky
A child is born in a one-room cabin with a dirt floor, sixteen feet by eighteen feet. No windows. His father is a carpenter and farmer. His mother cannot write her own name. This child will save a republic.
Nancy's Death
October 5, 1818 · Little Pigeon Creek, Indiana
Nancy Hanks Lincoln dies of milk sickness at 34. Nine-year-old Abraham helps his father build the coffin from green pine. He carves the pegs himself. He will later say he owed everything he was to his "angel mother."
New Salem
1831 · New Salem, Illinois
A 22-year-old Lincoln arrives in New Salem with no money, no family connections, and no education. Within three years, the townspeople will elect him to the state legislature. They see something in the gangly six-foot-four stranger that he hasn't yet seen in himself.
Off the Record
Lincoln suffered from what he called "the hypo" — severe depression that plagued him his entire life. After the death of Ann Rutledge in 1835, a woman many historians believe was his first love, friends removed all knives and razors from his room, fearing he would take his own life. He once wrote: "I am now the most miserable man living."
1836 - 1860 · The Making of a Leader
The Prairie Lawyer
He lost more than he won. Every defeat sharpened the instrument that would save the Union.
Lincoln moved to Springfield in 1837, taught himself law, and was admitted to the Illinois bar. He married Mary Todd in 1842 — a volatile, brilliant woman from a prominent Kentucky slaveholding family. He served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives (1847-49), opposing the Mexican-American War. Then he returned to his law practice, seemingly finished in politics. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 pulled him back. His debates with Stephen Douglas in 1858 — seven debates across Illinois on the question of slavery's expansion — made him a national figure. He lost the Senate race but won something larger: a voice that the entire country was now listening to.
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
August - October 1858 · Seven Illinois towns
Seven debates. Seven towns. Thousands of spectators standing in fields for hours. Douglas calls Lincoln a radical. Lincoln asks simply: "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." He loses the Senate race. He wins the argument that will define the next century.
Cooper Union
February 27, 1860 · New York City
1,500 New York elites pack the Great Hall to see the western curiosity. Lincoln delivers a meticulous legal argument proving the Founders intended to restrict slavery's expansion. The speech makes the front page of every major newspaper. "Right makes might," he declares. The presidency is now within reach.
The Nomination
May 18, 1860 · The Wigwam, Chicago
On the third ballot at the Republican National Convention, Lincoln defeats William Seward for the presidential nomination. His managers packed the gallery with supporters holding counterfeit tickets. The self-taught lawyer from the prairie is the Republican nominee for President of the United States.
Off the Record
Lincoln's marriage to Mary Todd was famously turbulent. She threw things. He withdrew into silence. He once told his law partner William Herndon that his marriage was "a matter of profound wonder." Yet they were bound by shared grief — three of their four sons would die, two in childhood. Their love was real, complicated, and forged in constant loss.
1861 - 1863 · The War Begins
A House Divided
He took the oath on March 4. By April 12, Fort Sumter was under fire. The nation was at war with itself.
Seven states seceded before Lincoln even took office. Fort Sumter fell on April 12, 1861, and four more states joined the Confederacy. Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers. He suspended habeas corpus. He fired generals who wouldn't fight — Irvin McDowell, George McClellan, Ambrose Burnside, Joseph Hooker. Bull Run was a disaster. Shiloh was a bloodbath. Antietam produced 23,000 casualties in a single day — the deadliest day in American history. Through all of it, Lincoln searched desperately for a general who would actually wage war with the ferocity the moment demanded.
Scene 22
filmed
Fort Sumter, South Carolina
War Begins
The First Shot
April 12, 1861 · Charleston Harbor
At 4:30 AM, Confederate batteries open fire on Fort Sumter. Major Robert Anderson and 85 Union soldiers withstand 34 hours of bombardment before surrendering. No one dies in the battle. 750,000 will die before it ends.
34 hrs of bombardment
0 combat deaths
Scene 28
filmed
Antietam, Maryland
23,000 Casualties
The Bloodiest Day
September 17, 1862 · Sharpsburg, Maryland
23,000 men fall in twelve hours along Antietam Creek. The cornfield changes hands fifteen times. The Sunken Road fills with bodies three deep. It is a tactical draw but a strategic Union victory — and it gives Lincoln the opening he needs to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
23,000 casualties
12 hours
The Emancipation Proclamation
January 1, 1863 · The White House
Lincoln signs the proclamation freeing all enslaved people in rebel states. His hand trembles — not from doubt, but from hours of handshaking at the New Year's reception. "If my name ever goes into history," he says, "it will be for this act." He signs with a steady hand.
Off the Record
Lincoln's son Willie died of typhoid fever in the White House on February 20, 1862, at age 11. Mary Todd Lincoln was so devastated she never entered the room where he died again. Lincoln himself was seen standing at Willie's crypt, asking the groundskeeper to open the coffin so he could look at his boy's face one more time. He carried this grief through every battle, every casualty report, every decision to send more men to die.
1863 - 1864 · The Crucible
The Gettysburg Moment
272 words. Two minutes. The most important speech in American history.
Gettysburg — July 1-3, 1863. 51,000 casualties across three days. Pickett's Charge failed and the Confederacy's offensive capability was broken forever. Four months later, Lincoln stood on the battlefield and delivered 272 words that redefined what America meant. "Four score and seven years ago" became sacred text. Meanwhile, Grant took Vicksburg, splitting the Confederacy in two. Lincoln finally had his general. In March 1864, he gave Ulysses S. Grant command of all Union armies. The war of attrition had begun.
Scene 35
filmed
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
51,000 Casualties
Three Days at Gettysburg
July 1-3, 1863 · Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
The largest battle ever fought on American soil. 165,000 men. Little Round Top holds by bayonet charge. Pickett's 12,500 men walk across a mile of open field into concentrated artillery fire. The high-water mark of the Confederacy. Lee retreats south. He will never invade the North again.
51,000 total casualties
3 days
The Gettysburg Address
November 19, 1863 · Soldiers' National Cemetery
Edward Everett speaks for two hours. Lincoln speaks for two minutes. 272 words that redefine the purpose of the war: not just preservation of the Union but a "new birth of freedom." The crowd barely applauds. Lincoln thinks the speech is a failure. It will become the most quoted presidential address in history.
Grant Takes Command
March 9, 1864 · The White House
Lincoln promotes Ulysses S. Grant to Lieutenant General — a rank last held by George Washington. "I can't spare this man," Lincoln had said earlier. "He fights." Grant will lose 65,000 men in the Overland Campaign. He will not retreat a single step.
1864 - 1865 · The Final Act
With Malice Toward None
He won the war. He won re-election. He forgave the South. They killed him for it.
In November 1864, Lincoln won re-election against George McClellan — the very general he had fired. Sherman took Atlanta and marched to the sea. Grant besieged Petersburg for nine months. On April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House. The war was over. Five days later, Lincoln sat in Box 7 at Ford's Theatre watching "Our American Cousin." John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, shot him in the back of the head at 10:13 PM. Lincoln died the next morning at 7:22 AM in a boarding house across the street. He was 56 years old.
Second Inaugural Address
March 4, 1865 · U.S. Capitol
"With malice toward none, with charity for all." Lincoln calls for reconciliation even before the war is over. Frederick Douglass, in the crowd, calls it "a sacred effort." John Wilkes Booth is also in the crowd — watching, planning.
Scene 58
post-production
Appomattox Court House
Surrender
Lee Surrenders
April 9, 1865 · Appomattox, Virginia
Robert E. Lee, in his finest dress uniform, surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant, who arrives in a mud-spattered private's coat. Grant's terms are generous — Lincoln's influence is everywhere. Officers keep their sidearms. Soldiers keep their horses. The killing is done.
Ford's Theatre
April 14, 1865 · Washington, D.C.
10:13 PM. John Wilkes Booth enters Box 7 during the third act. A single .44 caliber derringer ball enters behind Lincoln's left ear. Mary Todd screams. Booth leaps to the stage, breaks his leg, shouts "Sic semper tyrannis." Lincoln never regains consciousness. He dies at 7:22 AM, April 15. Secretary Stanton whispers: "Now he belongs to the ages."
Off the Record
On the afternoon of April 14 — hours before his assassination — Lincoln told Mary he wanted to visit the Holy Land and see Jerusalem. He also told his bodyguard, William Crook, "Goodbye" instead of his usual "Good night." Crook later wrote that it was the only time Lincoln ever said goodbye to him. Lincoln had dreamed of his own assassination days earlier, telling Ward Hill Lamon about a corpse lying in the East Room of the White House.
1865 - Present · The Afterlife
Now He Belongs to the Ages
They built him a memorial in marble. His real monument is the country that survived.
Lincoln's funeral train traveled 1,654 miles from Washington to Springfield, Illinois, over thirteen days. Millions lined the tracks. He was buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery on May 4, 1865. The 13th Amendment, which he had pushed through Congress in January 1865, formally abolished slavery in December. The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in 1922. In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. stood on its steps and declared "I have a dream." Lincoln consistently ranks as the greatest or second-greatest American president in every major historical survey. The rail-splitter from Kentucky, who taught himself to read by firelight, held together a nation and ended the original sin of American slavery.
The Funeral Train
April 21 - May 4, 1865 · Washington to Springfield
1,654 miles. Thirteen days. The train retraces the route Lincoln took to Washington as president-elect. Millions of Americans stand along the tracks in silence. In Philadelphia, 300,000 people file past the open coffin in a single day.
The 13th Amendment
December 6, 1865 · Ratified by the States
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States." Lincoln had pushed the amendment through the House on January 31, 1865, by a vote of 119-56. He did not live to see its ratification. The institution he called "a monstrous injustice" was finally, constitutionally, dead.