50 Patriotic Facts about Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln once pranked his stepmother (Sarah Bush Lincoln) by leaving muddy footprints on the ceiling.

27. Young Abraham Lincoln considered joining the Donner Party in California. The group is notorious for mass cannibalism after becoming trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for 5 months during the winter. He eventually declined due to a budding political career, a toddler, and a pregnant wife.

28. In 1863, President Lincoln signed the "Order of Retaliation". For every US soldier killed or enslaved in violation of the laws of war, a Confederate prisoner was to be killed or enslaved.

29. Abraham Lincoln's interest in law started at the bottom of a barrel. Lincoln was running a store when he bought a barrel full of rubbish from a traveler. Upon emptying the barrel Lincoln found a complete set of 'Blackstone's Commentaries' which he spent more time reading than manning the store.

30. Abraham Lincoln did not instantly die from being shot in the head. He stayed alive until 7:22 am the next morning.

In an 1855 letter, Abraham Lincoln feared the "Know-Nothings" would expand discrimination, "I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy."

32. Abraham Lincoln did not invite his father, Thomas Lincoln, to his wedding nor did he ever introduce him to his wife and kids due to his abusive nature.

33. Abraham Lincoln was a big fan of John Wilkes Booth and even invited him to The White House once.

34. Abraham Lincoln arrested pro-confederate members of Maryland's legislature as they were headed to a vote on whether Maryland would secede from the Union, in order to prevent Maryland from seceding.

35. Abraham Lincoln is the only president in U.S. history to also have been a licensed bartender.

Abraham Lincoln had dual citizenship. His second citizenship was granted to him by the San Marino government at the beginning of the American Civil War.

37. Abraham Lincoln donated $10 to Ireland during the Great Famine.

38. Abraham Lincoln's religious views are highly ambiguous and a matter of debate. He never joined any Church, and was a skeptic as a young man and sometimes ridiculed revivalists. Many friends and family of Lincoln rejected that he was a believing Christian.

39. Whenever Abraham Lincoln felt the urge to tell someone off, he would compose a “hot letter.” He’d pile all of his anger into a note and put it aside until his emotions cooled down. He would then write: ‘Never sent. Never signed.’

40. Abraham Lincoln suffered from many visual problems, including strabismus, which made it difficult for him to look people in the eye. He also switched between multiple pairs of glasses for various uses due to farsightedness

During the Civil War, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and oversaw mass arrests of up to 38,000 antiwar protesters and journalists in the North.

42. Abraham Lincoln had very little formal schooling and was largely self-educated.

43. Abraham Lincoln suffered from a lifelong “melancholy,” a condition we now call clinical depression. His suffering was so severe, that his community had to put him under a “suicide watch.” He also refused to carry a knife, because he feared he would harm himself.

44. Abraham Lincoln set the national day for Thanksgiving in 1863 partially to celebrate “the advancing armies and navies of the Union.“

45. In 1862, Abraham Lincoln wanted to deport free African Americans to Brazil. The plan failed because Brazil said no.

Abraham Lincoln created the secret service just hours before he was assassinated.

47. Abraham Lincoln's corpse was sent on a two-week funeral tour across America, shown openly to thousands. In the course of the trip, the body visibly decomposed, bloated, and darkened. In New York City alone, the body was seen by over 150,000 and exposed to the air for 23 hours straight.

48. Many famous people have claimed to have seen Abraham Lincoln's ghost in the White House, including Winston Churchill, President Lyndon Johnson, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, First Lady Grace Coolidge, and Theodore Roosevelt.

49. California’s newspapers received word of Abraham Lincoln’s election victory only 7 days and 17 hours after the East Coast papers. It was an “unrivaled feat at the time.” In the prior election, it took months to get news of James Buchanan’s win.

50. Abraham Lincoln’s family line is believed to have gone extinct in 1985 after the death of his last great-grandson. While other relatives exist, no direct descendants of the former president are alive today.