v.1 "I have seen a good deal of the back side of this world": Childhood in Kentucky (1809-1816) -- "I used to be a slave": boyhood and adolescence in Indiana (1816-1830) -- "Separated from his father, he studied English grammar": New Salem (1831-1834) -- "A Napoleon of astuteness and political finesse": frontier legislator (1834-1837) -- "We must fight the devil with fire": Slasher-Gaff Politico in Springfield (1837-1841) -- "It would just kill me to marry Mary Todd": courtship and marriage (1840-1842) -- "I have got the preacher by the balls": pursuing a seat in congress (1843-1847) -- "A strong but judicious enemy to slavery": Congressman Lincoln (1847-1849) -- "I was losing interest in politics and went to the practice of law with greater earnestness than ever before": confronting mortality (1849-1854) -- "Aroused as he had never been before": reentering politics, (1854-1855) -- "Unite with us, and help us to triumph": building the Illinois Republican Party (1855-1857) -- "A house divided": Lincoln vs. Douglas (1857-1858) -- "A David greater than the Democratic Goliath": The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858) -- That presidential grub gnaws deep: pursuing the Republican nomination (1859-1860) -- "The most available presidential candidate for unadulterated Republicans": The Chicago Convention (May 1860) -- "I have been elected mainly on the cry 'honest old Abe'": the presidential campaign (May- November 1860) -- "I will suffer death before I will consent to any concession or compromise": President-elect in Springfield, 1860-1861 -- "What if I appoint Cameron, whose very name stinks in the nostrils of the people for his corruption?": cabinet-making in Springfield, 1860-1861. v.2 "The man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am, but it may be necessary to put the food down firmly": from Springfield to Washington (February 11-22, 1861) -- "I am now going to be master": inauguration (February 23- March 4, 1861) -- "A man so busy letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can't stop to put out the fire that is burning in the other": distribution patronage (March-April 1861) -- "You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors": the Fort Sumter crisis (March-April 1861) -- "I intend to give blows": the hundred days (April-July 1861) -- Sitzkrieg: the phony war (August 1861-January 1862) -- "This damned old house": the Lincoln family in the executive mansion -- :I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or congress or the country forsakes me": from the slough of despond to the gates of Richmond (January-July 1862) -- "The hour comes for dealing with slavery": playing the last trump card (January-July 1862) -- "Would you prosecute the war with Elder-Stalk Squirts, charged with rose water?": the Emancipation Proclamation (July-September 1862) -- "I am not a bold man, but I have the knack of sticking to my promises!": the Emancipation Proclamation (September-December 1862) -- "Go forward, and give us victories": from the mud march to Gettysburg (January-July 1863) -- "The signs look better": victory at the polls and in the field (July-November 1863) -- "I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the county's cause": reconstruction and renomination (November 1863-June 1864) -- "Hold on with a Bulldog grip and chew and choke as much as possible": the grand offense (May- August 1864) -- "The wisest radical of all reelection (September- November 1864) -- "Let the thing be pressed": victory at last (November 1864-April 1865) -- "I feel a presentiment that I shall not outlast the rebellion. When it is over, my work will be done." the final days (April 9-15, 1865).
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