Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809-April 15, 1865), known as "Honest Abe" and "The Rail Splitter of the Great Emancipator" was born in Hodgenville, KY to Thomas and Nancy Lincoln in a one-room log cabin built by his father.
             Growing up on the frontier gave Lincoln certain strengths such as self-reliance, patience and understanding. Survival itself demanded them.
             No one can tell a completely "true" story of any piece of the past.
             In the case of Abraham Lincoln, it is difficult to sort out the fact from the legend.
             There are no contemporary records of his childhood except indirect and relatively insignificant documents such as bills of sale. Both of Lincoln's parents were illiterate, so the tapestry of letters one often finds in educated families is absent.
             Myth-makers found great material in Lincoln's early years because of the lack of evidence about them and because of the idealizing needs of a country reunited after a terrible civil war.
             The years of Lincoln's youth and maturity, though better documented, also have been caught up in exaggeration and legend. None of us can remain totally free from the legends of Abraham Lincoln for they are too deeply embedded in the American conscious.
             The "real" Lincoln remains obscure to us all.
             Through analysis of historical letters and documents, we can only hope to reach a better understanding of the man and what made him a uniquely fitted leader for a nation rent by discord.
             Of what little is known of Lincoln's parentage, separating truth from rumor and in reading what was written of them in his own hand, we can say for certain that Abe loved his mother, Nancy dearly, as he did his stepmother, Sarah, and that although he did name his fourth son after his father, Thomas, he did not have much respect for the man he described as "a wandering labor boy" who grew up &quo...