ABRAHAM LINCOLN(1809-1865)
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JEFFERSON DAVIS (1808-1889) |
| Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United
States (1861-1865). At the time he became president, the Union was
breaking apart and civil war threatened. He was one of America's
greatest presidents, though this was generally recognized only after his
death.
During his campaign for President, he stated that if elected, he would not interfere with slavery where it then existed; he would only oppose its extension. Seven Southern states had seceded by early 1861. Upon leaving Springfield, IL, for his inauguration, he remarked, "I now leave...with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the existence of the Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail." Lincoln initially attempted to avoid war with the South, but after the taking of Ft. Sumter he proclaimed, "no choice was left but to call out the war power of the Government." |
The one and only president of the Confederate States of
America. In 1847 Davis was appointed to the U.S. Senate. He
resigned from the Senate in 1851 to run for governor of Mississippi, but
was narrowly defeated. He served as secretary of war for President
Pierce and reentered the Senate in 1857. Davis was a constant
advocate of states' rights. He left Congress in 1861 when
Mississippi seceded from the Union. The provisional Congress of the
Confederacy then chose him as President. Davis had only been in
office two weeks when Lincoln was inaugurated, and a confrontation was
imminent.
Davis' government was resolved to occupy Federal property and installations in the South, and to use force if necessary. Several Federal arsenals fell to the Confederacy without incident. On April 12th, 1861, when a Federal garrison would not leave Ft. Sumter, Confederate shore and water batteries opened fire. Despite a spirited Federal defense, the inevitable surrender came on April 13, with only one Federal casualty. Thus began the War Between the States. |
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"When This Cruel War is Over" midi sequencer Barry Taylor
