In hindsight, Abraham Lincoln joins George Washington as the two greatest Presidents in early American history. Washington leads the nation through the Revolutionary War and the 1787 Constitutional Convention that creates the Union. Lincoln restores a Union shattered by a devastating Civil War and, in ending slavery, enables America to live up to its promise of freedom, equality and justice for all.
To symbolize the end of the Civil War, a Wisconsin soldier, Sergeant Gilbert Bates, sets out in 1868 on a three month, 1400 mile “march” across six Southern states from Mississippi to Virginia, unarmed and carrying an oversized American flag. When he is not met with violence, but with hospitality, Bates cites his trip as proof that “we the people” are once again united.
In 1900, the American poet, Walt Whitman, who serves as a nurse during the Civil War, memorializes
Lincoln in a poem which captures America’s national grief over their fallen leader.
"O Captain, my Captain, our fearful trip is done.
The ship has weathered every rack,
The prize we sought is won.
The port is near, the bells I hear,
The people all exalting.
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red.
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead."
Photography Book
Abraham Lincoln