Lincoln Raw

Soul of a poet - son on a farmer

Included in the Lincoln Collection of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library

Abraham Lincoln reflects on the man he sees when he looks in a mirror and tells the story of a rudderless youth who finds his North Star.

Seven-year-old Abraham Lincoln's boyhood dies when his father drags their family from the relative comfort of Kentucky into an unforgiving Indiana wilderness. While suffering rebuke for teaching himself to read and write, Abraham endures rumors of illegitimate birth, escapes death a half-dozen times, labors to repay his father's debts, and grieves the deaths of his infant brother, angel mother, precious sister, and beloved sweetheart.

By his early thirties, he casts off his parents' religion, becomes estranged from his closest friend, and loses faith in his own character when he breaks an engagement to marry a woman he doesn't love. He spirals into life-threatening depression. In the prime of life, unable to keep a pledge made to his dying mother to become someone special, he wrestles with self-doubt, abandons politics, and resigns himself to a life of mediocrity. But when his long-time rival opens the door for slavery's expansion across half the globe, Lincoln faces the greatest challenge of his life-his beloved country is being ripped apart.