Stephen Mansfield - Lincoln’s Battle with God: A President’s Struggle with Faith and What It Meant for America

1809

February 12: Abraham Lincoln is born on Sinking Spring Farm, three miles south of Hodgenville, Kentucky.

1811

The Lincoln family moves seven miles northeast of Hodgenville to a farm on Knob Creek. Abraham is two years old.

1816

In December, the Lincolns make a new home along the banks of Pigeon Creek in Indiana, near present-day Gentryville.

1818

October 5: Abrahams mother, Nancy, dies of milk sickness.

1819

December 2: Lincolns father, Thomas, marries Sarah Bush Johnston.

1828

January 20: Abrahams beloved older sister, Sarah, dies while giving birth.
Spring: He makes his first flatboat trip to New Orleans and sees for the first time the horrors of slavery.

1830

In March, the Lincolns move to Illinois and settle near what is now Decatur.

1831

In July, Abraham leaves his family and settles alone in New Salem, Illinois. He comes under the influence of what William H. Herndon calls religious liberals.

1832

Lincoln serves as captain of a militia in the Blackhawk War. He has his first of several experiences with prostitutes. He runs for the state legislature and is defeated. He reads critics of Christianity such as Volney, Gibbon, and Paine.

1834

Lincoln is elected to the Illinois General Assembly as a representative from Sangamon County. He remains in the assembly for the next twelve years.

1835

Either in this year or the next, Lincoln pens his book on infidelity, in which he criticizes the Bible and the Christian religion.

1836

September 9: The Illinois Supreme Court permits Lincoln to practice law.

1837

March 3: Abraham Lincoln enters the first formal protest of his life against slavery, this one in the Illinois legislature.
April 15: At twenty-eight years of age, Lincoln moves to Springfield, Illinois, and shares a room with Joshua Speed. Lincoln becomes the junior law partner of John Todd Stuart.

1838

Lincoln writes The Suicides Soliloquy, revealing the depressed state of his soul at the time.

1839

September 3: Lincoln begins riding the Eighth Judicial Circuit.
Mary Todd moves to Springfield and meets Lincoln later in the year at a ball.

1840

Lincoln and Mary Todd begin courting.

1841

Lincoln and Todd break off their relationship. Lincoln enters one of the worst hypos (depressions) of his life. Friends take razors and knives from his room to guard against suicide.

1842

Lincoln and Todd renew their relationship in secret.
November 4: Abraham and Mary are wed. They take a room at the Globe Tavern boarding house on Adams Street in Springfield.

1843

August 1: Robert Todd Lincoln is born to Abraham and Mary. The Lincolns move briefly to a cottage on Fourth Street.

1844

January 16: Lincoln purchases the only house he will ever own, at the corner of Eighth and Jackson. The three Lincolns move in on May 1. Lincoln starts his own law firm with Herndon as his junior partner.

1846

March 10: Edward Baker Lincoln (Eddie) is born. Lincoln issues his handbill countering the charges of Reverend Peter Cartwright about religious infidelity.
August 3: Lincoln is elected to the U. S. House of Representatives from the Seventh Congressional District of Illinois.

1847

December 6: Lincoln takes his seat in Congress.

1848

Lincoln sends Mary and his sons back to Lexington because he believes they hinder him in business.

1849

Lincoln proposes a measure to outlaw slavery in the District of Columbia just before completing his congressional term. He happens upon Dr. James Smiths The Christians Defence in his father-in-laws library in Lexington, Kentucky.

1850

February 1: Eddie Lincoln dies after fighting a diseaseprobably tuberculosisfor fifty-two days. He is just shy of his fourth birthday.
December 21: William Wallace Lincoln is born in the Lincoln home.

1851

January 17: Thomas Lincoln, Abrahams father, dies.

1852

Mary joins the Presbyterian church in Springfield. Lincoln occasionally attends with her. Reverend Smith, author of The Christians Defence, is the churchs pastor.

1853

April 4: Thomas (Tad) Lincoln is born in the Lincoln home.

1854

May 30: