Walt Whitman, who worked as a nurse in the hospital wards, that the harrowing experience made one’s “little cares and difficulties” disappear “into n… - Doris Kearns Goodwin

On a hot summer night in July 1836, an organized mob broke into the shop where the abolitionist weekly was printed, dismantled the press, and tore up the edition that was about to be circulated.

Shortly before she left for New York, she received an unwelcome present from South Carolina — a painting depicting Lincoln “with a rope around his neck, his feet chained and his body adorned with tar and feathers.

When asked years later why Lincoln had won, he said: “The leader of a political party in a country like ours is so exposed that his enemies become as numerous and formidable as his friends.