Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809, in Kentucky, but moved to Indiana with his family when he was eight. His mother died when he was ten and both of his parents came from undistinguished families. He did not grow up with a proper education, but he was able to read and write. He married Mary Todd in 1842 and had four children, but only one of them lived to maturity. In 1858, he ran against Stephen Douglas for the position of Senator. Lincoln did not win but he gained a reputation that got him elected as president in 1860. When he ran for president he went against his rival, Stephen Douglas. This time in the polls, he got 44% of the popular votes and got 180 of the electoral college votes. Lincoln’s presidential cabinet was made of many of his political rivals which included: William Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Edwin Stanton. After he was elected, 7 states left the Union and joined the Confederacy due to his election. In the morning of April 12, 1861, the Confederates opened fire on a Union harbor, and it sparked the start of the Civil War. After that incident, President Lincoln gave two million dollars from the Treasury to supply war materials. He also called for seventy-five thousand volunteers for the war without the approval from Congress. He began imprisoning all suspected Confederates or Confederate sympathizers after the first year and a half the war started. When the Union won the battle of Antietam on September 22, 1862, it made Abraham Lincoln change the cause of the war from uniting the states to abolishing slavery. After the war of Gettysburg, the president was invited to come speak on behave of the ones that died and he gave one of his most famous and most memorable speeches ever. In 1864, the confederates had hunkered down to a guerilla war and Lincoln thought that he would be a one term president. He was challenged for his presidency by a man named George B. McClellan, a former Potomac commander. In the end Lincoln won by a land slide with 55% of the popular votes and 218 of 243 of the electoral colleges. On march 1865, Robert E. Lee, the Commander of the Confederate forces surrendered to the Ulysses S. Grant, Commander of