By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2024-2025, All Rights Reserved
Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the February 2025 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.
Happy Abraham Lincoln’s birthday! Because the February 2025 Roundtable meeting happened to fall on Abe’s birthday, it is altogether fitting and proper that that month’s history brief focused on Lincoln’s boyhood. But due to the history brief format, the focus was more narrowly on President Lincoln’s education and learning, or perhaps better stated, Lincoln’s self-education.
Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 at Sinking Spring farm, near Hodgenville in Hardin County, in western Kentucky. At the age of two, his family moved to Knob Creek farm about ten miles north. By the age of five, Lincoln’s father, Thomas, had lost most of his property because of title disputes. Sometime thereafter, the family moved to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, where young Abe had his formative years.
Dolores Kearns Goodwin, in her book Team of Rivals, states regarding Abe’s father, Thomas, that “in the years following Abraham’s birth, the Lincolns moved from one dirt farm to another in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. On each of these farms, Thomas (Lincoln) cleared only enough land for his family’s use. Lack of ambition joined with insufficient access to a market…(would) trap Thomas in relentless poverty.” I had the opportunity to visit Knob Creek farm, where the docent pointed out that young Lincoln would have seen slaves in transit along Bardstown Road, which ran close to their cabin. This would have given him an early appreciation for their plight and an informal learning experience on the horrors of slavery.
By the age of seven, the Lincolns moved from Kentucky to Indiana. Mark E. Neely, in his book The Last Best Hope of Earth, states, “It was a move backwards in terms of civilization, for Indiana, which became a state the year the Lincolns moved there, was still ‘an unbroken forest’ with ‘bears and wild animals’ all about. This is where…he learned to read and write, and where he developed his irrepressible sense of humor. Such an environment had to be defied if one were to accomplish anything in life.”
Goodwin points out that Lincoln’s mother, Nancy, is credited by eyewitnesses with having taught him “sweetness and benevolence” and “to read and spell,” and that Nancy was “very smart and very strong minded.” Sadly, when Lincoln was nine his mother contracted the disease known as “milk sickness,” which was almost always fatal and resulted in dizziness, nausea, and irregular heartbeat, culminating in a coma. States Goodwin: “the loss of Lincoln’s mother had a uniquely shattering impact on his family’s tenuous stability. In the months following her death, his father journeyed from Indiana to Kentucky to bring back a new wife.” Meanwhile, Lincoln and his sister were left to fend for themselves, which would have been an education of sorts in and of itself. Upon return, the new mother, Sarah Bush Johnston, is said to have found the pair “wild and dirty and that only after they were soaped, washed, and dressed did they seem to her more human.”
Goodwin observes, “If Lincoln’s developing self-confidence was fostered initially by his mother’s love and approval, it was later sustained by his stepmother, who came to love him as if he were her own child…Abraham was a boy of uncommon natural talents. Although uneducated herself, she did all she cold to encourage him to read, learn, and grow…young Lincoln’s self-assurance was enhanced by his physical size and strength, qualities that were valued highly on the frontier.” Many historians recount that Lincoln was a natural leader and was looked up to by his peers. If Lincoln wanted an education, the determination that is characteristic of a budding leader would be helpful in that endeavor.
Indiana schools at the time were “subscription” schools that required tuition, which most families could not afford. Lincoln, himself, recalled that he had about one year of formal education and never stepped inside an “Academy Building” until he earned his law license. In his book The Last Best Hope of Earth, Neely states, “Lincoln recalled that when he came of age, he ‘did not know much’…He could read and write and solve algebraic equations. He could not spell well or speak with polished grammar, and he did not know geometry.”
However, Lincoln’s unique drive to educate himself – and books – became his stock in trade. Douglas Wilson, in his book Honor’s Voice, states that “the backwoods farm boy educated himself by a determined program of nightly reading after the day’s work was done, systematically consuming all the books in the sparsely inhabited neighborhood where he grew up. His determination and youthful quest for enlightenment, the distinctive inner qualities that set him apart, have long been symbolized by the indelible image of the boy reading alone by firelight.”
The books he was known to have read include the Bible, Aesop’s Fables, John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, various stories of Sinbad the Sailor, James Riley’s Narrative, and biographies of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. One imagines Lincoln reading these books over and over again. Lincoln also read the standard textbooks of the time on spelling and arithmetic and the well-known (in that era) James Barclay’s Universal Dictionary. Jon Meacham, in his book And There Was Light, states, “Lincoln was engaged…in the story of his country, reading William Grimshaw’s popular History of the United States…published in 1820…linking the colonization of the New World…to insights from the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment…(Grimshaw) quoted the Declaration of Independence in its entirety – possibly the first time Lincoln had ever (read)…the document.”
Although most people nowadays probably do not think of Lincoln’s upbringing and education as a way to raise a boy, let us be thankful on this day, Lincoln’s birthday, for the unique manner in which he grew up and for his determination for self-education. For as we all know, Lincoln’s self-learning process contributed to him becoming one of the most profound men in history and, moreover, was a major factor in making him successful in solving some of the arguably most daunting challenges faced by a sitting president and also made Lincoln unarguably one of the best and most courageous presidents of the United States of America.
Happy birthday, Abe!
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Related link:
What was Happening during the Civil War on or about Lincoln’s February 12th Birthday?