“Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809 to 1865)

Also known as Honest Abe, the Rail-Splitter, or the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln was the16th president of the United States of America (1861–65), who preserved the Union during the American Civil War and brought about the emancipation of the slaves.

On the evening of 14 April 1865, 26-year-old John Wilkes Booth – a rabid advocate of slavery with ties to the South and the flamboyant son of one of the most distinguished theatrical families of the 19th century – shot Lincoln as he sat in Ford’s Theatre in Washington. Early the next morning Lincoln died.