Thursday, August 13, 2015

LINCOLN HOME AND TOMB- SPRINGFIELD ILLINOIS

 Located in  Springfield, Illinois, Oak Ridge cemetery serve as the final resting place of Abraham
 Lincoln, the 16th president of United States. He is cremated at Oak ridge cemetery along with his
wife Mary, and three of their four sons, Edward, William, and Thomas (known as "Tad") .
 Nicknamed as Abe, Abraham Lincoln  was born in Kentucky as the second son of  two illiterate
 farmers. Abe has an elder  sister called Sara and a younger bother who died at infancy. He has a very
 little formal education. His family moved to Indiana and later to Illinois where Lincoln would set out
 on his own. While in Indiana , his mother died of milk sickness , a disease caused by drinking milk
 of cow that have eaten a poisonous plant called  snake root.  Soon after his mothers death, Abe's father  remarried .
Abe was self educated and done a variety of jobs including shopkeeper, surveyor, and postmaster.
For a time, he even split firewood with an axe for a living. Lincoln taught himself law. He passed the
 bar examination in 1836  and  was often hired by the Illinois Central Railroad .

Lincoln married Mary Todd in 1842 and the family moved to spring field, Illinois.  Robert Todd
Lincoln was the only son among the four children of the couples who lived until adulthood and  have
 children. The house, purchased by Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln in 1844, was the only
home that Lincoln ever owned. Located at the corner of Eighth and Jackson Streets, the house
contains twelve rooms spread over two floors.

During the time he lived here , In 1856 he joined the newly formed Republican party .In 1858
Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with
Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in
1860 . By 1860, he become the first Republican to win a presidential election.

 The depot, located just two blocks from the Lincoln Home, was the location from which Lincoln
gave his Farewell Address to his fellow Springfield citizens. On a dark, gloomy morning in 1861,
 citizens of Springfield assembled at the station to see Lincoln off. The office was used as a reception
 room, and his friends and neighbors filed past, taking his hand.The depot was constructed by
The Great Western Railroad in 1852. It was damaged by fire in 1857, which required extensive remodeling here.

President elect Lincoln delivers his farewell speech to the people of Springfield, from the rear of a
train car at the Great Western Rail Road Station."My friends, no one, not in my situation, can
appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe
 everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man.
 Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether
 ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without
the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I
cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good,
 let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your
prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.As the train pulled in, he mounted
the  rear platform.

The southern states didn't want Abraham Lincoln to be the president. Before he took oath of the
office, Carolina was the first state to secede the country followed by six more states which together
 formed a new country called Confederacy with a temporary capital at Montgomery, Alabama. The
 seceding states seized numerous Federal properties within their boundaries, including buildings,
 arsenals, and fortifications. President James Buchanan protested but took no military action in response.

Lincoln directed his inaugural address to the South, proclaiming once again that he had no intention,
 or inclination, to abolish slavery in the Southern states. By March 1861, no leaders of the
insurrection had proposed rejoining the Union on any terms. Meanwhile, Lincoln and the Republican
 leadership agreed that the dismantling of the Union could not be tolerated.

As a President, Lincoln built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. He led  the
 United States through its bloodiest Civil War, which has its root in the fractious issue of slavery.
Of the 34 states as existed in 1861, seven southern states individually declared their secession from
the Union and formed the Confederacy which later grew to include eleven states. The states that
remained loyal were known as Union.


There were attempts at compromise. The Crittenden Compromise would have extended the Missouri
 Compromise line of 1820, dividing the territories into slave and free, contrary to the Republican
 Party's free-soil platform. Lincoln rejected the idea, saying, "I will suffer death before I consent ... to
any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege to take possession of this
government to which we have a constitutional right .

The American Civil war was started with the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near
Charleston, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. It remains the deadliest war in American history,
 resulting in the deaths of an estimated 750,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian
casualties.The American Civil War was to prove one of the most ferocious wars ever fought".
Without geographic objectives, the only target for each side was the enemy's soldier .

Lincoln understood that the Federal government's power to end slavery was limited by the
Constitution, which before 1865, committed the issue to individual states. President Abraham Lincoln
 issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of
 bloody civil war. The Proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious
states "are, and henceforward shall be free.

"The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil war. With the great Union
victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, a stage was set for Lincoln's  address at the
Gettysburg battlefield cemetery on November 19, 1863. In 272 words, and three minutes, the
Gettysburg address become the most quoted  speech in American history.

On April 14, 1865, a Good Friday, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer,
fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln while attending the play Our American Cousin  at a play at
Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C

Oak ridge cemetery is the final resting place of Abraham Lincoln. It is the second most visited
cemetery in United States after Arlington cemetery. Oakridge cemetery got its name from many oak
 trees in the cemetery.

The mausoleum is owned and administered by the State of Illinois as Lincoln Tomb State Historic
Site. It was designated one of the first National Historic Landmarks  in 1960, and thus became one of
 the first sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, when that designation was created.

The tomb was designed by Larkin Goldsmith Mead., Lincoln's remains were interred in a marble
sarcophagus in the center of a chamber known as the "catacombs," or burial room. In 1887 the
remains of his wife was reburied along with Abraham Lincoln's in a brick vault beneath the floor of
 the burial roomThe interior of the memorial was constructed in art deco style.



The burial room features black and white marble walls and a ceiling of gold leaf. At its center stands
the cenotaph, a 7-ton block of reddish marble inscribed with Lincoln's name and the years he lived.
 It marks the approximate location of the burial vault, which is 30 inches behind and 10 feet below.
 Nine flags are arranged in a semicircle around the cenotaph. Seven of them—the State flags of
Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois—commemorate
the homes of Lincoln and his ancestors. The eighth and ninth are the Stars and Stripes and the
Presidential flag.The inscription "Now he belongs to the ages," reputedly spoken by Secretary of War
 Edwin M. Stanton at the time of Lincoln's death, is inscribed in the wall above the U.S. Flag.
 
The nose on Borglum's  head of Lincoln remains shiny due to the tradition of rubbing Lincoln's nose
for good luck. Thousands of visitors rub the nose at the base of the tomb each year, preventing the
 nose from tarnishing and forming the brown patina.that covers the rest of the head.Although the
rubbing of Lincoln's nose keeps it shiny, it also contributes to the erosion of the statue's metal, which
 causes a degradation of the original sculpture. Therefore, current and future visitors to the site may
not be seeing the original nose of Lincoln .

The tomb is in the center of a 12½ acre (51,000 m²) plot. Constructed of Massachusetts granite, it has
 a rectangular base surmounted by a 117-foot (36 m)-high obelisk and a semicircular entrance way.
 A bronze reproduction of sculptor Gutzon Borglum's head of Lincoln in the U.S. Capitol rests on a
 pedestal in front of the entrance way design style that first appeared in France after World War.It is
an eclectic style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials.
The style is often characterized by rich colours, bold geometric shapes and lavish ornamentation..

 Along with the Lincoln Home, several other structures within the four-block area are also
 preserved. All the homes have been restored to their appearance during the time Lincoln lived in the
neighborhood. Two of these structures, the Dean House and the Arnold House, are open to visitors
and house exhibits on the life and times of Lincoln and his neighbors. In total, the buildings included
 in the park occupy 12 acres (49,000 m2).Lincoln preserved the Union, abolished slavery,
strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.


 
 
 







Location: Springfield, Illinois
Camera Used: Canon T5, Canon power shot A490

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