I like this one, from that link, best: "He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met,” said Lincoln of a political foe.
Here's my favorite: "On one occasion, Douglas attempted to buffalo Lincoln by making allusions to his lowly start in life. He told a gathering that the first time he met Lincoln, it had been across the counter of a general store in which Lincoln was serving. “And an excellent bartender he was too,” Douglas concluded." "When the laughter died away, Lincoln got up and quietly riposted, “What Mr. Douglas has said, gentlemen, is true enough: I did keep a general store and sold cotton and candles and cigars and sometimes whiskey, but I particularly remember that Mr. Douglas was one of my best customers. " "Many a time I stood on one side of the counter and sold whiskey to Mr. Douglas on the other side. But now there’s a difference between us: I have left my side of the counter, but he sticks to his as tenaciously as ever!”
Some of the foods Abraham Lincoln probably ate include, clockwise from top right: French almond cake, gingerbread men, cornbread, biscuits and barbecued chicken. Rae Katherine Eighmey, Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen
Lincoln’s Last Meal SARAH PRUITT That Fateful Night "In her book “Team of Rivals,” Doris Kearns Goodwin relates that on the evening of April 14, 1865—Good Friday—Abraham Lincoln sat with several friends, including Governor Richard Oglesby of Illinois. The president was reading aloud to them from “some humorous book,” as Oglesby later recalled. “They got to calling him to dinner. He promised each time to go, but would continue reading the book. Finally, he got a sort of peremptory order that he must come to dinner at once.” "Dinner that night lasted from around 7:00 to 7:30 p.m., according to the chronology presented by Edward Steers in “Blood on the Moon,” his book on the Lincoln assassination. What was on the menu? Andrew Caldwell, author of “Their Last Suppers: Legends of History and Their Final Meals,” suggests mock turtle soup, roast Virginia fowl with chestnut stuffing, baked yams and cauliflower with cheese sauce as the doomed president’s last meal. While these might have been dishes typical to Lincoln’s time, Caldwell doesn’t cite his source for this last supper, so it’s difficult to confirm its historical accuracy."
Speaking of "Blinkin' Lincoln", here is a conversation between Blinkin and Achoo ( Robin Hood: Men in Tights ) Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Three Versions of Lincoln's Farewell Address "One of Abraham Lincoln's most beloved short speeches (was) the extemporaneous Farewell Address ... given on February 11, 1861, the day he left his hometown for Washington. The scene was the Springfield, Illinois Great Western railroad depot, now a restored private office with a public exhibit area. The three most reliable texts from that day are found in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler et al." Library of Congress manuscript handwritten by Lincoln, and then finished by his secretary John Nicolay (Version A in the link)
One day too late... Seems like I can remember we got off school in Ohio on Lincoln's birthday, in the 1950's, but not sure.
Lincoln and the Irish, the untold story revealed for the first time "Lincoln knew the Irish, more than any president other than JFK. He loved their songs like Kathleen Mavourneen and read Emmet’s speech from the dock. He gave to famine relief and eagerly signed onto a House bill condemning the treatment of the Young Irelanders." "His children were raised by Irish nannies, despite the fact that his wife Mary Todd Lincoln disliked the Irish and threatened to support the nativist Know Nothings against them." "Lincoln fought with them as political rivals in Springfield, ending up seconds away from a duel with a remarkable Irishman called James Shields from Tyrone, the only man in history to be selected from three different states as a US senator. Lincoln called the near duel the lowest moment of his life." "When Lincoln got to the White House he was greeted by the ageless Ed McManus the Irish doorman and a predominantly Irish staff. He spent so much time with them other jealous staffers referred to them as his “Hibernian cabal.” McManus was said to be the only man who could make the president laugh. Lincoln was even known to affect an Irish accent at times."
One of Lincoln's favorite stories: The Perfect Woman The President told of a southern Illinois preacher who, in the course of his sermon, asserted that the Saviour [sic] was the only perfect man who had ever appeared in this world; also that there was no record, in the Bible or elsewhere, of any perfect woman having lived upon the earth. Whereupon there arose in the rear of the church a persecuted-looking personage who, the parson having stopped speaking, said "I know a perfect woman, and I’ve heard of her every day for the last six years.’" "Who was she?" asked the minister. "My husband’s first wife," replied the afflicted female. — Story relayed by soldier-turned-publisher James Grant Wilson (1832-1914)
Abraham Lincoln and Journalists "One day in April 1864, President Abraham Lincoln walked across the hall to the office of aide John Hay. Mr. Lincoln “picked up a paper and read the Richmond Examiners recent attack on Jeff Davis,” wrote Hay in his diary. “It amused him. ‘Why’ said he ‘the Examiner seems about, as fond of Jeff as the New York World is of me.” Although the New York World was a Democratic newspaper partly owned by Democratic National Chairman August Belmont, there were many Republican newspapers who also bedeviled the President during the Civil War." "President Lincoln tried not to pay too much attention to his press critics but he was kept abreast of what the newspapers were saying. As President, according to journalist Noah Brooks, “Lincoln found time to read the newspapers, or, as he sometimes expressed it, ‘to skirmish’ with them." "From their ephemeral pages he rescued many a choice bit of verse, which he carried with him until he was quite familiar with it.” Historian Gabor Boritt noted that “a chief means of his listening was the press as digested by his assistants, and it was through the press that he could shape public opinion.”