Winning the Presidency and winning the Civil War were certainly two of his triumphs. Among the tragedies of his life were the death of his beloved son and his wife’s lifelong mental illness.

Tragedies- as expressed before, I say the death of Tad during the War. About a year and a half ago I became a father. I love my little girl with every breath I breathe. To lose her would be devastating, but to lose a loved one as president, in middle of a war. Was he able to fully grieve?

The other tragedy, in my mind, was his death. Reconstruction would have been drastically different had Lincoln lived out the rest of his life. Johnson, despite being a Southerner, HATED those people in the South. Lincoln would have had a softer hand. He would have welcomed the South back as we would after seeing brothers and sisters who we haven’t sen in a long time.

Triumphs- Getting rid of McClellan as Commander of the Army of the Potomac. Read some of Lincoln’s letters to the moron. Lincoln never presumed that he knew more than McClellan, but Lincoln demanded action from a man who loved to wait “til the right time.” There is no such thing in war.

When Grant and Sherman defeated Vicksburg and they were able to open up the Mississippi. This began the split of the South in two. Blockade runners had to run on the Atlantic seaboard and some of the Floridian seaboard. Union Naval vessels could begin to focus there attention to the runners. With both of these Generals, Lincoln finally had capable commanders in the field who knew what it took, and would take, to win the war.

I love President Lincoln, as apparently, you do too. He was an amazing man and human being.

My favorite Lincoln triumphs were the Emancipation Proclomation of 1863 and his re-election in 1864. Particularly the re-election as this president was embroiled in controversy his entire first term.

The two things I find most tragic about his life were losing all but one of his sons, (only Robert Todd Lincoln lived past the age of 18) and of course the mental illness of his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.