Existing comment:
Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch and fob
about 1850
engraved in 1861 by watchmaker Jonathan Dillon, Washington, D.C.
The Confederacy's April 1861 attack on federal property -- Fort Sumter, South Carolina -- was the opening volley of four years of civil war. Lincoln led the United States through its greatest crisis, expanding the power of the presidency and coming to the conclusion that slavery had to be abolished. Northern victory preserved the Union and ended slavery, but deferred the issue of racial justice. |