Abraham Fucking Lincoln

I just finished reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln, and I thought I'd share some of his lesser-known exploits with you.

• In 1831, a 22-year-old Lincoln arrived in New Salem, Illinois—a real podunk frontier town—and quickly established himself as a skilled raconteur and japesman. But he was no buffoon. Old Abe (as he was known even as a young man, due to his craggy face and Ichabodish frame) could out-philosophize your ass, and kick it six ways from Sunday to boot. He was a real comer. Naturally, this earned him some enemies, most notably a group of rough-and-tumble prairie roisterers known as the Clary's Grove Boys. Just on general cussed principle, they didn't like this new fella coming into their town and making a name for himself. So when Lincoln's boss at the ol' general store started into boasting about how his boy could lick anyone in the county, why, the Clary's Grove Boys couldn't let that slide. Their leader, a murderous little man with sourmash breath and a wooden eye (probably), challenged Lincoln to a knock-down, drag-out rasslin match. It was on, motherfucker, and it promised to be a real humdinger: http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln48.html
  
  
• Early on in the Civil War, Lincoln was constantly frustrated by the procrastinations of that yellow-bellied pussyfoot of a commanding general, George McClellan. This goldbricking poltroon of a guttersnipe always managed to find an excuse not to launch a massive attack on Confederate forces. In May of 1862, McClellan wired Lincoln that a safe and suitable landing spot for his army could not be found in Norfolk, VA, where Lincoln had ordered him to attack. Enough was enough. Lincoln went down there his motherfucking self, taking Secretary of War Stanton and Secretary of the Treasury Chase along with him. Unguarded, the President of the United States reconnoitered a landing spot behind enemy lines, even going so far as to walk up and down the beach to prove that he was right. Fuckin McClellan.
  
  
• And finally, a story guaranteed to summon a lump even in the most Confederate-apologizing, racist one of you's throat. Early in 1861, just before setting off for Washington, D.C. to take the oath of office, Lincoln paid a visit to his good friend and law partner, Thomas Herndon, with some final instructions on how he wanted the practice to be maintained in his absence. It was clear by then that the country was falling apart, and that old Abe was inheriting a whirlwind. His final words to Herndon: "If I live I'm coming back sometime, and then we'll go right on practicing law as if nothing had ever happened." He never returned to Springfield.