In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once.

Twice a week Lincoln would meet with his cabinet in the afternoon and occasionally Mary Lincoln would force him to take a carriage ride because Abraham Lincoln was concerned he was working too hard. Lincoln authorized Grant to target the Confederate infrastructure—such as plantations railroads and bridges—hoping to destroy the South's morale and weaken its economic ability to continue fighting. Upon ratification it became the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 6 1865.

presidents the others by scholars being George Washington and Franklin D. With almost no support in the South Lincoln swept the North and was elected president in 1860. "
When the North enthusiastically rallied behind the national flag after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter on April 12 1861 Lincoln concentrated on the military and political dimensions of the war effort.