h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Life of Abraham Lincoln - 16th President of the United States - A2861345
Author: Jodan - Go here. A2773866 Have I ever steered you wrong? - U201497

'yello.

I've writ' me up three entries on Lincoln - my third favorite President - and I'm just about to finish off a few resources on the man, and I'm wondering if anyone's got anything to contribute.

The other two entries - The Death of Abraham Lincoln and the Legacy of Abraham Lincoln - are linked to at the bottom of the entry, and I don't want to flood up the CWW (7293 words is quite enough right now), so I'll just submit this one, but feel free to criticize the the other two. They're shorter and take less time to read and are a bit less dull at points.

G'day, Jodan,

You've quite an excellent entry there! I'm going to have to reread it more carefully, but quite nice!

I don't know where all of your information came from, but one of the more interesting books I've read on the 16th U.S. President was 'Lincoln on Leadership'. It came about as its author was on his way to a management conference, and - as he noticed that the leaderships book he was reading had so many things mirroring Lincoln's story - was surprised to find that there were no books on on the subject.

It had quite a few stories of his techniques, which were then boiled down into presumed principles, whether Lincoln sorted them out that way or not. Very reasonable and astute principles, too.

Good Luck with the set!

Thanks

I've never read that one. Any useful stories to share?

Sorry, Jodan. I've looked for it; but it seems to be boxed up in storage, probably in the garage.

But I do have one small piece of additional information regarding Lincoln's assassin.

One of the 26 infantrymen who were sent to hunt down Booth was an Englishmen named Boston Corbett. When Booth refused to come out of the barn in which he was hiding, the group set the barn on fire. Booth still refused to come out, and Boston found a wide crack in the barn through which he shot Booth.

They dragged Booth from the barn, and he died some hours later. Corbett was charged with not following orders, because Booth was wanted alive; but they eventually gave him his portion of the reward, $1,653.85

This might be more than you need. It may suffice to simply say that Booth also met his end after a chase, and that Corbett was the one who ultimately killed him.

Use any or all of it. If I can find the book, I'll look for some specific stories. Most of them had to do with his propensity for staying around the communications office (telegraph) and visiting his generals.

He often gave them great votes of confidence and personal leeway, until they would fail to produce results, and then he would act swiftly to replace them. He wrote a lot of letters to people that he never sent. It was one of his ways of letting off steam, without damaging relationships.

I'll work that information into the Death entry

Do you see anywhere I can work in information on Lincoln's communication tendencies? The structure makes it hard. I'll take a look and see what I can see.

Hmmm, It would definitely go in the section about the war, after the first shots were fired against the Union troops.

It was written so well in the book I had mentioned that I'd hesitate to recite from memory. If your local library doesn't have it, they will probably have some of the same source books that the author used.

I believe he basically read all of the better biographies, and gleaned the leadership lessons from them. A lot of work, for which he deserves credit. You could simply refer to the same original sources since your piece does not focus on the leadership lessons, but on historical facts.

Good Luck. Should I find that book in the next couple of weeks, I'll be glad to let you know that I can provide some accurate stories.

Hi there.

I got to thinking that Lincoln was one of those presidents that won the electoral vote, but lost the popular vote.

I wasn't shocked to see your numbers show that he won the popular vote, but there seems to be something wrong with either the math or the grammar.

You have Lincoln winning a plurality of the vote, and his opponents have a combined vote of much more; but then when, you add the 'about 40%', it sounds like the combined opponents vote was 40%. Perhaps you mean they won 60, or mean to refer back to Lincoln as having won 40.

Adding something like 'about 40%' normally reflects back to the most recent subject, in this case the opponents, unless you respecify the original subject.

Did that make any sense?

Yeah. I'll look at it. He definitely won 40%, but sometimes my numbers and clauses get confused.

Yeah, you're right. I think I accidentally stuck the opponent totals in between the 40% and Lincoln's total. It's fixed.