Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.
[Ed. note: In 2013, Eddie Deezen brought us A Few Things You Might Not Have Known About Abraham Lincoln. As Lincoln led a well-documented and interesting life, here is a completely new list of more trivia about President Lincoln.]
Perhaps our most beloved and revered U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln was our 16th commander-in-chief. As most of us know, Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated. He was also our first bearded U.S. president.
He also managed to get our country through the Civil War, the bloodiest-ever war in our nation's history. Although critics and revisionists may question his intentions, it is apparent to most people that Lincoln was instrumental in the ending of the horrible institution of slavery in america. Lincoln was, by all accounts, a brilliant man, a gifted writer and a captivating public speaker. Alright, let's take a look at a few facts you may not have known about Mr. Abraham Lincoln.
* When Lincoln was nine, a horse kicked him in the forehead while he was in the middle of a sentence. He fell unconscious for several hours and when he awoke, his first words were the completion of the sentence he had been saying when the horse kicked him.
* Lincoln was a licensed bartender. He owned a saloon before becoming president.
* Lincoln and his future assassin, John Wilkes Booth, were photographed together at Lincoln's inauguration.
(Image credit: Mercury88888888)
* A Union captain once sent Lincoln a mail-order ad for pornographic pictures. Captain M.G. Tousley was extremely upset his soldiers were buying and passing around pictures of naked girls, including series entitled “Indian Maidens,” “Wood Nymphs' Frolic,” and “Circassian Slavegirls.” Self-appointed censor of military morality Tousley wanted his president to know that Union soldiers were- omg!!!!- looking at dirty pictures.
* The tall, black stovepipe hat that Lincoln used to wear was more than just a hat. Lincoln used it as a portable filing cabinet and kept notes, money and letters in it.
* Lincoln had syphilis sometime around 1835-1836. His law partner William Herndon reported this and historians have accepted the story as true.
* In 1841, Lincoln had a tooth pulled without anesthesia. the dentist took a part of Lincoln's jaw with the tooth. When he needed another extraction in 1862 while he was president, he brought his own can of chloroform with him.
* There is a high probability that in his final years Lincoln had cancer of the adrenal glands.
* Although he is never portrayed this way in movies or television specials concerning him, Lincoln actually had not a low, deep voice, but instead had a high-pitched, almost squeaky voice.
* Lincoln could flawlessly recite soliloquies from Hamlet and Macbeth.
* Lincoln could flawlessly recite soliloquies from Hamlet and Macbeth.* Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, was extremely jealous and had no qualms about humiliating her husband the president in public. She couldn't stand other women giving Lincoln any attention whatsoever. After the civil war, Mary accompanied her husband to a troop review in Virginia. These were done on horseback, and at one point, a woman rode next to Lincoln. Mary started shrieking at the woman and making a full-blown spectacle of herself, while completely mortifying her husband.
* After Richmond fell during the Civil War, one black woman knelt before Lincoln during his visit to the city, and another told her son that a touch of Lincoln's clothes would eliminate his pain.
* Lincoln once left the stage during a political rally because he spotted one of his supporters being beaten. He picked up the assailant by his trousers and physically hurled him twelve feet away.
* He hated the nickname “Abe.” No one who knew him dare call him that to his face. Even his wife, Mary, often addressed him as “Mr. Lincoln" or “Father".