People ask, "What was the best part of your "Follow the Mississippi River" (sort of) trip. And I immediately say Springfield Illinois. What's in Springfield? The Abraham Lincoln Museum.
Now we all know Abe, the tall guy with the stovepipe hat. And yes we all know we have to revise history and say he really wasn't so great after all.. But I challenge you to go the Springfield Illinois and read everything you can about Abe and you will know, -he WAS great.
The other thing you'll realize is that no matter how fractured we feel today, it was NOTHING like what the country went through in the 1860s. Abe had nothing but trouble all day, everyday
From the initial vitriol in the press when he became president, the scary horror of a war among citizens of the same country, writing and then trying to figure out when to drop the
Emancipation Proclamation on the world that was not receptive to it, losing his beloved son, and of course getting assassinated just as the war was finally ending! After following the part of the exhibit of the last train ride and being in the replica of the Capital rotunda with the Battle Hymn of the Republic playing, I was literally crying by the time I left that building. Oh and then I fell flat on the concrete sidewalk with my recently replaced knee (and the rest of my older body parts!)
Of course it was my favorite place!
Don't even get me started on Mary Todd Lincoln, that woman they like to call crazy. who lived in Washington where the other woman
made fun of her not perfectness.
The one who lost two children, a husband at her side. The one whose only remaining child had her committed? It's enough to make anyone crazy (or maybe severely depressed?) Anyway she gets a pass from me for what it's worth.
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