Profiles the self-educated man who arose from poverty to become the sixteenth president of the United States, focusing on how his virtues enabled him to overcome many personal and political difficulties. Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest American presidents, was an unlikely figure to rise to power. After educating himself, he spent years practicing law on the frontier before coming to the White House. Charming many with his honesty and his rough, folksy humor -- and offending others with his unpolished ways -- Lincoln proved his intelligence, political savvy, and love of country by leading the nation through one of its bitterest trials, the Civil War (1861-1865). Brought down by an assassin's bullet at the end of the war, Lincoln is forever remembered as the man who preserved the Union and brought an end to slavery.