Abraham Lincoln Failures List

[Liz Rosenthal]

I think that the 1836 "nervous breakdown" was meant to be Lincoln's 1835 reaction to the death of Ann Rutledge. All we have about that are some anecdotes told to Herndon by various former New Salem residents - which may very well be true, and I'm inclined to believe that he had had a relationship with Ann and was grief-stricken at her death. But I agree that there is no evidence of his grief leading to a six-month stint in bed.

What is awful about the list of "Lincoln failures" is that it's yet another example of modern-day fact-massaging. Whoever originally came up with the list took several kernels of truth and made them into incidents that never happened, or happened quite differently than portrayed.

Maybe what we need to do is come up with a basic list of Lincoln's life and career accomplishments and see if we can make it go viral!