Why is President Lincoln’s Cottage significant?
Abraham Lincoln and his family lived here for a quarter of his presidency. While living here, Lincoln plotted Union wartime strategies, developed his policy of emancipation and determined to include the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the Republican platform of 1864. Life at the Soldiers’ Home offered Lincoln a respite from some of the pressures at the White House but also put him in direct contact with the soldiers he met on his daily commute between the White House and the Cottage and contraband camps.