Abraham Lincoln

Portrayed by Jim Getty

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) is considered by many scholars to be the greatest American President. Born into a poor farming family, Lincoln became a country lawyer and served in the Illinois state legislature and as a member of the US House of Representatives.

He ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate, but through his campaign debates with Stephen A. Douglas, he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860. He was sworn in as the sixteenth President of the United States March 4, 1861, and on April 12, Fort Sumter was fired upon and the Civil War began.

As President, Lincoln sought to reunify the nation and brought together various factions to get them to cooperate. In 1863 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation and promoted passage of the 13th Amendment. Just six days after the surrender of most of the Confederate Army, Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, at Ford's Theatre in Washington.

Jim Getty is native of central Illinois and currently resides in historic Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He holds a Master of Music degree from Illinois Wesleyan University, has taught choral music in Illinois and Ohio, and was director of Choral Activities at the University of Maine.

Getty has spent years researching Abraham Lincoln and his contemporaries, and has developed several first person presentations as the sixteenth President. His performances have met with wide acclaim before audiences throughout the country, including the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, Corcoran Gallery, National Archives-Chicago Branch, and the Reagan Presidential Library.

Getty's voice is that of Abraham Lincoln in two A&E programs, and he recently recorded both the Gettysburg Address and The Second Inaugural Address for the new cell phone tour of The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. He is also involved in leadership programs for the corporate world.