Excerpt from The Lincoln Memorial: Album-Immortelles; Original Life Pictures, With Autographs, From the Hands and Hearts of Eminent Americans and Europeans, Contemporaries of the Great Martyr to Liberty, Abraham Lincoln On the fifteenth day of April, 1880, I was standing near the monument of Abraham Lincoln, waiting for the Lincoln Guard of Honor to begin their first memorial service on the fifteenth anniversary of the death of' Abraham Lincoln. The gathering was a small one, it being only about twenty-two minutes after seven O'clock in the morning. As I gazed on the pinnacle Of the towering shaft, that marks the resting-place of him whom I had learned to love in my boyhood's years, when, in the spirited campaign of 1860, Old Abe was the watchword of every Republican, I. Fell to wondering whether it might not be possible for me to contribute my' mite toward adding luster to the fame of this great product of American institutions. I had begun as early as 1860 to collect trophies from his campaign, and had ever Since 'then carefully preserved every article I could secure that related in any way to his memory. The first thought that came into my mind, as I stood looking at that noble monument, was that of building a Memorial Hall in which to preserve the memorials I then possessed and those which I might subsequently secure, and I then and there adopted this plan. I have con tinned up to this time to gather Lincoln mementos, and have now in my possession nearly two thousand books, sermons, eulogies, poems, songs, portraits, badges, autograph letters, pins, medals, envelopes, statuettes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.