Abe and Mary. Joseph Gillespie and Abraham Lincoln were friends. In 1839, as Illinois State Representatives, together they jumped out of a window of a session of the Illinois House of Representatives in an unsuccessful attempt to deprive the Democrats of a quorum. Joseph Gillespie once said: "Mr. Lincoln was capable of immense physical and mental labor. His mind and body were in perfect harmony." Lincoln’s law partner, William H. Herndon, said: "Mr. Lincoln was a peculiar man; he was intensely thoughtful, persistent, fearless, and tireless in thinking. When he got after a thought, fact, principle, question, he ran it down to the fibers of the tap root, dug it out, and held it up before him for an analysis, and when he thus formed an opinion, no man could overthrow it; he was in this particular without an equal." Here is a timeline of the thirty years before he became President:

1831 - failed in a business venture.
1832 - defeated as a candidate for the state legislature.
1833 - failed in another business venture.
1835 - fiancee died.
1836 - suffered a nervous breakdown.
1843 - defeated as a candidate for the U.S. Congress.
1848 - again defeated as a candidate for the U.S. Congress.
1855 - defeated as a candidate for the U.S. Senate.
1856 - defeated as a candidate for U.S. Vice President.
1859 - again defeated as a candidate for the U.S. Senate.
1860 - elected 16th President of the United States of America.

Abraham Lincoln met Mary Todd at a dance at her sister's home in Springfield, Illinois. They had an "on-again, off-again courtship." Source: Beatrice Gormley. First Ladies: Women Who Called the White House Home. page 38. Having doubts about his love for Mary, on January 1, 1841, Abe called off their wedding. "During the summer of 1842, after the couple had gone nearly eighteen months without personal contact, mutual friends conspired to bring Mary and Abraham back together." Source: Doris Kearns Goodwin. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. page 101. After dating again secretly, with just a day's notice, Mary and Abe were married on the evening of November 4, 1842 in Springfield, Illinois in the parlor of the home of her sister

Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865 in Washington, D.C. He was 56 years old. He and Mary had been married for 22 years. Mary was so grief-stricken that she didn't leave home to attend Abraham's funeral. "Like a fairy godmother endowed with some life-giving potion, she tried to kiss her husband into consciousness, begging him to wake up and trying, as had often been necessary during their marriage, to catch his attention through some extravagant gesture." Source: Jean H. Baker. Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography. page 245. "Her grief became her chief preoccupation. She reminded herself of it constantly. She would not let herself forget it. She would not let her friends forget it. She couldn't believe what had happened to her. Because you must understand, that not only did she lose the man she truly loved, her great partner in life, but the man who had made her the First Lady of the Land, the man who gave her status, the man who gave her importance, an identity." Source: Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided. PBS.org.