US President Abraham Lincoln's Bodyguard. He received a place in American history as the bodyguard of President Lincoln, along with being a long-time loyal personal friend and business colleague. Following being commissioned as a bodyguard by the United States Marshal for the District of Columbia on February 23, 1861, he accompanied the President-elect everywhere. At times, he slept on the floor beside Lincoln's bed. Following studying medicine for a short time, he studied law at the University of Louisville and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1851. With the two men being law partners until 1858, they had known each other for many years, yet were very different. As a Southerner, he had political differences from Lincoln's. Described as a big ostentatious and brawny man with a sense of humor, he was armed with a host of pistols and a Bowie knife. More than once, he used public physical force to protect Lincoln from harm. He was known to abuse alcoholic beverages. While he was the President's bodyguard, Allan Pinkerton and his detectives provided general security. At the dawn of the American Civil War, he was sent to South Carolina as Lincoln's representative in a failed attempt to allay hostilities. During his career, he was sent on various assignments by Lincoln. Amid one of the bloodiest periods of the American Civil War, he escorted President Lincoln to the battlefield at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania to dedicate the new Soldiers' National Cemetery with the renowned "Gettysburg Address" on November 19, 1863. On Thursday, April 13, 1865, he was sent on an assignment at Lincoln's command to Union-occupied Richmond, and the next day, President Lincoln was assassinated at Ford Theater by John Wilkes Booth. In the days that followed, he felt the guilt of abandoning his friend with "if" Lincoln had lived what would be our nation's history. After Lincoln's body laid in state for two nights in the United States capitol building, he was part of the assemblage of 150 that escorted Lincoln's body nearly 1,700 miles home to Springfield for the funeral. Within two months, he resigned his commission with the United States Marshal for the District of Columbia. Some sources state he was offered the cabinet appointment of Postmaster General, but he refused. He returned to his law practice after the war with his law partner Jeremiah Black, former United States Attorney General. In 1872, he published a controversial biography of Lincoln, "The Life of Abraham Lincoln from his Birth to his Inauguration as President," which was co-authored with Black's son, Chauncey, as a ghostwriter. The book was not well-received and eventually ended his law partnership with Black. In 1879, he and his wife relocated for a time to Colorado, but poor health during a bitter Colorado winter caused the couple to return to Washington D.C. They traveled to Europe, and his wife died during an 1892 trip. In 1895, he published another biography, "Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847-1865." Following that, he moved to West Virginia to live with his daughter, where he remained until his death. He married Angelina Turner and the couple had three daughters with only one living beyond infancy before his wife's 1859 death. In November of 1860, he married Sarah "Sally" Logan, the daughter of a judge and former law partner of Lincoln's. He was buried in West Virginia, while both his wives were buried in Illinois.