Second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln Second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln The second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States took place on Saturday, March 4, 1865. The inauguration marked the commencement of the second term of Abraham Lincoln as President and only term of Andrew Johnson as Vice President. Lincoln died days into this term, and Johnson succeeded to the presidency. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase administered the Oath of office. Before the president was sworn in, Vice President-elect Andrew Johnson took his oath. At the ceremony Johnson, who had been drinking to offset the pain of typhoid fever (as he explained
Abraham Lincoln during Lincoln's youth in Indiana. On October 5, 1818, Nancy Lincoln died of milk sickness, leaving 11-year-old Sarah in charge of a household that included her father, 9-year-old Abraham, and Dennis Hanks, Nancy's 19-year-old orphaned cousin. On December 2, 1819, Lincoln's father married Sarah "Sally" Bush Johnston, a widow from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, with three children of her own. Abraham became very close to his stepmother, whom he referred to as "Mother". Those who knew Lincoln as a teenager later recalled him being very distraught over his sister Sarah's death on January 20, 1828, while giving birth to a stillborn son.