Abraham Lincoln's first love, and perhaps the greatest love of his life, was Anne Rutledge. The daughter of one of the founders of New Salem, Illinois, she was born in Kentucky and possessed all the charm of a Southern belle in addition to the practicality of a pioneer woman.

Lincoln was still working in a store in New Salem when he first met her and proposed to her. She accepted, and they were engaged to be married. However, Lincoln thought he was too poor to support her properly, so he asked her to wait until he could improve his financial condition. During this time he was studying intensively to learn the law.

Before their wedding day arrived, Anne Rutledge was attacked by a sudden and fatal fever. Her death was such a blow to Lincoln that his friends feared for his sanity.

One stormy night two friends found Lincoln standing over her grave. With tears streaming down his face he said, "I cannot bear to let the rain fall on her."

This poem, written by Edgar Lee Masters, Is engraved on her tombstone at Petersburg, Illinois:

I am Ann Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds,
Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,
Wedded to him, not through union,
But through separation.
Bloom forever, O Republic,
From the dust of my bosom.