Lincoln wore clothes that didn’t quite fit him and had messy hair. He didn’t really seem to take stalk in how he looked. He did, however, take the time to buy a gold pocket watch that was very tell-tale of success in that time period from a Springfield, Illinois jeweler. His great-grandson, Lincoln, Isham donated the pocket watch to the Smithsonian in 1958.
On April 13, 1861, Confederate forces first attacked Fort Sumter and began the Civil War that changed the U.S. forever. On that day, and Irish immigrant and watchmaker, Jonathan Dillon was working on President Lincoln’s gold pocket watch at M.W. Galt and Co. jewelers in Washington D.C. Forty-five years later, Dillon told the New York Times that he was screwing the dial on the watch when his boss announced the shot had been fired and the war was beginning.
Dillon unscrewed the dial and with a sharp instrument he said he wrote “The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a President that at least will try.” After the Smithsonian received the pocket watch, they received a phone call from the great-great grandson of Jonathan Dillon telling them to open the pocket watch and see the hidden message.
The story had been passed down through his family. Amazingly, they decided to check and lo and behold, there was a message inscribed by Dillon, but not precisely what he’d said he wrote. The inscription read " The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a President who at least will try." Lincoln never knew he was carrying around the message.