October 15, 1860: Why did Abraham Lincoln have a beard? He received a letter from an 11-year-old girl, Grace Bedell, saying he would look better with one. Lincoln agreed. In Bedell's letter, written a few weeks before the 1860 election, she told Lincoln. "I have got four brothers," she said, "and part of them will vote for you any way, and if you let your whiskers grow, I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President." Lincoln replied to the "dear little miss": "Do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now?" But days after his election, the president-elect changed his mind. "Billy," he reportedly told his barber, "let's give them a chance to grow."
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