Jonathan Dillon April 13, 1861. Fort Sumter was attacked by the rebels on the above date. Thank God we have a government.
Dillon was a watchmaker who just happened to be working on Lincoln’s pocket watch as the Civil War broke out. Dillon had told The New York Times, some 50 years after his inscription, that he had scrawled inside the watch: “The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a President who at least will try.” Someone finally cracked open the watch, which had been sitting in The Smithsonian, to find out the truth.