A new side of Abraham Lincoln has emerged from recently discovered accounts by contemporaries who knew him well and witnessed the historic moments during his life.

In notes compiled about 100 years ago by artist and interviewer James E. Kelly, and recently uncovered by New Jersey historian William B. Styple, Lincoln is animated, athletic, passionate and engaging. The notes reveal that he wept and prayed as he walked the streets of Washington while assessing the Civil War's cost. He also smiled, laughed and erupted in anger, depending on the situation or the news from the front.

After collecting stories for at least 16 years, Kelly planned to write a book about the Lincoln known to few people. He also hoped to produce a sculpture of the president, but he died during 1933 without finishing the book or the sculpture. Styple discovered Kelly's unpublished notes and correspondence, which came from civic leaders, politicians, artists and soldiers, in the New-York Historical Society.