The First Full Beard, by Christopher S. German, Springfield, January 13, 1861

By January the beard had filled in, and Christopher S. German's Springfield portrait is the first photograph to show it complete. Together with the Alschuler picture from November, it records how quickly the clean-shaven candidate of the campaign posters turned into the bearded figure Americans would come to know. German photographed him again on February 9, two days before Lincoln left Springfield for Washington, in what was his last portrait sitting in his hometown.