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The Life of Abraham Lincoln, from His Birth to His Inauguration as President

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Title: The Life of Abraham Lincoln, from His Birth to His Inauguration as President

Author: Ward Hill Lamon


        
Release date: October 8, 2012 [eBook #40977]
                Most recently updated: November 27, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40977

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, FROM HIS BIRTH TO HIS INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT ***




Produced by David Widger





THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN;

FROM HIS BIRTH TO HIS INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT.

By

Ward H. Lamon.

With Illustrations.

Boston:

James R. Osgood And Company,

(Late Ticknor & Fields, And Fields, Osgood, & Co.)

1872.


[Illustration: Frontispiece]

[Illustration: Titlepage]



PREFACE.

IN the following pages I have endeavored to give the life of Abraham
Lincoln, from his birth to his inauguration as President of the United
States. The reader will judge the character of the performance by the
work itself: for that reason I shall spare him the perusal of much
prefatory explanation.

At the time of Mr. Lincoln's death, I determined to write his history,
as I had in my possession much valuable material for such a purpose. I
did not then imagine that any person could have better or more extensive
materials than I possessed. I soon learned, however, that Mr. William H.
Herndon of Springfield, Ill., was similarly engaged. There could be no
rivalry between us; for the supreme object of both was to make the real
history and character of Mr. Lincoln as well known to the public as they
were to us. He deplored, as I did, the many publications pretending to
be biographies which came teeming from the press, so long as the public
interest about Mr. Lincoln excited the hope of gain. Out of the mass
of works which appeared, of one only--Dr. Holland's--is it possible to
speak with any degree of respect.

Early in 1869, Mr. Herndon placed at my disposal his remarkable
collection of materials,--the richest, rarest, and fullest collection
it was possible to conceive. Along with them came an offer of hearty
co-operation, of which I have availed myself so extensively, that no art
of mine would serve to conceal it. Added to my own collections, these
acquisitions have enabled me to do what could not have been done
before,--prepare an authentic biography of Mr. Lincoln.

Mr. Herndon had been the partner in business and the intimate personal
associate of Mr. Lincoln for something like a quarter of a century; and
Mr. Lincoln had lived familiarly with several members of his family long
before their individual acquaintance began. New Salem, Springfield, the
old judicial circuit, the habits and friends of Mr. Lincoln, were as
well known to Mr. Herndon as to himself. With these advantages, and from
the numberless facts and hints which had dropped from Mr. Lincoln during
the confidential intercourse of an ordinary lifetime, Mr. Herndon was
able to institute a thorough system of inquiry for every noteworthy
circumstance and every incident of value in Mr. Lincoln's career.

The fruits of Mr. Herndon's labors are garnered in three enormous
volumes of original manuscripts and a mass of unarranged letters
and papers. They comprise the recollections of Mr. Lincoln's
nearest friends; of the surviving members of his family and his
family-connections; of the men still living who knew him and his parents
in Kentucky; of his schoolfellows, neighbors, and acquaintances in
Indiana; of the better part of the whole population of New Salem; of
his associates and relatives at Springfield; and of lawyers, judges,
politicians, and statesmen everywhere, who had any thing of interest or
moment to relate. They were collected at vast expense of time, labor,
and money, involving the employment of many agents, long journeys,
tedious examinations, and voluminous correspondence. Upon the value of
these materials it would be impossible to place an estimate. That I have
used them conscientiously and justly is the only merit to which I lay
claim.

As a general thing, my text will be found to support itself; but whether
the particular authority be mentioned or not, it is proper to remark,
that each statement of fact is fully sustained by indisputable evidence
remaining in my possession. My original plan was to verify every
important statement by one or more appropriate citations; but it was
early abandoned, not because it involved unwelcome labor, but because
it encumbered my pages with a great array of obscure names, which the
reader would probably pass unnoticed.

I dismiss this volume into the world, with no claim for it of literary
excellence, but with the hope that it will prove what it purports to
be,--a faithful record of the life of Abraham Lincoln down to the 4th of
March, 1861.

Ward H. Lamon.

Washington City, May, 1872.




TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Birth.--His father and mother.--History of Thomas Lincoln and his family
a necessary part of Abraham Lincoln's biography.--Thomas Lincoln's
ancestors.--Members of the family remaining in Virginia.--Birth of
Thomas Lincoln.--Removal to Kentucky.--Life in the Wilderness.--Lincolns
settle in Mercer County.--Thomas Lincoln's father shot by
Indians.--Widow and family remove to Washington County.--Thomas
poor.--Wanders into Breckinridge County.--Goes to Hardin County.--Works
at the carpenter's trade.--Cannot read or write.--Personal
appearance.--Called "Linckhom," or "Linckhera."--Thomas Lincoln as
a carpenter.--Marries Nancy Hanks.--Previously courted Sally
Bush.--Character of Sally Bush.--The person and character of Nancy
Hanks.--Thomas and Nancy Lincoln go to live in a shed.--Birth of a
daughter.--They remove to Nolin Creek.--Birth of Abraham.--Removal to
Knob Creek.--Little Abe initiated into wild sports.--His sadness.--Goes
to school.--Thomas Lincoln concludes to move.--Did not fly from the
taint of slavery.--Abraham Lincoln always reticent about the history and
character of his family.--Record in his Bible... 1

CHAPTER II.

Thomas Lincoln builds a boat.--Floats down to the Ohio.--Boat
capsizes.--Lands in Perry County, Indiana.--Selects a location.--Walks
back to Knob Creek for wife and children.--Makes his way through
the wilderness.--Settles between the two Pigeon Creeks.--Gentry
ville.--Selects a site.--Lincoln builds a half-faced camp.--Clears
ground and raises a small crop.--Dennis Hanks.--Lincoln builds a
cabin.--State of the country.--Indiana admitted to the Union.--Rise
of Gentryville.--Character of the people.--Lincoln's patent for his
land.--His farm, cabin, furniture.--The milk-sickness.--Death of Nancy
Hanks Lincoln.--Funeral discourse by David Elkin.--Grave.--Tom Lincoln
marries Sally Bush.--Her goods and chattels.--Her surprise at the
poverty of the Lincoln cabin.--Clothes and comforts Abe and his
sister.--Abe leads a new life.--Is sent to school.--Abe's appearance and
dress.--Learning "manners"--Abe's essays.--Tenderness for animals.--The
last of school.--Abe excelled the masters.--Studied privately.--Did not
like to work.--Wrote on wooden shovel and boards.--How Abe studied.--The
books he read.--The "Revised Statute of Indiana."--Did not read the
Bible.--No religious opinions.--How he behaved at home.--Touching
recital by Mrs. Lincoln.--Abe's memory.--Mimicks the preachers.--Makes
"stump-speeches" in the field.--Cruelly maltreated by his father.--Works
out cheerfully.--Universal favorite.--The kind of people he lived
amongst.--Mrs. Crawford's reminiscences.--Society about Gentryville.
--His step-mother.--His sister.--The Johnstons and Hankses.--Abe a
ferryman and farm-servant.--His work and habits.--Works for Josiah
Crawford.--Mrs. Crawford's account of him.--Crawford's books.--Becomes
a wit and a poet.--Abe the tallest and strongest man in the
settlement.--Hunting in the Pigeon Creek region.--His activity.--Love of
talking and reading.--Fond of rustic sports.--Furnishes the
literature.--Would not be slighted.--His satires.--Songs and
chronicles.--Gentryville as "a centre of business."--Abe and other
boys loiter about the village.--Very temperate.--"Clerks" for Col.
Jones.--Abe saves a drunken man's life.--Fond of music.--Marriage of his
sister Nancy.--Extracts from his copy-book.--His Chronicles.--Fight with
the Grigs-bys.--Abe "the big buck of the lick."--"Speaking meetings"
at Gentryville.--Dennis Hanks's account of the way he and Abe became so
learned.--Abe attends a court.--Abe expects to be President.--Going
to mill.--Kicked in the head by a horse.--Mr. Wood.--Piece on
temperance.--On national politics.--Abe tired of home.--Works for
Mr. Gentry.--Knowledge of astronomy and geography.--Goes to New
Orleans.--Counterfeit money.--Fight with negroes.--Scar on his face.
--An apocryphal story...........19

CHAPTER III.

Abe's return from New Orleans.--Sawing planks for a new house.--The
milk-sickness.--Removal to Illinois.--Settles near Decatur.--Abe leaves
home.--Subsequent removals and death of Thomas Lincoln.--Abe's relations
to the family.--Works with John Hanks after leaving home.--Splitting
rails.--Makes a speech on the improvement of the Sangamon River.--Second
voyage to New Orleans.--Loading and departure of the boat.--"Sticks" on
New Salem dam.--Abe's contrivance to get her off.--Model in the Patent
Office.--Arrival at New Orleans.--Negroes chained.--Abe touched by the
sight.--Returns on a steamboat.--Wrestles with Daniel Needham.........73

CHAPTER IV.

The site of New Salem.--The village as it existed.--The
first store.--Number of inhabitants.--Their
houses.--Springfield.--Petersburg.--Mr. Lincoln appears a second time
at New Salem.--Clerks at an election.--Pilots a boat to
Beardstown.--Country store.--Abe as "first clerk."--"Clary's Grove
Boys."--Character of Jack Armstrong.--He and Abe become intimate
friends.--Abe's popularity.--Love of peace.--Habits of study.--Waylaying
strangers for information.--Pilots the steamer "Talisman" up and down
the Sangamon.......85

CHAPTER V.

Offutt's business gone to ruin.--The Black Hawk War.--Black Hawk crosses
the Mississippi.--Deceived by his allies.--The governor's call for
troops.--Abe enlists--Elected captain.--A speech.--Organization of the
army.--Captain Lincoln under arrest.--The march.--Captain Lincoln's
company declines to form.--Lincoln under arrest.--Stillman's
defeat.--Wasting rations.--Hunger.--Mutiny.--March to Dixon.--Attempt
to capture Black Hawk's pirogues.--Lincoln saves the life of
an Indian.--Mutiny.--Lincoln's novel method of quelling
it.--Wrestling.--His magnanimity.--Care of his men.--Dispute with a
regular officer.--Reach Dixon.--Move to Fox River.--A stampede.--Captain
Lincoln's efficiency as an officer.--Amusements of the camp.--Captain
Lincoln re-enlists as a private.--Independent spy company.--Progress of
the war.--Capture of Black Hawk.--Release.--Death.--Grave.--George
W. Harrison's recollections.--Duties of the spy company.--Company
disbanded.--Lincoln's horse stolen.--They start home on foot.--Buy
a canoe.--Feast on a raft.--Sell the boat.--Walk again.--Arrive at
Petersburg.--A sham battle........98

CHAPTER VI.

The volunteers from Sangamon return shortly before the State
election.--Abe a candidate for the Legislature.--Mode of bringing
forward candidates.--Parties and party names.--State and national
politics.--Mr. Lincoln's position.--Old way of conducting
elections.--Mr. Lincoln's first stump-speech.--"A general fight."--Mr.
Lincoln's part in it.--His dress and appearance.--Speech at Island
Grove.--His stories.--A third speech.--Agrees with the Whigs in the
policy of internal improvements.--His own hobby.--Prepares an address to
the people.--Mr. Lincoln defeated.--Received every vote but three cast
in his own precinct....121

CHAPTER VII.

Results of the canvass.--An opening in business.--The firm of Lincoln
& Berry.--How they sold liquor.--What Mr. Douglas said.--The store a
failure.--Berry's bad habits.--The credit system.--Lincoln's debts.--He
goes to board at the tavern.--Studies law.--Walks to Springfield for
books.--Progress in the law.--Does business for his neighbors.--Other
studies.--Reminiscences of J. Y. Ellis.--Shy of ladies.--His
apparel.--Fishing, and spouting Shakspeare and Burns.--Mr. Lincoln
annoyed by company.--Retires to the country.--Bowlin Greene.--Mr.
Lincoln's attempt to speak a funeral discourse.--John Calhoun.--Lincoln
studies surveying.--Gets employment.--Lincoln appointed postmaster.--How
he performed the duties.--Sale of Mr. Lincoln's personal property under
execution.--Bought by James Short.--Lincoln's visits.--Old Hannah.--Ah.
Trent.--Mr. Lincoln as a peacemaker.--His great strength.--The
judicial quality.--Acting second in fights.--A candidate for the
Legislature.--Elected.--Borrows two hundred dollars from Coleman
Smoot.--How they got acquainted.--Mr. Lincoln writes a little book on
infidelity.--It is burnt by Samuel Hill........135

CHAPTER VIII.

James Rutledge.--His family.--Ann Rutledge.--John McNeil.--Is engaged
to Ann.--His strange story.--The loveliness of Ann's person
and character.--Mr. Lincoln courts her.--They are engaged to be
married.--Await the return of McNeil.--Ann dies of a broken
heart.--Mr. Lincoln goes crazy.--Cared for by Bowlin Greene.--The poem
"Immortality."--Mr. Lincoln's melancholy broodings.--Interviews with
Isaac Cogdale after his election to the Presidency.--Mr. Herndon's
interview with McNamar.--Ann's grave.--The Concord cemetery...159

CHAPTER IX.

Bennett Able and family.--Mary Owens.--Mr. Lincoln falls in love with
her.--What she thought of him.--A misunderstanding.--Letters from Miss
Owens.--Mr. Lincoln's letters to her.--Humorous account of the affair in
a letter from Mr. Lincoln to another lady......172

CHAPTER X.

Mr. Lincoln takes his seat in the Legislature.--Schemes of internal
improvement.--Mr. Lincoln a silent member.--Meets Stephen A.
Douglas.--Log-rolling.--Mr. Lincoln a candidate for re-election.--The
canvass.--"The Long Nine."--Speech at Mechanicsburg.--Fight.--Reply to
Dr. Early.--Reply to George Forquer.--Trick on Dick Taylor.--Attempts
to create a third party.--Mr. Lincoln elected.--Federal and State
politics.--The Bank of the United States.--Suspension of specie
payments.--Mr. Lincoln wishes to be the De Witt Clinton of
Illinois.--The internal-improvement system.--Capital located
at Springfield.--Mr. Lincoln's conception of the duty of a
representative.--His part in passing the "system."--Begins
his antislavery record.--Public sentiment against the
Abolitionists.--History of antislavery in Illinois.--The
Covenanters.--Struggle to amend the Constitution.--The "black
code."--Death of Elijah P. Lovejoy.--Protest against proslavery
resolutions.--No sympathy with extremists.--Suspension of
specie payments.--Mr. Lincoln re-elected in 1838.--Candidate for
Speaker.--Finances.--Utter failure of the internal-improvement
"system."--Mr. Lincoln re-elected in 1840.--He introduces a bill.--His
speech.--Financial expedients.--Bitterness of feeling.--Democrats seek
to hold a quorum.--Mr. Lincoln jumps out of a window.--Speech by Mr.
Lincoln.--The alien question.--The Democrats undertake to "reform" the
judiciary.--Mr. Douglas a leader.--Protest of Mr. Lincoln and
other Whigs.--Reminiscences of a colleague.--Dinner to "The Long
Nine."--"Abraham Lincoln one of nature's noblemen."..........184

CHAPTER XI.

Capital removed to Springfield.--Mr. Lincoln settles there to practise
law.--First case.--Members of the bar.--Mr. Lincoln's partnership with
John T. Stuart.--Population and condition of Springfield.--Lawyers
and politicians.--Mr. Lincoln's intense ambition.--Lecture before the
Springfield Lyceum.--His style.--Political discussions run
high.--Joshua F. Speed his most intimate friend.--Scene in Speed's
store.--Debate.--Douglas, Calhoun, Lamborn, and Thomas, against Lincoln,
Logan, Baker, and Browning.--Presidential elector in 1840.--Stumping
for Harrison.--Scene between Lincoln and Douglas in the Court-House.--A
failure.--Redeems himself.--Meets Miss Mary Todd.--She takes Mr. Lincoln
captive.--She refuses Douglas.--Engaged.--Miss Matilda Edwards.--Mr.
Lincoln undergoes a change of heart.--Mr. Lincoln reveals to Mary the
state of his mind.--She releases him.--A reconciliation.--Every thing
prepared for the wedding.--Mr. Lincoln fails to appear.--Insane.--Speed
takes him to Kentucky.--Lines on "Suicide."--His gloom.--Return
to Springfield.--Secret meetings with Miss Todd.--Sudden
marriage.--Correspondence with Mr. Speed on delicate subjects.--Relics
of a great man and a great agony.--Miss Todd attacks James Shields in
certain witty and sarcastic letters.--Mr. Lincoln's name "given up"
as the author.--Challenged by Shields.--A meeting and an
explanation.--Correspondence.--Candidate for Congressional
nomination.--Letters to Speed and Morris.--Defeat.. 223

CHAPTER XII.

Mr. Lincoln a candidate for elector in 1844.--Debates with
Calhoun.--Speaks in Illinois and Indiana.--At Gentryville.--Lincoln,
Baker, Logan, Hardin, aspirants for Congress.--Supposed
bargain.--Canvass for Whig nomination in 1846.--Mr. Lincoln
nominated.--Opposed by Peter Cartwright.--Mr. Lincoln called a
deist.--Elected.--Takes his seat.--Distinguished members.--Opposed
to the Mexican War.--The "Spot Resolutions."--Speech of Mr.
Lincoln.--Murmurs of disapprobation.--Mr. Lincoln for "Old Rough" in
1848.--Defections at home.--Mr. Lincoln's campaign.--Speech.--Passage
not generally published.--Letter to his father.--Second session.--The
"Gott Resolution."--Mr. Lincoln's substitute..............274

CHAPTER XIII.

Mr. Lincoln in his character of country lawyer.--Public feeling at
the time of his death.--Judge Davis's address at a bar-meeting.--Judge
Drummond's address.--Mr. Lincoln's partnership with John T.
Stuart.--With Stephen. T. Logan.--With William H. Herndon.--Mr.
Lincoln "a case-lawyer."--Slow.--Conscientious.--Henry McHenry's
case.--Circumstantial evidence.--A startling case.--Mr. Lincoln's
account of it.--His first case in the Supreme Court.--Could not defend a
bad case.--Ignorance of technicalities.--The Eighth Circuit.--Happy
on the circuit.--Style of travelling.--His relations.--Young Johnson
indicted.--Mr. Lincoln's kindness.--Jack Armstrong's son tried
for murder.--Mr. Lincoln defends him.--Alleged use of a false
almanac.--Prisoner discharged.--Old Hannah's account of it.--Mr.
Lincoln's suit against Illinois Central Railway Company.--McCormick
Reaping Machine case.--Treatment by Edwin M. Stanton........311

CHAPTER XIV.

Mr. Lincoln not a candidate for re-election.--Judge Logan's defeat.--Mr.
Lincoln an applicant for Commissioner of the Land Office.--Offered the
Governorship of Oregon.--Views concerning the Missouri Compromise
and Compromise of 1850.--Declines to be a candidate for Congress in
1850.--Death of Thomas Lincoln.--Correspondence between Mr. Lincoln
and John Johnston.--Eulogy on Henry Clay.--In favor of voluntary
emancipation and colonization.--Answer to Mr. Douglas's Richmond
speech.--Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.--Mr. Lincoln's views
concerning slavery.--Opposed to conferring political privileges
upon negroes.--Aroused by the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise.--Anti-Nebraska party.--Mr. Lincoln the leader.--Mr. Douglas
speaks at Chicago.--At Springfield.--Mr. Lincoln replies.--A
great speech.--Mr. Douglas rejoins.--The Abolitionists.--Mr.
Herndon.--Determined to make Mr. Lincoln an Abolitionist.--They refuse
to enter the Know-Nothing lodges.--The Abolitionists desire to force
Mr. Lincoln to take a stand.--He runs away from Springfield.--He
is requested to "follow up" Mr. Douglas.--Speech at
Peoria.--Extract.--Slavery and popular sovereignty.--Mr. Lincoln and
Mr. Douglas agree not to speak any more.--The election.--Mr. Lincoln
announced for the Legislature by Wm. Jayne.--Mrs. Lincoln withdraws his
name.--Jayne restores it.--He is elected.--A candidate for United-States
Senator.--Resigns his seat.--Is censured.--Anti-Nebraska majority in
the Legislature.--The balloting.--Danger of Governor Matteson's
election.--Mr. Lincoln advises his friends to vote for Judge
Trumbull.--Trumbull elected.--Charges of conspiracy and corrupt
bargain.--Mr. Lincoln's denial.--Mr. Douglas imputes to Mr. Lincoln
extreme Abolitionist views.--Mr. Lincoln's answer.............333

CHAPTER XV.

The struggle in Kansas.--The South begins the struggle.--The North meets
it.--The Missourians and other proslavery forces.--Andrew H. Reeder
appointed governor.--Election frauds.--Mr. Lincoln's views on
Kansas.--Gov. Shannon arrives in the Territory.--The Free State men
repudiate the Legislature.--Mr. Lincoln's "little speech" to the
Abolitionists of Illinois.--Mr. Lincoln's party relations.--Mr. Lincoln
agrees to meet the Abolitionists.--Convention at Bloomington.--Mr.
Lincoln considered a convert.--His great speech.--Conservative
resolutions.--Ludicrous failure of a ratification meeting at
Springfield.--Mr. Lincoln's remarks.--Plot to break up the Know-Nothing
party.--"National" Republican Convention.--Mr. Lincoln receives
a hundred and ten votes for Vice-President.--National Democratic
Convention.--Mr. Lincoln a candidate for elector.--His
canvass.--Confidential letter.--Imperfect fellowship with the
Abolitionists.--Mr. Douglas's speech on Kansas in June, 1857.--Mr.
Lincoln's reply.--Mr. Douglas committed to support of the Lecompton
Constitution.--The Dred Scott Decision discussed.--Mr. Lincoln
against negro equality.--Affairs in Kansas.--Election of a new
Legislature.--Submission of the Lecompton Constitution to
the people.--Method of voting on it.--Constitution finally
rejected.--Conflict in Congress.--Mr. Douglas's defection.--Extract from
a speech by Mr. Lincoln........366

CHAPTER XVI.

Mr. Douglas opposes the Administration.--His course in
Congress.--Squatter sovereignty in full operation.--Mr. Lincoln's
definition of popular sovereignty and squatter sovereignty.--Mr.
Douglas's private conferences with Republicans.--"Judge Trumbull's
opinion.--Mr. Douglas nominated for senator by a Democratic
Convention.--Mr. Lincoln's idea of what Douglas might accomplish at
Charleston.--Mr. Lincoln writing a celebrated speech.--He is nominated
for senator.--A startling doctrine.--A council of friends.--Same
doctrine advanced at Bloomington.--The "house-divided" speech.--Mr.
Lincoln promises to explain.--What Mr. Lincoln thought of Mr.
Douglas.--What Mr. Douglas thought of Mr. Lincoln.--Popular canvass for
senator.--Mr. Lincoln determines to "kill Douglas" as a
Presidential aspirant.--Adroit plan to draw him out on squatter
sovereignty.--Absurdities of Mr. Douglas.--The election.--Success of Mr.
Douglas.--Reputation acquired by Mr. Lincoln..................389

CHAPTER XVII.

Mr. Lincoln writes and delivers a lecture.--The Presidency.--Mr.
Lincoln's "running qualities."--He thinks himself unfit.--Nominated by
"Illinois Gazette."--Letter to Dr. Canisius.--Letter to Dr. Wallace
on the protective tariff policy.--Mr. Lincoln in Ohio and Kansas.--A
private meeting of his friends.--Permitted to use his name for
the Presidency.--An invitation to speak in New York.--Choosing a
subject.--Arrives in New York.--His embarrassments.--Speech in Cooper
Institute.--Comments of the press.--He is charged with mercenary
conduct.--Letter concerning the charge.--Visits New England.--Style
and character of his speeches.--An amusing encounter with a clerical
politician...421

CHAPTER XVIII.

Meeting of the Republican State Convention.--Mr. Lincoln present.--John
Hanks and the rails.--Mr. Lincoln's speech.--Meeting of the Republican
National Convention at Chicago.--The platform.--Combinations to secure
Mr. Lincoln's nomination.--The balloting.--Mr. Lincoln nominated.--Mr.
Lincoln at Springfield waiting the results of the Convention.--How
he received the news.--Enthusiasm at Springfield.--Official
notification.--The "Constitutional Union" party.--The Democratic
Conventions at Charleston and Baltimore.--The election.--The
principle upon which Mr. Lincoln proposed to make appointments.--Mr.
Stephens.--Mr. Gilmore.--Mr. Guthrie.--Mr. Seward.--Mr. Chase.--Mr.
Bates.--The cases of Smith and Cameron.--Mr. Lincoln's visit
to Chicago.--Mr. Lincoln's visit to his relatives in Coles
County.--Apprehensions about assassination.--A visit from Hannah
Armstrong... 444

CHAPTER XIX.

Difficulties and peculiarities of Mr. Lincoln's position.--A general
review of his character.--His personal appearance and habits.--His house
and other property.--His domestic relations.--His morbid melancholy
and superstition.--Illustrated by his literary tastes.--His humor.--His
temperate habits and abstinence from sensual pleasures.--His
ambition.--Use of politics for personal advancement.--Love of power
and place.--Of justice.--Not a demagogue or a trimmer.--His religious
views.--Attempt of the Rev. Mr. Smith to convert him.--Mr. Bateman's
story as related by Dr. Holland.--Effect of his belief upon his mind and
character...........466

CHAPTER XX.

Departure of the Presidential party from Springfield.--Affecting address
by Mr. Lincoln to his friends and neighbors.--His opinions concerning
the approaching civil war.--Discovery of a supposed plot to murder
him at Baltimore.--Governor Hicks's proposal to "kill Lincoln and his
men."--The plan formed to defeat the conspiracy.--The midnight ride
from Harrisburg to Washington.--Arrival in Washington.--Before the
Inauguration.--Inauguration Day.--Inaugural Address.--Mr. Lincoln's
Oath.--Mr. Lincoln President of the United States.--Mr. Buchanan bids
him farewell............505




LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.




CHAPTER I.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN was born on the twelfth day of February, 1809. His
father's name was Thomas Lincoln, and his mother's maiden name was Nancy
Hanks. At the time of his birth, they are supposed to have been married
about three years. Although there appears to have been but little
sympathy or affection between Thomas and Abraham Lincoln, they were
nevertheless connected by ties and associations which make the previous
history of Thomas Lincoln and his family a necessary part of any
reasonably full biography of the great man who immortalized the name by
wearing it.

Thomas Lincoln's ancestors were among the early settlers of Rockingham
County in Virginia; but exactly whence they came, or the precise time of
their settlement there, it is impossible to tell. They were manifestly
of English descent; but whether emigrants directly from England
to Virginia, or an offshoot of the historic Lincoln family in
Massachusetts, or of the highly-respectable Lincoln family in
Pennsylvania, are questions left entirely to conjecture. We have
absolutely no evidence by which to determine them, Thomas Lincoln
himself stoutly denied that his progenitors were either Quakers or
Puritans; but he furnished nothing except his own word to sustain his
denial: on the contrary, some of the family (distant relatives of Thomas
Lincoln) who remain in Virginia believe themselves to have sprung from
the New-England stock. They found their opinion solely on the fact that
the Christian names given to the sons of the two families were the same,
though only in a few cases, and at different times. But this might have
arisen merely from that common religious sentiment which induces parents
of a devotional turn to confer scriptural names on their children, or it
might have been purely accidental. Abrahams, Isaacs, and Jacobs abound
in many other families who claim no kindred on that account. In England,
during the ascendency of the Puritans, in times of fanatical religious
excitement, the children were almost universally baptized by the names
of the patriarchs and Old-Testament heroes, or by names of their own
pious invention, signifying what the infant was expected to do and to
suffer in the cause of the Lord. The progenitors of all the American
Lincolns were Englishmen, and they may have been Puritans. There is,
therefore, nothing unreasonable in the supposition that they began the
practice of conferring such names before the emigration of any of them;
and the names, becoming matters of family pride and family tradition,
have continued to be given ever since. But, if the fact that
Christian names of a particular class prevailed among the Lincolns of
Massachusetts and the Lincolns of Virginia at the same time is no proof
of consanguinity, the identity of the surname is entitled to even less
consideration. It is barely possible that they may have had a common
ancestor; but, if they had, he must have lived and died so obscurely,
and so long ago, that no trace of him can be discovered. It would be
as difficult to prove a blood relationship between all the American
Lincolns, as it would be to prove a general cousinship among all the
Smiths or all the Joneses.1

     1 At the end of this volume will be found a very interesting
     account of the family, given by Mr. Lincoln himself. The
     original is in his own handwriting, and is here reproduced
     in fac-simile.

A patronymic so common as Lincoln, derived from a large geographical
division of the old country, would almost certainly be taken by many who
had no claim to it by reason of descent from its original possessors.

Dr. Holland, who, of all Mr. Lincoln's biographers, has entered most
extensively into the genealogy of the family, says that the father of
Thomas was named Abraham; but he gives no authority for his statement,
and it is as likely to be wrong as to be right. The Hankses--John and
Dennis--who passed a great part of their lives in the company of Thomas
Lincoln, tell us that the name of his father was Mordecai; and so also
does Col. Chapman, who married Thomas Lincoln's step-daughter. The rest
of those who ought to know are unable to assign him any name at all.
Dr. Holland says further, that this Abraham (or Mordecai) had four
brothers,--Jacob, John, Isaac, and Thomas; that Isaac went to Tennessee,
where his descendants are now; that Thomas went to Kentucky after his
brother Abraham; but that Jacob and John "are supposed to have" remained
in Virginia.1 This is doubtless true, at least so far as it relates to
Jacob and John; for there are at this day numerous Lincolns residing
in Rockingham County,--the place from which the Kentucky Lincolns
emigrated. One of their ancestors, Jacob,--who seems to be the brother
referred to,--was a lieutenant in the army of the Revolution, and
present at the siege of Yorktown. His military services were made the
ground of a claim against the government, and Abraham Lincoln, whilst a
representative in Congress from Illinois, was applied to by the family
to assist them in prosecuting it. A correspondence of some length
ensued, by which the presumed relationship of the parties was fully
acknowledged on both sides. But, unfortunately, no copy of it is now
in existence. The one preserved by the Virginians was lost or destroyed
during the late war. The family, with perfect unanimity, espoused
the cause of the Confederate States, and suffered many losses in
consequence, of which these interesting papers may have been one.

     1 The Life of Abraham Lincoln, by J. G. Holland, p. 20.

Abraham (or Mordecai) the father of Thomas Lincoln, was the owner of
a large and fertile tract of land on the waters of Linnville's Creek,
about eight miles north of Harrisonburg, the court-house town of
Rockingham County. It is difficult to ascertain the precise extent of
this plantation, or the history of the title to it, inasmuch as all the
records of the county were burnt by Gen. Hunter in 1864. It is clear,
however, that it had been inherited by Lincoln, the emigrant to
Kentucky, and that four, if not all, of his children were born upon it.
At the time Gen. Sheridan received the order "to make the Valley of the
Shenandoah a barren waste," this land was well improved and in a state
of high cultivation; but under the operation of that order it was
ravaged and desolated like the region around it.

Lincoln, the emigrant, had three sons and two daughters. Thomas was the
third son and the fourth child. He was born in 1778; and in 1780, or a
little later, his father removed with his entire family to Kentucky.

Kentucky was then the paradise of the borderer's dreams. Fabulous tales
of its sylvan charms and pastoral beauties had for years been floating
about, not only along the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North
Carolina, but farther back in the older settlements. For a while it had
been known as the "Cane Country," and then as the "Country of
Kentucky." Many expeditions were undertaken to explore it; two or three
adventurers, and occasionally only one at a time, passing down the Ohio
in canoes. But they all stopped short of the Kentucky River. The Indians
were terrible; and it was known that they would surrender any other
spot of earth in preference to Kentucky. The canes that were supposed
to indicate the promised land--those canes of wondrous dimensions,
that shot up, as thick as they could stand, from a soil of inestimable
fertility--were forever receding before those who sought them. One party
after another returned to report, that, after incredible dangers and
hardships, they had met with no better fortune than that which had
attended the efforts of their predecessors, and that they had utterly
failed to find the "canes." At last they were actually found by Simon
Kenton, who stealthily planted a little patch of corn, to see how the
stalk that bore the yellow grain would grow beside its "brother" of the
wilderness. He was one day leaning against the stem of a great tree,
watching his little assemblage of sprouts, and wondering at the strange
fruitfulness of the earth which fed them, when he heard a footstep
behind him. It was the great Daniel Boone's. They united their fortunes
for the present, but subsequently each of them became the chief of a
considerable settlement. Kenton's trail had been down the Ohio, Boone's
from North Carolina; and from both those directions soon came hunters,
warriors, and settlers to join them. But the Indians had no thought of
relinquishing their fairest hunting-grounds without a long and desperate
struggle. The rich carpet of natural grasses which fed innumerable
herds of buffalo, elk, and deer, all the year round; the grandeur of
its primeval forests, its pure fountains, and abundant streams,--made it
even more desirable to them than to the whites. They had long contended
for the possession of it; and no tribe, or confederacy of tribes, had
ever been able to hold it to the exclusion of the rest. Here, from time
immemorial, the northern and southern, the eastern and western Indians
had met each other in mortal strife, mutually shedding the blood which
ought to have been husbanded for the more deadly conflict with a common
foe. The character of this savage warfare had earned for Kentucky the
appellation of "the dark and bloody ground;" and, now that the whites
had fairly begun their encroachments upon it, the Indians were resolved
that the phrase should lose none of its old significance. White settlers
might therefore count upon fighting for their lives as well as their
lands.

Boone did not make his final settlement till 1775. The Lincolns came
about 1780. This was but a year or two after Clark's expedition into
Illinois; and it was long, long before St. Clair's defeat and Wayne's
victory. Nearly the whole of the north-west territory was then occupied
by hostile Indians. Kentucky volunteers had yet before them many a day
of hot and bloody work on the Ohio, the Muskingum, and the Miami, to say
nothing of the continual surprises to which they were subjected at home.
Every man's life was in his hand. From cabin to cabin, from settlement
to settlement, his trail was dogged by the eager savage. If he went
to plough, he was liable to be shot down between the handles; if he
attempted to procure subsistence by hunting, he was hunted himself.
Unless he abandoned his "clearing" and his stock to almost certain
devastation, and shut up himself and his family in a narrow "fort," for
months at a time, he might expect every hour that their roof would be
given "to the flames, and their flesh to the eagles."

To make matters worse, "the western country," and particularly Kentucky,
had become the rendezvous of Tories, runaway conscripts, deserters,
debtors, and criminals. Gen. Butler, who went there as a Commissioner
from Congress, to treat with certain Indian tribes, kept a private
journal, in which he entered a very graphic, but a very appalling
description of the state of affairs in Kentucky. At the principal
"points," as they were called, were collected hungry speculators,
gamblers, and mere desperadoes,--these distinctions being the only
divisions and degrees in society. Among other things, the journal
contains a statement about land-jobbing and the traffic in town lots,
at Louisville, beside which the account of the same business in "Martin
Chuzzlewit" is absolutely tame. That city, now one of the most superb in
the Union, was then a small collection of cabins and hovels, inhabited
by a class of people of whom specimens might have been found a few
months ago at Cheyenne or Promontory Point. Notwithstanding the
high commissions borne by Gen. Butler and Gen. Parsons, the motley
inhabitants of Louisville flatly refused even to notice them. They
would probably have sold them a "corner lot" in a swamp, or a "splendid
business site" in a mud-hole; but for mere civilities there was no time.
The whole population were so deeply engaged in drinking, card-playing,
and selling town lots to each other, that they persistently refused to
pay any attention to three men who were drowning in the river near by,
although their dismal cries for help were distinctly heard throughout
the "city."

On the journey out, the Lincolns are said to have endured many hardships
and encountered all the usual dangers, including several skirmishes with
the Indians. They settled in Mercer County, but at what particular spot
is uncertain. Their house was a rough log-cabin, their farm a little
clearing in the midst of a vast forest. One morning, not long after
their settlement, the father took Thomas, his youngest son, and went
to build a fence, a short distance from the house; while the other
brothers, Mordecai and Josiah, were sent to another field, not far
away. They were all intent about their work, when a shot from a party
of Indians in ambush broke the "listening stillness" cf the woods.
The father fell dead; Josiah ran to a stockade two or three miles off;
Mordecai, the eldest boy, made his way to the house, and, looking out
from the loophole in the loft, saw an Indian in the act of raising
his little brother from the ground. He took deliberate aim at a silver
ornament on the breast of the Indian, and brought him down. Thomas
sprang toward the cabin, and was admitted by his mother, while Mordecai
renewed his fire at several other Indians that rose from the covert of
the fence or thicket. It was not long until Josiah returned from the
stockade with a party of settlers; but the Indians had fled, and none
were found but the dead one, and another who was wounded and had crept
into the top of a fallen tree.

When this tragedy was enacted, Mordecai, the hero of it, was a
well-grown boy. He seems to have hated Indians ever after with a hatred
which was singular for its intensity, even in those times. Many years
afterwards, his neighbors believed that he was in the habit of following
peaceable Indians, as they passed through the settlements, in order to
get surreptitious shots at them; and it was no secret that he had killed
more than one in that way.

Immediately after the death of her husband, the widow abandoned the
scene of her misfortunes, and removed to Washington County, near the
town of Springfield, where she lived until the youngest of her children
had grown up. Mor-decai and Josiah remained there until late in life,
and were always numbered among the best people in the neighborhood.
Mordecai was the eldest son of his father; and under the law of
primogeniture, which was still a part of the Virginia code, he inherited
some estate in lands. One of the daughters wedded a Mr. Krume, and the
other a Mr. Brumfield.

Thomas seems to have been the only member of the family whose character
was not entirely respectable. He was idle, thriftless, poor, a hunter,
and a rover. One year he wandered away off to his uncle, on the
Holston, near the confines of Tennessee. Another year he wandered into
Breckinridge County, where his easy good-nature was overcome by a huge
bully, and he performed the only remarkable achievement of his life, by
whipping him. In 1806, we find him in Hardin County, trying to learn the
carpenter's trade. Until then, he could neither read nor write; and
it was only after his marriage that his ambition led him to seek
accomplishments of this sort.

Thomas Lincoln was not tall and thin, like Abraham, but comparatively
short and stout, standing about five feet ten inches in his shoes. His
hair was dark and coarse, his complexion brown, his face round and
full, his eyes gray, and his nose large and prominent. He weighed,
at different times, from one hundred and seventy to one hundred and
ninety-six. He was built so "tight and compact," that Dennis Hanks
declares he never could find the points of separation between his ribs,
though he felt for them often. He was a little stoop-shouldered, and
walked with a slow, halting step. But he was sinewy and brave, and, his
habitually peaceable disposition once fairly overborne, was a tremendous
man in a rough-and-tumble fight. He thrashed the monstrous bully of
Breckinridge County in three minutes, and came off without a scratch.

His vagrant career had supplied him with an inexhaustible fund of
anecdotes, which he told cleverly and well. He loved to sit about at
"stores," or under shade-trees, and "spin yarns,"--a propensity which
atoned for many sins, and made him extremely popular. In politics,
he was a Democrat,--a Jackson Democrat. In religion he was nothing at
times, and a member of various denominations by turns,--a Free-Will
Baptist in Kentucky, a Presbyterian in Indiana, and a Disciple--vulgarly
called Campbellite--in Illinois. In this latter communion he seems to
have died.

It ought, perhaps, to be mentioned, that both in Virginia and Kentucky
his name was commonly pronounced "Linck-horn," and in Indiana,
"Linckhern." The usage was so general, that Tom Lincoln came very near
losing his real name altogether. As he never wrote it at all until after
his marriage, and wrote it then only mechanically, it was never spelled
one way or the other, unless by a storekeeper here and there, who had
a small account against him. Whether it was properly "Lincoln,"
"Linckhorn," or "Linckhern," was not definitely settled until after
Abraham began to write, when, as one of the neighbors has it, "he
remodelled the spelling and corrected the pronunciation."

By the middle of 1806, Lincoln had acquired a very limited knowledge
of the carpenter's trade, and set up on his own account; but his
achievements in this line were no better than those of his previous
life. He was employed occasionally to do rough work, that requires
neither science nor skill; but nobody alleges that he ever built a
house, or pretended to do more than a few little odd jobs connected with
such an undertaking. He soon got tired of the business, as he did of
every thing else that required application and labor. He was no boss,
not even an average journeyman, nor a steady hand. When he worked at the
trade at all, he liked to make common benches, cupboards, and bureaus;
and some specimens of his work of this kind are still extant in Kentucky
and Indiana, and bear their own testimony to the quality of their
workmanship.

Some time in the year 1806 he married Nancy Hanks. It was in the shop of
her uncle, Joseph Hanks, at Elizabethtown, in Hardin County, that he had
essayed to learn the trade. We have no record of the courtship, but
any one can readily imagine the numberless occasions that would bring
together the niece and the apprentice. It is true that Nancy did not
live with her uncle; but the Hankses were all very clannish, and she was
doubtless a welcome and frequent guest at his house. It is admitted by
all the old residents of the place that they were honestly married, but
precisely when or how no one can tell. Diligent and thorough searches by
the most competent persons have failed to discover any trace of the fact
in the public records of Hardin and the adjoining counties. The license
and the minister's return in the case of Lincoln and Sarah Johnston, his
second wife, were easily found in the place where the law required them
to be; but of Nancy Hanks's marriage there exists no evidence but that
of mutual acknowledgment and cohabitation. At the time of their union,
Thomas was twenty-eight years of age, and Nancy about twenty-three.

Lincoln had previously courted a girl named Sally Bush, who lived in the
neighborhood of Elizabethtown; but his suit was unsuccessful, and
she became the wife of Johnston, the jailer. Her reason for rejecting
Lincoln comes down to us in no words of her own; but it is clear enough
that it was his want of character, and the "bad luck," as the Hankses
have it, which always attended him. Sally Bush was a modest and pious
girl, in all things pure and decent. She was very neat in her personal
appearance, and, because she was particular in the selection of her
gowns and company, had long been accounted a "proud body," who held
her head above common folks. Even her own relatives seem to have
participated in this mean accusation; and the decency of her dress
and behavior appear to have made her an object of common envy and
backbiting. But she had a will as well as principles of her own, and she
lived to make them both serviceable to the neglected and destitute son
of Nancy Hanks. Thomas Lincoln took another wife, but he always loved
Sally Bush as much as he was capable of loving anybody; and years
afterwards, when her husband and his wife were both dead, he returned
suddenly from the wilds of Indiana, and, representing himself as a
thriving and prosperous farmer, induced her to marry him. It will be
seen hereafter what value was to be attached to his representations of
his own prosperity.

Nancy Hanks, who accepted the honor which Sally Bush refused, was a
slender, symmetrical woman, of medium stature, a brunette, with dark
hair, regular features, and soft, sparkling hazel eyes. Tenderly bred
she might have been beautiful; but hard labor and hard usage bent her
handsome form, and imparted an unnatural coarseness to her features long
before the period of her death. Toward the close, her life and her face
were equally sad; and the latter habitually wore the wo-ful expression
which afterwards distinguished the countenance of her son in repose.

By her family, her understanding was considered something wonderful.
John Hanks spoke reverently of her "high and intellectual forehead,"
which he considered but the proper seat of faculties like hers.
Compared with the mental poverty of her husband and relatives, her
accomplishments were certainly very great; for it is related by them
with pride and delight that she could actually read and write. The
possession of these arts placed her far above her associates, and
after a little while even Tom began to meditate upon the importance of
acquiring them. He set to work accordingly, in real earnest, having a
competent mistress so near at hand; and with much effort she taught him
what letters composed his name, and how to put them together in a stiff
and clumsy fashion. Henceforth he signed no more by making his mark; but
it is nowhere stated that he ever learned to write any thing else, or to
read either written or printed letters.

Nancy Hanks was the daughter of Lucy Hanks. Her mother was one of four
sisters,--Lucy, Betsy, Polly, and Nancy. Betsy married Thomas Sparrow;
Polly married Jesse Friend, and Nancy, Levi Hall. Lucy became the wife
of Henry Sparrow, and the mother of eight children. Nancy the younger
was early sent to live with her uncle and aunt, Thomas and Betsy
Sparrow. Nancy, another of the four sisters, was the mother of that
Dennis F. Hanks whose name will be frequently met with in the course of
this history. He also was brought up, or was permitted to come up, in
the family of Thomas Sparrow, where Nancy found a shelter.

Little Nancy became so completely identified with Thomas and Betsy
Sparrow that many supposed her to have been their child. They reared her
to womanhood, followed her to Indiana, dwelt under the same roof, died
of the same disease, at nearly the same time, and were buried close
beside her. They were the only parents she ever knew; and she must
have called them by names appropriate to that relationship, for several
persons who saw them die, and carried them to their graves, believe to
this day that they were, in fact, her father and mother. Dennis Hanks
persists even now in the assertion that her name was Sparrow; but Dennis
was pitiably weak on the cross-examination: and we shall have to accept
the testimony of Mr. Lincoln himself, and some dozens of other persons,
to the contrary.

All that can be learned of that generation of Hankses to which Nancy's
mother belonged has now been recorded as fully as is compatible with
circumstances. They claim that their ancestors came from England to
Virginia, whence they migrated to Kentucky with the Lincolns, and
settled near them in Mercer County. The same, precisely, is affirmed
of the Sparrows. Branches of both families maintained a more or less
intimate connection with the fortunes of Thomas Lincoln, and the early
life of Abraham was closely interwoven with theirs.

Lincoln took Nancy to live in a shed on one of the alleys of
Elizabethtown. It was a very sorry building, and nearly bare of
furniture. It stands yet, or did stand in 1866, to witness for itself
the wretched poverty of its early inmates. It is about fourteen feet
square, has been three times removed, twice used as a slaughter-house,
and once as a stable. Here a daughter was born on the tenth day of
February, 1807, who was called Nancy during the life of her mother, and
after her death Sarah.

But Lincoln soon wearied of Elizabethtown and carpenter-work. He thought
he could do better as a farmer; and, shortly after the birth of Nancy
(or Sarah), removed to a piece of land on the south fork of Nolin Creek,
three miles from Hodgensville, within the present county of La Rue,
and about thirteen miles from Elizabethtown. What estate he had, or
attempted to get, in this land, is not clear from the papers at hand.
It is said he bought it, but was unable to pay for it. It was very poor,
and the landscape of which it formed a part was extremely desolate. It
was then nearly destitute of timber, though it is now partially covered
in spots by a young and stunted growth of post-oak and hickory. On every
side the eye rested only upon weeds and low bushes, and a kind of grass
which the present owner of the farm describes as "barren grass." It was,
on the whole, as bad a piece of ground as there was in the neighborhood,
and would hardly have sold for a dollar an acre. The general appearance
of the surrounding country was not much better. A few small but pleasant
streams--Nolin Creek and its tributaries--wandered through the valleys.
The land was generally what is called "rolling;" that is, dead levels
interspersed by little hillocks. Nearly all of it was arable; but,
except the margins of the watercourses, not much of it was sufficiently
fertile to repay the labor of tillage. It had no grand, un violated
forests to allure the hunter, and no great bodies of deep and rich soils
to tempt the husbandman. Here it was only by incessant labor and thrifty
habits that an ordinary living could be wrung from the earth.

The family took up their residence in a miserable cabin, which stood on
a little knoll in the midst of a barren glade.

A few stones tumbled down, and lying about loose, still indicate the
site of the mean and narrow tenement which sheltered the infancy of
one of the greatest political chieftains of modern times. Near by, a
"romantic spring" gushed from beneath a rock, and sent forth a slender
but silvery stream, meandering through those dull and unsightly plains.
As it furnished almost the only pleasing feature in the melancholy
desert through which it flowed, the place was called after it, "Rock
Spring Farm." In addition to this single natural beauty, Lincoln began
to think, in a little while, that a couple of trees would look well, and
might even be useful, if judiciously planted in the vicinity of his bare
house-yard. This enterprise he actually put into execution; and
three decayed pear-trees, situated on the "edge" of what was lately a
rye-field, constitute the only memorials of him or his family to be seen
about the premises. They were his sole permanent improvement.

In that solitary cabin, on this desolate spot, the illustrious Abraham
Lincoln was born on the twelfth day of February, 1809.

The Lincolns remained on Nolin Creek until Abraham was four years old.
They then removed to a place much more picturesque, and of far greater
fertility. It was situated about six miles from Hodgensville, on
Knob Creek, a very clear stream, which took its rise in the gorges
of Muldrews Hill, and fell into the Rolling Fork two miles above the
present town of New Haven. The Rolling Fork emptied into Salt River, and
Salt River into the Ohio, twenty-four miles below Louisville. This
farm was well timbered, and more hilly than the one on Nolin Creek. It
contained some rich valleys, which promised such excellent yields,
that Lincoln bestirred himself most vigorously, and actually got into
cultivation the whole of six acres, lying advantageously up and down
the branch. This, however, was not all the work he did, for he still
continued to pother occasionally at his trade; but, no matter what
he turned his hand to, his gains were equally insignificant. He was
satisfied with indifferent shelter, and a diet of "corn-bread and milk"
was all he asked. John Hanks naively observes, that "happiness was
the end of life with him." The land he now lived upon (two hundred and
thirty-eight acres) he had pretended to buy from a Mr. Slater. The
deed mentions a consideration of one hundred and eighteen pounds.
The purchase must have been a mere speculation, with all the payments
deferred, for the title remained in Lincoln but a single year. The
deed was made to him Sept. 2, 1813; and Oct. 27, 1814, he conveyed
two hundred acres to Charles Milton for one hundred pounds, leaving
thirty-eight acres of the tract unsold. No public record discloses what
he did with the remainder. If he retained any interest in it for-the
time, it was probably permitted to be sold for taxes. The last of his
voluntary transactions, in regard to this land, took place two years
before his removal to Indiana; after which, he seems to have continued
in possession as the tenant of Milton.

In the mean time, Dennis Hanks endeavored to initiate young Abraham, now
approaching his eighth year, in the mysteries of fishing, and led him
on numerous tramps up and down the picturesque branch,--the branch whose
waters were so pure that a white pebble could be seen in a depth of
ten feet. On Nolin he had hunted ground-hogs with an older boy, who has
since become the Rev. John Duncan, and betrayed a precocious zest in the
sport. On Knob Creek, he dabbled in the water, or roved the hills
and climbed the trees, with a little companion named Gallaher. On one
occasion, when attempting to "coon" across the stream, by swinging
over on a sycamore-tree, Abraham lost his hold, and, tumbling into deep
water, was saved only by the utmost exertions of the other boy. But,
with all this play, the child was often serious and sad. With the
earliest dawn of reason, he began to suffer and endure; and it was that
peculiar moral training which developed both his heart and his intellect
with such singular and astonishing rapidity. It is not likely that Tom
Lincoln cared a straw about his education. He had none himself, and is
said to have admired "muscle" more than mind. Nevertheless, as Abraham's
sister was going to school for a few days at a time, he was sent
along, as Dennis Hanks remarks, more to bear her company than with
any expectation or desire that he would learn much himself. One of the
masters, Zachariah Riney, taught near the Lincoln cabin. The other,
Caleb Hazel, kept his school nearly four miles away, on the "Friend"
farm; and the hapless children were compelled to trudge that long and
weary distance with spelling-book and "dinner,"--the latter a lunch of
corn-bread, Tom Lincoln's favorite dish. Hazel could teach reading
and writing, after a fashion, and a little arithmetic. But his great
qualification for his office lay in the strength of his arm, and his
power and readiness to "whip the big boys."

But, as time wore on, the infelicities of Lincoln's life in this
neighborhood became insupportable. He was gaining neither riches nor
credit; and, being a wanderer by natural inclination, began to long for
a change. His decision, however, was hastened by certain troubles which
culminated in a desperate combat between him and one Abraham Enlow.
They fought like savages; but Lincoln obtained a signal and permanent
advantage by biting off the nose of his antagonist, so that he went
bereft all the days of his life, and published his audacity and its
punishment wherever he showed his face. But the affray, and the fame
of it, made Lincoln more anxious than ever to escape from Kentucky. He
resolved, therefore, to leave these scenes forever, and seek a roof-tree
beyond the Ohio.

It has pleased some of Mr. Lincoln's biographers to represent this
removal of his father as a flight from the taint of slavery. Nothing
could be further from the truth. There were not at the time more than
fifty slaves in all Hardin County, which then composed a vast area of
territory. It was practically a free community. Lincoln's more fortunate
relatives in other parts of the State were slaveholders; and there is
not the slightest evidence that he ever disclosed any conscientious
scruples concerning the "institution."

The lives of his father and mother, and the history and character of the
family before their settlement in Indiana, were topics upon which Mr.
Lincoln never spoke but with great reluctance and significant reserve.

In his family Bible he kept a register of births, marriages, and deaths,
every entry being carefully made in his own handwriting. It contains the
date of his sister's birth and his own; of the marriage and death of his
sister; of the death of his mother; and of the birth and death of
Thomas Lincoln. The rest of the record is almost wholly devoted to the
Johnstons and their numerous descendants and connections. It has not a
word about the Hankses or the Sparrows. It shows the marriage of Sally
Bush, first with Daniel Johnston, and then with Thomas Lincoln; but it
is entirely silent as to the marriage of his own mother. It does not
even give the date of her birth, but barely recognizes her existence
and demise, to make the vacancy which was speedily filled by Sarah
Johnston.1

     1 The leaf of the Bible which contains these entries is in
     the possession of Col. Chapman.

An artist was painting his portrait, and asked him for a sketch of his
early life. He gave him this brief memorandum: "I was born Feb. 12,1809,
in the then Hardin County, Kentucky, at a point within the now county of
La Rue, a mile or a mile and a half from where Hodgens Mill now is. My
parents being dead, and my own memory not serving, I know of no means of
identifying the precise locality. It was on Nolin Creek."

To the compiler of the "Dictionary of Congress" he gave the following:
"Born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. Education defective.
Profession, a lawyer. Have been a captain of volunteers in the
Black-Hawk War. Postmaster at a very small office. Four times a member
of the Illinois Legislature, and was a member of the Lower House of
Congress."

To a campaign biographer who applied for particulars of his early
history, he replied that they could be of no interest; that they were
but

     "The short and simple annals of the poor."

"The chief difficulty I had to encounter," writes this latter gentleman,
"was to induce him to communicate the homely facts and incidents of his
early life. He seemed to be painfully impressed with the extreme poverty
of his early surroundings, the utter absence of all romantic and heroic
elements; and I know he thought poorly of the idea of attempting a
biographical sketch for campaign purposes.... Mr. Lincoln communicated
some facts to me about his ancestry, which he did not wish published,
and which I have never spoken of or alluded to before. I do not think,
however, that Dennis Hanks, if he knows any thing about these matters,
would be very likely to say any thing about them."




CHAPTER II.

THOMAS LINCOLN was something of a waterman. In the frequent changes of
occupation, which had hitherto made his life so barren of good results,
he could not resist the temptation to the career of a flat-boatman. He
had accordingly made one, or perhaps two trips to New Orleans, in the
company and employment of Isaac Bush, who was probably a near relative
of Sally Bush. It was therefore very natural, that when, in the fall of
1816, he finally determined to emigrate, he should attempt to transport
his goods by water. He built himself a boat, which seems to have been
none of the best, and launched it on the Rolling Fork, at the mouth of
Knob Creek, a half-mile from his cabin. Some of his personal property,
including carpenter's tools, he put on board, and the rest he traded for
four hundred gallons of whiskey. With this crazy boat and this singular
cargo, he put out into the stream alone, and floating with the current
down the Rolling Fork, and then down Salt River, reached the Ohio
without any mishap. Here his craft proved somewhat rickety when
contending with the difficulties of the larger stream, or perhaps there
was a lack of force in the management of her, or perhaps the single
navigator had consoled himself during the lonely voyage by too frequent
applications to a portion of his cargo: at all events, the boat
capsized, and the lading went to the bottom. He fished up a few of the
tools "and most of the whiskey," and, righting the little boat, again
floated down to a landing at Thompson's Ferry, two and a half miles west
of Troy, in Perry County, Indiana. Here he sold his treacherous boat,
and, leaving his remaining property in the care of a settler named
Posey, trudged off on foot to select "a location" in the wilderness. He
did not go far, but found a place that he thought would suit him only
sixteen miles distant from the river. He then turned about, and walked
all the way back to Knob Creek, in Kentucky, where he took a fresh
start with his wife and her children. Of the latter there were only
two,--Nancy (or Sarah), nine years of age, and Abraham, seven. Mrs.
Lincoln had given birth to another son some years before, but he had
died when only three days old. After leaving Kentucky, she had no more
children.

This time Lincoln loaded what little he had left upon two horses, and
"packed through to Posey's." Besides clothing and bedding, they carried
such cooking utensils as would be needed by the way, and would be
indispensable when they reached their destination. The stock was not
large. It consisted of "one oven and lid, one skillet and lid, and some
tin-ware." They camped out during the nights, and of course cooked their
own food. Lincoln's skill as a hunter must now have stood him in good
stead.

Where he got the horses used upon this occasion, it is impossible to
say; but they were likely borrowed from his brother-in-law, Krume, of
Breckinridge County, who owned such stock, and subsequently moved Sarah
Johnston's goods to Indiana, after her marriage with Lincoln.

When they got to Posey's, Lincoln hired a wagon, and, loading on it the
whiskey and other things he had stored there, went on toward the place
which has since become famous as the "Lincoln Farm." He was now making
his way through an almost untrodden wilderness. There was no road,
and for a part of the distance not even a foot-trail. He was slightly
assisted by a path of a few miles in length, which had been "blazed out"
by an earlier settler named Hoskins. But he was obliged to suffer long
delays, and cut out a passage for the wagon with his axe. At length,
after many detentions and difficulties he reached the point where he
intended to make his future home. It was situated between the forks
of Big Pigeon and Little Pigeon Creeks, a mile and a half east of
Gentryville, a village which grew up afterwards, and now numbers about
three hundred inhabitants. The whole country was covered with a dense
forest of oaks, beeches, walnuts, sugar-maples, and nearly all the
varieties of trees that flourish in North America. The woods were
usually open, and devoid of underbrush; the trees were of the largest
growth, and beneath the deep shades they afforded was spread out a rich
greensward. The natural grazing was very good, and hogs found abundant
sustenance in the prodigious quantity of mast. There was occasionally
a little glade or prairie set down in the midst of this vast expanse
of forest. One of these, not far from the Lincoln place, was a famous
resort for the deer, and the hunters knew it well for its numerous
"licks." Upon this prairie the militia "musters" were had at a later
day, and from it the south fork of the Pigeon came finally to be known
as the "Prairie Fork."

Lincoln laid off his curtilage on a gentle hillock having a slope on
every side. The spot was very beautiful, and the soil was excellent. The
selection was wise in every respect but one. There was no water near,
except what was collected in holes in the ground after a rain; but it
was very foul, and had to be strained before using. At a later period we
find Abraham and his step-sister carrying water from a spring situated a
mile away. Dennis Hanks asserts that Tom Lincoln "riddled his land like
a honeycomb," in search of good water, and was at last sorely tempted to
employ a Yankee, who came around with a divining-rod, and declared that
for the small consideration of five dollars in cash, he would make his
rod point to a cool, flowing spring beneath the surface.

Here Lincoln built "a half-faced camp,"--a cabin enclosed on three sides
and open on the fourth. It was built, not of logs, but of poles, and was
therefore denominated a "camp," to distinguish it from a "cabin." It was
about fourteen feet square, and had no floor. It was no larger than the
first house he lived in at Elizabethtown, and on the whole not as good
a shelter. But Lincoln was now under the influence of a transient access
of ambition, and the camp was merely preliminary to something better.
He lived in it, however, for a whole year, before he attained to the
dignity of a residence in a cabin. "In the mean time he cleaned some
land, and raised a small crop of corn and vegetables."

In the fall of 1817, Thomas and Betsy Sparrow came out from Kentucky,
and took up their abode in the old camp which the Lincolns had just
deserted for the cabin. Betsy was the aunt who had raised Nancy Hanks.
She had done the same in part for our friend Dennis Hanks, who was the
offspring of another sister, and she now brought him with her. Dennis
thus became the constant companion of young Abraham; and all the other
members of that family, as originally settled in Indiana, being dead,
Dennis remains a most important witness as to this period of Mr.
Lincoln's life.

Lincoln's second house was a "rough, rough log" one: the timbers were
not hewed; and until after the arrival of Sally Bush, in 1819, it had
neither floor, door, nor window. It stood about forty yards from what
Dennis Hanks calls that "darned little half-faced camp," which was now
the dwelling of the Sparrows. It was "right in the bush,"--in the heart
of a virgin wilderness. There were only seven or eight older settlers in
the neighborhood of the two Pigeon Creeks. Lincoln had had some previous
acquaintance with one of them,--a Mr. Thomas Carter; and it is highly
probable that nothing but this trivial circumstance induced him to
settle here.1

     1 The principal authorities for this part of our narrative
     are necessarily Dennis and John Hanks; but their statements
     have been carefully collated with those of other persons,
     both in Kentucky and Indiana.

The nearest town was Troy, situated on the Ohio, about half a mile
from the mouth of Anderson Creek. Gentryville had as yet no existence.
Travelling was on horseback or on foot, and the only resort of commerce
was to the pack-horse or the canoe. But a prodigious immigration was
now sweeping into this inviting country. Harrison's victories over
the Indians had opened it up to the peaceful settler; and Indiana
was admitted into the Union in 1816, with a population of sixty-five
thousand. The county in which Thomas Lincoln settled was Perry, with
the county-seat at Troy; but he soon found himself in the new county of
Spencer, with the court-house at Rockport, twenty miles south of him,
and the thriving village of Gentryville within a mile and a half of his
door.

A post-office was established at Gentryville in 1824 or 1825. Dennis
Hanks helped to hew the logs used to build the first storeroom. The
following letter from Mr. David Turnham, now of Dale, Spencer County,
presents some interesting and perfectly authentic information regarding
the village and the settlements around it in those early times:--

"Yours of the 5th inst. is at hand. As you wish me to answer several
questions, I will give you a few items of the early settlement of
Indiana.

"When my father came here in the spring of 1819, he settled in Spencer
County, within one mile of Thomas Lincoln, then a widower. The chance
for schooling was poor; but, such as it was, Abraham and myself attended
the same schools.

"We first had to go seven miles to mill; and then it was a hand-mill
that would grind from ten to fifteen bushels of corn in a day. There was
but little wheat grown at that time; and, when we did have wheat, we had
to grind it on the mill described, and use it without bolting, as there
were no bolts in the country. In the course of two or three years, a
man by the name of Huffman built a mill on Anderson River, about twelve
miles distant. Abe and I had to do the milling on horseback, frequently
going twice to get one grist. Then they began building horse-mills of a
little better quality than the hand-mills.

"The country was very rough, especially in the low lands, so thick with
bush that a man could scarcely get through on foot. These places were
called Roughs. The country abounded in game, such as bears, deer,
turkeys, and the smaller game.

"About the time Huffman built his mill, there was a road laid out from
Corydon to Evansville, running by Mr. Lincoln's farm, and through what
is now Gentryville. Corydon was then the State capital.

"About the year 1823, there was another road laid out from Rockport to
Bloomington, crossing the aforesaid at right angles, where Gentryville
now stands. James Gentry entered the land; and in about a year Gideon
Romine brought goods there, and shortly after succeeded in getting a
post-office, by the name of Gentryville Post-office. Then followed the
laying out of lots, and the selling of them, and a few were improved.
But for some cause the lots all fell back to the original owner. The
lots were sold in 1824 or 1825. Romine kept goods there a short time,
and sold out to Gentry, but the place kept on increasing slowly. William
Jones came in with a store, that made it improve a little faster, but
Gentry bought him out. Jones bought a tract of land one-half mile from
Gentryville, moved to it, went into business there, and drew nearly all
the custom. Gentry saw that it was ruining his town: he compromised with
Jones, and got him back to Gentryville; and about the year 1847 or 1848
there was another survey of lots, which remains.

"This is as good a history of the rise of Gentryville as I can give,
after consulting several of the old settlers.

"At that time there were a great many deer-licks; and Abe and myself
would go to those licks sometimes, and watch of nights to kill deer,
though Abe was not so fond of a gun as I was. There were ten or twelve
of these licks in a small prairie on the creek, lying between Mr.
Lincoln's and Mr. Wood's (the man you call Moore). This gave it the name
of Prairie Fork of Pigeon Creek.

"The people in the first settling of this country were very sociable,
kind, and accommodating; but there was more drunkenness and stealing
on a small scale, more immorality, less religion, less well-placed
confidence."

The steps taken by Lincoln to complete his title to the land upon which
he settled are thus recited by the Commissioner of the General Land
Office:--

"In reply to the letter of Mr. W. H. Herndon, who is writing the
biography of the late President, dated June 19, 1865, herewith returned,
I have the honor to state, pursuant to the Secretary's reference, that
on the 15th of October, 1817, Mr. Thomas Lincoln, then of Perry County,
Indiana, entered under the old credit system,--

"1. The South-West Quarter of Section 82, in Township 4, South of Range
5 West, lying in Spencer County, Indiana.

"2. Afterwards the said Thomas Lincoln relinquished to the United States
the East half of said South-West Quarter; and the amount paid thereon
was passed to his credit to complete payment of the West half of said
South-West Quarter of Section 32, in Township 4, South of Range 5 West;
and accordingly a patent was issued to said Thomas Lincoln for the
latter tract. The patent was dated June 6, 1827, and was signed by John
Quincy Adams, then President of the United States, and countersigned by
George Graham, then Commissioner of the General Land Office." 1

     1 The patent was issued to Thomas Lincoln alias Linckhern
     the other half he never paid, and finally lost the whole of
     the land.

It will be observed, that, although Lincoln squatted upon the land in
the fall of 1816, he did not enter it until October of the next year;
and that the patent was not issued to him until June, 1827, but a little
more than a year before he left it altogether. Beginning by entering a
full quarter section, he was afterwards content with eighty acres, and
took eleven years to make the necessary payments upon that. It is very
probable that the money which finally secured the patent was furnished
by Gentry or Aaron Grigsby, and the title passed out of Lincoln in the
course of the transaction. Dennis Hanks says, "He settled on a piece of
government land,--eighty acres. This land he afterwards bought under
the Two-Dollar Act; was to pay for it in instalments; one-half he paid."

For two years Lincoln continued to live along in the old way. He did not
like to farm, and he never got much of his land under cultivation. His
principal crop was corn; and this, with the game which a rifleman so
expert would easily take from the woods around him, supplied his table.
It does not appear that he employed any of his mechanical skill in
completing and furnishing his own cabin. It has already been stated that
the latter had no window, door, or floor. But the furniture--if it may
be called furniture--was even worse than the house. Three-legged stools
served for chairs. A bedstead was made of poles stuck in the cracks of
the logs in one corner of the cabin, while the other end rested in the
crotch of a forked stick sunk in the earthen floor. On these were laid
some boards, and on the boards a "shake-down" of leaves covered with
skins and old petticoats. The table was a hewed puncheon, supported by
four legs. They had a few pewter and tin dishes to eat from, but the
most minute inventory of their effects makes no mention of knives or
forks. Their cooking utensils were a Dutch oven and a skillet. Abraham
slept in the loft, to which he ascended by means of pins driven into
holes in the wall.

In the summer of 1818, the Pigeon-Creek settlements were visited by a
fearful disease, called, in common parlance, "the milk-sickness." It
swept off the cattle which gave the milk, as well as the human beings
who drank it. It seems to have prevailed in the neighborhood from 1818
to 1829; for it is given as one of the reasons for Thomas Lincoln's
removal to Illinois at the latter date. But in the year first mentioned
its ravages were especially awful. Its most immediate effects were
severe retchings and vomitings; and, while the deaths from it were
not necessarily sudden, the proportion of those who finally died
was uncommonly large.1 Among the number who were attacked by it, and
lingered on for some time in the midst of great sufferings, were Thomas
and Betsy Sparrow and Mrs. Nancy Lincoln.

     1 The peculiar disease which carried off so many of
     Abraham's family, and induced the removal of the remainder
     to Illinois, deserves more than a passing allusion. The
     following, regarding its nature and treatment, is from the
     pen of an eminent physician of Danville, Illinois:--

     Ward H. Lamon, Esq.

     Dear Sir,--Your favor of the 17th inst. has been received.
     You request me to present you with my theory in relation to
     the origin of the disease called "milk-sickness," and also a
     "general statement of the best treatment of the disease,"
     and the proportion of fatal cases.

     I have quite a number of cases of the so-called disease in
     Danville, Ill., and its vicinity; but perhaps you are not
     aware, that, between the great majority of the medical
     faculty in this region of country and myself, there is quite
     a discrepancy of opinion. They believe in the existence of
     the disease in Vermilion County; while, on the contrary, I
     am firmly of opinion, that, instead of genuine milk-
     sickness, it is only a modified form of malarial fever with
     which we here have to contend. Though sceptical of its
     existence in this part of the country, we have too much
     evidence from different intelligent sources to doubt, for a
     moment, that, in many parts of the West and South-west,
     there is a distinct malady, witnessed more than fifty years
     ago, and different from every other heretofore recognized in
     any system of Nosology.

     In the opinion of medical men, as well as in that of the
     people in general, where milk-sickness prevails, cattle,
     sheep, and horses contract the disease by feeding on wild
     pasture-lands; and, when those pastures have been enclosed
     and cultivated, the cause entirely disappears. This has also
     been the observation of the farmers and physicians of
     Vermilion County, Illinois. From this it might be inferred
     that the disease had a vegetable origin. But it appears that
     it prevails as early in the season as March and April in
     some localities; and I am informed that, in an early day,
     say thirty-five or forty years ago, it showed itself in the
     winter-time in this county. This seems to argue that it may
     be produced by water holding some mineral substance in
     solution. Even in this case, however, some vegetable
     producing the disease may have been gathered and preserved
     with the hay on which the cattle were fed at the time; for
     in that early day the farmers were in the habit of cutting
     wild grass for their stock. On the whole, I am inclined to
     attribute the cause to a vegetable origin.

     The symptoms of what is called milk-sickness in this county--
     and they are similar to those described by authors who have
     written on the disease in other sections of the Western
     country--are a whitish coat on the tongue, burning
     sensation of the stomach severe vomiting, obstinate
     constipation of the bowels, coolness of the extremities,
     great restlessness and jactitation, pulse rather small,
     somewhat more frequent than natural, and slightly corded. In
     the course of the disease, the coat on the tongue becomes
     brownish and dark, the countenance dejected, and the
     prostration of the patient is great. A fatal termination may
     take place in sixty hours, or life may be prolonged for a
     period of fourteen days. These are the symptoms of the acute
     form of the disease. Sometimes it runs into the chronic
     form, or it may assume that form from the commencement; and,
     after months or years, the patient may finally die, or
     recover only a partial degree of health.

     The treatment which I have found most successful is pills
     composed of calomel and opium, given at intervals of two,
     three, or four hours, so as to bring the patient pretty
     strongly under the influence of opium by the time the second
     or third dose had been administered; some effervescing
     mixture, pro re nata; injections; castor oil, when the
     stomach will retain it; blisters to the stomach; brandy or
     good whiskey freely administered throughout the disease; and
     quinine after the bowels have been moved.

     Under the above treatment, modified according to the
     circumstances, I would not expect to lose more than one case
     in eight or ten, as the disease manifests itself in this
     county....

     As ever, Theo. Lemon.

It was now found expedient to remove the Sparrows from the wretched
"half-faced camp," through which the cold autumn winds could sweep
almost unobstructed, to the cabin of the Lincolns, which in truth was
then very little better. Many in the neighborhood had already died, and
Thomas Lincoln had made all their coffins out of "green lumber cut
with a whip-saw." In the mean time the Sparrows and Nancy were growing
alarmingly worse. There was no physician in the county,--not even
a pretender to the science of medicine; and the nearest regular
practitioner was located at Yellow Banks, Ky., over thirty miles
distant. It is not probable that they ever secured his services. They
would have been too costly, and none of the persons who witnessed and
describe these scenes speak of his having been there. At length, in the
first days of October, the Sparrows died; and Thomas Lincoln sawed up
his green lumber, and made rough boxes to enclose the mortal remains of
his wife's two best and oldest friends. A day or two after, on the 5th
of October, 1818, Nancy Hanks Lincoln rested from her troubles. Thomas
Lincoln took to his green wood again, and made a box for Nancy. There
were about twenty persons at her funeral. They took her to the summit
of a deeply-wooded knoll, about half a mile south-east of the cabin, and
laid her beside the Sparrows. If there were any burial ceremonies,
they were of the briefest. But it happened that a few months later an
itinerant preacher, named David Elkin, whom the Lincolns had known in
Kentucky, wandered into the settlement; and he either volunteered or was
employed to preach a sermon, which should commemorate the many virtues
and pass in silence the few frailties of the poor woman who slept in
the forest. Many years later the bodies of Levi Hall and his wife, Nancy
Hanks, were deposited in the same earth with that of Mrs. Lincoln. The
graves of two or three children belonging to a neighbor's family are
also near theirs. They are all crumbled in, sunken, and covered with
wild vines in deep and tangled mats. The great trees were originally cut
away to make a small cleared space for this primitive graveyard; but the
young dogwoods have sprung up unopposed in great luxuriance, and in many
instances the names of pilgrims to the burial-place of the great Abraham
Lincoln's mother are carved in their bark. With this exception, the spot
is wholly unmarked. Her grave never had a stone, nor even a board, at
its head or its foot; and the neighbors still dispute as to which one of
those unsightly hollows contains the ashes of Nancy Lincoln.

Thirteen months after the burial of Nancy Hanks, and nine or ten months
after the solemnities conducted by Elkin, Thomas Lincoln appeared at
Elizabethtown, Ky., in search of another wife. Sally Bush had married
Johnston, the jailer, in the spring of the same year in which Lincoln
had married Nancy Hanks. She had then rejected him for a better match,
but was now a widow. In 1814 many persons in and about Elizabethtown had
died of a disease which the people called the "cold plague," and among
them the jailer. Both parties being free again, Lincoln came back, very
unexpectedly to Mrs. Johnston, and opened his suit in an exceedingly
abrupt manner. "Well, Miss Johnston," said he, "I have no wife, and you
have no husband. I came a purpose to marry you: I knowed you from a gal,
and you knowed me from a boy. I have no time to lose; and, if you are
willin', let it be done straight off." To this she replied, "Tommy, I
know you well, and have no objection to marrying you; but I cannot do
it straight off, as I owe some debts that must first be paid." "The next
morning," says Hon. Samuel Haycraft, the clerk of the courts and the
gentleman who reports this quaint courtship, "I issued his license, and
they were married _straight_ off on that day, and left, and I never saw
her or Tom Lincoln since." From the death of her husband to that day,
she had been living, "an honest, poor widow," "in a round log-cabin,"
which stood in an "alley" just below Mr. Haycraft's house. Dennis Hanks
says that it was only "on the earnest solicitation of her friends" that
Mrs. Johnston consented to marry Lincoln. They all liked Lincoln, and it
was with a member of her family that he had made several voyages to New
Orleans. Mr. Helm, who at that time was doing business in his uncle's
store at Elizabethtown, remarks that "life among the Hankses, the
Lincolns, and the Enlows was a long ways below life among the Bushes."
Sally was the best and the proudest of the Bushes; but, nevertheless,
she appears to have maintained some intercourse with the Lincolns as
long as they remained in Kentucky. She had a particular kindness for
little Abe, and had him with her on several occasions at Helm's store,
where, strange to say, he sat on a nail-keg, and ate a lump of sugar,
"just like any other boy."

Mrs. Johnston has been denominated a "poor widow;" but she possessed
goods, which, in the eyes of Tom Lincoln, were of almost unparalleled
magnificence. Among other things, she had a bureau that cost forty
dollars; and he informed her, on their arrival in Indiana, that, in his
deliberate opinion, it was little less than sinful to be the owner of
such a thing. He demanded that she should turn it into cash, which
she positively refused to do. She had quite a lot of other articles,
however, which he thought well enough in their way, and some of which
were sadly needed in his miserable cabin in the wilds of Indiana. Dennis
Hanks speaks with great rapture of the "large supply of household goods"
which she brought out with her. There was "one fine bureau, one table,
one set of chairs, one large clothes-chest, cooking utensils, knives,
forks, bedding, and other articles." It was a glorious day for little
Abe and Sarah and Dennis when this wondrous collection of rich furniture
arrived in the Pigeon Creek settlement. But all this wealth required
extraordinary means of transportation; and Lincoln had recourse to
his brother-in-law, Ralph Krume, who lived just over the line, in
Breckinridge County. Krume came with a four-horse team, and moved Mrs.
Johnston, now Mrs. Lincoln, with her family and effects, to the home of
her new husband in Indiana. When she got there, Mrs. Lincoln was much
"surprised" at the contrast between the glowing representations which
her husband had made to her before leaving Kentucky and the real poverty
and meanness of the place. She had evidently been given to understand
that the bridegroom had reformed his old Kentucky ways, and was now an
industrious and prosperous farmer. She was scarcely able to restrain
the expression of her astonishment and discontent; but, though sadly
overreached in a bad bargain, her lofty pride and her high sense of
Christian duty saved her from hopeless and useless repinings.

On the contrary, she set about mending what was amiss with all her
strength and energy. Her own goods furnished the cabin with tolerable
decency. She made Lincoln put down a floor, and hang windows and doors.
It was in the depth of winter; and the children, as they nestled in the
warm beds she provided them, enjoying the strange luxury of security
from the cold winds of December, must have thanked her from the bottoms
of their newly-comforted hearts. She had brought a son and two daughters
of her own,--John, Sarah, and Matilda; but Abe and his sister Nancy
(whose name was speedily changed to Sarah), the ragged and hapless
little strangers to her blood, were given an equal place in her
affections. They were half naked, and she clad them from the stores of
clothing she had laid up for her own. They were dirty, and she washed
them; they had been ill-used, and she treated them with motherly
tenderness. In her own modest language, she "made them look a little
more human." "In fact," says Dennis Hanks, "in a few weeks all had
changed; and where every thing was wanting, now all was snug and
comfortable. She was a woman of great energy of remarkable good sense,
very industrious and saving, and also very neat and tidy in her person
and manners, and knew exactly how to manage children. She took an
especial liking to young Abe. Her love for him was warmly returned, and
continued to the day of his death. But few children loved their parents
as he loved his step-mother. She soon dressed him up in entire new
clothes, _and from that time on he appeared to lead a new life_. He was
encouraged by her to study, and any wish on his part was gratified when
it could be done. The two sets of children got along finely together, as
if they had all been the children of the same parents. Mrs. Lincoln soon
discovered that young Abe was a boy of uncommon natural talents, and
that, if rightly trained, a bright future was before him, and she did
all in her power to develop those talents." When, in after years, Mr.
Lincoln spoke of his "saintly mother," and of his "angel of a mother,"
he referred to this noble woman,1 who first made him feel "like a human
being,"--whose goodness first touched his childish heart, and taught him
that blows and taunts and degradation were not to be his only portion in
the world.2

     1 The author has many times heard him make the application.
     While he seldom, if ever, spoke of his own mother, he loved
     to dwell on the beautiful character of Sally Bush.

     2 The following description of her personal appearance is
     from the pen of her granddaughter, the daughter of Dennis
     Hanks:--

     "When I landed in Indiana," says Mrs. Lincoln, "Abe was
     about nine years old, and the country was wild and
     desolate. It is certain enough that her presence took away
     much that was desolate in his lot. She clothed him decently,
     and had him sent to school as soon as there was a school to
     send him to. But, notwithstanding her determination to do
     the best for him, his advantages in this respect were very
     limited. He had already had a few days', or perhaps a few
     weeks' experience, under the discipline of Riney and Hazel,
     in Kentucky; and, as he was naturally quick in the
     acquisition of any sort of knowledge, it is likely that by
     this time he could read and write a little. He was now to
     have the benefit of a few months more of public instruction;
     but the poverty of the family, and the necessity for his
     being made to work at home in the shop and on the farm, or
     abroad as a hired boy, made his attendance at school, for
     any great length of time, a thing impossible. Accordingly,
     all his school-days added together would not make a single
     year in the aggregate.

     "His wife, my grandmother, is a very tall woman; straight as
     an Indian, fair complexion, and was, when I first remember
     her, very handsome, sprightly, talkative, and proud; wore
     her hair curled till gray; is kind-hearted and very
     charitable, and also very industrious."--Mrs. H. A, Chapman.

Abraham began his irregular attendance at the nearest school very soon
after he fell under the care of the second Mrs. Lincoln. It was probably
in the winter of 1819, she having come out in the December of that year.
It has been seen that she was as much impressed by his mental precocity
as by the good qualities of his heart.

Hazel Dorsey was his first master.1 He presided in a small house near
the Little Pigeon Creek meeting-house, a mile and a half from the
Lincoln cabin. It was built of unhewn logs, and had "holes for windows,"
in which "greased paper" served for glass. The roof was just high enough
for a man to stand erect. Here he was taught reading, writing, and
ciphering. They spelled in classes, and "trapped" up and down. These
juvenile contests were very exciting to the participants; and it is said
by the survivors, that Abe was even then the equal, if not the superior,
of any scholar in his class.

     1 The account of the schools is taken from the Grigsbys,
     Turnham, and others, who attended them along with Abe, as
     well as from the members of his own family.

The next teacher was Andrew Crawford. Mrs. Gentry says he began
pedagogue in the neighborhood in the winter of 1822-3, whilst most of
his other scholars are unable to fix an exact date. He "kept" in the
same little schoolhouse which had been the scene of Dorsey's labors, and
the windows were still adorned with the greased leaves of old copybooks
that had come down from Dorsey's time. Abe was now in his fifteenth
year, and began to exhibit symptoms of gallantry toward the weaker sex,
as we shall presently discover. He was growing at a tremendous rate, and
two years later attained his full height of six feet four inches. He was
long, wiry, and strong; while his big feet and hands, and the length
of his legs and arms, were out of all proportion to his small trunk and
head. His complexion was very swarthy, and Mrs. Gentry says that his
skin was shrivelled and yellow even then. He wore low shoes, buckskin
breeches, linsey-woolsey shirt, and a cap made of the skin of an opossum
or a coon. The breeches clung close to his thighs and legs, but failed
by a large space to meet the tops of his shoes. Twelve inches remained
uncovered, and exposed that much of "shinbone, sharp, blue, and
narrow."1 "He would always come to school thus, good-humoredly and
laughing," says his old friend, Nat Grigsby. "He was always in good
health, never was sick, had an excellent constitution, and took care of
it."

     1 "They had no woollen clothing in the family until about
     the year 1824."--Dennis Hanks.

Crawford taught "manners." This was a feature of backwoods education to
which Dorsey had not aspired, and Crawford had doubtless introduced
it as a refinement which would put to shame the humbler efforts of his
predecessor. One of the scholars was required to retire, and re-enter as
a polite gentleman is supposed to enter a drawing-room. He was received
at the door by another scholar, and conducted from bench to bench, until
he had been introduced to all the "young ladies and gentlemen" in the
room. Abe went through the ordeal countless times. If he took a serious
view of the business, it must have put him to exquisite torture; for he
was conscious that he was not a perfect type of manly beauty, with his
long legs and blue shins, his small head, his great ears, and shrivelled
skin. If, however, it struck him as at all funny, it must have filled
him with unspeakable mirth, and given rise to many antic tricks and sly
jokes, as he was gravely led about, shamefaced and gawky, under the very
eye of the precise Crawford, to be introduced to the boys and girls of
his most ancient acquaintance.

But, though Crawford inculcated manners, he by no means neglected
spelling. Abe was a good speller, and liked to use his knowledge,
not only to secure honors for himself, but to help his less fortunate
schoolmates out of their troubles, and he was exceedingly ingenious
in the selection of expedients for conveying prohibited hints. One day
Crawford gave out the difficult word _defied_. A large class was on the
floor, but they all provokingly failed to spell it. D-e-f-i-d-e, said
one; d-e-f-y-d-e, said another; d-e-f-y-d,--d-e-f-y-e-d, cried another
and another. But it was all wrong: it was shameful, that, among all
these big boys and girls, nobody could spell "_defied_;" Crawford's
wrath gathered in clouds over his terrible brow. He made the helpless
culprits shake with fear. He declared he would keep the whole class in
all day and all night, if "_defied_" was not spelled. There was among
them a Miss Roby, a girl fifteen years of age, whom we must suppose to
have been pretty, for Abe was evidently half in love with her. "I saw
Lincoln at the window," says she: "he had his finger in his _eye_, and
a smile on his face; I instantly took the hint, that I must change the
letter _y_ into an _i_. Hence I spelled the word,--the class let out. I
felt grateful to Lincoln for this simple thing."

Nat Grigsby tells us, with unnecessary particularity, that "essays and
poetry were not taught in this school." "Abe took it (them) up on
his own account." He first wrote short sentences against "cruelty to
animals," and at last came forward with a regular "composition" on the
subject. He was very much annoyed and pained by the conduct of the boys,
who were in the habit of catching terrapins, and putting coals of fire
on their backs. "He would chide us," says Nat, "tell us it was wrong,
and would write against it."

The third and last school to which Abe went was taught by a Mr. Swaney,
in 1826. To get there, he had to travel four and a half miles; and this
going back and forth so great a distance occupied entirely too much
of his time. His attendance was therefore only at odd times, and was
speedily broken off altogether. The schoolhouse was much like the other
one near the Pigeon Creek meeting-house, except that it had two chimneys
instead of one. The course of instruction was precisely the same as
under Dorsey and Crawford, save that Swaney, like Dorsey, omitted the
great department of "manners." "Here," says John Hoskins, the son of the
settler who had "blazed out" the trail for Tom Lincoln, "we would choose
up, and spell as in old times every Friday night." Hoskins himself tore
down "the old schoolhouse" long since, and built a stable with the logs.
He is now half sorry for his haste, and reverently presented Mr. Herndon
a piece of the wood as a precious memento of his old friend Abe. An
oak-tree, blackened and killed by the smoke that issued from the two
chimneys, spreads its naked arms over the spot where the schoolhouse
stood. Among its roots is a fine, large spring, over whose limpid waters
Abe often bent to drink, and laughed at the reflection of his own homely
face.

Abe never went to school again in Indiana or elsewhere. Mr. Turnham
tells us, that he had excelled all his masters, and it was "no use"
for him to attempt to learn any thing from them. But he continued
his studies at home, or wherever he was hired out to work, with a
perseverance which showed that he could scarcely live without some
species of mental excitement. He was by no means fond of the hard manual
labor to which his own necessities and those of his family
compelled him. Many of his acquaintances state this fact with strong
emphasis,--among them Dennis Hanks and Mrs. Lincoln. His neighbor, John
Romine, declares that Abe was "awful lazy. He worked for me; was always
reading and thinking; used to get mad at him. He worked for me in 1829,
pulling fodder. I say Abe was awful lazy: he would laugh and talk and
crack jokes and tell stories all the time; didn't love work, but did
dearly love his pay. He worked for me frequently, a few days only at a
time.... Lincoln said to me one day, that his father taught him to work,
but never learned him to love it."

     1 Whenever Mrs. Sarah Lincoln speaks, we follow her
     implicitly. Regarding Abe's habits and conduct at home, her
     statement is a very full one. It is, however, confirmed and
     supplemented by all the other members of the family who were
     alive in 1866.

Abe loved to lie under a shade-tree, or up in the loft of the cabin, and
read, cipher, and scribble. At night he sat by the chimney "jamb," and
ciphered, by the light of the fire, on the wooden fire-shovel. When
the shovel was fairly covered, he would shave it off with Tom Lincoln's
drawing-knife, and begin again. In the daytime he used boards for
the same purpose, out of doors, and went through the shaving process
everlastingly. His step-mother1 repeats often, that "he read every book
he could lay his hand on." She says, "Abe read diligently.... He read
every book he could lay his hands on; and, when he came across a passage
that struck him, he would write it down on boards if he had no paper,
and keep it there until he did get paper. Then he would re-write it,
look at it, repeat it. He had a copy-book, a kind of scrapbook, in which
he put down all things, and thus preserved them."

John Hanks came out from Kentucky when Abe was fourteen years of age,
and lived four years with the Lincolns. We cannot describe some of Abe's
habits better than John has described them for us: "When Lincoln--Abe
and I--returned to the house from work, he would go to the cupboard,
snatch a piece of corn-bread, take down a book, sit down on a chair,
cock his legs up high as his head, and read. He and I worked barefooted,
grubbed it, ploughed, mowed, and cradled together; ploughed corn,
gathered it, and shucked corn. Abraham read constantly when he had an
opportunity."

Among the books upon which Abe "laid his hands" were "Æsop's Fables,"
"Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," a "History of the
United States," and Weems's "Life of Washington." All these he read
many times, and transferred extracts from them to the boards and the
scrapbook. He had procured the scrap-book because most of his literature
was borrowed, and he thought it profitable to take copious notes from
the books before he returned them. David Turnham had bought a volume of
"The Revised Statutes of Indiana;" but, as he was "acting constable" at
the time, he could not lend it to Abe. But Abe was not to be baffled in
his purpose of going through and through every book in the neighborhood;
and so, says Mr. Turnham, "he used to come to my house and sit and read
it." 1 Dennis Hanks would fain have us believe that he himself was
the purchaser of this book, and that he had stood as a sort of first
preceptor to Abe in the science of law. "I had like to forgot," writes
Dennis, with his usual modesty, "How did Abe get his knowledge of law?
This is the fact about it. I bought the 'Statute of Indiana,' and from
that he learned the principles of law, and also myself. Every man should
become acquainted of the principles of law." The Bible, according to
Mrs. Lincoln, was not one of his studies: "he sought more congenial
books." At that time he neither talked nor read upon religious subjects.
If he had any opinions about them, he kept them to himself.

     1 He also read at Turnham's house Scott's Lessons and
     Sindbad the Sailor.

Abraham borrowed Weems's "Life of Washington" from his neighbor, old
Josiah Crawford,--not Andrew Crawford, the school-teacher, as some of
his biographers have it. The "Life" was read with great avidity in the
intervals of work, and, when not in use, was carefully deposited on a
shelf, made of a clapboard laid on two pins. But just behind the shelf
there was a great crack between the logs of the wall; and one night,
while Abe was dreaming in the loft, a storm came up, and the rain,
blown through the opening, soaked his precious book from cover to cover.
Crawford was a sour and churlish fellow at best, and flatly refused to
take the damaged book back again. He said, that, if Abe had no money to
pay for it, he could work it out. Of course, there was no alternative;
and Abe was obliged to discharge the debt by "pulling fodder" three
days, at twenty-five cents a day. Crawford afterwards paid dearly for
his churlishness.

[Illustration: Mrs. Sarah Lincoln, Mother of the President. 061]

At home, with his step-mother and the children, he was the most
agreeable fellow in the world. "He was always ready to do every thing
for everybody." When he was not doing some special act of kindness, he
told stories or "cracked jokes." "He was as full of his yarns in Indiana
as ever he was in Illinois." Dennis Hanks was a clever hand at the same
business, and so was old Tom Lincoln. Among them they must have made
things very lively, during the long winter evenings, for John Johnston
and the good old lady and the girls.

Mrs. Lincoln was never able to speak of Abe's conduct to her without
tears. In her interview with Mr. Herndon, when the sands of her life had
nearly run out, she spoke with deep emotion of her own son, but said
she thought that Abe was kinder, better, truer, than the other. Even the
mother's instinct was lost as she looked back over those long years of
poverty and privation in the Indiana cabin, when Abe's grateful love
softened the rigors of her lot, and his great heart and giant frame were
always at her command. "Abe was a poor boy," said she; "and I can say
what scarcely one woman--a mother--can say in a thousand. Abe never gave
me a cross word or look, and never refused, in fact or appearance, to
do any thing I requested him. I never gave him a cross word in all
my life.... His mind and mine--what little I had--seemed to run
together.... He was here after he was elected President." (At this point
the aged speaker turned away to weep, and then, wiping her eyes with her
apron, went on with the story). "He was dutiful to me always. I think
he loved me truly. I had a son, John, who was raised with Abe. Both were
good boys; but I must say, both now being dead, that Abe was the best
boy I ever saw, or expect to see. I wish I had died when my husband
died. I did not want Abe to run for President; did not want him elected;
was afraid somehow,--felt in my heart; and when he came down to see me,
after he was elected President, I still felt that something told me that
something would befall Abe, and that I should see him no more."

Is there any thing in the language we speak more touching than that
simple plaint of the woman whom we must regard as Abraham Lincoln's
mother? The apprehension in her "heart" was well grounded. She "saw him
no more." When Mr. Herndon rose to depart, her eyes again filled with
tears; and, wringing his hands as if loath to part with one who talked
so much of her beloved Abe, she said, "Good-by, my good son's friend.
Farewell."

Abe had a very retentive memory. He frequently amused his young
companions by repeating to them long passages from the books he had been
reading. On Monday mornings he would mount a stump, and deliver, with a
wonderful approach to exactness, the sermon he had heard the day before.
His taste for public speaking appeared to be natural and irresistible.
His step-sister, Matilda Johnston, says he was an indefatigable
"preacher." "When father and mother would go to church, Abe would take
down the Bible, read a verse, give out a hymn, and we would sing. Abe
was about fifteen years of age. He preached, and we would do the crying.
Sometimes he would join in the chorus of tears. One day my brother, John
Johnston, caught a land terrapin, brought it to the place where Abe was
preaching, threw it against the tree, and crushed the shell. It suffered
much,--quivered all over. Abe then preached against cruelty to animals,
contending that an ant's life was as sweet to it as ours to us."

But this practice of "preaching" and political speaking, into which Abe
had fallen, at length became a great nuisance to old, Tom. It distracted
everybody, and sadly interfered with the work. If Abe had confined his
discourses to Sunday preaching, while the old folks were away, it would
not have been so objectionable. But he knew his power, liked to please
everybody, and would be sure to set up as an orator wherever he found
the greatest number of people together. When it was announced that Abe
had taken the "stump" in the harvest-field, there was an end of work.
The hands flocked around him, and listened to his curious speeches with
infinite delight. "The sight of such a thing amused all," says Mrs.
Lincoln; though she admits that her husband was compelled to break it
up with the strong hand; and poor Abe was many times dragged from the
platform, and hustled off to his work in no gentle manner.1

     1 We are told by Col. Chapman that Abe's father habitually
     treated him with great barbarity. Dennis Hanks insists that
     he loved him sincerely, but admits that he now and then
     knocked him from the fence for merely answering traveller's
     questions about the roads.

Abe worked occasionally with Tom Lincoln in the shop; but he did it
reluctantly, and never intended to learn even so much of the trade as
Lincoln was able to teach him. The rough work turned out at that shop
was far beneath his ambition, and he had made up his mind to lead a life
as wholly unlike his father's as he could possibly make it. He therefore
refused to be a carpenter. But he could not afford to be idle; and, as
soon as he was able to earn wages, he was hired out among the neighbors.
He worked for many of them a few months at a time, and seemed perfectly
willing to transfer his services wherever they were wanted, so that his
father had no excuse for persecuting him with entreaties about learning
to make tables and cupboards.

Abe was now becoming a man, and was, in fact, already taller than any
man in the neighborhood. He was a universal favorite, and his wit and
humor made him heartily welcome at every cabin between the two Pigeon
Creeks. Any family was glad when "Abe Linkern" was hired to work with
them; for he did his work well, and made them all merry while he was
about it. The women were especially pleased, for Abe was not above doing
any kind of "chores" for them. He was always ready to make a fire, carry
water, or nurse a baby. But what manner of people were these amongst
whom he passed the most critical part of his life? We must know them if
we desire to know him.

There lived in the neighborhood of Gentryville a Mrs. Elizabeth
Crawford, wife to the now celebrated Josiah with the sour temper and the
blue nose. Abe was very fond of her, and inclined to "let himself
out" in her company. She fortunately possessed a rare memory, and Mr.
Herndon's rich collection of manuscripts was made richer still by her
contributions. We have from her a great mass of valuable, and sometimes
extremely amusing, information. Among it is the following graphic,
although rude, account of the Pigeon Creek people in general:--

"You wish me to tell you how the people used to go to meeting,--how far
they went. At that time we thought it nothing to go eight or ten miles.
The old ladies did not stop for the want of a shawl, or cloak, or
riding-dress, or two horses, in the winter-time; but they would put on
their husbands' old overcoats, and wrap up their little ones, and take
one or two of them up on their beasts, and their husbands would walk,
and they would go to church, and stay in the neighborhood until the next
day, and then go home. The old men would start out of their fields from
their work, or out of the woods from hunting, with their guns on their
shoulders, and go to church. Some of them dressed in deer-skin pants and
moccasins, hunting-shirts with a rope or leather strap around them. They
would come in laughing, shake hands all around, sit down and talk about
their game they had killed, or some other work they had done, and smoke
their pipes together with the old ladies. If in warm weather, they would
kindle up a little fire out in the meeting-house yard, to light
their pipes. If in winter-time, they would hold church in some of the
neighbors' houses. At such times they were always treated with the
utmost of kindness: a bottle of whiskey, a pitcher of water, sugar and
glass, were set out, or a basket of apples, or turnips, or some pies and
cakes. Apples were scarce them times. Sometimes potatoes were used as a
treat. (I must tell you that the first treat I ever received in old Mr.
Linkern's house, that was our President's father's house, was a plate
of potatoes, washed and pared very nicely, and handed round. It was
something new to me, for I never had seen a raw potato eaten before. I
looked to see how they made use of them. They took off a potato, and ate
them like apples.) Thus they spent the time till time for preaching to
commence, then they would all take their seats: the preacher would take
his stand, draw his coat, open his shirt-collar, commence service by
singing and prayer; take his text and preach till the sweat would roll
off in great drops. Shaking hands and singing then ended the service.
The people seemed to enjoy religion more in them days than they do now.
They were glad to see each other, and enjoyed themselves better than
they do now."

Society about Gentryville was little different from that of any other
backwoods settlement of the same day. The houses were scattered far
apart; but the inhabitants would travel long distances to a log-rolling,
a house-raising, a wedding, or any thing else that might be turned into
a fast and furious frolic. On such occasions the young women carried
their shoes in their hands, and only put them on when about to join the
company. The ladies drank whiskey-toddy, while the men took it straight;
and both sexes danced the live-long night, barefooted, on puncheon
floors.

The fair sex wore "cornfield bonnets, scoop-shaped, flaring in front,
and long though narrow behind." Shoes were the mode when entering
the ball-room; but it was not at all fashionable to scuff them out by
walking or dancing in them. "Four yards of linsey-woolsey, a yard in
width, made a dress for any woman." The waist was short, and terminated
just under the arms, whilst the skirt was long and narrow. "Crimps and
puckering frills" it had none. The coats of the men were home-made;
the materials, jeans or linsey-woolsey. The waists were short, like the
frocks of the women, and the long "claw-hammer" tail was split up to the
waist. This, however, was company dress, and the hunting-shirt did duty
for every day. The breeches were of buck-skin or jeans; the cap was of
coon-skin; and the shoes of leather tanned at home. If no member of the
family could make shoes, the leather was taken to some one who could,
and the customer paid the maker a fair price in some other sort of
labor.

The state of agriculture was what it always is where there is no market,
either to sell or buy; where the implements are few and primitive, and
where there are no regular mechanics. The Pigeon Creek farmer "tickled"
two acres of ground in a day with his old shovel-plough, and got but
half a crop. He cut one acre with his sickle, while the modern machine
lays down in neat rows ten. With his flail and horse tramping, he
threshed out fifteen bushels of wheat; while the machine of to-day,
with a few more hands, would turn out three hundred and fifty. He
"fanned" and "cleaned with a sheet." When he wanted flour, he took
his team and went to a "horse-mill," where he spent a whole day in
converting fifteen bushels of grain.1

     1 "Size of the fields from ten, twelve, sixteen, twenty.
     Raised corn mostly; some wheat,--enough for a cake on
     Sunday morning. Hogs and venison hams were legal tender, and
     coon-skins also. We raised sheep and cattle, but they did
     not fetch much. Cows and calves were only worth six dollars;
     corn, ten cents; wheat, twenty-five cents at that time."--
     Dennis Hanks.

The minds of these people were filled with superstitions, which most
persons imagine to be, at least, as antiquated as witch-burning. They
firmly believed in witches and all kind of witch-doings. They sent for
wizards to cure sick cattle. They shot the image of the witch with a
silver ball, to break the spell she was supposed to have laid on a human
being. If a dog ran directly across a man's path whilst he was hunting,
it was terrible "luck," unless he instantly hooked his two little
fingers together, and pulled with all his might, until the dog was out
of sight. There were wizards who took charmed twigs in their hands, and
made them point to springs of water and all kinds of treasure beneath
the earth's surface. There were "faith doctors," who cured diseases by
performing mysterious ceremonies and muttering cabalistic words. If a
bird alighted in a window, one of the family would speedily die. If
a horse breathed on a child, the child would have the whooping-cough.
Every thing must be done at certain "times and seasons," else it would
be attended with "bad luck." They must cut trees for rails in the early
part of the day, and in "the light of the moon." They must make fence in
"the light of the moon;" otherwise, the fence would sink. Potatoes and
other roots were to be planted in the "dark of the moon," but trees,
and plants which bore their fruits above ground, must be "put out in the
light of the moon." The moon exerted a fearful influence, either kindly
or malignant, as the good old rules were observed or not. It was even
required to make soap "in the light of the moon," and, moreover, it must
be stirred only one way, and by one person. Nothing of importance was to
be begun on Friday. All enterprises inaugurated on that day went fatally
amiss. A horse-colt could be begotten only "in the dark of the moon,"
and animals treated otherwise than "according to the signs in the
almanac" were nearly sure to die.

Such were the people among whom Abe grew to manhood. With their sons and
daughters he went to school. Upon their farms he earned his daily bread
by daily toil. From their conversation he formed his earliest opinions
of men and things, the world over. Many of their peculiarities became
his; and many of their thoughts and feelings concerning a multitude of
subjects were assimilated with his own, and helped to create that unique
character, which, in the eyes of a great host of the American people,
was only less curious and amusing than it was noble and august.

His most intimate companions were of course, for a long time, the
members of his own family. The reader already knows something of Thomas
Lincoln, and that pre-eminently good woman, Sally Bush. The latter, we
know, washed, clothed, loved, and encouraged Abe in well-doing, from
the moment he fell in her way. How much he owed to her goodness and
affection, he was himself never able to estimate. That it was a great
debt, fondly acknowledged and cheerfully repaid as far as in him lay,
there can be no doubt. His own sister, the child of Nancy Hanks, was
warmly attached to him. Her face somewhat resembled his. In repose it
had the gravity which they both, perhaps, inherited from their mother;
but it was capable of being lighted almost into beauty by one of Abe's
ridiculous stories or rapturous sallies of humor. She was a modest,
plain, industrious girl, and is kindly remembered by all who knew her.
She was married to Aaron Grigsby at eighteen, and a year after died in
child-bed. Like Abe, she occasionally worked out at the houses of the
neighbors, and at one time was employed in Mrs. Crawford's kitchen,
while her brother was a laborer on the same farm. She lies buried, not
with her mother, but in the yard of the old Pigeon Creek meeting-house.
It is especially pleasing to read the encomiums lavished upon her memory
by the Grigsbys; for between the Grigsbys on one side, and Abe and his
step-brother on the other, there once subsisted a fierce feud.

[Illustration: Dennis Hanks 070]

As we have already learned from Dennis Hanks, the two families--the
Johnstons and the Lincolns--"got along finely together." The
affectionate relations between Abe and his two step-sisters were the
subject of common remark throughout the neighborhood. One of them
married Dennis Hanks, and the other Levi Hall, or, as he is better
known, Squire Hall,--a cousin of Abe. Both these women (the latter now
Mrs. Moore) furnished Mr. Herndon very valuable memoirs of Abe's life
whilst he dwelt under the same roof with them; and they have given
an account of him which shows that the ties between them were of the
strongest and tenderest kind. But what is most remarkable in their
statements is, that they never opened their lips without telling how
worthy of everybody's love their mother was, and how Abe revered her
as much as they did. They were interesting girls, and became exemplary
women.

John D. Johnston, the only son of Mrs. Lincoln, was not the best boy,
and did not grow to be the best man, in all the Pigeon Creek region. He
had no positive vice, except idleness, and no special virtue but good
temper. He was not a fortunate man; never made money; was always needy,
and always clamoring for the aid of his friends. Mr. Lincoln, all
through John's life, had much trouble to keep him on his legs, and
succeeded indifferently in all his attempts. In a subsequent chapter
a letter will be given from him, which indirectly portrays his
step-brother's character much better than it can be done here. But, as
youths, the intimacy between them was very close; and in another place
it will appear that Abe undertook his second voyage to New Orleans only
on condition that John would go along.

But the most constant of his companions was his jolly cousin, Dennis
Hanks. Of all the contributors to Mr. Herndon's store of information,
good, bad, and indifferent, concerning this period of Mr. Lincoln's
life, Dennis is the most amusing, insinuating, and prolific. He would
have it distinctly understood that the well of his memory is the only
proper source whence any thing like truth may be drawn.1 He has covered
countless sheets of paper devoted to indiscriminate laudations of Abe
and all his kindred. But in all this he does not neglect to say a word
for himself.

     1 The following random selections from his writings leave us
     no room to doubt Dennis's opinion of his own value:--

     "William, let in, don't keep any thing back, for I am in for
     the whole hog sure; for I know nobody can do any for you
     much, for all they know is from me at last. Every thing you
     see is from my notes,--this you can tell yourself.

     "I have in my possession a little book, the private life of
     A. Lincoln, comprising a full life of his early years, and a
     succinct record of his career as statesman and President, by
     O. J. Victor, author of Lives of Garibaldi, Winfield Scott,
     John Paul Jones, &c., New York, Beadle and Company,
     publishers, No. 118 Williams Street. Now, sir, I find a
     great many things pertaining to Abe Lincoln's life that is
     not true. If you would like to have the book, I will mail it
     to you. I will say this much to you: if you don't have my
     name very frequently in your book, it won't go at all; for I
     have been East for two months, have seen a great many
     persons in that time, stating to them that there would be a
     book, 'The Life of A. Lincoln,' published, giving a full
     account of the family, from England to this country. Now,
     William, if there be any thing you want to know, let me
     know: I will give you all the information I can.

     "I have seen a letter that you wrote to my daughter, Harriet
     Chapman, of inquiry about some things. I thought you were
     informed all about them. I don't know what she has stated to
     you about your questions; but you had better consult me
     about them.

     "Billy, it seems to me, from the letters that you write to
     me asking questions, that you ask the same questions over
     several times. How is this? Do you forget, or are you like
     the lawyer, trying to make me cross my path, or not? Now, I
     will. Look below for the answer."

At one place, "his cousin, Dennis Hanks," is said to have taught Abe
to read and write. At another, he is represented as the benevolent
purchaser of the volumes from which Abe (and Dennis too) derived a
wonderfully clear and accurate conception of the science of law. In all
studies their minds advanced _pari passu_. Whenever any differences are
noted (and they are few and slight), Dennis is a step ahead, benignantly
extending a helping hand to the lagging pupil behind. But Dennis's heart
is big and kind: he defames no one; he is merely a harmless romancer. In
the gallery of family portraits painted by Dennis, every face looks down
upon us with the serenity of innocence and virtue. There is no spot on
the fame of any one of them. No family could have a more vigorous or
chivalrous defender than he, or one who repelled with greater scorn any
rumor to their discredit. That Enlow story! Dennis almost scorned to
confute it; but, when he did get at it, he settled it by a magnificent
exercise of inventive genius. He knew "this Abe Enlow" well, he said,
and he had been dead precisely fifty-five years. But, whenever the truth
can be told without damage to the character of a Lincoln or a Hanks,
Dennis will tell it candidly enough, provided there is no temptation
to magnify himself. His testimony, however, has been sparingly used
throughout these pages; and no statement has been taken from him unless
it was more or less directly corroborated by some one else. The
better part of his evidence Mr. Herndon took the precaution of reading
carefully to John Hanks, who pronounced it substantially true; and that
circumstance gives it undeniable value.

When Thomas and Betsy Sparrow died in the fall of 1818, Dennis was taken
from the "little half-faced camp," and became one of the Lincoln family.
Until Thomas Lincoln's second marriage, Dennis, Abe, and Sarah were all
three poor, ragged, and miserable together. After that, Dennis got along
better, as well as the rest. He was a lively, volatile, sympathetic
fellow, and Abe liked him well from the beginning. They fished, hunted,
and worked in company; loafed at the grocery, where Dennis got drunk,
and Abe told stories; talked politics with Col. Jones; "swapped jokes"
with Baldwin the blacksmith; and faithfully attended the sittings of the
nearest justice of the peace, where both had opportunities to correct
and annotate the law they thought they had learned from the "Statute of
Indiana." Dennis was kind, genial, lazy, brimming over with humor,
and full of amusing anecdotes. He revelled in song, from the vulgarest
ballad to the loftiest hymn of devotion; from "The turbaned Turk, that
scorns the world," to the holiest lines of Doctor Watts. These qualities
marked him wherever he went; and in excessive good-nature, and in the
ease with which he passed from the extreme of rigor to the extreme of
laxity, he was distinguished above the others of his name.

There was one Hanks, however, who was not like Dennis, or any other
Hanks we know any thing about: this was "old John," as he is familiarly
called in Illinois,--a sober, honest, truthful man, with none of the wit
and none of the questionable accomplishments of Dennis. He was the son
of Joseph, the carpenter with whom Tom Lincoln learned the trade. He
went to Indiana to live with the Lincolns when Abe was fourteen years
of age, and remained there four years. He then returned to Kentucky, and
subsequently went to Illinois, where he was speedily joined by the old
friends he had left in Indiana. When Abe separated from the family, and
went in search of individual fortune, it was in company with "old John."
Together they split the rails that did so much to make Abe President;
and "old John" set the ball in motion by carrying a part of them into
the Decatur Convention on his own broad shoulders. John had no education
whatever, except that of the muscles and the heart. He could neither
read nor write; but his character was pure and respectable, and Lincoln
esteemed him as a man, and loved him as a friend and relative.

About six years after the death of the first Mrs. Lincoln, Levi Hall and
his wife and family came to Indiana, and settled near the Lincolns. Mrs.
Hall was Nancy Hanks, the mother of our friend Dennis, and the aunt of
Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln. She had numerous children
by her husband. One of them, Levi, as already mentioned, married one of
Abe's step-sisters, while Dennis, his half-brother, married the
other one. The father and mother of the Halls speedily died of the
milk-sickness, but Levi was for many years a constant companion of Abe
and Dennis.

In 1825 Abraham was employed by James Taylor, who lived at the mouth of
Anderson's Creek. He was paid six dollars a month, and remained for nine
months. His principal business was the management of a ferry-boat which
Mr. Taylor had plying across the Ohio, as well as Anderson's Creek. But,
in addition to this, he was required to do all sorts of farm-work, and
even to perform some menial services about the house. He was hostler,
ploughman, ferryman, out of doors, and man-of-all-work within doors.
He ground corn with a hand-mill, or "grated" it when too young to be
ground; rose early, built fires, put on the water in the kitchen,
"fixed around generally," and had things prepared for cooking before the
mistress of the house was stirring. He slept up stairs with young
Green Taylor, who says that he usually read "till near midnight,"
notwithstanding the necessity for being out of his bed before day. Green
was somewhat disposed to ill-use the poor hired boy, and once struck him
with an ear of hard corn, and cut a deep gash over his eye. He makes no
comment upon this generous act, except that "Abe got mad," but did not
thrash him.

Abe was a hand much in demand in "hog-killing time." He butchered not
only for Mr. Taylor, but for John Woods, John Duthan, Stephen McDaniels,
and others. At this he earned thirty-one cents a day, as it was
considered "rough work."

For a long time there was only one person in the neighborhood for whom
Abe felt a decided dislike; and that was Josiah Crawford, who had made
him "pull fodder," to pay for the Weems's "Washington." On that score
he was "hurt" and "mad," and often declared "he would have revenge." But
being a poor boy,--a circumstance of which Crawford had already taken
shameful advantage to extort three days' labor,--he was glad to get
work any place, and frequently "hired to his old adversary." Abe's first
business in his employ was daubing his cabin, which was built of logs,
unhewed, and with the bark on. In the loft of this house, thus finished
by his own hands, he slept for many weeks at a time. He spent his
evenings as he did at home,--writing on wooden shovels or boards with "a
coal, or keel, from the branch." This family was rich in the possession
of several books, which Abe read through time and again, according to
his usual custom. One of them was the "Kentucky Preceptor," from which
Mrs. Crawford insists that he "learned his school orations, speeches,
and pieces to write." She tells us also that "Abe was a sensitive lad,
never coming where he was not wanted;" that he always lifted his hat,
and bowed, when he made his appearance; and that "he was tender and
kind," like his sister, who was at the same time her maid-of-all-work.
His pay was twenty-five cents a day; "and, when he missed time, he would
not charge for it." This latter remark of good Mrs. Crawford reveals the
fact that her husband was in the habit of docking Abe on his miserable
wages whenever he happened to lose a few minutes from steady work.

The time came, however, when Abe got his "revenge" for all this
petty brutality. Crawford was as ugly as he was surly. His nose was a
monstrosity,--long and crooked, with a huge, misshapen "stub" at the
end, surmounted by a host of pimples, and the whole as "blue" as the
usual state of Mr. Crawford's spirits. Upon this member Abe levelled his
attack in rhyme, song, and "chronicle;" and, though he could not reduce
the nose, he gave it a fame as wide as to the Wabash and the Ohio. It is
not improbable that he learned the art of making the doggerel rhymes
in which he celebrated Crawford's nose from the study of Crawford's own
"Kentucky Preceptor." At all events, his sallies upon this single topic
achieved him great reputation as a "poet" and a wit, and caused Crawford
intolerable anguish.

It is likely that Abe was reconciled to his situation in this family by
the presence of his sister, and the opportunity it gave him of being in
the company of Mrs. Crawford, for whom he had a genuine attachment; for
she was nothing that her husband was, and every thing that he was not.
According to her account, he split rails, ploughed, threshed, and did
whatever else he was ordered to do; but she distinctly affirms that "Abe
was no hand to pitch into his work like killing snakes." He went about
it "calmly," and generally took the opportunity to throw "Crawford"
down two or three times "before they went to the field." It is fair to
presume, that, when Abe managed to inveigle his disagreeable employer
into a tussle, he hoisted him high and threw him hard, for he felt
that he had no reason to be careful of his bones. After meals Abe "hung
about," lingered long to gossip and joke with the women; and these
pleasant, stolen conferences were generally broken up with the
exclamation, "Well, this won't buy the child a coat!" and the
long-legged hired boy would stride away to join his master.

In the mean time Abe had become, not only the longest, but the
strongest, man in the settlement. Some of his feats almost surpass
belief, and those who beheld them with their own eyes stood literally
amazed. Richardson, a neighbor, declares that he could carry a load to
which the strength of "three ordinary men" would scarcely be equal. He
saw him quietly pick up and walk away with "a chicken-house, made of
poles pinned together, and covered, that weighed at least six hundred,
if not much more." At another time the Richardsons were building a
corn-crib: Abe was there; and, seeing three or four men preparing
"sticks" upon which to carry some huge posts, he relieved them of all
further trouble by shouldering the posts, single-handed, and walking
away with them to the place where they were wanted. "He could strike
with a mall," says old Mr. Wood, "a heavier blow than any man.... He
could sink an axe deeper into wood than any man I ever saw."

For hunting purposes, the Pigeon Creek region was one of the most
inviting on earth. The uplands were all covered with an original growth
of majestic forest trees,1 whilst on the hillsides, and wherever an
opening in the woods permitted the access of sunlight, there were beds
of fragrant and beautiful wild-flowers, presenting, in contrast with the
dense green around them, the most brilliant and agreeable effects. Here
the game had vast and secluded ranges, which, until very recently, had
heard the report of no white man's gun. In Abe's time, the squirrels,
rabbits, partridges, and other varieties of smaller game, were so
abundant as to be a nuisance. They devastated grain-fields and gardens;
and while they were seldom shot for the table, the settlers frequently
devised the most cunning means of destroying them in great quantities,
in order to save the growing crops. Wild turkeys and deer were the
principal reliance for food; but besides these were the bears, the
wild-cats, and the panthers.1 The scream of the latter, the most
ferocious and bloodthirsty of the cat kind, hastened Abe's homeward
steps on many a dark night, as he came late from Dave Turnham's, "Uncle"
Wood's, or the Gentryville grocery. That terrific cry appeals not only
to the natural fear of the monster's teeth and claws, but, heard in the
solitude of night and the forest, it awakens a feeling of superstitious
horror, that chills the heart of the bravest.

     "Now about the timber: it was black walnut and black oak,
     hickory and jack oak, elm and white oak, undergrowth,
     logwood in abundance, grape-vines and shoe-make bushes, and
     milk-sick plenty. All my relations died of that disease on
     Little Pigeon Creek, Spencer County."--Dennis Hanks.

Everybody about Abe made hunting a part of his business.2 Tom Lincoln
and Dennis Hanks doubtless regaled him continually with wonderful
stories of their luck and prowess; but he was no hunter himself, and
did not care to learn. It is true, that, when a mere child, he made a
fortunate shot at a flock of wild turkeys, through a crack in the wall
of the "half-faced cabin;"3 and that, when grown up, he went for coons
occasionally with Richardson, or watched deer-licks with Turnham; but
a true and hearty sportsman he never was. As practised on this wild
border, it was a solitary, unsociable way of spending time, which did
not suit his nature; and, besides, it required more exertion than he was
willing to make without due compensation. It could not be said that Abe
was indolent; for he was alert, brisk, active, about every thing that
he made up his mind to do. His step was very quick; and, when he had
a sufficient object in view, he strode out on his long, muscular legs,
swinging his bony arms as he moved along, with an energy that put miles
behind him before a lazy fellow like Dennis Hanks or John Johnston could
make up his mind to start. But, when he felt that he had time to spare,
he preferred to give it to reading or to "talk;" and, of the two, he
would take the latter, provided he could find a person who had something
new or racy to say. He liked excessively to hear his own voice, when it
was promoting fun and good fellowship; but he was also a most rare and
attentive listener. Hunting was entirely too "still" an occupation for
him.

     1 "No Indians there when I first went to Indiana: I say, no,
     none. I say this: bear, deer, turkey, and coon, wild-cats,
     and other things, and frogs."--Dennis Hanks.

     2 "You say, What were some of the customs? I suppose you
     mean take us all together. One thing I can tell you about:
     we had to work very hard cleaning ground for to keep body
     and soul together; and every spare time we had we picked up
     our rifle, and brought in a fine deer or turkey; and in the
     winter-time we went a coon-hunting, for coon-skins were at
     that time considered legal tender, and deer-skins' and hams.
     I tell you, Billy, I enjoyed myself better then than I ever
     have since."--Dennis Hanks.

     3 "No doubt about the A. Lincoln's killing the turkey. He
     done it with his father's rifle, made by William Lutes, of
     Bullitt County, Kentucky. I have killed a hundred deer with
     her myself; turkeys too numerous to mention."--Dennis
     Hanks.

All manner of rustic sports were in vogue among the Pigeon Creek boys.
Abe was especially formidable as a wrestler; and, from about 1828
onward, there was no man, far or near, that would give him a match.
"Cat," "throwing the mall," "hopping and half-hammon" (whatsoever that
may mean), and "four-corner bull-pen" were likewise athletic games in
high honor.1

     1 "You ask, What sort of plays? What we called them at that
     time were 'bull-pen,' 'corner and cat,' 'hopping and half-
     hammon;' playing at night 'old Sister Feby.' This I know,
     for I took a hand myself; and, wrestling, we could throw
     down anybody."--Dennis Hanks.

All sorts of frolics and all kinds of popular gatherings, whether for
work or amusement, possessed irresistible attractions for Abe. He
loved to see and be seen, to make sport and to enjoy it. It was a most
important part of his education that he got at the corn-shuckings, the
log-rollings, the shooting-matches, and the gay and jolly weddings
of those early border times. He was the only man or boy within a wide
compass who had learning enough to furnish the literature for such
occasions; and those who failed to employ his talents to grace or
commemorate the festivities they set on foot were sure to be stung by
some coarse but humorous lampoon from his pen. In the social way, he
would not suffer himself to be slighted with impunity; and, if there
were any who did not enjoy his wit, they might content themselves
with being the subjects of it. Unless he received some very pointed
intimation that his presence was not wanted, he was among the first
and earliest at all the neighborhood routs; and when his tall, singular
figure was seen towering amongst the hunting-shirts, it was considered
due notice that the fun was about to commence. "Abe Linkhern," as he
was generally called, made things lively wherever he went: and, if
Crawford's blue nose happened to have been carried to the assembly,
it quickly subsided, on his arrival, into some obscure corner; for the
implacable "Linkhern" was apt to make it the subject of a jest that
would set the company in a roar. But when a party was made up, and Abe
left out, as sometimes happened through the influence of Crawford, he
sulked, fumed, "got mad," nursed his anger into rage, and then broke out
in songs or "chronicles," which were frequently very bitter, sometimes
passably humorous, and invariably vulgar.

At an early age he began to attend the "preachings" roundabout, but
principally at the Pigeon Creek church, with a view to catching whatever
might be ludicrous in the preacher's air or matter, and making it the
subject of mimicry as soon as he could collect an audience of idle boys
and men to hear him. A pious stranger, passing that way on a Sunday
morning, was invited to preach for the Pigeon Creek congregation; but
he banged the boards of the old pulpit, and bellowed and groaned so
wonderfully, that Abe could hardly contain his mirth. This memorable
sermon was a great favorite with him; and he frequently reproduced it
with nasal tones, rolling eyes, and all manner of droll aggravations, to
the great delight of Nat Grigsby and the wild fellows whom Nat was able
to assemble. None that heard him, not even Nat himself (who was any
thing but dull), was ever able to show wherein Abe's absurd version
really departed from the original.

The importance of Gentryville, as a "centre of business," soon began to
possess the imaginations of the dwellers between the two Pigeon Creeks.
Why might it not be a great place of trade? Mr. Gentry was a most
generous patron; it was advantageously situated where two roads crossed;
it already had a blacksmith's shop, a grocery, and a store. Jones, it is
true, had once moved away in a sulk, but Mr. Gentry's fine diplomacy had
quickly brought him back, with all his goods and talents unreservedly
devoted to the "improvement of the town;" and now, since there was
literally nothing left to cloud the prospects of the "point," brisk
times were expected in the near future.

Dennis Hanks, John Johnston, Abe, and the other boys in the
neighborhood, loitered much about the store, the grocery, and the
blacksmith's shop, at Gentryville. Dennis ingenuously remarks,
"Sometimes we spent a little time at grog, pushing weights, wrestling,
telling stories." The time that Abe "spent at grog" was, in truth, a
"little time." He never liked ardent spirits at any period of his life;
but "he did take his dram as others did."1 He was a natural politician,
intensely ambitious, and anxious to be popular. For this reason, and
this alone, he drank with his friends, although very temperately. If he
could have avoided it without giving offence, he would gladly have done
so. But he coveted the applause of his pot companions, and, because he
could not get it otherwise, made a faint pretence of enjoying his liquor
as they did. The "people" drank, and Abe was always for doing whatever
the "people" did. All his life he held that whatsoever was popular--the
habit or the sentiment of the masses--could not be essentially wrong.
But, although a whiskey-jug was kept in every ordinarily respectable
household, Abe never tasted it at home. His step-mother thought he
carried his temperance to extremes.

     1 The fact is proved by his most intimate acquaintances,
     both at Gentryville and New Salem.

Jones, the great Jones, without whom it was generally agreed that
Gentryville must have gone into eclipse, but with whom, and
through whom, it was somehow to become a sort of metropolitan
cross-roads,--Jones was Abe's friend and mentor from the moment of their
acquaintance. Abe is even said to have "clerked for him;" that is, he
packed and unpacked boxes, ranged goods on the shelves, drew the liquids
in the cellar, or exhibited the stone and earthen ware to purchasers;
but in his service he was never promoted to keeping accounts, or even to
selling the finer goods across the counter.1 But Mr. Jones was very
fond of his "clerk,"--enjoyed his company, appreciated his humor, and
predicted something great for him. As he did not doubt that Abe would
one day be a man of considerable influence, he took pains to give him
correct views of the nature of American institutions. An ardent Jackson
man himself, he imparted to Abe the true faith, as delivered by that
great democratic apostle; and the traces of this teaching were
never wholly effaced from Mr. Lincoln's mind. Whilst he remained at
Gentryville, his politics accorded with Mr. Jones's; and, even after he
had turned Whig in Illinois, John Hanks tells us that he wanted to
whip a man for traducing Jackson. He was an eager reader of newspapers
whenever he could get them, and Mr. Jones carefully put into his hands
the kind he thought a raw youth should have. But Abe's appetite was not
to be satisfied by what Mr. Jones supplied; and he frequently borrowed
others from "Uncle Wood," who lived about a mile from the Lincoln cabin,
and for whom he sometimes worked.

     1 "Lincoln drove a team, cut up pork, and sold goods for
     Jones. Jones told me that Lincoln read all his books, and I
     remember History of United States as one. Jones often said
     to me, that Lincoln would make a great man one of these
     days,--had said so long before, and to other people,--said
     so as far back as 1828-9.'"--Dougherty.

What manner of man kept the Gentryville grocery, we are not informed.
Abe was often at his place, however, and would stay so long at nights,
"telling stories" and "cracking jokes," that Dennis Hanks, who was
ambitious in the same line, and probably jealous of Abe's overshadowing
success, "got mad at him," and "cussed him." When Dennis found himself
thrown in the shade, he immediately became virtuous, and wished to
retire early.

John Baldwin, the blacksmith, was one of Abe's special friends from
his boyhood onward. Baldwin was a story-teller and a joker of rare
accomplishments; and Abe, when a very little fellow, would slip off
to his shop and sit and listen to him by the hour. As he grew up, the
practice continued as of old, except that Abe soon began to exchange
anecdotes with his clever friend at the anvil. Dennis Hanks says Baldwin
was his "_particular_ friend," and that "Abe spent a great deal of his
leisure time with him." Statesmen, plenipotentiaries, famous commanders,
have many times made the White House at Washington ring with their
laughter over the quaint tales of John Baldwin, the blacksmith,
delivered second-hand by his inimitable friend Lincoln.

Abe and Dave Turnham had one day been threshing wheat,--probably for
Turnham's father,--and concluded to spend the evening at Gentryville.
They lingered there until late in the night, when, wending their way
along the road toward Lincoln's cabin, they espied something resembling
a man lying dead or insensible by the side of a mud-puddle. They
rolled the sleeper over, and found in him an old and quite respectable
acquaintance, hopelessly drunk. All efforts failed to rouse him to any
exertion on his own behalf. Abe's companions were disposed to let him
lie in the bed he had made for himself; but, as the night was cold and
dreary, he must have frozen to death had this inhuman proposition
been equally agreeable to everybody present. To Abe it seemed utterly
monstrous; and, seeing he was to have no help, he bent his mighty frame,
and, taking the big man in his long arms, carried him a great distance
to Dennis Hanks's cabin. There he built a fire, warmed, rubbed, and
nursed him through the entire night,--his companions of the road having
left him alone in his merciful task. The man often told John Hanks,
that it was mighty "clever in Abe to tote him to a warm fire that cold
night," and was very sure that Abe's strength and benevolence had saved
his life.

Abe was fond of music, but was himself wholly unable to produce three
harmonious notes together. He made various vain attempts to sing a
few lines of "Poor old Ned," but they were all equally ludicrous and
ineffectual. "Religious songs did not appear to suit him at all," says
Dennis Hanks; but of profane ballads and amorous ditties he knew the
words of a vast number. When Dennis got happy at the grocery, or passed
the bounds of propriety at a frolic, he was in the habit of raising a
charming carol in praise of the joys which enter into the Mussulman's
estate on earth,--of which he has vouchsafed us only three lines,--

     "The turbaned Turk that scorns the world,
     And struts about with his whiskers curled,
     For no other man but himself to see."

It was a prime favorite of Abe's; and Dennis sang it with such
appropriate zest and feeling, that Abe never forgot a single word of it
while he lived.

Another was,--

     "Hail Columbia, happy land!
     If you ain't drunk, I'll be damned,"--

a song which Dennis thinks should be warbled only in the "fields;" and
tells us that they knew and enjoyed "all such [songs] as this." Dave
Turnham was also a musical genius, and had a "piece" beginning,--

     "There was a Romish lady Brought up in popery,"

which Abe thought one of the best he ever heard, and insisted upon
Dave's singing it for the delectation of old Tom Lincoln, who relished
it quite as much as Abe did.1

     1 "I recollect some more:--

     'Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
     Tune my heart to sing thy praise.'

     'When I can read my title clear
     To mansions in the skies!'

     'How tedious and tasteless the hours.'

     'Oh! to grace how great a debtor!'

     Other little songs I won't say any thing about: they would
     not look well in print; but I could give them."--Dennis
     Hanks.

Mrs. Crawford says, that Abe did not attempt to sing much about the
house: he was probably afraid to indulge in such offensive gayeties in
the very habitation of the morose Crawford. According to Dennis Hanks,
his melody was not of the sort that hath power to charm the savage; and
he was naturally timid about trying it upon Crawford. But, when he was
freed from those chilling restraints, he put forth his best endeavors
to render "one [song] that was called 'William Riley,' and one that was
called 'John Anderson's Lamentations,' and one that was made about
Gen. Jackson and John Adams, at the time they were nominated for the
presidency."

The Jackson song indicated clearly enough Abe's steadiness in the
political views inculcated by Jones. Mrs. Crawford could recollect but a
single stanza of it:--

     "Let auld acquaintance be forgot,
     And never brought to mind,
     And Jackson be our President,
     And Adams left behind."

In the text of "John Anderson's Lamentations,"--a most distressful lyric
to begin with,--Abe was popularly supposed to have interpolated some
lines of his own, which conclusively attested his genius for poetic
composition. At all events, he sang it as follows:--

     "O sinners! poor sinners, take warning by me:
     The fruits of transgression behold now, and see;
     My soul is tormented, my body confined,
     My friends and dear children left weeping behind.

     "Much intoxication my ruin has been,
     And my dear companion hath barbarously slain:
     In yonder cold graveyard the body doth lie;
     Whilst I am condemned, and shortly must die.

     "Remember John Anderson's death, and reform
     Before death overtakes you, and vengeance comes on.
     My grief's overwhelming; in God I must trust:
     I am justly condemned; my sentence is just.

     "I am waiting the summons in eternity to be hurled;
     Whilst my poor little orphans are cast on the world.
     I hope my kind neighbors their guardeens will be,
     And Heaven, kind Heaven, protect them and me."

In 1826 Abe's sister Nancy (or Sarah) was married to Aaron Grigsby; and
the festivities of the occasion were made memorable by a song entitled,
"Adam and Eve's Wedding Song," which many believed Abe had himself
composed. The conceits embodied in the doggerel were old before Abe was
born; but there is some intrinsic as well as extraneous evidence to
show that the doggerel itself was his. It was sung by the whole Lincoln
family, before Nancy's marriage and since, but by nobody else in the
neighborhood.

     ADAM AND EVE'S WEDDING SONG.

     When Adam was created, he dwelt in Eden's shade,
     As Moses has recorded, and soon an Eve was made.
     Ten thousand times ten thousand
     Of creatures swarmed around
     Before a bride was formed,
     And yet no mate was found.

     The Lord then was not willing
     The man should be alone,
     But caused a sleep upon him,
     And took from him a bone,

     And closed the flesh in that place of;
     And then he took the same,
     And of it made a woman,
     And brought her to the man.

     Then Adam he rejoiced
     To see his loving bride,
     A part of his own body,
     The product of his side.

     This woman was not taken
     From Adam's feet, we see;
     So he must not abuse her,
     The meaning seems to be.

     This woman was not taken
     From Adam's head, we know;
     To show she must not rule him,
     'Tis evidently so.

     This woman she was taken
     From under Adam's arm;
     So she must be protected
     From injuries and harm.

"It was considered at that time," says Mr. Richardson, "that Abe was the
best penman in the neighborhood. One day, while he was on a visit at
my mother's, I asked him to write some copies for me. He very willingly
consented. He wrote several of them, but one of them I have never
forgotten, although a boy at the time. It was this:--

     'Good boys who to their books apply
     Will all be great men by and by.'"

Here are two original lines from Abe's own copy-book, probably the first
he ever had, and which must not be confounded with the famous scrap-book
in which his step-mother, lost in admiration of its contents, declares
he "entered all things:"--

     "Abraham Lincoln, his hand and pen:
     He will be good, but God knows when."

Again,--

     "Abraham Lincoln is my name,
     And with my pen I write the same:
     I will be a good boy, but God knows when."

The same book contains the following, written at a later day, and with
nothing to indicate that any part of it was borrowed:--

     "Time! what an empty vapor'tis!
     And days how swift they are!
     Swift as an Indian arrow,
     Fly on like a shooting-star.
     The present moment just is here,
     Then slides away in haste,
     That we can never say they're ours,
     But only say they are past."

Abe wrote many "satires" and "chronicles," which are only remembered in
fragments by a few old persons in the neighborhood. Even if we had them
in full, they were most of them too indecent for publication. Such,
at least, was the character of "a piece" which is said to have been
"exceedingly humorous and witty," touching a church trial, wherein
Brother Harper and Sister Gordon were the parties seeking judgment. It
was very coarse, but it served admirably to raise a laugh in the grocery
at the expense of the church.

His chronicles were many, and on a great variety of subjects. They
were written, as his early admirers love to tell us, "in the scriptural
style;" but those we have betray a very limited acquaintance with the
model. In these "chapters" was celebrated every event of importance
that took place in the neighborhood: weddings, fights, Crawford's nose,
Sister Gordon's innocence, Brother Harper's wit, were all served up,
fresh and gross, for the amusement of the groundlings.

Charles and Reuben Grigsby were married about the same time, and, being
brothers, returned to their father's house with their brides upon the
same day. The infare, the feast, the dance, the ostentatious retirement
of the brides and grooms, were conducted in the old-fashioned way of all
new countries in the United States, but a way which was bad enough to
shock Squire Western himself. On this occasion Abe was not invited,
and was very "mad" in consequence. This indignation found vent in a
highly-spiced piece of descriptive writing, entitled "The Chronicles of
Reuben," which are still in existence.

But even "The Chronicles," venomous and highly successful as they were,
were totally insufficient to sate Abe's desire for vengeance on the
Grigsbys. They were important people about Gentryville, and the social
slight they had given him stung him bitterly. He therefore began on
"Billy" in rhyme, after disposing of Charles and Reuben "in scriptural
style." Mrs. Crawford attempted to repeat these verses to Mr. Herndon;
but the good old lady had not proceeded far, when she blushed very red,
and, saying that they were hardly decent, proposed to tell them to her
daughter, who would tell them to her husband, who would write them down
and send them to Mr. Herndon. They are probably much curtailed by Mrs.
Crawford's modesty, but still it is impossible to transcribe them. We
give what we can to show how the first steps of Abe's fame as a great
writer were won. It must be admitted that the literary taste of the
community in which these rhymes were popular could not have been very
high.

     "I will tell you about Joel and Mary:
     it is neither a joke or a story, for
     Reuben and Charles has married two girls,
     but Billy has married a boy."

     "The girls he had tried on every side,
     But none could he get to agree:
     All was in vain; he went home again,
     And, since that, he is married to Natty.

     "So Billy and Natty agreed very well,
     And mamma's well pleased at the match:
     The egg it is laid, but Natty's afraid
     The shell is so soft it never will hatch;
     But Betsey she said, 'You cursed bald head,
     My suitor you never can be;
     Besides'"----

Abe dropped "The Chronicles" at a point on the road where he was sure
one of the Grigsbys would find them. The stratagem succeeded, and
that delicate "satire" produced the desired effect. The Grigsbys were
infuriated,--wild with a rage which would be satisfied only when Abe's
face should be pounded into a jelly, and a couple of his ribs cracked by
some member of the injured family. Honor, according to the Pigeon Creek
code, demanded that somebody should be "licked" in expiation of an
outrage so grievous,--if not Abe, then some friend of Abe's, whom he
would depute to stand the brunt in his stead. "Billy," the eldest of the
brothers, was selected to challenge him. Abe accepted generally; that
is, agreed that there should be a fight about the matter in question.
It was accordingly so ordered: the ground was selected a mile and a
half from Gentryville, a ring was marked out, and the bullies for twenty
miles around attended. The friends of both parties were present in
force, and excitement ran high. When the time arrived for the champions
to step into the ring, Abe displayed his chivalry in a manner that must
have struck the bystanders with admiration. He announced, that whereas
Billy was confessedly his inferior in size, shape, and talents, unable
to hit with pen or fist with any thing like his power, therefore he
would forego the advantage which the challenge gave him, and "turn over"
his stepbrother, John Johnston, to do battle in his behalf. If this near
relative should be sacrificed, he would abide the issue: he was
merely anxious to see a fair and honorable fight. This proposition was
considered highly meritorious, and the battle commenced on those general
terms. John started out with fine pluck and spirit; but in a little
while Billy got in some clever hits, and Abe began to exhibit symptoms
of great uneasiness. Another pass or two, and John flagged quite
decidedly, and it became evident that Abe was anxiously casting about
for some pretext to break the ring. At length, when John was fairly
down, and Billy on top, and all the spectators cheering, swearing,
and pressing up to the very edge of the ring, Abe cried out that "Bill
Boland showed foul play," and, bursting out of the crowd, seized Grigsby
by the heels, and flung him off. Having righted John, and cleared the
battle-ground of all opponents, "he swung a whiskey-bottle over his
head, and swore that he was the big buck of the lick." It seems that
nobody of the Grigsby faction, not one in that large assembly of
bullies, cared to encounter the sweep of Abe's tremendously long and
muscular arms; and so he remained master of the "lick." He was not
content, however, with a naked triumph, but vaunted himself in the most
offensive manner. He singled out the victorious but cheated Billy, and,
making sundry hostile demonstrations, declared that he could whip him
then and there. Billy meekly said "he did not doubt that," but that,
if Abe would make things even between them by fighting with pistols, he
would not be slow to grant him a meeting. But Abe replied that he was
not going "to fool away his life on a single shot;" and so Billy was
fain to put up with the poor satisfaction he had already received.

At Gentryville "they had exhibitions or speaking meetings." Some of
the questions they spoke on were, The Bee and the Ant, Water and Fire:
another was, Which had the most right to complain, the Negro or the
Indian? Another, "Which was the strongest, Wind or Water?"1 The views
which Abe then entertained on the Indian and the negro question would
be intensely interesting now. But just fancy him discoursing on wind and
water! What treasures of natural science, what sallies of humor, he
must have wasted upon that audience of bumpkins! A little farther on, we
shall see that Abe made pretensions to an acquaintance with the laws of
nature which was considered marvellous in that day and generation.

     1 "Lincoln did write what is called 'The Book of
     Chronicles,'--a satire on the Grigs-bys and Josiah
     Crawford,--not the schoolmaster, but the man who loaned
     Lincoln 'The Life of Washington.' The satire was good,
     sharp, cutting: it hurt us then, but it is all over now.
     There is no family in the land who, after this, loved
     Lincoln so well, and who now look upon him as so great a
     man. We all voted for him,--all that could,--children and
     grandchildren, first, last, and always."--Nat Grigsby.

Dennis Hanks insists that Abe and he became learned men and expert
disputants, not by a course of judicious reading, but by attending
"speech-makings, gatherings," &c.

"How did Lincoln and yourself learn so much in Indiana under such
disadvantages?" said Mr. Herndon to Dennis, on one of his two oral
examinations. The question was artfully put; for it touched the jaunty
Dennis on the side of his vanity, and elicited a characteristic reply.
"We learned," said he, "by sight, scent, and hearing. We heard all that
was said, and talked over and over the questions heard; wore them
slick, greasy, and threadbare. Went to political and other speeches and
gatherings, as you do now: we would hear all sides and opinions, talk
them over, discuss them, agreeing or disagreeing. Abe, as I said before,
was originally a Democrat after the order of Jackson, so was his father,
so we all were.... He preached, made speeches, read for us, explained
to us, &c.... Abe was a cheerful boy, a witty boy, was humorous always;
sometimes would get sad, not very often.... Lincoln would frequently
make political and other speeches to the boys: he was calm, logical, and
clear always. He attended trials, went to court always, read the Revised
Statute of Indiana, dated 1824, heard law speeches, and listened to law
trials, &c. Lincoln was lazy, a very lazy man. He was always reading,
scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing poetry, and the like.... In
Gentryville, about one mile west of Thomas Lincoln's farm, Lincoln would
go and tell his jokes and stories, &c., and was so odd, original, and
humorous and witty, that all the people in town would gather around him.
He would keep them there till midnight. I would get tired, want to go
home, cuss Abe most heartily. Abe was a good talker, a good reader, and
was a kind of newsboy."

Boonville was the court-house town of Warrick County, and was situated
about fifteen miles from Gentryville. Thither Abe walked whenever he had
time to be present at the sittings of the court, where he could learn
something of public business, amuse himself profitably, and withal pick
up items of news and gossip, which made him an interesting personage
when he returned home. During one of these visits he watched, with
profound attention, the progress of a murder trial, in which a Mr.
John Breckenridge was counsel for the defence. At the conclusion of the
latter's speech, Abe, who had listened, literally entranced, accosted
the man of eloquence, and ventured to compliment him on the success of
his effort. "Breckenridge looked at the shabby boy" in amazement, and
passed on his way. But many years afterwards, in 1862, when Abe was
President, and Breckenridge a resident of Texas, probably needing
executive clemency, they met a second time; when Abe said, "It was the
best speech that I up to that time had ever heard. If I could, as I then
thought, make as good a speech as that, my soul would be satisfied."

It is a curious fact, that through all Abe's childhood and boyhood, when
he seemed to have as little prospect of the Presidency as any boy that
ever was born, he was in the habit of saying, and perhaps sincerely
believing, that that great prize would one day be his. When Mrs.
Crawford reproved him for "fooling," and bedevilling the girls in her
kitchen, and asked him "what he supposed would ever become of him," he
answered that "he was going to be President of the United States."1

     1 He frequently made use of similar expressions to several
     others.

Abe usually did the milling for the family, and had the neighbor
boy, Dave Turnham, for his companion. At first they had to go a long
distance, at least twelve or thirteen miles, to Hoffman's, on Anderson's
Creek; but after a while a Mr. Gordon (the husband of Sister Gordon,
about whom the "witty piece" was written) built a horse-mill within a
few miles of the Lincolns. Here Abe had come one day with a grist, and
Dave probably with him. He had duly hitched his "old mare," and started
her with great impatience; when, just as he was sounding another
"cluck," to stir up her imperturbable and lazy spirit, she let out with
her heels, and laid Abe sprawling and insensible on the ground. He was
taken up in that condition, and did not recover for many minutes; but
the first use made of returning sense was to finish the interrupted
"cluck." He and Mr. Herndon had many learned discussions in their quiet
little office, at Springfield, respecting this remarkable phenomenon,
involving so nice a question in "psychology."

Mr. William Wood, already referred to as "Uncle Wood," was a genuine
friend and even a patron of Abe's. He lived only about a mile and a half
from the Lincolns, and frequently had both old Tom and Abe to work for
him,--the one as a rough carpenter, and the other as a common laborer.
He says that Abe was in the habit of carrying "his pieces" to him for
criticism and encouragement. Mr. Wood took at least two newspapers,--one
of them devoted to politics, and one of them to temperance. Abe borrowed
them both, and, reading them faithfully over and over again, was
inspired with an ardent desire to write something on the subjects of
which they treated. He accordingly composed an article on temperance,
which Mr. Wood thought "excelled, for sound sense, any thing that the
paper contained." It was forwarded, through the agency of a Baptist
preacher, to an editor in Ohio, by whom it was published, to the
infinite gratification of Mr. Wood and his _protégé_. Abe then tried his
hand on "national politics," saying that "the American Government was
the best form of government for an intelligent people; that it ought to
be kept sound, and preserved forever; that general education should be
fostered and carried all over the country; that the Constitution should
be saved, the Union perpetuated, and the laws revered, respected, and
enforced." This article was consigned, like the other, to Mr. Wood, to
be ushered by him before the public. A lawyer named Pritchard chanced
to pass that way, and, being favored with a perusal of Abe's "piece,"
pithily and enthusiastically declared, "The world can't beat it." "He
begged for it," and it was published in some obscure paper; this new
success causing the author a most extraordinary access of pride and
happiness.

But in 1828 Abe had become very tired of his home. He was now nineteen
years of age, and becoming daily more restive under the restraints of
servitude which bound him. He was anxious to try the world for himself,
and make his way according to his own notions. "Abe came to my house one
day," says Mr. Wood, "and stood round about, timid and shy. I knew
he wanted _something_, and said to him, 'Abe, what's your case?'
He replied, 'Uncle, I want you to go to the river, and give me some
recommendation to some boat.' I remarked, 'Abe, your age is against you:
you are not twenty yet.' 'I know that, but I want a start,' said Abe. I
concluded not to go for the boy's good." Poor Abe! old Tom still had a
claim upon him, which even Uncle Wood would not help him to evade. He
must wait a few weary months more before he would be of age, and
could say he was his own man, and go his own way. Old Tom was a hard
taskmaster to him, and, no doubt, consumed the greater part, if not all,
of his wages.

In the beginning of March, 1828, Abe went to work for old Mr. Gentry,
the proprietor of Gentryville. Early in the next month, the old
gentleman furnished his son Allen with a boat, and a cargo of bacon and
other produce, with which he was to go on a trading expedition to New
Orleans, unless the stock was sooner exhausted. Abe, having been found
faithful and efficient, was employed to accompany the young man as a
"bow-hand," to work the "front oars." He was paid eight dollars per
month, and ate and slept on board. Returning, Gentry paid his passage on
the deck of a steamboat.

While this boat was loading at Gentry's Landing, near Rockport, on the
Ohio, Abe saw a great deal of the pretty Miss Roby, whom he had saved
from the wrath of Crawford the schoolmaster, when she failed to spell
"defied." She says, "Abe was then a long, thin, leggy, gawky boy, dried
up and shrivelled." This young lady subsequently became the wife of
Allen Gentry, Abe's companion in the projected voyage. She probably
felt a deep interest in the enterprise in hand, for the very boat itself
seems to have had attractions for her. "One evening," says she, "Abe and
I were sitting on the banks of the Ohio, or rather on the boat spoken
of: I said to Abe that the sun was going down. He said to me, 'That's
not so: it don't really go down; it seems so. The earth turns from west
to east, and the revolution of the earth carries us under as it were:
we do the sinking as you call it. The sun, as to us, is comparatively
still; the sun's sinking is only an appearance.' I replied, 'Abe, what
a fool you are!' I know now that I was the fool, not Lincoln. I am now
thoroughly satisfied that Abe knew the general laws of astronomy and the
movements of the heavenly bodies. He was better read then than the world
knows, or is likely to know exactly. No man could talk to me that
night as he did, unless he had known something of geography as well as
astronomy. He often and often commented or talked to me about what he
had read,--seemed to read it out of the book as he went along,--did
so to others. He was the learned boy among us unlearned folks. He took
great pains to explain; could do it so simply. He was diffident then
too." 1

The trip of Gentry and Lincoln was a very profitable one, and Mr.
Gentry, senior, was highly gratified by the result. Abe displayed his
genius for mercantile affairs by handsomely putting off on the innocent
folks along the river some counterfeit money which a shrewd fellow had
imposed upon Allen. Allen thought his father would be angry with him
for suffering himself to be cheated; but Abe consoled him with the
reflection that the "old man" wouldn't care how much bad money they took
in the course of business if they only brought the proper amount of good
money home.2

     1 "When he appeared in company, the boys would gather and
     cluster around him to hear him talk.... Mr. Lincoln was
     figurative in his speeches, talks, and conversations. He
     argued much from analogy, and explained things hard for us
     to understand by stories, maxims, tales, and figures. He
     would almost always point his lesson or idea by some story
     that was plain and near us, that we might instantly see the
     force and bearing of what he said."--Nat Grigsby.

     2 "Gentry (Allen) was a great personal friend of Mr.
     Lincoln. He was a Democrat, but voted for Lincoln,
     sacrificing his party politics to his friendship. He says
     that on that trip they sold some of their produce at a
     certain landing, and by accident or fraud the bill was paid
     in counterfeit money. Gentry was grieving about it; but
     Lincoln said, 'Never mind, Allen: it will accidentally slip
     out of our fingers before we get to New Orleans, and then
     old Jim can't quarrel at us.' Sure enough, it all went off
     like hot cakes. I was told this in Indiana by many people
     about Rockport."--Herndon. It must be remembered that
     counterfeit money was the principal currency along the river
     at this period.

At Madame Bushane's plantation, six miles below Baton Rouge, they had
an adventure, which reads strangely enough in the life of the great
emancipator. The boat was tied up to the shore, in the dead hours of the
night, and Abe and Allen were fast asleep in the "cabin," in the stern,
when they were startled by footsteps on board. They knew instantly that
it was a gang of negroes come to rob, and perhaps to murder them. Allen,
thinking to frighten the intruders, cried out, "Bring the guns, Lincoln;
shoot them!" Abe came without a gun, but he fell among the negroes
with a huge bludgeon, and belabored them most cruelly. Not content with
beating them off the boat, he and Gentry followed them far back into the
country, and then, running back to their craft, hastily cut loose and
made rapid time down the river, fearing lest they should return in
greater numbers to take revenge. The victory was complete; but, in
winning it, Abe received a scar which he carried with him to his grave.

"When he was eighteen years old, he conceived the project of building a
little boat, and taking the produce of the Lincoln farm down the river
to market. He had learned the use of tools, and possessed considerable
mechanical talent, as will appear in some other acts of his life. Of the
voyage and its results, we have no knowledge; but an incident occurred
before starting which he related in later life to his Secretary of
State, Mr. Seward, that made a very marked and pleasant impression upon
his memory. As he stood at the landing, a steamer approached, coming
down the river. At the same time two passengers came to the river's bank
who wished to be taken out to the packet with their luggage. Looking
among the boats at the landing, they singled out Abraham's, and asked
him to scull them to the steamer. This he did; and, after seeing them
and their trunks on board, he had the pleasure of receiving upon the
bottom of his boat, before he shoved off, a silver half-dollar from each
of his passengers. 'I could scarcely believe my eyes,' said Mr. Lincoln,
in telling the story. 'You may think it was a very little thing,'
continued he, 'but it was a most important incident in my life. I could
scarcely believe that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a
day. The world seemed wider and fairer to me. I was a more hopeful
and confident being from that time.'"1 If Mr. Lincoln ever made the
statement for which Mr. Seward is given as authority, he drew upon his
imagination for the facts. He may have sculled passengers to a steamer
when he was ferryman for Taylor, but he never made a trip like the one
described; never built a boat until he went to Illinois; nor did he
ever sell produce on his father's account, for the good reason that his
father had none to sell.

     1 Holland's Life of Lincoln, p. 33.




CHAPTER III.

ABE and Gentry returned from New Orleans some time in June, 1828, having
been gone not quite three months. How much longer he remained in the
service of Gentry, or whether he remained at all, we are unable to say;
but he soon took up his old habits, and began to work around among his
neighbors, or for his father, precisely as he had done before he got his
partial glimpse of the great world down the river.

In the fall of 1829, Mr. Wood saw him cutting down a large tree in the
woods, and whip-sawing it into planks. Abe said the lumber was for a new
house his father was about to build; but Tom Lincoln changed his
mind before the house was half done, and Abe sold his plank to Josiah
Crawford, "the book man," who worked them into the south-east room of
his house, where relic-seekers have since cut pieces from them to make
canes.

In truth, the continued prevalence of that dreadful disease, the
milk-sickness, with which Nancy Hanks and the Sparrows and the Halls had
all died, was more than a sufficient reason for a new removal, now in
contemplation by Thomas Lincoln. Every member of his family, from
the first settlement in Indiana, except perhaps Abe and himself,
had suffered with it. The cattle, which, it is true, were of little
pecuniary value, and raised with great ease and little cost, were swept
away by it in great numbers throughout the whole neighborhood. It was
an awful scourge, and common prudence suggested flight. It is wonderful
that it took a constitutional mover thirteen years to make up his mind
to escape from it.1

     1 "What made Thomas Lincoln leave? The reason is this: we
     were perplexed by a disease called milk-sick. I myself being
     the oldest, I was determined to leave, and hunt a country
     where the milk-sick was not. I married his eldest daughter.
     I sold out, and they concluded to go with me. Billy, I was
     tolerably popular at that time, for I had some money. My
     wife's mother could not think of parting with her, and we
     ripped up stakes, and started to Illinois, and landed at
     Decatur. This is the reason for leaving Indiana. I am to
     blame for it, if any. As for getting more land, this was not
     the case, for we could have entered ten thousand acres of
     the best land. When we left, it was on account of the milk.
     Billy, I had four good milch cows, too, with it in one week,
     and eleven young calves. This was enough to run me. Besides,
     liked to have lossed my own life with it. This reason was
     enough (ain't it?) for leaving."--Dennis Hanks.

In the spring of 1830, before the winter had fairly broken up, he and
Abe, and Dennis Hanks and Levi Hall, with their respective families,
thirteen in all, took the road for Illinois. Dennis and Levi, as already
stated, were married to the daughters of Mrs. Lincoln. Hall had one son,
and Dennis a considerable family of sons and daughters. Sarah (or Nancy)
Lincoln, who had married Aaron Grigsby, was now dead.

John Hanks had gone to the new country from Kentucky in the fall of
1828, and settled near Decatur, whence he wrote Thomas Lincoln all
about it, and advised him to come there. Dennis, whether because of the
persuasions of John, or some observations made in a flying trip on his
own account, was very full of the move, and would hear to no delay.
Lincoln sold his farm to Gentry, senior, if, indeed, he had not done so
before, and his corn and hogs to Dave Turnham. The corn brought only
ten cents a bushel, and, according to the pricelist furnished by Dennis
Hanks, the stock must have gone at figures equally mean.

Lincoln took with him to Illinois "some stock-cattle, one horse,
one bureau, one table, one clothes-chest, one set of chairs, cooking
utensils, clothing," &c. The goods of the three families--Hanks, Hall,
and Lincoln--were loaded on a wagon belonging to Lincoln. This wagon was
"ironed," a noticeable fact in those primitive days, and "was positively
the first one that he (Lincoln) ever owned." It was drawn by four yoke
of oxen,--two of them Lincoln's, and two of them Hanks's.

We have no particulars of the journey, except that Abe held the "gad,"
and drove the team; that the mud was very deep, that the spring freshets
were abroad, and that in crossing the swollen and tumultuous Kaskaskia,
the wagon and oxen were nearly swept away. On the first day of March,
1830, after fifteen days' tedious and heavy travel, they arrived at John
Hanks's house, four miles north-west of Decatur. Lincoln settled (if
any thing he did may be called settling) at a point ten miles west of
Decatur. Here John Hanks had cut some logs in 1829, which he now gave
to Lincoln to build a house with. With the aid of John, Dennis, Abe,
and Hall, a house was erected on a small bluff, on the north bank of the
north fork of the Sangamon. Abe and John took the four yoke of oxen and
"broke up" fifteen acres of land, and then split rails enough to fence
it in.

Abe was now over twenty-one. There was no "Uncle Wood to tell him that
his age was against him:" he had done something more than his duty by
his father; and, as that worthy was now again placed in a situation
where he might do well if he chose, Abe came to the conclusion that it
was time for him to begin life on his own account. It must have cost him
some pain to leave his good step-mother; but, beyond that, all the old
ties were probably broken without a single regret. From the moment
he was a free man, foot-loose, able to go where, and to do what, he
pleased, his success in those things which lay nearest his heart--that
is, public and social preferment--was astonishing to himself, as well as
to others.

It is with great pleasure that we dismiss Tom Lincoln, with his family
and fortunes, from further consideration in these pages. After Abraham
left him, he moved at least three times in search of a "healthy"
location, and finally got himself fixed near Goose Nest Prairie, in
Coles County, where he died of a disease of the kidneys, in 1851, at the
ripe old age of seventy-three. The little farm (forty acres) upon which
his days were ended, he had, with his usual improvidence, mortgaged
to the School Commissioners for two hundred dollars,--its full value.
Induced by love for his step-mother, Abraham had paid the debt, and
taken a deed for the land, "with a reservation of a life-estate therein,
to them, or the survivor of them." At the same time (1841), he gave a
helping hand to John Johnston, binding himself to convey the land to
him, or his heirs, after the death of "Thomas Lincoln and his wife,"
upon payment of the two hundred dollars, which was really advanced to
save John's mother from utter penury. No matter how much the land
might appreciate in value, John was to have it upon these terms, and no
interest was to be paid by him, "except after the death of the survivor,
as aforesaid." This, to be sure, was a great bargain for John, but he
made haste to assign his bond to another person for "fifty dollars paid
in hand."

As soon as Abraham got a little up in the world, he began to send his
step-mother money, and continued to do so until his own death; but it
is said to have "done her no good," for it only served to tempt certain
persons about her, and with whom she shared it, to continue in a life
of idleness. At the close of the Black Hawk War, Mr. Lincoln went to see
them for a few days, and afterwards, when a lawyer, making the circuits
with the courts, he visited them whenever the necessities of his
practice brought him to their neighborhood. He did his best to serve
Mrs. Lincoln and her son John, but took little notice of his father,
although he wrote him an exhortation to believe in God when he thought
he was on his death-bed.

But in regard to the relations between the family and Abe, after the
latter began to achieve fame and power, nobody can tell the truth more
clearly, or tell it in a more interesting and suggestive style, than our
friend Dennis, with whom we are now about to part forever. It will be
seen, that, when information reached the "Goose Nest Prairie" that Abe
was actually chosen President of the United States, a general itching
for public employment broke out among the Hankses, and that an equally
general disappointment was the result. Doubtless all of them had
expectations somewhat like Sancho Panza's, when he went to take the
government of his island, and John Hanks, at least, would not have been
disappointed but for the little disability which Dennis mentions in the
following extract:--

"Did Abraham Lincoln treat John D. Johnston well?" "I will say this much
about it. I think Abe done more for John than he deserved. John thought
that Abe did not do enough for the old people. They became enemies a
while on this ground. I don't want to tell all the things that I know:
it would not look well in history. I say this: Abe treated John well."

"What kind of a man was Johnston?"--"I say this much: A kinder-hearted
man never was in Coles County, Illinois, nor an honester man. I don't
say this because he was my brother-in-law: I say it, knowing it. John
did not love to work any the best. I flogged him for not working."

"Did Thomas Lincoln treat Abe cruelly?"--"He loved him. I never could
tell whether Abe loved his father very well or not. I don't think he
did, for Abe was one of those forward boys. I have seen his father
knock him down off the fence when a stranger would, ask the way to a
neighbor's house. Abe always would have the first word. The old man
loved his children."

"Did any of the Johnston family ask for office?"--"No! Thomas Johnston
went to Abe: he got this permit to take daguerrotypes in the army; this
is all, for they are all dead except John's boys. They did not ask for
any."

"Did you or John Hanks ask Lincoln for any office?"--"I say this: that
John Hanks, of Decatur, did solicit him for an Indian Agency; and John
told me that Abe as good as told him he should have one. But John could
not read or write. I think this was the reason that Abe did not give
John the place.

"As for myself, I did not ask Abe right out for an office, only this: I
would like to have the post-office in Charleston; this was my wife that
asked him. He told her that much was understood,--as much as to say that
I would get it. I did not care much about it."

"Do you think Lincoln cared much for his relations?"--"I will say this
much: when he was with us, he seemed to think a great deal of us; but I
thought sometimes it was hypocritical, but I am not sure."

Abe left the Lincoln family late in March, or early in April. He did not
go far away, but took jobs wherever he could get them, showing that he
had separated himself from the family, not merely to rove, but to
labor, and be an independent man. He made no engagement of a permanent
character during this summer: his work was all done "by the job." If he
ever split rails for Kirkpatrick, over whom he was subsequently elected
captain of a volunteer company about to enter the Black Hawk War, it
must have been at this time; but the story of his work for Kirkpatrick,
like that of his making "a crap of corn" for Mr. Brown, is probably
apocryphal.1 All this while he clung close to John Hanks, and either
worked where he did, or not far away. In the winter following, he was
employed by a Major Warrick to make rails, and walked daily three miles
to his work, and three miles back again.

     1 See Holland's Life of Lincoln, p. 40.

"After Abe got to Decatur," says John Hanks, "or rather to Macon (my
country), a man by the name of Posey came into our neighborhood, and
made a speech: it was a bad one, and I said Abe could beat it. I
turned down a box, or keg, and Abe made his speech. The other man was
a candidate. Abe wasn't. Abe beat him to death, his subject being the
navigation of the Sangamon River. The man, after the speech was through,
took Abe aside, and asked him where he had learned so much, and how he
did so well. Abe replied, stating his manner and method of reading, and
what he had read. The man encouraged Lincoln to persevere."

In February, 1831, a Mr. Denton Offutt wanted to engage John Hanks
to take a flatboat to New Orleans. John was not well disposed to the
business; but Offutt came to the house, and would take no denial; made
much of John's fame as a river-man, and at length persuaded him to
present the matter to Abe and John Johnston. He did so. The three
friends discussed the question with great earnestness: it was no slight
affair to them, for they were all young and poor. At length they agreed
to Offutt's proposition, and that agreement was the turning-point in
Abe's career. They were each to receive fifty cents a day, and the round
sum of sixty dollars divided amongst them for making the trip. These
were wages such as Abe had never received before, and might have tempted
him to a much more difficult enterprise. When he went with Gentry, the
pay was only eight dollars a month, and no such company and assistance
as he was to have now. But Offutt was lavish with his money, and
generous bargains like this ruined him a little while after.

In March, Hanks, Johnston, and Lincoln went down the Sangamon in a canoe
to Jamestown (then Judy's Ferry), five miles east of Springfield. Thence
they walked to Springfield, and found Mr. Offutt comforting himself at
"Elliott's tavern in Old Town." He had contracted to have a boat ready
at the mouth of Spring Creek, but, not looking after it himself, was, of
course, "disappointed." There was only one way out of the trouble: the
three hands must build a boat. They went to the mouth of Spring Creek,
five miles north of Springfield, and there consumed two weeks cutting
the timber from "Congress land." In the mean time, Abe walked back to
Judy's Ferry, by way of Springfield, and brought down the canoe which
they had left at the former place. The timber was hewed and scored, and
then "rafted down to Saugamon-town." At the mouth of Spring Creek
they had been compelled to walk a full mile for their meals; but at
Sangamon-town they built a shanty, and boarded themselves. "Abe was
elected cook," and performed the duties of the office much to the
satisfaction of the party. The lumber was sawed at Kirkpatrick's mill, a
mile and a half from the shanty. Laboring under many disadvantages like
this, they managed to complete and launch the boat in about four weeks
from the time of beginning.

Offutt was with the party at this point. He "was a Whig, and so was Abe;
but he (Abe) could not hear Jackson wrongfully abused, especially where
a lie and malice did the abuse." Out of this difference arose some
disputes, which served to enliven the camp, as well as to arouse Abe's
ire, and keep him in practice in the way of debate.

In those days Abe, as usual, is described as being "funny, jokey,
full of yarns, stories, and rigs;" as being "long, tall, and green,"
"frequently quoting poetry," and "reciting proselike orations." They
had their own amusements. Abe extracted a good deal of fun out of the
cooking; took his "dram" when asked to, and played "seven up" at night,
at which he made "a good game."

A juggler gave an exhibition at Sangamontown, in the upper room of Jacob
Carman's house. Abe went to it, dressed in a suit of rough blue jeans.
He had on shoes, but the trousers did not reach them by about twelve
inches; and the naked shin, which had excited John Romine's laughter
years ago in Indiana, was still exposed. Between the roundabout and
the waist of the trousers, there was another wide space uncovered;
and, considering these defects, Mr. Lincoln's attire was thought to be
somewhat inelegant, even in those times. His hat, however, was a great
improvement on coon-skins and opossum. It was woollen, broad-brimmed,
and low-crowned. In this hat the "showman cooked eggs." Whilst Abe was
handing it up to him, after the man had long solicited a similar favor
from the rest of the audience, he remarked, "Mister, the reason I didn't
give you my hat before was out of respect to your eggs, not care for my
hat."

Loaded with barrel-pork, hogs, and corn, the boat set out from
Sangamontown as soon as finished. Mr. Offutt was on board to act as
his own merchant, intending to pick up additions to his cargo along the
banks of the two Illinois rivers down which he was about to pass. On the
19th of April they arrived at New Salem, a little village destined to
be the scene of the seven eventful years of Mr. Lincoln's life, which
immediately followed the conclusion of the present trip. Just below New
Salem the boat "stuck," for one night and the better part of a day on
Rutledge's mill-dam,--one end of it hanging over the dam, and the other
sunk deep in the water behind. Here was a case for Abe's ingenuity, and
he exercised it with effect. Quantities of water were being taken in at
the stern, the lading was sliding backwards, and every thing indicated
that the rude craft was in momentary danger of breaking in two, or
sinking outright. But Abe suggested some unheard-of expedient for
keeping it in place while the cargo was shifted to a borrowed boat, and
then, boring a hole in that part of the bottom extending over the dam,
he "rigged up" an equally strange piece of machinery for tilting and
holding it while the water ran out. All New Salem was assembled on
shore, watching the progress of this singular experiment,--and with one
voice affirm that Abe saved the boat; although nobody is able to tell
us precisely how.1 The adventure turned Abe's thoughts to the class of
difficulties, one of which he had just surmounted; and the result of his
reflections was "an improved method for lifting vessels over shoals."2
Offutt declared that when he got back from New Orleans, he would build a
steamboat for the navigation of the Sangamon, and make Abe the captain;
he would build it with runners for ice, and rollers for shoals and dams,
for with "Abe in command, by thunder, she'd have to go."

     1 Many persons at New Salem describe in full Abe's conduct
     on this occasion.

     2 "Occupying an ordinary and commonplace position in one of
     the show-cases in the targe hall of the Patent Office, is
     one little model which, in ages to come, will be prized as
     at once one of the most curious and one of the most sacred
     relics in that vast museum of unique and priceless things.
     This is a plain and simple model of a steamboat, roughly
     fashioned in wood, by the hand of Abraham Lincoln. It bears
     date in 1849, when the inventor was known simply as a
     successful lawyer and rising politician of Central Illinois.
     Neither his practice nor his politics took up so much of his
     time as to prevent him from giving much attention to
     contrivances which he hoped might be of benefit to the
     world, and of profit to himself.

     "The design of this invention is suggestive of one phase of
     Abraham Lincoln's early life, when he went up and down the
     Mississippi as a flat-boatman, and became familiar with some
     of the dangers and inconveniences attending the navigation
     of the Western rivers. It is an attempt to make it an easy
     matter to transport vessels over shoals and snags, and
     sawyers. The main idea is that of an apparatus resembling a
     noiseless bellows, placed on each side of the hull of the
     craft, just below the water-line, and worked by an odd but
     not complicated system of ropes, valves, and pulleys. When
     the keel of the vessel grates against the sand or
     obstruction, these bellows are to be filled with air; and,
     thus buoyed up, the ship is expected to float lightly and
     gayly over the shoal, which would otherwise have proved a
     serious interruption to her voyage.

     "The model, which is about eighteen or twenty inches long,
     and has the air of having been whittled with a knife out of
     a shingle and a cigar-box, is built without any elaboration
     or ornament, or any extra apparatus beyond that necessary to
     show the operation of buoying the steamer over the
     obstructions. Herein it differs from very many of the models
     which share with it the shelter of the immense halls of the
     Patent Office, and which are fashioned with wonderful nicety
     and exquisite finish, as if much of the labor and thought
     and affection of a lifetime had been devoted to their
     construction. This is a model of a different kind; carved as
     one might imagine a retired rail-splitter would whittle,
     strongly, but not smoothly, and evidently made with a view
     solely to convey, by the simplest possible means, to the
     minds of the patent authorities, an idea of the purpose and
     plan of the simple invention. The label on the steamer's
     deck informs us that the patent was obtained; but we do not
     learn that the navigation of the Western rivers was
     revolutionized by this quaint conception. The modest little
     model has reposed here sixteen years; and, since it found
     its resting-place here on the shelf, the shrewd inventor has
     found it his task to guide the Ship of State over shoals
     more perilous, and obstructions more obstinate, than any
     prophet dreamed of when Abraham Lincoln wrote his bold
     autograph on the prow of this miniature steamer."--
     Correspondent Boston Advertiser.

Over the dam, and in the deep pool beyond, they reloaded, and floated
down to Blue Bank, a mile above the mouth of Salt Creek, where Offutt
bought some more hogs. But the hogs were wild, and refused t

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