THE STORY-llfE S^LIHCOLK

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ILLUSTRATED

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WHIPPLE, W. MI639 note

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LINCOLN NATIONAL LIFE FOUNDATION

WHIPPLE

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Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2010 with funding from

State of Indiana through the Indiana State Library

http://www.archive.org/details/storylifeoflin3365whip

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High Praise from High Persons

These Men of National Reputation Enthusiastically Commend

Whipple's "STORY-LIFE OF LINCOLN"

Their Approval Stamps it as the Best Life of Lincoln and a Necessary Book for Everyone

FRANCIS D. TANDY

Secretary-Treasurer of the Lincoln Educational League

" I want to thank you in the name of all lovers of Abraham Lincoln for the splendid work you have done in bringing out ' The Story-I^ife of Lincoln.' Over 1200 books and pamplilets have been published about our first martyred President, so that none except the wealthy can afford to collect them. By 3'our method of selecting the interesting passages from each author, you have placed the best portions of these works at the dis- posal of the general public. Your genius in weaving these excerpts into a harmonious whole has made it as fascinating to the casual reader as it is satisfactor}^ to the profound student. "

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HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT

Republican Candidate for President '

"I am always much interested in reading of Lincoln's life. ",

HON. ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE

I'nit.-,! S(.'ilfS Scn.'ilor I'nun ln,li:iiKi '

"I tliank you veiv iniU'h feu- tlir iinispccHis nf your fovthcoiiunK hook, "The 8tory-I>ife of Lim'olii.' 1 ]\:i\v vc:u\ its panes with intorost and ploasure, and cousidor it an oxcollont ami novel way of prosentinfj the biograpliy o{ Aiueriea's most iiict\nTS(]iie I'resident."

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BRIGADIER-GENERAL J. FRANKLIN BELL

Chief of Stall'. Tnilc.l Stales Army

''I have carefully examined the plan of your Life of Lincoln and the advance sheets which j'ou inclose. I must say that I believe your book will touch a responsive chord in the hearts of the people, embodying as it does that identity or personality whicli is foreign to most biographies and leads an element that compels interest. I am confident that yotn- work will bring us all nearer to Lincoln than ever before.

"With this publication available there will no longer be any excus;; for lack of knowledge of the .deeds and virtues of this representative of the highest t3'pe of American." i. •

GENERAL H. S. HUIDEKOPER

" I predict a great success for tlie book. It seems to give the real, or inner, life of the great man, which evervbfidy always w^ants."

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HON. JOHN C. CUTLER

Go\ernor of Utah

" I am of opinion that the work will be a valuable addition to our biographical literature."

BRIGADIER-GENERAL WINFIELD S. EDGERLY

Commanding General, Department of Dakota

" I have read the advance sheets of ' The Story-Life of Lincoln ' with great pleasure. The stories are told iu a delightful breezy manner and a cop3' will be ordered for the Headquarters Librarj^ as soon as it is pub- lished."

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HON. WILLIAM M. O. DAWSON

Governor of West A'irginia

■• I have read the advance sheets of your forthcoming book. ' The Story- Life of Lincoln, ' with much interested gratification. The jjlan of the book is unique, and should result in the production of a volume of great interest and edification, which ought to have a wide circulation. Mr. Lincoln was such a great character that anything which will bring him closer to the jjeople will do great good, and is therefore worthy of encouragement."

HON. ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE

United States Senator from Indiana '

"I thank you very much for the prospectus of your forthcoming

book, 'The Story-Life of Lincoln.' I have read its pages with interest

and pleasure, and consider it an excellent and novel way of presenting

the biography of America's most picturesque President."

/^^^^ ^^^

BRIGADIER-GENERAL J. FRANKLIN BELL

Chief of Staff, United States Army "I have carefully examined the plan of your Life of Lincoln and the advance sheets which you inclose. I must say that I believe your book will touch a responsive chord in the hearts of the people, embodying as it does that identity or personality which is foreign to most biographies and lends an element that compels interest. I am confident that your work will bring us all nearer to Lincoln than ever before.

' "With this publication available there mil no longer be any excuse fdt lack of knowledge of the deeds and virtues of this representative of the highest type of American." ,.\ ,, .

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GENERAL H. S. HUIDEKOPER

" I predict a great success for the book. It seems to give the real, or inner, life of the great man, which everybody always wants."

- .: ^. J>^ >^-«^ ^^^^^< 7^«-»^-

HON. JOHN C. CUTLER

Governor of Utah

" I am of opinion that the work will \je a valuable addition to our biographioal literature."

BRIGADIER-GENERAL WINFIELD S. EDGERLY

Commanding General, Department of Dakota

•' I have read the advance sheets of ' The Story-Life of Lincoln ' with great pleasure. The stories are told in a delightful breezy manner and a copj- will be ordered for the Headqtiarters Library as soon as it is ptib- lished."

"^^^_Z.

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HON. WILLIAM M. 0. DAWSON

(_;o\'ernor of West \'irginia

'• I have read the advance sheets of your forthcoming book. ' The Story- Life of Lincoln, ' with much interested gratification. The plan of the book is unique, and should result in the production of a volume of great interest and edification, which ought to have a wide circulation. Mr. Lincoln was such a great character that anything which will bring him closer to the people will do great good, and is therefore worthy of encouragement."

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HON. CLAUDE A. SWANSON

Governor of Virginia

"I write to express to you my great appreciation of the scope of the work and the great value and interest of the matter contained in the proposed publication. It will indeed be a very valuable contribution to the history of the life of Lincoln. I am sure the work will be one of unusual merit."

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HON. PRESTON LEA

Governor of Delaware

' " 'The Story-Life of Lincoln,' if carried to conclusion upon the plan outlined, will undoubtedly serve an excellent purpose and be a desirable addition to every library."

HON. REED SMOOT

United States Senator from Utah

"I have been delighted in the perusal of 'The Story-Life of Lincoln' by yourself, and I feel positive that the book will be greatly appreciated by all Americans, and especially so, coming from such authoritative sovirces covering all th(; events in Lincoln's life."

BRAXTON B. COMER

Governor of Alabama

I feel sure that the complete story will be replete with interest.

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From The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Ida M. Tarbell.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1864 From a favorite photograph by Brady.

THE STORY-LIFE OF

LINCOLN

A Biography Composed of

FIVE HUNDRED TRUE STORIES

Told by Abraham Lincoln and his Friends

selected from all authentic sources, and fitted together in order, forming

HIS COMPLETE LIFE HISTORY

by

WAYNE WHIPPLE

Author of

"The Story of the White House and Its Home Life,"

"The Minute Man, " "The Story of

Plymouth Rock," etc.

MEMORIAL EDITION

Issued to Commemorate the 100th

AnnivcrsarA' of Lincoln's Birth

ILLUSTRATED

With 150 engravings from Photographs, Paintings, Drawings and Manuscripts some of which have not before been published

C W. STANTON COMPANY, Chicago, III.

WRITTEN BY A LOVER OF LINCOLN

Mr. Wayne Whipple, the author of this book, has for years been a close student of Lincoln and of things concerning him. In the course of his study of the great mass of literature and story which has grown up around the martyred President (looo looks have been published concerning Lincoln), Mr. Whipple was impressed by the lack of any one satisfactory, reliable and interesting biog- raphy of the man who perhaps stands first in the hearts of all Americans. He determined to devote himself entirely to the purpose of giving to the people the best Life of Lincoln that could be produced, and to give it to them at a price within the reach of all.

And so he came, From prairie cabin up to Capitol, Or e fair ideal led our chieftain on. Forevermore he burned to do his deed With the fine stroke and gesture of a king. He built the rail pile as he built the State, Pouring his splendid strength through every blow, The conscience of him testing every stroke, To make his deed the measure of a man.

So came the Captain with the mighty heart; And when the step of earthquake shook the house, Wresting the rafters from their ancient hold, He held the ridge-pole up and spiked again The rafters of the Home. He held his place- Held the long purpose like a growing tree- He d on through blame and faltered not at praise, And when he fell in whirlwmd, he went down As when a kingly cedar, green with boughs. Goes down with a great shout upon the hills. And leaves a lonesome place against the sky. Lincoln and Other Poems, Edwin Markham.

LINCOLN THE MASTER STORY-TELLER

"The Story-Life of Lincoln" is a complete connected biography of "The First American" presented in the most suitable way that could have been devised, that is in the form of five hundred connected stories, each one complete m itself and of the keenest interest, yet all fitted together in order so that they form one continuous narrative of his life. You can begin at the beginning and read Lincoln's history through, or you can dip into it at any page and find some of the best stories in the English language as told by Lincoln, or by his friends about him.

INTRODUCTION

The Lincoln Story and What It Has Done

The life-story of Abraham Lincohi is told in man}' lands like a favorite Bible. story. His career is as familiar among the nations as that of his ancient prototype, Moses. No man's life in all the history of the world shines out with so many storj'-gems as the every-day life of Abraham Lincoln. No incident in which he figured, even during the barren days of his boyhood, was too homely or too trivial to be invested with the quaint charm of his striking personality. The Lin- coln Story has its own original flavor —easy to enjoy, }'et impossible to describe.

His wonderful career abounds in the strong contrasts which appeal to every one. He was born in a rude calkin which is now radiant in reflected light from the White House. Other Presidents began their lives in humble log cabins, but the fact is not universally known. While it is true that Lincoln suf- fered many privations, the accounts of his extreme poverty have been exaggerated by political friends and foes. His enemies tried to make out that the Lincoln family belonged to the weak and lazy class known in the South as " poor white trash" — they even attempted to cast a stigma upon his birth. But Abraham Lincoln was descended on both sides from long lines of honest, thrifty and respected English and American ancestors, of whom his immediate family, with the true pioneer's indifference to pedigree, knew little and cared less. The poverty in which Lincoln grew up was like that of most of the early settlers of the western wilds in which he lived. Even the wealthier pioneers endured greater hardships than the poorest lal)orers in the United States of the present day.

Lincoln's life was stee]ied in pathos. Long l)efr)re his

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THE LIXCOLX STORY

assassination, he showed the true martyr spirit. The humor which people saw in him was hke the rare comedy that reheves the majestic tragedies of Shakespeare. He bubbled over with funny stories because, beneath the surface, his soul was seething with the sorrows of every-day life. He went about trying to do good to every creature — from cutting wood for a neighboring widow to climbing trees in patient search for the bird's-nest from which two fledglings had fallen. When his lawyer-companions laughed at him for wasting his time in such a childish pursuit, he exclaimed, with deep feeling:

" I could not have slept if I had not restored those little birds to their mother. ' '

Lincoln's friends assert that his face, in repose, was the saddest they ever saw. " Just to gaze upon his unconscious ex- pression, ' ' they said, " would make you cry. ' ' He never could see suffering without doing all he could to relieve it. With all his jokes and stories, his great, hungering heart was full of sym- pathy for the troubles of others. During his sorrowing 3'ears in the White House a new network of wrinkles and seams harrowed his homely face, and his sunken eyes appeared to deepen and sadden in their sockets. His kindly countenance soon became a sensitive niap of the Civil War, where Bull Rtm and Chancellorsville left their wavering lines and indelible marks. The loss of the soldiers ' lives, the privations of the prisoners, the agonies of the wounded, the anguish of the be- reaved— all traced their furrows in the rugged features of the all-friendly face of "Father Abraham."

Especially during the heart-sickening years of the War, President Lincoln manifested a feverish fondness for "some- thing funuA'. "' On a number of occasions he took from a drawer in the long table, around which his Cabinet sat in solemn conclave, "the latest thing" by "Artemus Ward," or "Petroleum V. Nasby, " the best known humorists of that day. Several of the Secretaries, deficient in the sense of humor, expressed their disapproval of such trifling in the midst of their dignified deliberations. A Congressman once took the President to task, claiming that such stories were inconsistent with true concern for the country's welfare. Lin- coln replied with fervor :

AXn WHAT IT HAS POM':

"You can not be more anxious than I am constantly; and I say to }'ou now that if it were not for this occasional vent I should die. ' '

This saving sense of humor was like daily dew to the drooping spirits of the careworn President, and its sustaining freshness must have had an inestimalde influence in the final preservation of the Union. Indeed, it is fair to question whether Abraham Lincoln did not achieve more for humanity b}^ his shining example — teaching all the people to look on the bright side dtu-ing the darkest hours of calamity and defeat — than b}'" penning the Emancipation Proclamation itself. It is at least true that the White House, through Lincoln's adminis- tration, with its sublime sorrows and sufferings, became the headquarters for the kind of fun-making that is now recognized all over the world as "American humor. " As the wise saws of "Poor Richard" and other quaint conceits of Franklin, did much to gain foreign recognition for the United States of America in the early da^'s of her independence, so the homelv stories and illustrations of Lincoln again demonstrated that "one touch of Nature makes the whole world kin." That subtle play of humor and common-sense, radiating from the White House, as its center, has projected itself all around the globe and into the Twentieth Century, lubricating the wheels of American commerce, diplomacy and progress, and estali- lishing the United States to-day in the highest among the " Seats of the Mighty" as an acknowledged world power.

Lincoln used to protest against calling his conimonplace illustrations ''Lincoln stories."

" I am not a manufacturer, " he explained, "but a retailer of stories. "

Yet his genius made the stories of others his own. The\- were pat, pithy and to the point. He usually told a stor}- to enforce a truth, to save the time and temper so often lost in arguing. Lincoln's stories rank about midway between ^sop's fables and the caricatures of the present day.

Lincoln and his friends have repeatedlv stated that he never told a story for the mere sake of telling a story, but to illustrate an idea or impress a truth. Therefore a great in-

THE LINCOLN STORY

justice has unintentionall}- been done to Lincoln's menior}' by wrenching his stories from their settings and printing them indiscriminately, as in the common collections of Lincoln stories and "yarns." Like a specimen of sea-life torn from its shell, the beauty and charm of the Lincoln story is lost by separating it from the occasion which produced it. Therefore Lincoln stories cannot be true without the Lincoln settings. Like uncut and unmounted gems, the collections of detached stories lose their Lincoln luster and become dull, "stale, fiat and unprofitable." It is the endeavor of this Story-Life to preserve the real Lincoln charm and flavor, and to illus- trate— a^ he Avas so fond of doing — the life-growth of the master story-teller himself.

From almost inexhaustible mines of Lincoln material, five hundred of the shortest and best naiTatives have been gathered from about a hundred different sources, and strung, like a necklace of precious stones, on the thread of Lincoln's life, forming a connected and complete biography of the greatest of the Presidents. These authentic stories have been chosen to illustrate the real life and characteristics, as well as the genius, of Abraham Lincoln. Some of them are brim- ming over with fun; others, with tears. Many of them have never before been published in any life of Lincoln, and some are here presented for the first time in print. Many of the finest passages from the great Lives of Lincoln are repeated herein with the ready permissions of their authors and pub- lishers. Full credit is giA-en in connection with each excerpt and anecdote.

Specific acknowledgment of all these kindnesses is made on another page, also of the courtesies of a numl )er of the great collectors of Lincoln relics.

Therefore, The Story-Life of Lincoln is his life-story, breathing, true and coherent, as told by his friends, his rela- tives, his acquaintances — a few of his enemies — but best of all — by Abraham Lincoln himself.

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A WORD AS TO THE PLAN OF THIS BOOK

It is very important to keep firmly in mind that this book is not a mere collection of stories told by Lincoln or told about Lincoln. It is a connected and complete biography formed by placing together in the proper order the best told account of every event in Lincoln's life from his birth to his martyrdom, either as related by Lincoln himsel for as written by those who knew him and studied his career. Over one hundred authorities have contributed to the mak- ing of this volume, and it is therefore the fairest, most complete and most fasci- nating Life of Lincoln ever published. It is the life story of Lincoln told in his own words or in the words of his friends.

THE LINCOLN STOR]'

justice has unintentionally been done to Lincoln's memory by wrenching his stories from their settings and printing them indiscriminately, as in the common collections of Lincoln stories and ")-arns." Like a specimen of sea-life torn from its shell, the 1 )eauty and charm of the Lincoln story is lost by separating it from the occasion which produced it. Therefore Lincoln stories cannot be true without the Lincoln settino-Q

never before been published in any life of Lincoln, and some are here presented for the first time in print. Many of the finest passages from the great Lives of Lincoln are repeated herein with the ready permissions of their authors and pub- lishers. Full credit is given in connection with each excerpt and anecdote.

vSj^ecific acknowledgment of all these kindnesses is made on another page, also of the courtesies of a number of the great collectors of Lincoln relics.

Therefore, The Story-Life of Lincoln is his life-story, breathing, true and coherent, as told bv his friends, his rela- tives, his acquaintances — a few of his enemies — but best of all — by Abraham Lincoln himself.

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PLAN OF THE BOOK

Lincoln was the Master Story Teller. Every "Lincoln story" has a special bearing on his life. His personality was so strong and peculiar that ever}^ event or incident in his life has been the subject of a stor}' — told l)y some friend or writer of his life or of observations concerning him. A thousand books have been written about Abraham Lincoln. Ever}' person who knew or e\-er saw him has written about it in books and magazines. Lincoln himself has told innumerable stories which are repeated ever}^vhere, like ^sop's fables, because every story illustrates or impresses some truth or idea. Indeed, they cannot be tnie Lincoln stories unless seen with all their bearings on Lincoln's life or the events of his time.

There are many collections of so-called Lincoln stories and "yarns" in which the tales are torn from their surrotmd- ings and all the Lincoln fla^'or is gone. The\' seem dull, flat and pointless.

Every true Lincoln story is a gem, Ijut it must be shown only with the Lincoln setting.

Wayne Whipple has at last coml:)ined the Lincoln story with Lincoln's life. He has spent years in hunting out ever}'thing that has ever been said and written alxjut Al)ra- ham Lincoln, especially everything which Lincoln exer told of himself or that would shed light upon his own life and character.

He has collected the best stories from all the great Lives of Lincoln; the best of the reminiscences of public men and friends of Lincoln. He has interviewed those who knew Lin- coln, and he has chosen the best stories Lincoln himself told — with a special bearing on his own life and the historv of his time.

The five hundred stories composing Tlic Story-Life of Lincoln are connected with about as many events or incidents

(7J

P/,.-l.V OF THE BOOK

as they happened in his Hfe. They are the cream of ah the Lincohi Hteratvire. They cannot help making the best Life of Lincohi ever ]3ubHslied because they are the choicest of everything that has been written or told about him.

In reading these stories, entertaining, sad and laugh- able, you follow Abraham Lincoln in a connected, continuous life-story, through the hardships of his backwoods boyhood; the struggles of his early manhood; his debates with Douglas; his contest against slavery, his trials as War President, his mastery of Stanton; his tenderness for the "Boys in Blue;" and his final triumph and martyrdom. Never has his life- history been so vividly told. It is all so graphic that it paints a mental panorama of the great events before and during the Civil War. You see it all as you never expected to see it, and it makes such an indelible impression upon 3'ou that you could not forget it even if you would.

The current events of Lincoln 's time are given separately side l:)y side with the thrilling stor5^-narrative to aid in making The Story -Life of Lincoln of real historical and educational value. The history of the time is thus hung upon Lincoln's unique personality as a peg. Lincoln's life-story thus becomes vour country's history during that most important epoch through which Lincoln lived.

The 150 illustrations are selected in the same manner. They are from the best of all that Art affords concerning Abraham Lincoln. Many photographs and facsimiles which have never before been reproduced are here added. While the object of this great book is to amuse and entertain, the highest aim is to make it of great and permanent value.

For all these reasons Tlic Story-Life of Lincoln marks a new era in fascinating biography.

NOTE THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE CONTENTS

You will see that the contents of the book are divided into chapters corresponding to the various important periods in Lincoln's life, and under each chapter heading are listed the stories in the order in which they occur, carrying you through his career from the earliest records we have of him until his death. Note especially how even the titles of the different stories attract you to turn to the page where they occur and read them. Bear in mind also that this Table of Contents is necessarily incomplete, but full contents and all the stories will appear in the complete book.

PLAX OF THE Hook-

as they happened in his life. The>' are the cream of all the Lincoln literature. They cannot help making the best Life of Lincoln ever published because they are the choicest of ever}-thing that has been written or told about him.

X liL. ^lui y-j^i/L I'/ j^uiLuui- ui iccn nisKincai ana eaucationai value. The history of the time is thus hung upon Lincoln's unique personality as a peg. Lincoln 's life- story thus becomes your country's history during that most important epoch through which Lincoln lived.

The 150 illustrations are selected in the same manner. They are from the best of all that Art affords concerning Abraham Lincoln. Man}^ photographs and facsimiles which have never before been reproduced are here added. While the object of this great book is to amuse and entertain, the highest aim is to make it of great and permanent value.

For all these reasons The Story-Life of Lincoln marks a new era in fascinating biography.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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PAGE

Introduction : The Lincoln Story and What It Has Done iii

Plan of the Book vii

List of Illustrations xv

Acknowledgment of Many Courtesies Received xix

Chapter I

Lincoln's Immediate Ancestors 17

Stories: — Abraham Lincoln, the President's Grandfather — Uncle Mor- decai — Boy.hood of Lincoln's Father — Nancy Hanks. Lincoln's Mother — Marriage of His Father and Mother — How Tom and Xancy Began Life together.

Chapter II

First Seven Years in Kentucky 22

Stories: — Birth of Abraham Lincoln — Cousin Dennis Hanks Tells about "Nancy's Boy Baby" — The Little Boy's First Teachers — Little Abe's Narrow Escape from Drowning — The Boy I\Ieets a Soldier — Abe Goes to Mill and "Thrashes" Three Boys — First Work on the Farm- Leaving "Old Kentucky."

Chapter III

Fourteen Years in Indiana 30

Stones: — Moving to Indiana — The Home in Indiana — A Seven-year- old Woodman — Dea*h of Lincoln's Own Mother — The Delayed Funeral Services — "What Is Home Without a Mother?" — Coming of the New Mother — "Corn Dodgers and Common Doings" — Tur- key Buzzard Pens. Briar Root Ink and Webster's Speller — "No Common Boy" — At Hazel Dorsey's School — "Manners" and Spell- ing— "I Hung on It and It Broke" — Writes and "Preaches" Against Cruelty to Animals — "Abe Was a 'Mother's Bov' " — "The Best Boy I Ever Saw"— How. When and What He Read— Lin-

CONTENTS

coin Tells of His First Love-Story — Pioneer Superstitions — How He Came to Own Weems's "Washington" — Bounding an Idea, "North, South, East and West" — Knocked down for Being "For- ward"— Sports and Amusements — An Interrupted Sentence — Influences and Impressions — The Hired Man Where His Sister Was Maid-of-all-work — From Ferryman to Butcher — A Feat of Mercy and Strength — How the Lad Worked and Studied — The Story of His First Dollar — Early Death of His Sister — Once, When Abe Didn't Allow Fair Play — In Jones's Grocery-Store and on the Stump — A Murder Case at Boonville — "Tell Us How Many Short Breaths He Drew" — Abe Teaches Astronomy — How They Were "Treated" at Church — The Little Yellow Dog Masquerades as aCoon —"Tell the Whole Truth, 'Tilda"— Bow Hand on a Flatboat— First Trip to New Orleans.

Chapter IV

Removal to Illinois 72

Stories: — Starting for Illinois — Wades Icy Waters to Rescue a Little Dog — A Traveling Peddler — Splitting Historic Rails to Surround the Illinois Home — Abe Starts out for Himself — A Thousand Rails for a Pair of Jeans Trousers — "The Winter of the Deep Snow" — Rail- splitting and Practising at Speech-making — Denton Offutt Engages Hanks, Lincoln and Joh.iston to Take a Boat to New Orleans — Building the Flatboat and Telling Yarns — Lincoln Saves Three Lives — A Thrilling Adventure — His First Sight of the "Horrors of Human Slavery" — A Voodoo Prophecy — Abe Throws Needham, the Champion Wrestler.

Chapter V Six Years at New Salem 86

Slorics: — A Stranger Who Could "Make a Few Rabbit-tracks" — Piloting a Flatboat down Illinois River — Storekeeper and Miller — En- counters the "Clary's Grove Bo\'s" — Meets Young Yates, the Future War Governor, and Upsets His Bowl of Milk — Two Stories of "His Sensitive Honesty" — Borrows a Grammar and Masters It — How Abe Induced a Fellow-Clerk to Quit Gambling — Gives a Bully a Dose of "Smartweed" — Becomes a Candidate for the First Time — A "Try" Weekly Steamer— Why He Was Called "Honest Abe" — A Raw Captain in the Black Hawk War — Risks His Life in Rescuing an Indian — A Gruesome Picture — Half-starved but Good-natured Soldiers — Re-enlists as a "Dignified Private" — "The Strongest Man I Ever Met" — Distinguished Men in the Black Hawk War —

cox TEXTS

A Romantic bvit Doubtful Story — Lincoln Did Xot Meet Jefferson Davis in the Black Hawk War — Returning, with "Quips and Quirks" from the War — Himiorous References to his Record in the Black Hawk War — The Only Time Lincoln Was Ever Beaten by the People — A Wrecked Store, a Plucky Livestment and the Firm of Berry & Lincoln — First Effort at Public Speaking — "Chops up a House for 'Ab' Trent" — The Store that "Winked out," Leaving "the National Debt" — Introduction to "Shakespeare" and "Burns" — Junior Partner, Rail Splitter, Farna Hand, Postmaster and Sur- veyor— Studying Law on the Woodpile — TheClary's GroveChampion Becomes His Good Friend — Where His Kindness of Heart Made Trouble — His First Real Stump Speech — Love and Ambition — Law Student and Representative — Returns S199.25 of His Cam- paign Fund of S200 — Ann Rutledge, "Loved and Lost" — "Evr'y Time He Talked 'bout Her He'd Cry Dreadful" — Candidate Lincoln "Shows His Hand" — Forquer's Lightning-rod and Taylor's "Bloated Aristocrat" — Lincoln and Douglas Collide Nearly Twenty Years Before the Great Debates — "The Long Nine," "The Lincoln- Stone Protest," and Removal of the State Capital.

Chapter VI Springfield, the Law and the Lady 117

Stories: — Leaving New Salem — "Well, Speed, I'm Moved" — The Affair with Mary Owens — " I Never Use Any Man's Money but My Own" — Champion of the Oppressed and Wronged — "Prime Mover" of the Capital to Springfield — Lincoln the Pettifogger — Banquets to Lincoln and the "Long Nine" — The Law Firm of Stuart & Lincoln — How Baddeley Was Deceived by Appearances — Mary Todd, Her Two Suitors and Her Ambition — A Description of Miss Todd — Wanted to Dance "the Worst Way" — Advises against Going to Law — "The Nominal Winner often the Real Loser" — In the "Tippecanoe"- "Log Cabin" Campaign — A Young Lawyer's Offer to Pay Half the Damages Caused by His Funny Stories — Appears in Behalf of Jefferson, the Actor — The Broken Engagement, Mystery and Misery — 'Story that Lincoln Failed to Appear at His Wedding Untrue — Charity in Temperance Reform — "Rebecca of the Lost Townships" and the Duel with Shields — "Killing the Dog Does not Cure the Bite" — As a Lawyer and Temjjerance Man — Two Partner- ships— "The Statute Fixes All That!" — Logan & Lincoln — "Stealing Hens, Oh, Jerusalem!" — "Got the Worst of It in a Horse Trade" — A Judicial Opinion as to the Proper Length of a Man's Legs — A Successful Appeal to Rustic Prejudice — Making Martin Van Buren "Laugh till His Sides Were Sore" — What Lincoln Did with His First S500 Fee — A Trivial Background for His Wit.

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Chapter VII In Politics and Congress 145

Stories: — A "Wheel-horse" in Several Campaigns, Then Elected to Con- gress— Lincoln in the House and Douglas in the Senate, Each for the First Time — "Getting the Hang of the House" — "My E)'es Are Full of Tears Yet" — Humorous Attack on General Cass — Visits Henry Clay at Ashland — "What Will Be the Upshot of this Comet Busi- ness?"— "A Man Who Has No Vices Has Blamed Few Virtues" — The Mexican War, the "Spot" Resolutions, and Dissatisfied Con- stituents— Congressman Lincoln's Legal Services to Daniel Webster — His Bill That Never Came to a Vote — The Thirtieth Congress and Afterward — Speaks for Taylor in New England and Sees Niagara ■ Falls.

Chapter VIII State Capital and the Eighth Circuit 180

Stories: — "A Prophet withovit Honor in His Own City" — A Place for Everything — Lincoln & Herndon Again — "Giving away What He Couldn't Get and Keep" — How He Once RetaHated on Opposing Counsel — Studying Euclid and Telling Stories in the "Wee Sma' Hours" — How He Fared While Out on the Circuit — "Lincoln Was Never a Clown or Court Jester" — "Never Put No Meanin' into 'Em" The "Ogmathorial Court" and the Firm of "Catchem & Cheat- em" — Notes, Advice and Anecdotes, A Sharp Retort, Three Court Stories in One — "A. Lincoln's Improved Manner of Buo5ang Vessels," Patented — "Abe's Got That Fool Idee in His Head" — Death of Thomas Lincoln, His Father — Abraham's Masterful Kindness to His Good-for-nothing Stepbrother — Defends His Stepmother from Her Own Son — "Mr. Lincoln Was the Most Loving Husband and Father in the World"— "It Was Just Like Him!"

Chapter IX

Repeal of the Missouri Compromise 211

Stories: — In the Court-room and in the Home — "The Pink-and-white Runaway" and the "Matter with the Whole World" — Mrs. Lincoln Surprises Her Husband — "A Question of Interest" — "Tell the Judge My Hands Are Dirty"— Fairly Entitled to the Prize- Lawyer Lincoln Rescues a Pig — "I Cannot Argue This Case, Our Witnesres Have Been Lving" — "A Seven-foot Whistle on a Five- foot Boiki-"- K::d to Withdraw tlie Colt"— "These Boys Would

COXTRXTS

Never Have Tried to Cheat Old Farmer Case" — The Missouri Compromise, the Wihnot Proviso, the Compromise of 1S50, and the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise Outlined in the Famous Peoria Speech — A Railroad Refuses to Pay a $2000 Fee, and Pa3'S $5000 and Costs — Saved by Lincoln ^\^th an Almanac — A Law^'er's Account of the Great Armstrong Trial — "The Story Was Well Worth the Fine" — First Meeting of Lincoln and Stanton — An Illustrious Pillow-fight — "Bucking" of the Chess-board- Alwavs Glad to See and Help His Poor Relations — The Famous Rock Island Bridge Case — Another Great Murder Trial.

Chapter X

Battles of the Giants 247

Stories: — Locking Horns for the "Irrepressible Conflict" — Why Lincoln Was a "Dangerous Man" — "Mr. Lincoln is a Ver}' Amiable Gentle- man"— Douglas Accepts Lincoln's Challenge with Regret — Dates, Places and Demonstrations — The First Joint Debate at Ottawa, Illinois — "Nasby" Contrasts Lincoln and Douglas — The Freeport Questions — "The Judge Was xVlways on the Wrong Side of the Counter" — The Sixth Debate — "Abe, It's Too Big a Thing for You! " — Lincoln Writes Chase Why He Made the Senatorial Fight — "It Can't Be Me They Are Voting For" — The Cooper Institute Speech — "What's the Use of Talking of Me for the Presidency?"

Chapter XI Candidate for President 281

Stories: — How the Rails Were Brought into the State Convention — "Carleton" Tells of Thurlow Weed and "the Mob" — "Make Xo Promises Binding Me" — How Lincoln Was Nominated — A Woman's Description of the Scene — The Candidate Receives the News — The Committee Formally Informs Mr. Lincoln and Is Informally Enter- tained— The Speeches and Lincoln's Letter of Acceptance — Positions of the Three Great Parties on Slavery — A Newsboy Apol- ogizes for Lincoln's Portrait — A Call on Candidate Lincoln — Tv\'o Guests at Supper in the Springfield Home — The Election.

Chapter XII

As President-Elect 315

Stories: — "A Real Representative Man" — Cabinet Making — Corres- ponds with Alexander H. Stephens, "For Your Eye Only" — Artemus Ward Visits the "President Eleck" — Daily "Levees" in the

CONTENTS

State House — "A Hard Time with Office-Seekers" — His "Latitude and Longitude," Socks and Flapjacks — "Buchanan Is Giving the Case Away and I Can't Help It" — Rumors and Threats from the Southland — Farewell to Springfield — The Journey to Washington — Lincoln and the Coal Heaver — "Tad" Gets a Spanking — Raising the Flag at Independence Hall — How "Bob" Lost tl.e "Gripsack" with the Inaugural Address — Plot to Murder Lincoln in Baltimore — Reasons for Secrecy — A Railroad Official's Storjr — Unexpectedly Met in Washington — The Morning before Inauguration.

Chapter XIII At the Helm of State 350

Stories: — The First Inaugural — Horace Greeley on the Inaugural Address — "At the Head of the Crumbling Government" — Mut- terings of Secession and Rumors of War — Firing on Fort Sumter — The Call for 73,000 Men — "We Are Coming, Father Abraham" — First Bloodshed on Patriot's Day, 1861 — "I Guess Mary Will Have Something for Us to Eat" — "The People Will Understand."

Chapter XIV Secession, Disaster, Sorrow 383

Stories: — "I Don't Care, if You Will Fight for the Country" — "There Is Meat in That, General" — State after State Withdraws from the Union — Col. Robert E. Lee Tells How the Command of the LTnion Army Was Tendered Him — Stanton's Abuse of the President — Seward, Chase and McClellan each "Called to Save the Country" — • Lincoln Considered Incapable — "Hopeless Honest}', That Is All!" — First Battle of Bull Run — Panic in Washington — Defeat after De- feat— Dissatisfaction and Complaints — Stanton Made Secretary of War — "Going to Make Abe Lincoln President of the L'nited States"- Death of Willie Lincoln — The Heart-broken President.

Chapter XV Lincoln and McClellan 41 5

Stones: — "Masterly Inactivity" of the Army of the Potomac — Fiasco at Harper's Ferry — How Vallandigham and Others Hampered the President — McClellan and the Peninsular Campaign — "I Would Hold McClellan's Horse if Only He Would Win a Battle" — "All Quiet on the Potomac" — "I Should Like to Borrow the Army for a Day or Two" — Lincoln's First General War Order — McClellan a Great Engineer "With a Special Talent for a Stationary Engine" — That

cox TEXTS

Discrepancy, "a Convenient Mistake of Stanton's" — "I Could Permit No One to Couple the Word 'Treason' with My Name" — "McClel- lan's Own Storv" — The Trent Affair.

Chapter XVI

"The Burden and Heat of the Day" ^^g

Stories: — "Undertaking to Frighten the Devil with Cold Pitch" — Cabi- net Ministers and Skunks — "I Am in Trouble about the Negroes" — Frederick Douglass Calls on the President — Will the Colored Soldiers Fight? — "Why Don't You Go at Hini with a 'Capias' or a 'Surre- butter?' " — "Lincoln Gave Me the Worst Fright of My Life" — "Would to God these Dinners Were with Our Prisoners! " — Whv Antietam Was a Drawn Battle — A Courteous Repulse — Humor of the Soldiers — "No Influence with This Administration" — Informed of the Defeat at Fredericksburg — "Stanton's Nearly Always Right"— "Whose Boots Do They Black?" — "A Habit of Being Dissatisfied" — How Newspaper Stories Grow — "I Am Only a 'Retail Dealer' in Stories" — Lincoln's Own Reasons for Telling Stories — "Handsome Is That Handsome Does' ' — • ' How Unfortunate ! Those Mules Cost Us S200 Apiece" — "Got Generals Enough, Bring Us Some Hard Tack"— "Oh, What Will the Country Say ! " "How Willingly Would I Exchange Places with the Soldier!" "Is This Bloody War Ever to End?" — Billy Brown Goes to Washington Just to Visit Mr. Lincoln — "This War Is Killing Me" — The Presi- dent Like a Tight Rope Walker with a Man on His Back — "If There's a Man out of Hell that Suffers More than I Do!" — "My God, Is That All?"

Chapter XVII

The Emancipation Proclamation ^82

Stories: — "A Divine Message by Way of Chicago!" — Hounded by Abolitionists — Abused by Wendell Phillips and Horace Greeley — Writing the First Draft of the Emancipation Proclamation — Stanton's Story of the First Reading to the Cabinet — Seven Short Stories Preserved by "Nasby" — Goldwin Smith and "Darkv Arith- metic"— The Northern Governor and the Squealing Bov — Congress- man Colfax Tells of Five Reprieves — "I Would Find Means to Prevent the Merrimac" — "How Clean You Shave!" — "I 'Ploughed arovmd' that Governor for Three Mortal Hours!" — Lincoln's Delight over the Monitor's Victory — First Great Sanitary Fair at Chicago.

xii CONTEXTS

PAGE

Chapter XVIII

The Gettysburg Address ^13

Stories: — The President Invited to Speak at Gettysburg — The Speech to Be "Short, Short, Short! "—"There Won't Be Any Fun Till I Get There" — The President and Party at Gettysburg — Everett's Long Oration — Delivery of the Address — Stanton's Opinion of It — "Blunt as a Meat-ax and Keen as a Razor" — "If An}rbody \Yants to Kill Me He Will Do It! "—Lincoln's Usual "Swear-word"— Two Applications for Pardon, with Opposite Results — "A Useful Little Chap" — "There Was Such a Charm About His Expression."

Chapter XIX

Lincoln and Grant

Stories: — The Statue of Libert}- and Grant's Brand of Whiskev — Pena- berton's Army and Sykes's Yellow Dog — "You Were Right and I Was Wrong" — First Meeting of Lincoln and Grant — The Military Situation and the Monkey with Too Much Tail — "I Will Make a Fiz- zle Anyhow" — A Visit to City Point — England, the Sangamon Barber and "That Old Grudge"— "Nothing Touches the Tired Spot" — Lincoln's Sublime Confidence in Grant — Contrast between Lincoln's Manner and Stanton's — An Oft-repeated Occurrence — ■ "Mr. Secretary, It Will Have to Be Done" — Chief Engineer Ordered to Pump out a Well for "Tad" — Letter to the Widow Bixb}' — "I Will Be Far Happier than I Have Been Here" — Deep Distress over a Few Negroes with "Jiggers" — "Brother" Greeley as Peace Com- missioner— "Easier Than to Raise Another Million Soldiers."

544

Chapter XX Lincoln's Second Election 5S1

Stories: — "I'm the Longest, but McClellan is Better-Looking" — The President in the Streets of the Capital — Best Not To "Swap Horses While Crossing a Stream" — A Great Wrong to Lincoln's Memor}- — Accidentally Hears of His Renomination — "Glad of a Chance to Finish this Big Job" — Free From Any Taint of Personal Triumph — "I Believe We Can Manage to Make Two Fathers Happy" — The Second Inauguration — "With Malice toward None, with Charity for All."

Elbridge S. Brooks. CAPTAIN LINCOLN DEFENDING THE INDIAN 'I'll fight you all," said the captain, " one after the other, just as you come. Take it out of me if you can, but you shan't touch this Injun."

cox TEXTS xiii

PAGB

Chapter XXI The End of the War 600

Stories: — Suniner's View of Lincoln's Love for "Nasb}-" — "The End Has Almost Come" — Richmond and Appomattox — Strides into Richmond Leading Little Tad — Embarrassing Adulation of Negroes — At the "White House of the Confederacy" — Return to Washing- ton— "The President's Latest and Best Speech" — Lincoln's Last Telegram — Behind the Scenes at a White House Serenade — "Give Ts 'Dixie' Now" — Playing with Tad — "What a Pity We Had to Fight Such a Gallant Fellow!" — "Well Done, Good and Faithful Servants! "

Chapter XXII Martyrdom 611

Stories: — The ilorning of Lincoln's Last Day — Dickens's Stor}^ of the Last Cabinet Jleeting — That Strange Dream Again! — The Drive with Mrs. Lincoln — "It's Best to Let Him Run" — Disappointed, He Goes to the Theater Not to Disappoint Others — Lincoln's Last Pardon, Last Story and Last Writing — Ovation at the Theater — How the Dastardl}' Deed Was Done — Tragedy Described by an Ej'e-witness — Pandemonium in the Theater — Borne, Bleeding and L^nconscious, Across the Street — "The}^ Have Killed Papa Dead!" — The Flickering Light Goes Out — Stanton's Grief, "He Is a Man for the Ages!" — "Don't Cr^r So, Mamma, You Will Break My Heart!" — Wilkes Booth's Morbid Cra^^ng for Notoriet.v — The Secret Ser\-ice and the Assassins — How Horace Greeley Was Sa\'ed from Brutally Attacking the Dying President — Richmond Receives News of the Assassination.

Chapter XXIII

The World in Mourning 642

Stories: — O Captain! My Captain! — Funeral in the White House — Lying in State under the Dome of the Capitol — The Long, Sad Joior- ney and Burial — A Nation Draped in Black — Grief and Indignation — Tributes of Rulers. Savants and Poets — Opinions of Robert E. Lee and JefTerson Davis — He Sought to Conquer, not Persons, but Prejudices — "Strange that the Stars Can Shine!" — Popular SjTn- pathy and Mourning in Canada — What the English Common People Thought of Lincoln — Lowell's Commemoration Ode, Abra- ham Lincoln: "The First American."-

A Connected Biography

In "The Story -Life of Lincoln" each story fits into the one pre- ceding and the one following, so that all together form a complete, connected biography.

Consecutive Pages Follow

illustrating the plan of the book.

ONE CONTINUOUS NARRATIVE

The following pages up to page 41 follow one another just as they will in the complete book. By reading a few of these pages you will gain an idea of the way in which the subject of one story takes up the narrative of that preceding and carries it on to the next story, so that you read along from story to story without a break in the history and get a vivid intimate picture in this chapter of the early days of the great War President. The whole of the book is arranged on this plan and carries you from page to page with breathless interest as you follow the thrilling history of the best beloved American. Note also that at the end of each story is a reference showing the title and author of the book from which the story was contributed. Stories secured by personal interviews with people who knew Lincoln well and from other sources are also clearly in- dicated. This is a most valuable feature. It gives the authority for the truth of every story in the book, and is a priceless source of interest for those who are more than ordinarily interested in the life of the great Emancipator.

The Story-Life of Lincoln

CHAPTER I

Lincoln's Immediate Ancestors

Abraham Lincoln, the President's Grandfather, the Friend of Daniel Boone

In the year 1780, Abraham Lincohi, a member of a respectable and well-to-do family in Rockingham County, Virginia, started westward to establish himself in the newly-explored country of Kentucky. He entered several large tracts of fertile land, and returning to Virginia disposed of his property there, and with his wife and five children went back to Kentucky and settled in Jeffer- son County There is little doubt that it was on account

of his association with the famous Daniel Boone that Abraham Lincoln went to Kentucky. The families had for a century been closely allied. There were frequent intermarriages among them — both being of Quaker lineage

The life of the pioneer Abraham Lincoln soon came to a disastrous close. He had settled in Jefferson County, in the land he had bought from the Government, and cleared a small farm in the forest. One morning, in the year 1 7S4, he started with his three sons, Mordecai, Josiah, and Thomas, to the edge of the clearing, and began the day's work. A shot from the brush killed the father; Mordecai, the eldest son, ran instinctively to the house, Josiah to the neighboring fort for assistance, and Thomas, the youngest, a child of six, was left with the corpse of his father. Mordecai, reach- ing the cabin, seized the rifle, and saw through the loop-hole an Indian in his war-paint stooping to raise the child from the ground. He took deliberate aim at a white ornament on the breast of the savage and brought hiin down. The little boy, thus released, ran to the cabin, and Mordecai, from the loft, renewed his fire upon the

(17)

THE STORY -IJFE OF LTNCOLX

savages, who began to show themselves from the thicket, until Josiah returned with assistance from the stockade, and the assailants fied. This tragedy made an indelible impression on the mind of Mordecai. Either a spirit of revenge for his murdered father, or a sportsmanlike pleasure in his successful shot, made him a deter- mined Indian stalker, and he rarel}^ stopped to inquire whether the red man who came within range of his rifle was friendly or hostile.

Abraham Lincoln: A History, John G. Micolay and John Hay. Vol. I. pages i6 to 21.

Uncle Mordecai

So far as they are known, the Lincolns were all marked char- acters. Some reminiscences related of Mordecai, after he had reached manhood, give a welcome glimpse of the boy who exhibited such coolness and daring on the occa-sion that cost his father's life. "He was naturally a man of considerable genius," says one who knew him. "He was a man of great drollery, and it would almost make you laugh to look at him. I never saw but one other man whose quiet, droll look excited in me the same disposition to laugh, and that was Artemus Ward. Mordecai was quite a story-teller, and in this Abe resembled his 'Uncle Mord ' as we called him. He was an honest man, as tender-hearted as a woman, and to the last

degree charitable and benevolent. Abe Lincoln had a

very high opinion of his uncle, and on one occasion remarked, 'I have often said that Uncle Mord had run off with all the talents of the family.' '"

The Evcry-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln, F. F. Browne, pa^^e 40.

Boyhood of Lincoln's Father

From circumstantial evidence we must infer that i\nna Lincoln was a poor manager, or perhaps she suffered from some misfortune. All we know is that she abandoned the farm in Jefferson County and moved south into the neighboring county of Washington, when she disappears from human knowledge. Her eldest son, Mordecai, appears to have inherited his father's money, as the rules of primo- geniture prevailed in those days. He was sheriff" of Washington County, a member of the Kentucky Legislature, and tradition gives him the reputation of an honorable and influential citizen

Explanations are wanting for the circumstance that Thomas, the youngest son and brother of this prosperous family, whose

LINCOLN'S LMMEDLATE ANCESTORS 19

father was slain before his eyes when he was onh" six \-ears old, was turned adrift, without home or care, fur at ten years of age we find him "a ^tandering laboring boy" who was left uneducated and supported himself by farm work and other menial employment, and learned the trades of carpenter and cabinet-maker. But he must have had good stuff in him, for when he ^^'as t^^'enty-fi^-e years old he had saA-ed enough from his wages to buy a farm in Hardin County. Local tradition, which, however, cannot always be trusted, represents him to have been " an easy-going man, and slow to anger, but when roused a formidable adversary." He was above the medium height, had a powerful frame, and, like his immortal son, had a wide local reputation as a wrestler.

The True Abraham Lhicoln, William Elerny Curtis, page i-.

Nancy Hanks, Lincoln's Mother At the time of her marriage to Thomas Lincoln, Nancy w^as in her t\A'enty-third year. She was above the ordinary height in stature, v.-eighed about one hundred and thirty potmds, was slen- derly built, and had much the appearance of one inclined to consumption. Her skin was dark; hair dark brown ; eyes grajr and small ; forehead prominent ; face sharp and angular, with a marked expression of melancholy which fixed itself in the memory of every- one who ever saw or knew her. Though her life was seemingly beclouded by a spirit of sadness, she was in disposition amiable and generally cheerful. ]\Ir. Lincoln himself said to me in 1851, on

receiving the news of his

father's death, that whatever might be said of his parents, and however unpromising the early surroundings of his mother may have been, she was hi g h 1 y intellectual by nature, had a strong memory, acute judgment, and was cool and heroic. From a mental standpoint she no doubt rose above her surroundings, and had she lived, the stimulus of her nature would have accelerated her son's success, and she would have been a much more ambitious prompter than his father ever was.

Hemdon's Lincoln William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, Vol. I, page lo

D?niel Boone enters Kentucky 1769

Gieat emigration to Kentucky began 1783

Indian uprising there against whites 1786

Washington's first inauguration and adop- tion of the Constitution 1789

Population of U. S., 3,380,000 ist Census;

number of slaves . . 700,000 1790

Kentucky admitted as a State 1792

Cotton-gin invented by Eli Whitney I793

Great increase in producing cotton, and

consequent growth of slavery 1795

Tohn Adams inaugurated President 1797

Removal of U. S. Capital to Washington , . 1800

THE STORY -LIFE OE LINCOLN

Marriage of Lincoln's Father and Mother

I, Christopher Columbus Graham, now in my hundredth year, and visiting the Southern Exposition in Louisville, where I live, tell this ... I am one of the two living men who can prove that Abraham Lincoln, or Linkhorn, as the family was miscalled, was born in lawful wedlock, for I saw Thomas Lincoln marry Nancy Hanks on the twelfth day of June, 1806. . . .1 was hunting roots for my medicines, and just went to the wedding to get a good

supper, and got it

Tom Lincoln was a carpenter, and a good one for those days, when a cabin was built mainly with the ax, and not a nail or bolt or hinge in it, only leathers and pins to the door, and no glass, except in watclies and spectacles and bottles. Tom had the best set of tools in what was then and now Wash- ington County

Jesse Head, the good Methodist minister that married them, was also a carpenter or cabinet-maker by trade, and as he was then a neighbor, they were good friends. . . .

While A'ou pin me down to facts, I will say that I saw Nancy Hanks Lincoln at her wedding, a fresh-look- ing girl, I should say over twenty. Tom was a respectable mechanic and could choose, and she was treated with respect.

I was at the infare, too, given by John H. Parrott, her guardian, and only girls with money had guardians appointed by the court. We had nister bcar-mcat ; . ... venison ; wild turkey and ducks' eggs, wild and tame — so common that you could buv them at two bits a bushel ; maple sugar, swung on a string, to bite off for coft'ee or whiskey ; syrup in big gourds; peach-and -honey ; a sheep that the two fam- ilies barbecued whole over coals of wood burned in a pit, and covered with green boughs to keep the juices in; and a race for

Jesse Head, the good Methodist : that married them.

IjyCOL.yS IMMEniATE AXCKSTORS

the whiske}^ bottle. . . Our table was of the puncheons cut from solid logs, and on the next da}' they were the floor of the new cabin.

Signed Statement of Dr. Christopher Columbus Graham, of Louisville, Kentucky, in 1884. Appended to The Early Life of Ahniluim IJncoln. Ida M. Tarbell.

How Tom and Nancy Lincoln Began Life Together

"Looks didn't count them days, nohow. It was stren'th an' work an' daredevil. A lazy man or a coward was jist pizen, an' a spindlin' feller had to stay in the settlemints. The clearin's hadn't no use fur him. Tom was strong, an' he wasn't lazy nor afeerd o' nothin', but he was kind o' shif'less — couldn't git nothin' ahead, an' didn't keer putickalar. Lots o' them kind o' fellers in arly days, 'druther hunt an' fish, an' I reckon they had their use. They killed off the varmints an' made it safe fur other fellers to go into the woods with an ax .

"When Nancy married Tom he was workin' in a carpenter shop. It wasn't Tom's fault he couldn't make a livin' by his trade. Thar was sca'cely any money in that kentry. Every man had to do his own tinkerin', an' keep everlastin'ly at work to git enough to eat. So Tom tuk up some land. It was mighty ornery land, but it was the best Tom could git, when he hadn't much to trade fur it.

"Pore? We was all pore, them days, but the Lincolns was porer than anybody. Choppin' trees an' grubbin' roots an' splittin'

rails an' huntin' an' trappin' didn't leave Tom no time

It was all he could do to git his fambly enough to eat and to ki\-er 'em. Xancy was turrible ashamed o' the way they lived, but she knowed Tom was doin' his best, an' she wasn't the pesterin' kind. She was purty as a pictur an' smart as you'd find 'em anywhere. She could read an' write. The Hankses was some smarter'n the Lincolns. Tom thought a heap o' Nancy, an' he was as good to her as he knowed how. He didn't drink or swear or play cyards or fight, an' them was drinkin', cussin,' quarrelsome days. Tom was popylar, an' he could lick a bully if he had to. He jist couldn't git ahead, somehow. "

d Play-male, Dennis Hanks, written down by Jlrs. Eleanor Magazine, Vol. LXV, February, 190S, page 361.

THE STORY -LIFE OF LINCOLN

" I rolled up in a b'ar skin an' slep' by the fire-place that night, so's I could see the little feller when he cried and Tom had to get up an' tend to him. Nancy let me hold him purty soon. Folks often ask me if Abe was a good-lookin' bab^^ Well, now, he looked just like any other baby, at fust — like red cherry pulp squeezed dry. An' he didn't improve none as he growed older. Abe never was much fur looks. I ricollect how Tom joked about Abe's long legs when he was toddlin' round the cabin. He growed out o' his clothes faster'n Nancy could make 'em.

" But he was mighty good comp'ny, solemn as a papoose, but interested in everything. An' he always did have fits o' cuttin' up. I've seen him when he was a little feller, settin' on a stool, starin' at a visitor. All of a sudden he'd bust out laughin' fit to kill. If he told us what he was laughin' at, half the time we couldn't

see no joke

"Abe never give Nancy no trouble after he could walk excep' to keep him in clothes. Most o' the time we w'ent bar'foot. Ever wear a wet buckskin glove? Them moccasins wasn't no putection ag'inst the ^ wet. Birch bark with hickory bark soles, strapped on over yarn socks, beat buckskin all holler, fur snow. Abe 'n' me got purty handy contrivin' things that way. An' Abe ''' was right out in the woods, about as soon's he was weaned, fishin' in the crick, settin' Dennis Hanks, Lincoln's cousin traps fur rabbits an' muskrats, goin' on and playmate. coon-liuuts with Tom au' me an' the dogs,

follerin' up bees to find bee trees, an' drappin' corn fur his pappy. Mighty intercsrin' Hfe fur a boy, but thar was a good many chances he wouldn't live to grow up.

Lincoln s Boyhood. Eleanor .Atkinson. The Anu-rkan Magazine, Vol. LXV, Febraary, 190S, page 360.

The Little Boy's First Teachers

When the little boy was about four years old the first real excitement of his life occurred. His father moved from the farm on Nolen Creek to another some fifteen miles northeast on Knob Creek, and here the child began to go to school. At that day the schools in the West were usually accidental, depending upon the coming of

FIRST SFA'FX ^'FARS IX KFNTUCKY 25

some poor and ambitious 3'oung man who was willing to teach a few terms while he looked for an opening to something better. The terms were irregular, their length being decided by the time the settlers felt able to board the master and pay his small salary. The chief qualifications for a schoolmaster seem to have been enough strength to keep the "big boys" in order, though one high in authority affirms that pluck went "for a heap sight more'n sinnoo with boys. " ....

Lincoln's first teacher, Zachariah Riney, was a Catholic. Of his second teacher, Caleb Hazel, we know even less than of Riney. Mr. Gollaher says that i\.braham Lincoln, in those days when he was his schoolmate, was "an unusually bright boy at school, and made splendid progress in his studies. Lideed, he learned faster than any of his schoolmates. Though so young, he studied very hard. He would get spicewood bushes, hack them up on a log, and burn them two or three together, for the purpose of giving light by which he might pursue his studies. "

Probably the boy's mother had something to do with the spice- wood illuminations. Tradition has it that Mrs. Lincoln took great pains to teach her children what she knew, and that at her knee they heard all the Bible lore, fairy tales, and country legends that she had been able to gather in her poor life.

Besides the "ABC schools, " as Lincoln called them, the only other medium of education in the country districts of Kentucky in those days was "preaching. " Itinerants like the schoolmasters, the preachers, of whatever denomination, were generally micouth and illiterate ; the code of morals they taught was mainly a healthy one, and the}', no doubt, did much to keep the consciences of the pioneers awake. It is difficult to believe that they ever did much for the moral training of young Lincoln, though he certainly got his first notion of public speaking from them; and for years in his boyhood one of his chief delights was to gather his playmates about him, and preach and thump until he had his auditors frightened or in tears.

Tlie Life of Abraham Lincoln. Ida M. Tarhell. Vol. I, paije i.^.

Little Abe's Narrow Escape from Drowning

The only one of young I^incoln's playmates now living is an old man nearly a hundred years old, named Austin Gollaher, whose mind is bright and clear, and who never tires of telling of the days

CHAPTER II

First Seven Years in Kentucky Birth of Abraham Lincoln

Thomas Lincoln took his wife to a Httle log cabin in a hamlet called Elizabethtown, probably because he thought it would be

Abraham Lincoln '

; born on February 12, i years of his childhood.

, and here he spent the first four

more congenial for her than his lonely farm in Hardin County, which was fourteen miles away ; and perhaps he thought that he could earn a better living by carpenter work than by farming. Here their first child, Sarah, was born about a year after the marriage.

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FIRST 5EVRX ]'FARS IX KENTUCKY

Thomas Lincoln either tailed to earn sufficient money to meet his household expenses or grew tired of his carpenter work, for, two years later, he left Elizabethto\^■n and moved his family to his farm near Hodgensville, on the Big South Fork of Nolen Creek. It was a miserable place, of thin, unproductive soil and only partly cleared. Its only attraction was a fine spring of w^ater, shaded by a little grove, which caused it to be called "Rock Spring Farm." The cabin was of the rudest sort, with a single room, a single window, a big fireplace and a huge outside chimney.

In this cabin Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, and here he spent the first four years of his childhood. It was a far reach to the White House. Soon after his nomination for the Presidency he furnished a brief autobiography to Mr. Hicks, an artist who was painting his portrait, in which he said:

I was born February 12, iSog, in then Hardin County, Ken- tucky, at a point within the now County of Larue, a mile or a inile and a half from where Hodgen's mill now is. ily parents being dead, and mv own memory not serving, I know no means of identi- fying the precise locality. It was on Nolen Creek. June 14, i860. '^- I^I^'cnI.N.

The precise spot has since been clearly identified, and the cabin was still standing after his death.

The Tn:c Abraham Lincoln. William Eleroy Curtis, rage lo.

Cousin Dennis Hanks Tells About "Nancy's Boy Baby" "Tom an' Xancy li\'ed on a farm about two miles from us, when Abe was born. I ricoUect Tom comin' over to our house one cold mornin' in Feb'uary an' sayin' kind o' slow, 'Nancy's got a boy baby. '

"Mother got flustered an' hurried up 'er work to go over to look after the little feller, but I didn't have nothin' to wait fur, so I cut an' nm the hull two mile to see my new cousin.

" You bet I was tickled to death. Babies wasn't as common as blackberries in the woods o' Kaintucky. Mother come over and washed him an' put a yaller flannen petticoat on him, an' cooked some dried berries with wild honey fur Nancy, an' slicked things up an' went home. An' that's all the nuss'n either of 'em got. . .

THE STORY-LIFE OE LTYCOLX

Lincoln and he were "little tikes" and played together. This old man, who yet lives [1884] in the log house in which he has always lived, a few miles from the old Lincoln place, tells entertaining stories about the President's boyhood,

" I once saved Lincoln's life, " relates Mr. GoUaher. " We had been going to school together one year ; but the next year we had no school, because there were so few scholars to attend, there being only about twenty in the school the year before.

"Consequently Abe and I had not much to do; but, as we did not go to school and our mothers were strict with us, we did not get to see each other very often. One Sunday raorning my mother waked me up early, saying she was going to see Mrs. Lincoln, and that I could go along. Glad of the chance, I was soon dressed and ready to go. After my mother and I got there, Abe and I played all through the day.

" While we were wandering up and down the little stream called Knob Creek, Abe said: 'Right up there' — pointing to the east — 'we saw a covey of partridges yesterday. Let's go over. ' The stream was too wide for us to jump across. Finally we saw a foot -log, and we concluded to try it. It was narrow, but Abe said, 'Let's coon it, '

"I went first and reached the other side all right. Abe went about half-way across, when he got scared and began trembling. I hollered to him, 'Don't look down nor up nor sideways, but look right at me and hold on tight ! ' But he fell off into the creek, and, as the water was about seven or eight feet deep (I could not swim, and neither could Abe) , I knew it would do no good for me to go in after him.

" So I got a stick — a long water sprout — and held it out to him. He came up, grabbing with both hands, and I put the stick into his hands. He clung to it, and I pulled him out on the bank, almost dead. I got him by the arms and shook him well, and then I rolled him on the ground, when the water poured out of his mouth.

" He was all right very soon. We promised each other that we would never tell anybody about it, and never did for years. I never told any one of it until after Lincoln was killed."

Best Lincoln Stories, J. E. Gallaher, page i6.

FIRST SF]'KN ]'EARS IX KF.XTrCK]'

The Boy Meets a Soldier

Of all these years of Abraham Lincoln's early childhood we know almost nothing. He lived a solitaiy life in the woods, returning from his lonesome little games to his cheerless home. He never talked of those days to his most intimate friends. Once, when asked what he remembered about the war [of 1812] with Great Britain, he replied :

" Nothing but this. I had been fishing one day and caught a little fish which I was taking home. I met a soldier on the road, and, ha\'ing been always told at home that we must be good to the soldiers, I gave him iny fish."

This is only a faint glimpse, but what it shows is rather pleasant — the generous child and the patriotic household. But there is no question that these first 3"ears of his life had their last- ing effect upon the temperament of this great mirthful and melancholy man.

Abraham Lincoln: .4 History. John G. Nicolay and John Hay, V..1. I. page 25.

Abe Goes to Mill and Thrashes Three Boys

" A mere spindle of a boy, " as one old gentleman describes the little Abraham gi\'ing a good account of himself in possibly his first impact with opposing strength. The lads of the neighborhood, so runs the story, were sent after school hours to the ixiill with com to be ground. While awaiting their turn, they passed the time, as at the noon recesses, with frolics and fights. In these I^incoln did not participate.

" He was, " says j\Iajor Alexander Sympson, who tells the tale, "the shyest, most reticent, most uncouth and awkward-appearing, homeliest and worst dressed of any in the entire crowd. " So superlatively wretched a butt could not hope to look on long unmo- lested. He was attacked one day, as he stood near a tree, by a larger boy with others at his back. " But, " said the Major, " the verv acme of astonishment was experienced by the eagerly expectant crowd. For Lincoln soundly thrashed the first, second, and third boy, in succession; and then placed his back against the tree, defied' the whole crowd, and taunted them with cowardice. "

Lincoln. MasU-r oj Men, Alonzo Rothschild, page 2.

2 8 THE STORY -LIFE OF UXCOLX

First Work on the Farm

As soon as the child was strong enough to follow his father in the fields, he was put to work at simple tasks ; bringing tools, carry- ing water, picking berries, dropping seeds. He learned to know his father's farm from line to line, and years after, when President of the United States, he recalled in a conversation at the White House, in the presence of Dr. J. J. Wright of Emporia, Kansas, the arrangement of the fields and an incident of his own childish expe- rience as a farmer's son. " Mr. President, " one of the visitors had asked, "how would you like when the War is over to visit your old home in Kentucky?" "I would like it very much," Mr. Lincoln replied. "I remember that old home very well.. Our farm was composed of three fields. It lay in the valley surrounded by high hills and deep gorges. Sometimes when there came a big rain in the hills the water would come down through the gorges and spread all over the farm. The last thing that I remember of doing there

was one Saturday afternoon ;

Jefferson made President

Ohio admitted as a State

Importing of slaves forbidden

Birth of Abraham Lincoln

Madison made President

First steamboat on the Ohio River . War declared against Great Britain Jackson's victory at New Orleans End of War of r8i2

the other boys planted the corn in what we called the big field ; it contained seven acres — and I dropped the pumpkin seed. I dropped two seeds in every other hill and every other

row. The next Sunday morning there came a big rain in the hills;

it did not rain a drop in the valley, but the water coming through

the gorges washed ground, corn, pumpkin seeds and all clear off

the field. "

Tlw Life of Abraham Lincoln. Ida M. Tarbell. Vol. I, page 17.

Leaving "Old Kentucky"

Almost his earliest recollections were of sitting with his sister at his mother's feet, listening as she read from a book or told tales of imagination or experience. Here his education began, and when still quite young he eagerly read Robinson Crusoe, vEsop's Fables, Pilgrim's Progress, and other books common at plain firesides in the older States, but then rare in Kentuck^^ ... He was not yet eight vears old when he left Kentucky. One of the last inci- dents he recalled of his life there was accompanying his mother

'''^

FIRST SEVEN ]'EARS IN KENTUCKY

29

on her parting visit to the gra\-c of her youngest child, a son who died in infancy.

Hard times came with the war of 181 2, and lasted long. As some relief, the Government offered its wild lands north of the Ohio to new settlers on credit. There were serious troubles, too, about land titles in Kentucky ; nor was its labor S3'stem kind to people who labored. Slavery was now firmly established there, and the man of small means had less chance of rising than of lapsing into the scorned class of " poor whites. " Thomas I.incoln chose to live in a free State. That this was one of his motives for a change was explicitly declared by his son.

AbrLilum Lincoln and His Presidency. Joseph H. Barrett, Vol. I, page lo.

CHAPTER III FouRTEEX Years ix Indiana

Moving to Indiana

Thomas Lincoln was something of a waterman. In the fre- quent 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 fiatboatman. 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 Rolhng 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 TOth 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 manage- ment 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

do)

FOUKTER\- YEARS IN IXDIANA

Geo. ViSzadlj &

MAP SHOWING THE REMOVALS OF THOMAS LINCOLN WITH HIS FAMILY

THE SrORV-I.lFE OF L/.YCOL.Y

there were only two, — Nancy (or Sarah), nine years of age, and Abraham, seven. Mrs. Lincoln had gi\'en birth to another son some 3' ears before, but he had died when only three days old. After leaving Kentucky she had no more children.

This time Thomas 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. [Thomas] Lincoln's skill as a hunter must now have stood him in good stead

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 imtrodden wilderness. There was no road, and for 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 namicd Hoskins. But he was obliged to suffer long delays, and cut out a passage for the wagon with his ax. At length, after many deten- tions and difficulties, he reached the point Avhere 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 Gentry- ville, a village which grew up afterwards, and now numbers about three hundred inhabitants. The whole country v"as 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 gro^^i;h, and beneath the deep shade 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 inidst 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 r)f the Pigeon came finally to be known as the " Prairie Fork. "

The Lije oj Abraham Lincoln, Ward H. Lamon, page lo.

FOURTEEX ]'EARS fX IXD/AXA

The Home in Indiana

[Thomas] Lincoln laid off his curtilage on a gentle hillock having a slope on every side. The spot was \-ery 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 verv foul, and had to be strained before using. At a later jieriod ^\X' iind Alirahani and his

'♦S^.

sister carrying water from a spring situated a mile away. Dennis Hanks asserts that Tom Lincoln "riddled his land like a honey- comb, ' ' in search of good water, and was at last sorely tempted to em- ploy 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 [Thomas] Lincoln built "a half-faced camp, "— a cabin enclosed on three sides and open on the fourth. It was built, not

j4 THE STORY-LIFE OF LIXCOLX

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 li\'ed in at Elizabethtown, and on the whole not as good a shelter

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 timliers were not hewed ; and until after the arrival of Sally Bush, in I Si 9, it had neither floor, door, nor window. It stood about forty vards 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.

The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Ward H. Lamon. paKC .' i .

A Seven- Year-Old Woodman

On arriving at the new farm an ax was put into the boy's hands, and he was set to work to aid in clearing a field for corn, and to help build the "half -face camp" which for a year was the home of the Lincolns. There were few more primiti\'e homes in the wilderness of Indiana in 1816 thar this of young Lincoln's, and there were few families, even in that day, who were forced to practise more make-shifts to get a living. The cabin which took the place of the "half-face camp" had but

FOURTEEX YEARS JX /XD/AXA

one room, with a loft above. For a long time there was no win- dow, door or floor, not even the traditional deer-skin hung before the exit ; there was no oiled paper over the opening for light ; there was no puncheon covering on the ground.

The furniture v/as of their own manufacture. The table and chairs were of the rudest sort — rough slabs of ^^•ood in which holes were bored and legs fitted in. Their bedstead, or, rather, bed- frame, was made of poles held up by two outer posts, and the ends made firm by inserting the poles in auger-holes that had been bored in a log w^hich was part of the wall of the cabin; skins were its chief covering. Little Abraham's bed was even more primitive. He slept on a heap of dry leaves in the corner of the loft, to which he mounted by pegs driven into the wall.

Their food, if coarse, was usually abundant ; the chief difficultv in supplying the larder was to secure any varietv. Of game there was plenty — deer, bear, pheasants, wild turkeys, ducks, birds of all kinds. There were fish in the streams, and wild fruits of many kinds in the woods in the summer, and these were dried for winter use ; but the difficulty of raising and milling corn and wheat was very great. Indeed, in many places in the West the first flour cake was an historical event. Corn dodger was the every-day bread of the Lincoln household, the wheat cake being a dainty reserved for Sunday mornings.

Potatoes were the only vegetables raised in any c^uantitv, and there were times in the Lincoln family when they ^^•ere the onl\- food on the table; a fact proved to posterity by the oft-quoted remark of Abraham to his father after the latter had asked a bless- ing over a dish of roasted potatoes — ^that they were ' 'mighty poor blessings."

TJie Early Life of Abraham Lincoln, Ida M. Tarbell, page S4-

Death of Lincoln's Own Mother

In the fall of 1818, the scantily settled region in the vicinity of Pigeon Creek — where the Lincolns were then living — suffered a visitation of that dread disease common in the West .in earlv days, and known in the vernacular of the frontier as "the milk-sick." . .

Early in October of that year, Thomas and Bestv Sparrow fell ill of the disease and died within a few days of each other. Thomas Lincoln performed the services of undertaker. With his whip-

THE STORY-LIFE OF LINCOLX

saw he cut out the lumber, and with commendable promptness he nailed together the rude coffins to enclose the forms of the dead. The bodies were borne to a scantily cleared knoll in the midst of the forest, and there, without ceremony, quietly let down into the grave. Meanwhile Abe's mother had also fallen a victim to the insidious disease. Her sufferings, however, were destined to be of brief duration. Within a week she too rested from her labors. "She struggled on, day by day," says one of the household, "a good Christian woman, and died on the seventh day after she was taken sick. Abe and his sister Sarah waited on their mother, and did the little jobs and errands required of them. There was no physician nearer than thirty-five miles. The mother knew she was going to die, and called the children to her bedside. She was very weak, and the children leaned over her while she gave her last message. Placing her feeble hand on little Abe's head she told him to be kind and good to his father and sister; to both she said, 'Be good to one another, ' expressing a hope that they might live, as they had been taught by her, to love their kindred and worship God." Amid the miserable surroundings of a home in the wilderness Nancy Hanks passed across the dark river. Though of lowly birth, the \-ictim of poverty and hard usage, she takes a place in history as the mother of a son who liberated a race of men.

Hcrndons Lincoln, William H. Hcrndon and Jesse W. Wcik, Vol. I, page 22.

The Delayed Funeral Services

It was the custom of those days, and of that country, to have a funeral sermon preached by way of memorial, any time within the year following the death of a person. So, as soon as the good mother was buried, Abraham Lincoln composed what he used to say was his first letter, and addressed it to Parson Elkin, the Kentucky Baptist preacher who had sometimes tarried with the Lincolns in their humble home in Kentucky. It was a great favor to ask of the good man ; for his journey to preach a sermon over the grave of Nancy Lincoln would take him one hundred miles or more, far from his customary "stamping ground." But, in due time, Abra- ham received an answer to his letter, and the parson promised to come when his calls of duty led him near the Indiana line.

Early in the following summer, when the trees were the greenest and the forest was most beautiful, the preacher came on

Fi)URTF.EX ^'F..\RS fX fXPlAXA

his errand of kindness. It was a bright and sunny Sabbath morn- ing, when, due notice having been sent around through all the region, men, women and children gathered from far and near to hear the funeral sermon of Nancy Lincoln. There was the hardy forest ranger, come from his far-wandering quests to hear. There were farmers and their families, borne hither in rude and home-

^ir;wrVr7^.,,^-,;;^,,,,:.._:V'a

THE BELATED FUNERAL SERMON

The good preacher told of the virtues and the patiently borne sufferings of the departed mother of Abraham Lincoln.

made carts, new-comers, sf>mc of them, and homesick for their distant birthplaces. Two liundrcd of them, all told, some on foot and some on horseback, and nthers drawn m ox-carts. All were intent on the great event of the season — the preaching of Nancy Lincoln's ftmeral sermon.

The waiting congregation was grouped around on "down trees,"

THE STORY -LIFE OF LIXCOLX

stumps and knots of bunch-grass, or on wagon tongues, waiting for the coming of the httle procession. The preacher led the way from the Lincoln cabin, followed by Thomas Lincoln, his son Abraham, his daughter Sarah and . . . Dennis Hanks, bereft of father and mother, and now a member of the Lincoln household. Tears shone on the sun-browned cheeks of the silent settlers as the good preacher told of the virtues and the patiently borne sufferings of the departed mother of Abraham Lincoln. And every head was bowed in reverential solemnity as he lifted up his voice in prayer for the motherless children and the widowed man. To Abraham, listening as he did to the last words that should be said over the grave of his mother, this was a very memorable occasion. He had fulfilled a pious duty in bringing the preacher to the place where she was laid, and as the words, wonderful to him, dropped from the speaker's lips, he felt that this was the end, at least, of a lovely and gentle life. He might be drawn into busy and trying scenes hereafter, and he might have many and mighty cares laid on him, but that scene in the forest b}^ the lonely grave of his mother was never to be forgotten.

Abrahatn Lincoln LV,d Ihc Downfall nf Amcru-aii Slavery, Nnah Brooks, page 21.

"What is Home without a Mother?"

The loss of his mother was the first great grief of young Abra- ham, then not quite ten years old. The love of reading acquired through her inspiration and help was of itself enough, in his con- dition, to justify his saying:

"I owe all that I am or hope to be to my sainted mother."

His recollection of her seemed always to be quite clear and vivid, and he ever spoke of her with tenderness and reverence.

What could be done as housekeeper by a girl of twelve, Sarah did for more than a year; but a matron's care was too visibly lacking, and the father decided to ask the help and hand of one he had early known as Sally Bush, now living in widowhood at Eliza- bethtown. She had married Daniel Johnston, the jailer, who died, leaving three children and a little property

"His widow continued to live here until the second of December, 1 81 9. Thomas Lincoln returned to this place on the first day of December, and inquired for the residence of Widow Johnston. She lived near the clerk's office. I was the clerk, and informed him

FOURTEEN YEARS fX IXPfAXA

how to find her. He was not slow to present himseh' before her, when the following courtship occurred. He said to her:

" 'I am a lone man, and you are a lone woman. I have knowed vou from a girl, and you have knowed me from a boy ; and I have come all the way from Indiana to ask if you'll marry me right off, as I've no time to lose.'

"To which she replied: 'Tommy Lincoln, I have no objection to marrving vou, but I cannot do it right off, for I owe several little debts which must first be paid.'

"The gallant man promptly said : 'Give me a list of your debts.'

"The list was furnished, and the debts were paid the same even- ing. The next morning, December 2, 1819, I issued the license, and the same day they were married, bundled up, and started for home."

By the Court Clerk in Abraham Lincoln and His Presidency. Joseph H. Barrett, Vol. I, page i6.

The Coming cf the New Mother i\Irs. Johnston has been denominated a "poor widow," but she possessed goods which, in the eyes of Tom Lincoln, were almost Of 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, howex^er, 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 recoirrse to his brother-in-law, Ralph Krmne, 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 eft'ects, to the home of her new husband in

Indiana Her own goods furnished the cabin with

tolerable decency. She made Lincoln put down a floor, and hang

THE STORY^IJFE OF LiyCOLY

windows and doors. It was in the depth of winter; and the chil- dren, 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-com- forted hearts. She had brought a son and two daughters of her own — John, Sarah, and Matilda; but little Abe and his sister Nancy — (whose name was speedily changed to Sarah), the ragged and hap- less little strangers to her brood, 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 wrecks all had changed; and where everything was want- ing, 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 hking to young Abe. Her lo\-e for him was warmly returned, and continued to the day of his death. But few children love their parents as he loved his stepmother. 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 chil- dren got along finely together, as if they had all been the children of the same parents."

The Ltfc of Abraham Lincoln. Ward H. Lamon. page jo.

"Corn Dodgers and Common Doings"

The family consisted now of his father and stepmother, his sister Sarah, sometimes called Nancy, the three children of his stepmother, and himself. The name of Mrs. Johnston's children were John, Sarah and Matilda. They all went to school together, sometimes walking four or five miles, and taking with them, for their dinner, cakes made of the coarse meal of the Indian corn (maize) and known as "corn dodgers." The settlers used the phrase "corn dodgers and common doings," to indicate ordinary fare, as distinguished from the luxury of " white bread and chicken fixings. " In these vears Abe wore a cap made from the skin of the

FOURTRHX ]-I^:AI<S JX JXf)/.\\A

coon or squirrel, buckskin breeches, a hunting shirt of deerskin, or a Hnsey-woolsey shirt, and very coarse cowhide shoes. His food was the "corn dodger" and the game of the forests and prairies. The tools he most constantly used were the ax, the maul, the hoe and the plough. His life was one of constant and hard manual labor.

The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Isaac N. Arnold, iiaRe 22.

Turkey-Buzzard Pens, Briar-Root Ink, and Webster's Speller

As to the material with which the boy learned to write, " Uncle " Dennis says: "Sometimes he would write with a piece of charcoal, or the p'int of a burnt stick, on the fence or floor. We got a little paper at the country town, and I made ink out of blackberry briar- root and a little copperas in it. It was black, l:)ut the copperas would eat the paper after a while. I made his first pen out of a turkey-buzzard feather. We had no geese them days. After he learned to write he was scratchin ' his name everywhere ; sometimes he would write it on the white sand down by the crick bank, and leave it till the waves would blot it out,

"His first reading book was Webster's Speller, Then he got hold of a book — I can't rikkilect the name. It told a yarn about a feller, a nigger or suthin ', that sailed a flatboat up to a rock, and the rock was magnetized and drawed the nails out of his boat, an' he got a duckin, ' or drownded, or suthin ', I forget now. " (It was the "Arabian Nights. ") "Abe would lay on the floor with a chair under his head, and laugh over them stories by the hour. I told him they was likely lies from end to end; but he learned to read right well in them."

The Evcry-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln. F. F. Browne, page 52.

At Hazel Dorsey's School

Hazel Dorsey was Aide's first teacher in Indiana, He held forth a mile and a half from the Lincoln farm. The school-house was built of round logs, and was just high enough for a man to stand erect under the loft. The floor was of split logs, or what were called puncheons. The chimney was made of poles and clay; and the windows were made by cutting out parts of two logs, placing pieces of split boards a proper distance apart, and over the aperture thus formed pasting pieces of greased paper to admit light. At school Abe evinced ability enough to gain him a prominent place in

Appropriate Illustrations

The following pages, taken at ran- dom from various parts of the work, contain some interesting examples of apt and valuable pictorial em- bellishment.

Readable at any Page

You can open anywhere and find interesting stories.

A WORD ABOUT THE PICTURES

No expense has been spared to collect from every available source the best pictures about Lincoln and his times. The following pages contain some of the pictures which will appear in the complete book showing Lincoln at various stages of his career, the important scenes in which he helped to make history, portraits of people who were associated with him, and illustrations of relics which he handled. Sixteen magnificent full-page plates are printed in photo- gravure efEect and add greatly to the richness and beauty of the volume. Many of the pictures are published here for the first time. Some have been obtained from the jealously guarded cabinets of Lincoln collectors, others from publishers, authors and friends of Lincoln. Nothing contributes so much to the pleasure of reading as an illustration that illuminates the text, and in this book every picture illustrates a story.

. The Lite of Abraham Lincoln, Ida M. Tarbell.

THE EARLIEST PORTRAIT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN From a daguerreotype taken in 1848, when Lincoln was forty.

From Bank's and Leaders of the Civil War.

STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS

Called "Judge" Douglas and "The Little Giant," with whom Lincoln engaged in the great debates. Douglas defeats J Lincoln in the election for Senator in 1858, but Lincoln defeated him for the Presidency in i860. Douglas held Lincoln's hat during Lincoln's first Inaugural Address.

hi, Ida M. Tarbell. THE COOPER INSTITUTE PORTRAIT

While Lincol

n New York to deliver Iiis great speech in Cooper Institute, February 27, i taken by the committee to Brady's gallery and this excellent portrait is the result.

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MRS. MARY TODD LINCOLN Wife of the President.

THE FAVORITE PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN AND "TAD" They were looking at an album in the photograph gallery instead of Bible, as is sometimes stated.

46

THE STORY -LIFE OF IJXCOI.X

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and just underneath the table which tells h o w ni a n y pints t here are in a bushel, the f a c e t i o u s young stu- dent had s c r a ^^■ 1 e d these four lines of school- boy dosjgerel :

Ab

ham L i n- coln. His hand and pen, He will be gord. But God knows when.

On another page were found, in his own hand, a few lines / // / 7- ^ ^^-y-^-^^^i it is

composed. Nothing indi- cates that t h e y were b o r rowed, and I have always, there- fore, believed that they were original with him. Although a little irregular in metre, the sentiment would. I think, do credit to an older head :

A leaf from Abe';

se book showing the ' doggerel."

of schoolboy

THE STORY -LIFE OF LINCOLN

It was with the greatest trepidation he took the book home and told the story, and asked how he might hope to make restitution. Mr. Crawford answered : ' Being as it is you, Abe, I won't be hard on you. Come over and shuck corn three days, and the book is yours. ' Shuck corn three days and receive a hero's hfe! He felt that the owner was giving him a magnificent pres- ent. After reading the book he used to tell the Crawfords : ' I do not always in- tend to delve, grub, shuck corn, split rails, and the like. ' His whole mind was devoted to books, and he declared he was 'going to fit himself for a profession. ' These declarations were often made to Airs. Crawford, who took almost a mother's interest in him, and she would ask : 'What do you want to be noAV? ' His answer was invariably : 'I'll be President. ' As he was generally playing a joke on someone, she would answer: 'You'd make a purty President with all your tricks and jokes, now, wouldn't 3'-ou?' He would then declare: '(Ih, I'll study and get ready, and then the chance will come.'"

"A Hoosier" in The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln. Ida M. Tarbell, page 6 = .

JOSIAH CRAWFORD

("Old Blue-Nose")

"With whom Abe and his sister lived

as hired man and maid-of-all-work.

"Bounding" an Idea- "North, South, East and West"

All of his comrades remembered his stories and his clearness in argument. " When he appeared in company, " says Nat Grigsby, "the boys would gather and cluster around him to hear him talk. Mr. Lincoln was figurative in his speech, talKS and conversation. 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. " This ability to explain clearly and to illustrate by simple figures of speech must be counted as the great mental acquirement of Lincoln's boyhood. It was a power which he gained by hard labor. Years later he related his experience to an acquaintance who had been surprised by the lucidity and simplicity of his speeches and who had asked where he was educated.

6o THE STORY^JJFE OF IJXCOLX

tales of John Baldwin, the l)lacksmith, deli\-ered 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 eve- ning 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, hopelessh^ 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 inhrmian 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 me to a warm fire that cold night, " and was very sure that Abe's strength and benevolence had saved his life.

The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Ward H. Lam-n. page 57.

How the Lad Worked and Studied

It will always be a matter of wonder . . . that, from such restricted and unpromising opportunities in early life, Mr. Lincoln grew into the great man he was. The foundation of his education was laid in Indiana . . . [where] he gave evidence of a nature and characteristics that distinguished him from ever^' associate and surrounding he had. He was not peculiar or eccentric, and yet a shrewd observer would ha\-e seen that he was decidedly imique and original. Although imbued with a marked dislike for manual labor, it cannot be truthfully said of him that he was indo- lent. From a mental standpoint he was one of the most energetic young men of his day. He dwelt altogether in the land of thought. His deep meditation and abstraction easily induced the belief amoncr his horny-handed companions that he was lazy. In fact, a neighbor, John Romine. makes that charge.

FOURTEEN YEARS IN INDIANA

"He worked for me," testifies the latter, "but was always reading and thinking. I used to get mad at him for it. I say he was awful lazy. He would laugh and talk — crack his jokes and tell stories all the time; didn't love work half as much as his pay. He said to me one day that his father taught him to work; but he never taught him to love it. "

His chief delight during the day, if unmolested, was to he down under the shade of some inviting tree to read and study. At night,

Lying on his stomach in front of tne open fireplace.

lying on his stomach in front of the open fireplace, with a piece of charcoal he would cipher on a broad wooden shovel. When the latter was covered over on both sides he would take his father's dr awing-knife or plane and shave it off clean, ready for a fresh supply of inscriptions the next day. He often moved about the cabin \\'ith a piece of chalk, wrting and ciphering on boards and the flat sides

CHAPTER IV

Removal to Illinois

Starting for Illinois

The next autumn, John Hanks, the steadiest and most trust- worthy of his family, went to Ilhnois. Though an iUiterate and rather dull man, he had a good deal of solidity of character and consequently some influence and con- sideration in the household. He settled in Alacon Count}', and was so well pleased with the country, and especially with its admirable distribution into prairie and timber, that he sent repeated messages to his friends in Indiana to come out and i(3in him. Thomas Lincoln was always ready to move. He had probably by this time despaired of ever owning anv unen- cumbered real estate in Indiana, and the younger members of the family had little to bind them to the place where thev saw

The steadiest and most trustworthy notlliug in tllC futurC but hard '\\'Ork of his family. , i ■ • /tm t •

and poor living. Thomas Lincoln handed over his farm to Mr. Gentry, sold his crop of corn and hogs, packed his household goods and those of his children and sons- in-law into a single wagon, drawn by two yoke of oxen, the com- bined wealth of himself and Dennis Hanks, and started for the new State. His daughter Sarah, or Nancy, for she was called by both names, who married Aaron Grigsby a few years before, had died in childbirth. The emigrating family consisted of the Lincolns, John Johnston, Mrs. Lincoln's son, and her daughters, Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Hanks, with their husbands.

Abraham Liticoln: A History, John G. Nicolay and John Hay. Vol. I, page 45. (72)

JOHN HANKS

74 THE STORY -LIFE OF LIXCOLX

the day the roads would thaw out on the surface and at night freeze over again, thus making traveHng, especially with oxen, painfully slow and tiresome. There were, of course, no bridges, and the party were consequently driven to ford the streams, unless by a circuitous route they could avoid them. In the early part of the day the latter were also frozen slightly, and the oxen would break through a square yard of thin ice at every step. Among other things which the party brought with them was a pet dog, which trotted along after the wagon. One day the little fellow fell behind and failed to catch up until after they had crossed the stream. Missing him they looked back, and there on the opposite bank he stood, whining and jumping about in great distress. The water was running over the broken edges of the ice, and the poor animal was afraid to cross. It would not pay to turn the oxen and wagon back to ford the stream again in order to recover a dog, so the majority in their anxiety to move forward, decided to go on without him.

" But I could not endure the idea of abandoning even a dog, " relates Lincoln. "Pulling off shoes and socks I waded across the stream and triumphantly returned with the shivering animal under my arm. His frantic leaps of joy and other evidences of a dog's gratitude amply repaid me for all the exposure I had undergone. "

Hcnidon's Lincoln, William H. Hemdon and Jesse W. Weik, Vol. I, page 59. (Foot-note.)

Splitting Historic Rails to Surround the Illinois Home

Two weeks of weary tramping over forest roads and muddy prairie, and the dangerous fording of streams swollen by the Feb- ruary thaws, brought the party to John Hanks's place near Decatur. He met them with a frank and energetic welcome. He had already selected a piece of ground for them, a few miles from his own, and had the logs ready for their house. They numbered men enough

to build without calling in their neighbors, and immediately put up a cabin on the north fork of the Sangamon River. The family thus housed and shel- tered, one more bit of filial work remained for Abraham

Indiana admitted as a State 1816

Monroe made President 181 7

Illinois admitted as a State 1818

The Missouri Compromise 1820

Missouri admitted as a State 182 1

J. 0- Adams made President 182s

Webster's Dictionary first puhlislied 1828

.Tackson made President _ 1829

Opening of the first steam railroad in the

United States, at Baltimore 1830

before his assuming his virile independence. With the assistance of John Hanks he plowed fifteen acres, and split, from the

REMO]'AL TO ILLIXOIS

75

tall walnut-trees of the primeval forest, enough rails to surround them with a fence. Little did either dream, while engaged in this work, that the clay would come when the appearance of John Hanks in a public meeting, with tv/o of these rails on liis shoulder, would

iv^s^^f-

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! of ploughed land.

Frum The LiJ ot LiHcol Ha M Tarbell.

FIRST HOME IN ILLINOIS Abe and Jonn Hanks split the historic rails to surround this house and fiftei

electrify a State convention, and kindle throughout the country a contagious and passionate enthusiasm, whose results would reach to endless generations.

Abraham Lincoln: /I //i5(or3', John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Vol. I, page 45.

Abe Starts Out for Himself

If they were far from being his "first and only rails," they certainly were the most famous ones he or anybody else ever split. This was the last work he did for his father, for in the summer of

THE STORY -LIFE OF UXCOLX

"The excitement on shore increased, and almost the whole population of the village gathered on the river bank. Lincoln had the log pulled up the stream, and, securing another piece of rope, called to the men in the tree to catch it if they could when he should reach the tree. He then straddled the log himself, and gave the word to push out into the stream. When he dashed into the tree he threw the rope over the stump of a broken limb, and let it play until he broke the speed of the log, and gradually drew it back to the tree, holding it there until the three now nearly frozen men had climbed down and seated themselves astride. He then gave orders to the people on the shore to hold fast to the end of the rope which was tied to the log, and leaving his rope in the tree he turned the log adrift. The force of the current, acting against the taut rope, swung the log around against the bank and all 'on board ' were saved.

"The excited people, who had watched the dangerous experi- ment with alternate hope and fear, now broke into cheers for Abe Lincoln, and praises for his brave act. This adventure made quite a hero of him along the Sangamon, and the people never tired of telling of the exploit. "

The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln, Ida M. Tarbell, page loo.

His First Sight of "The Horrors of Human Slavery"

Within four weeks the boat was ready to launch. Offutt was sent for and was present when she slid into the water. It was the occasion of much political chat and buncombe, in which the Whig party and Jackson alike were, strangely enough, lauded to the skies. . . . . j\lany disputes arose, we are told, in which Lincoln took part and found a good field for practice and debate.

A traveling juggler halted long enough in Sangamontown, where the boat was launched, to give an exhibition of his art and dexterity in the loft of Jacob Carman's house. In Lincoln's low- crowned, broad-brimmed hat the magician cooked eggs. In ex- plaining the delay in passing up his hat, Lincoln drolly observes: " It was outof respect for the eggs, not care for my hat. "

Having loaded the vessel x^ith pork in barrels, corn, and hogs, these sturdy boatmen swung out into the stream. On April 19 (1831) thev reached New Salem, a place destined to be an important spot in the career of Lincoln. There they met with their first

REMOVAL TO ILLINOIS

8S

" Lincoln, " said he, "you have thrown me twice, but you can't whip me. "

"Needham, " rephed Abe, "are you satisfied that I can throw you? If you are not, and must be convinced through a thrashing, I \vill do that, too, for your sake. "

Needham surrendered ■with such grace as he could command.

Tlie Life of Abraham Lincoln, Ward H. Lamon, page S3.

V fx^f".-])

WRESTLING WITH NEEPHAM

CHAPTER V

Six Years at New Salem • ■ .

A Stranger Who Could "Make a Few Rabbit Tracks"

It was in August of the year 1831 that Lincoln left his father's roof, and swung out for himself into the current of the world to make his fortune in his own ^^"a^^ He went down to New Salem again to assist Offutt in the business that lively speculator thought of establishing there. He was more punctual than either his

employer or the merchandise, and met with the usual re- ward of punctuality in being forced to waste his time in waiting for the tardy ones. He seemed to the New Salem people to be "loafing;" sev- eral of them have given that description of him.

He did one day's work, acting as clerk of a local elec- tion, a lettered loafer being pretty sure of employment on such an occasion.

Mrs. Lizzie H. Bell writes of this incident; ■\Iy father, Mentor Graham, was on that day, as usual, appointed to be a clerk, and Mr. McNamee, who was to be the other, "was sick and failed to come. They were looking around for a man to fill his place when my father noticed Mr. Lincoln and asked if he could write. He answered that he could " make a few rabbit tracks. "

Abraham Lincoln: A Hislcry, John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Vol. I, page 7S, and Foot-note,

CS6)

MENTOR GRAHAM The New Salem schoolmaster, who helped Lined his study of grammar and surveying.

THE STORY-LIFE OF LINCOLN

appeared in the place, he was likely to suffer a rude initiation into the social life of New Salem at the hands of these jovial savages. Sometimes he was nailed up in a hogshead and rolled down hill; sometimes he was insulted into a fight and then mauled black and blue; for, despite their pretensions to chivalry, they had no scruples about fair play or any such superstition of civilization.

lidable in his defiance tliat initiation was over.

From Ahraham Lvirnhi ,,n.l Ihc Doii'iijaH p! A:m-r!i,iii SiM-n-y, N..al ABE THROWS JACK ARMSTRONG Lincoln, standing undismayed with his back to the wall, looked so for an honest admiration took the place of momentary fury, and his

At first they did not seem inclined to molest young Lincoln. His appearance did not invite insolence ; his reputation for strength and activity was a greater protection to him than his inoffensive good-nature. But the loud admiration of Offutt gave them una- brage. It led to a dispute, contradictions, and finally to a formal banter to a wrestling -match. Lincoln was greatly averse to all this " wooling and pulling, " as he called it.

THE STORY -IJFE OF LINCOl.X

On this same occasion, says Mr. Greene, Lincoln accepted an invitation to go home and take dinner with him and Yates. While they were at the table, Lincoln, in his awkwardness, managed to upset his bowl of bread and milk. Mr. Greene well recollects the confusion with which the accident covered Mr. Lincoln, which

d I D II \ rl s/

CLERKING IN OFFUTT'S STORE.

Greene's mother, the hostess, who was always attached to the un gainly backwoodsman, tried to relieve as best she could by declaring it was her fault in setting the bowl at the wrong place at the table.

The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln, F. F. Browne, page 102.

Two Instances of His "Sensitive Honesty"

Lincoln could not rest for one instant tmder the consciousness that he had, even unwittingly, defrauded anybody. On one occa- sion, while clerking in Ofiutt's store, ... he sold a ^^•oman a little

THE STORY -LIFE OF LIXCOLX

smoke and habitually swear, he indulged in none of these habits. Mr. Greene avers that he never saw Lincoln take a drink of liquor but once, and then he spat it out immediately ; that he never chewed or smoked, and that he never swore but once in his presence. . . . William Greene was, like ordinary youth in those days, ad- dicted to pett}' gambling, betting, etc. Lincoln perceived it, and

one day said to his fellow-clerk :

"Billy, you ought to stop gam- bling with Estep. " Greene replied, "I'm ninety cents liehind and I can't quit till I've won it back."

Said Lincoln, " If I'll help you \\in that back, will you promise never to gamble again? "

Greene reflect- ed a mnment and made the promise. Lincoln then said, " Here are hats on sale at seven dollars each, and you need one. Xow, when Estep comes, you draw him on by degrees, and finallv bet him one of those hats that I can lift a full fort}--gallon barrel of whis- key, and take a drink out of the bung-hole. "

Accordingly they fixed the barrel so that the bung-hole would be in the right place, and when the victim appeared, after a little par- leying and bantering, the bet was made; Lincoln then squatted down and lifted one end of the barrel on one knee, and then lifted the other end on the other knee, and, stooping over, actuallv suc- ceeded in taking a drink out of the bung-hole, which he immediately spat out. Greene t^'us won the hat and never gambled again.

#il1MII

(l20)

FIVE HUNDRED TRUE STORIES

No such collection of stories told by Lincoln, or told about him by his friends, has ever been offered to the public before the publication of "The Story- Life of Lincoln." Stories that wring the heart with sympathy, stories that illustrate great moral truths, stories of practical common sense, stories that dis- armed enemies and knocked down opponents, stories that endeared friends, stories that make the sides split with laughter are to be found within the covers of this book. It is a veritable treasury of wit and humor, love and pathos. Every story is placed where it belongs in the life of Lincoln and none of the flavor of its circumstances is lost. Thus two precious books are combined in this volume — a library of the most delightful reading, and also the true history of a true man.

^

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SIX YEARS AT XFAV SALE^r

119

general was the confidence in his honesty and skill. Lincoln's pay as a surveyor was three dollars a day, more than he had ever before

earned Good board and lodging could be obtained for

one dollar a week. But even three dollars a day did not enable him to meet all his financial obligations. The heavy debts of the store hung over hini. He was obliged to help his father's fairdly in Coles County. The long distances he had to travel in his new employment had made it necessary to buy a horse, and for it he had

gone into debt

With a single exception, Lincoln's creditors seem to have been lenient. One of the notes given by him came into the hands of a j\lr. Van Bergen, who, when it fell due, brought suit. The amount

* Abe would come to our house, tell stories and joke people.*

CHAPTER VI

SpRIXOFIELn, THE LaW AND THE LaDY

A Young Lawyer Offers to Pay Half the Damages Occasioned by His Funny Stories

AVe know an old gentleman here, — a wagon-maker by trade, — who commenced plying the same craft when young at Mechanics- ville, near the town of Springfield, Illinois, immortalized by Abraham Lincoln.

He knew him well when he was just a smart young la^^yer, smarter than most of them, and so sought after in difficult cases.

The cartwright had a case to win or lose, connected with his trade. On the other side the best lawyer of this little town was employed and his own was no match for him. The eventful day had come and his father-in-law quaked for the result.

" Son, " he said to him, " you've got just time. Take this letter to my young friend, Abe Lincoln, and bring him back in the buggy to appear in the case. Guess he'll come if he can ! "

So he set off. He found the young lawyer, not in his office, but at a street corner, surrounded by a troop of small urchins, he laughing heartily at the fun. The letter was handed to him. But, being otherwise engaged, he said : —

"All right, wait a minute, I must clean out these young 'uns at 'knucks' first!"

The operation went on amid peals of laughter. That concluded, he proceeded to accompany the son-in-law of his friend to the neighboring town. And the peals of ringing laughter continued, as Abe recounted story after story in his inimitable way, so much so, that the driver says to-day, he never had such a job to hold his lines and guide his horse in his life. At length, so convulsed was he that the horse guided himself — into the ditch — turned over the vehicle, upset the occupants and smashed up the buggy.

"You stay behind and look after the buggy," said Lincoln, " I'll walk on. "

This he did in time for the court, went in and won the case.

dsx)

rilE SmRY-LIFE OF IJXCOLX

" What am I to paj' you? " inquired the dehghted cHent.

"I hope you won't think ten or fifteen dollars too much," answere_d the young lawyer, "l)ut I'll pay the half-hire of the buggy and half the cost of getting it repaired. "

RecoUcctions of Abraham Liwohi , Louisa A'hmuty Nash. The Grccil Bag, Vol. IX, November, 1S97, page 479.

Lawyer Lincoln Rescues a Pig

While Lincoln was practising law he used to go from one town to another to trv eases before different courts. There were no rail- roads in those days, and traveling "on the circuit" (.going around from court to court) was done mostly on horseback.

One day, when several lawyers besides Mr. Lincoln were travel- ing in this way, they came to a very muddy place in the road, and at one side, near the rail fence, was a poor pig stuck fast, and scjueal- ing as loud as possible.

The men thought this very funny and laughed at the unfor- tunate pig ; but Lincoln said,

"Let us stop and help the poor thing out."

"Oh, Abe," said one, "you must be crazy! Your clothes would look pretty after you had lifted that dirty pig up, wouldn't they ? ' '

The others all poked fun at Lincoln, and so they rode on until they were out of sight and hearing of the suffering beast.

Lincoln rode on with them also, but little by little he went slower. He was thinking about the pig and the farmer who owned him. He thought : " What a pity for him to lose that pig ; he can't afford it! It means shoes for his little children to wear next winter. " And then the memory of that pitiful squeal kept ringing in his ears. So, after going quite a long distance with the other gentlemen, Lincoln turned his horse and rode back all alone, to see if he could get the pig out. He found the poor thing still deeper than before in the mud and mire. So he took some rails from the fence, and putting them down by the squealing animal, made a safe footing to stand on. Then he took two other rails, and, putting them under the pig, pried him up out of the mud until he could reach him with his hands. Then he took hold of him, and, pulling him out, placed him on the dry sand.

As the pig ran grunting oft' toward his home, Lincoln looked at

spr!\'(;f!eld. the law axd the lady

'53

his soiled clothes with a satisfied smile, as much as to say, "Well, a little water and brushing will soon make the clothes look clean again, and I don't care if the other fellows do laugh at me ; the pig's out of his misery, and Farmer Jones's children won't have to go barefoot next winter, "

Lincoln in Slory. Silas G. Pratt, page 5 7.

"A Seven-foot Whistle on a Five-foot Boiler"

Senator Voorhees told the following story of Lincoln's speech to the jury in answer to an oratorical lawyer:

I recall one story Lincoln told during the argument in a law- suit. The lawyer on the other side was a good deal of a glib talker, but not reckoned as deeply profound or much of a thinker. He was rather reckless and irresponsible in his speechmaking also, and would say anything to a jury which happened to enter his head. Lincoln in his address to the jury, referring to all these, said :

"My friend on the other side is all right, or would be all right, were it not for the physico-mental pecuharity I am about to explain :

"His habit — of which you have witnessed a very painful speci- men in his argument to you in this case — of reckless assertion and statement without grounds, need not be imputed to him as a moral fault or blemish He can't help it For reasons which, gentlemen of the jury, you and I have not time to study here, as de- / ' plorable as they are surprising, the oratory of the gen- tleman completely suspends all action of his mind. The moment he begins to talk his mental operations cease.

LINCOLN'S SADDLE-BAGS

I never

knew of but one thing which compared with my friend in this

171 SPRINGFIELD. THE LAW AND THE LADY

particular. That was a steamboat. Back in the cUu's when I performed my part as a keel boatman I made the acquaintance of a trifling little steamboat which used to bustle and puff and wheeze about in the Sangamon River. It had a five-foot boiler and a seven-foot whistle, and e^'ery time it whistled the boat stopped."

Newspaper Clippinj^ from an old Scrap-boiik.

" I Cannot Argue this Case Our Witnesses Have Been Lying "

Judge Davis said that one evening, as was the custom, Lincoln and Swett came to his room in the hotel, and during the conversa- tion Lincoln spoke about as follows ;

" Swett, Davis and I are old friends, and what we say here will never be repeated to our injury. Now, we have been engaged in this trial for tvv'O days, and I am satisfied that our clients are guilty, and that the witnesses for the State have told the truth. It is my opinion that the best thing we can do for our clients is to have them come in to-morrow morning, and plead guilty to manslaughter, and let Da\'is give them the lowest punish- ment. "

Mr. Swett said he would do nothing of the kind. He said, " Jlr. Lincoln, you don't know what evidence I have got in reserve to combat the witnesses of the State. "

"I don't care." replied i\Ir. Lincoln, "what evidence you have got, Swett; the witnesses for the State have told the truth, and the jury will believe them. "

"Mr. Lincoln," said Mr. Swett, "I shall never agree to your proposition, and propose to carry on our defense to the end. "

"All right, " replied Mr. Lincoln.

They went on with the trial. The defendants put their wit- nesses on the stand and the time came for arguments. Then ^Ir. Lincoln said to Mr. Swett,

" Now, Swett, I cannot argue this case, because our witnesses have been lying, and I don't believe them. You can go on and make the argument. "

Sw'ett made the argument, the case went to the jurv, and the men were acquitted. The next day ilr. Lincoln went to ]\Ir. Swett and said:

SPRINGFIELD. THE LAW AND THE LADY 1S3

" S\vett, here is the S500 which I have received for defending one of these men. It all belongs to you, take it. "

Of course ilr. Swett did not take the money, but it showed, as Judge Davis said, that ilr. Lincoln felt he had done nothing to earn the money.

Abraham Lincoln as an Advocate .W .'Lewis Frazer. The Century Magazine, \o\. XLVII, Feb- ruary, 1S94. "Open Letters," page 676.

Saved by Lincoln and the Almanac

The time for the trial arrived, and it drew together a crowd of

interested people The witnesses for the State were

introduced ; some to testify of Armstrong's previous vicious character ; and others to relate what they saw of the affair on the night of the murder. His accuser testified in the most positive manner, that he saw him make the dreadful thrust that killed his victim

"Couldn't there be some mistake about this?" asked the coun- sel for the defense.

" None at all, " said the witness.

" What time in the evening was it? "

" Between nine and ten o'clock. "

"Well, how far between' Was it quarter past nine, or half past nine o'clock — or still later? Be more exact, if }'ou please. "

"I should think it might have been about half past nine o'clock," answered the witness.

"And you are sure that you saw the prisoner at the bar give the blow? Be particular — and remember that you are under oath. "

" I am; there can be no mistake about it. "

"Wasn't it dark?"

"No; the moon was bright."

"Then it was not very dark, as there was a moon?"

" No, the moon made it light enough for me to see it all. "

" Be particular on this point. Do I understand you to sa> that the murder was committed about half past nine o'clock, and the moon w'as shining at the time?"

" Yes, that is what I mean to say. "

"Verv well; that is all." ....

The counsel for the Commonwealth considered that the

THE STORY -LIFE OF LINCOLN

evidence was too strong cigainst .\rnistrony to admit of a reason- able doubt of his guilt ; tlierefore his plea was short and formal.

All eyes now turned to Lincoln. What could he say for the accused, in the face of such testimony? Few saw any possible chance for the supposed culprit to escape : his condemnation was sure.

Mr. Lincoln rose, while a deeply impressive stillness reigned throughout the court-room. The prisoner sat with a worried, des- pairing look, such as he had worn ever since his arrest

His counsel (Lincoln) proceeded to review the testimony and called attention to discrepancies in the statements of the principal witness, which he showed to be inconsistent . . . and indicating a plot against an innocent man. Then, raising his clear, full voice to a higher key, and lifting his long, wiry right arm above his head, as if about to annihilate his client's accuser, he exclaimed :

"And he testifies that the moon was shining brightlv when the deed was perpetrated, between the hours of nine and ten o'clock, when tJie moon did not appear on that night, as your Honor's almanac will show, until an hour or more later, and consequently the whole storv is a fabrication."

"Where is Mr. Lincoln?" inquired the acquitted son as the crowd pressed around him. Then seeing his attorney's tall form on the other side of the room, he pushed through the assembly and grasped his deliverer by the hand, but he could not speak. Tears of gratitude filled the young man's eyes, expressing far more than he could have done by words.

Tlie Pioneer Boy, William M. Thayer, page ;!07.

An Illustrious Pillow Fight

It was while out on the circuit that he was seen for the first time by a young man who afterward became one of the prominent lawyers of Central Illinois. The latter, with a letter of introduction from a friend, found him one evening at the tavern in the town of Danville.

"I was told," he relates, "that I would find Mr. Lincoln in Judge Davis's room. I climbed the unbanistered stairway, and to my timid knock two voices responded almost simultaneously.

A LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE

Each debate lasted three hours, the speakers alternating. If Lincoln spoke first he had an hour, then Douglas took an hour and a half, and Lincoln spoke a half hour in closing. It was by the wit, sound sense and good hu:nur of his immediate half-hour replies that Lincoln scored so heavily against Douglas before audiences of many thousands who could all hear Lincoln's voice. At first Douglas attempted to confuse and worry his opponent with smart questions untU Lincoln, by a sharp retort, put a stop to this annoyance. This illustration is of one of these unwarranted interruptions.

THE STORY -IJFE OF LINCOLN

The Sixth Joint Debate

The great debate took place in the afternoon on the open square, where a large pine-board platform had been built for the committee of arrangements, the speakers, and the persons they wished to have with them. I thus was favored with a seat on that platform. In front of it many thousands of people were assembled. Republicans and Democrats standing peaceably together, only chaffing one another now and then in a good-tempered way.

As the champions arrived they were demonstratively cheered by their adherents. The presiding officer agreed upon by the two parties called the meeting to order and announced the program of proceedings. Mr. Lincoln was to open with an allowance of an hour, and Senator Douglas was to follow with a speech of one hour and a half, and Mr. Lincoln was to speak half an hour in conclu- sion. The first part of Mr. Lincoln's opening address was devoted to a refutation of some things Douglas had said at previous meetings. This refutation may, indeed, have been required for the settlement of disputed points, but it did not strike me as anything extraor- dinary, either in substance or in form

There was, however, in all he said, a tone of earnest truthful- ness, of elevated, noble sentiment, and of kindly sympathy, which added greatly to the strength of his argument, and became, as in the course of his speech he touched upon the moral side of the question in debate, powerfully impressive. Even when attacking his opponent with keen satire or invective, which, coming from any other speaker, would have sounded bitter and cruel, there was still a certain something in his utterance making his hearers feel that those thrusts came from a reluctant heart, and that he would much rather have treated his foe as a friend.

When Lincoln had sat down amid the enthusiastic plaudits of his adherents, I asked myself TOth some trepidation in my heart, "What will Douglas say now?" ....

No more striking contrast could have been imagined than that between those two men as they appeared upon the platform. By the side of Lincoln's tall, lank, and ungainly form, Douglas stood almost like a dwarf, very short of stature, but square-shouldered and broad-chested, a massive head upon a strong neck, the very

embodiment of force, combativeness, and staying power

On the stage at Ouincy he looked rather natty and well groomed in

CHAPTER X Candidate for President

How Lincoln Was Nominated

The Republican National Con\'ention met, according to appoint- ment, at Chicago on May i6 (i860). A large temporary, wooden building, christened "The Wigwam," had been erected in which to hold its sessions, and it was estimated that ten thousand persons were assembled in it to witness the proceedings. William H. Sew- ard of New York was recognized as the leading candidate, but Chase of Ohio, Cameron of Pennsylvania, Bates of Missouri, and several prominent Republicans from other States were known to have active and zealous followers

It was almost self-evident that in the coming November elec- tion victory or defeat would hang upon the result in the four pivotal States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois. .... There was a chance that one or more of these four pivotal free States might cast its vote for Douglas and popular sovereignty.

A candidate was needed, therefore, who could successfully cope mth Douglas and the Douglas theory; and this ability had been convincingly demonstrated by Lincoln. As a mere personal choice, a mai'ority of the convention would have preferred Seward; but in the four pivotal States there were many voters who beheved Seward's anti-slavery views to be too radical. They shrank appre- hensively from the phrase in one of his speeches that "there is a higher law than the Constitution." These pivotal States all lay adjoining slave States, and their public opinion was infected with something of the undefined dread of " abolitionism. " ....

When the Convention met, the fresh, hearty hopefulness of its members was a most inspiring reflection of the public opinion in

the States that sent them Few conventions have ever

been pervaded by such a depth of feeling, or exhibited such a

reserve of latent enthusiasm Not alone the delegates

on the central platform, but the multitude of spectators as well, felt that they were playing a part in a great historical event.

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S82

THE STORY -LIFE OF LJXCOLN

Federal Territory, whene\-er and where\-er there shall be necessity or exclusion or prohibition.

2. Douglas. — Slavery or No Slavery in any Territory is entirely the affair of the white inhabitants of such Territory. If they choose to have it, it is their right; if they choose not to have it, they have a right to exclude or prohibit it. Neither Congress nor the people of the Union, or any part of it, outside of said Territory, have any right to meddle %Yith or trouble themselves about the matter.

3. Breckinridge. — The citizen of any State has a right to migrate to any Territory, taking -with him anything which is property by the law of his own State, and hold, enjoy, and be protected in the use of such property in said Territory. And Congress is bound to render such protection wherever necessar}^, whether with or without the co-operation of the Territorial Legislature.

Tlw American Conflwt. Horace Greeley, page 322.

A Newsboy's Apology

I recall one day when he had just seated himself at a desk ^^•itll the latest messages before him when he heard a newsboy on the street crying: "Here's yer Philadelphia Inquiry." He mimicked the peculiar pronunciation and tone of the boy, and then said: "Did I ever tell you of the joke the Chicago newsboj's had on me? " Replying negatively, he related : "A short time before my nomination I -was in Chicago attending a law-suit. A photographer of that city asked me to sit for a picture, and I did so. This coarse, rough hair of mine was in a particularly bad tousle at the time, and the picture presented me in all its fi'ight. After my nomination, this being about the only picture of me there was, copies were struck to show those who had never seen me how I looked. The newsboys carried them around to sell, and had for their cry: 'Here's your Old Abe, he'll look better when he gets his hair combed. ' "

Lincoln in the War Office, Albert B. Chandler. Collier's for February 9, 1907, page 15.

• Old Abe '11 look better whe he gets his hair combed."

CHAPTER XI

As Presidext-Elect

Artemus Ward Visits the "President Eleck"

I hav no politics. Not a one. I'm not in the business. . . . I wouldn't giv two cents to be a congresser. The wuss insult I ever received was when sertin citizens of Baldinsville axed me to run ftir the Legislater. Sez I, " My friends, dostest think I'd stoop to that there?" They turned as white as a sheet. I spoke in my most orfuUest tones they knowed I wasn't to be trifled svith. They slunked out of site to onct.

There4, having no politics, I made bold to visit Old Abe at his humstid in Springfield. I found the old feller in his parler sur- rounded by a perfeck swarm of orfice seekers. Knowin he had been capting of a flatboat on the roarin Mississippy I thought I'd address him in sailor lingo, so sez I :

"Old Abe, ahoy! Let out yer main-suls, reef hum the fore- castle & throw yer jib-poop overboard! Shiver my timbers my harty!" (N. B. This is ginuine mariner langwidge. I know, because I've seen sailor plays acted out by them New York theatre fellers.)

Old Abe lookt up quite cross iS: sez,

" Send in yer petition by & by. I can't possibly' look at it now. Indeed I can't. It's onpossible, sir!"

" Mr. Linkin, who do you spect I air?" sed I.

"A orfice-seeker, to be sure, " sed he.

"Wall, sir," sed I, "you's never more mistaken in your life; you haint got a orfice I'd take under no circumstances. I'm A. Ward. Wax figgers is my perfeshun. I'm the father of Twins, and they look like me — botli of tliem. I come to pay a friendlv visit to the President eleck of the United States. If so be vou wants to see me, say so, if not, say so & I'm off like a jug handle. "

" Mr. Ward, sit down. I am glad to see vou, sir. "

" Repose in Abraham's Buzzum ! " said one of the orfice seekers,

his idee being to git orf a goak at my expense Jest

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FruTii The Lije of Abraham Lincoln, Ida M. Tari.i-11, LINCOLN IN '60

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CHAPTER XII The Journey to Washington

Farewell to Springfield Friends

The start on the memorable journey was made shortly after eight o'clock on the morning of Monday, February ii. It was a clear, crisp winter day. Only about one hundred people, mostly personal friends, were assembled at the station to shake hands for the last time with their distinguished townsman. It was not

RAILROAD STATION WHERE LINCOLN SAID GOOD-BYE TO SPRINGFIELD

strange that he yielded to the sad feelings which must have moved him at the thought of what lay behind and what was before him, and gave them utterance in a pathetic formal farewell to the gather- ing crowd, as follows :

" My Friends, — No one not in my position can appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived more than a quarter of a century ; here iny chil-

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TIIR JOVRXEV TO WASfflXCTOX 303

dren were born, and here one of them Ues buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves upon me which is, perhaps, greater than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He would never have succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed ^^ithout the same Divine aid which sustained him, and in the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support; and I hope you, my friends, ^^-ill all pray that I may receive that Di\'ine assistance, ■uithout which I cannot suc- ceed, but with which success is certain. Again I bid you all an alTectionate farewell. "

I reproduce this here, as but for me it would not have been preserved in the exact form in which it ^^'as delivered. It was entirely extemporized, and, knowing this, I prevailed upon Mr. Lincoln immediately after starting, to write it out for me on a "pad. " I sent it over the ■n'ires from the first telegraph station.

Memoirs or Henry I'lYAirJ, Veil. I. page 140.

How Robert Lincoln Lost His Father's Inaugural Address

Mr. Lincoln prepared his first inaugural address in a room over a store in Springfield. His only reference works were Henry Clay's great Compromise Speech of 1850, Andrew Jackson's Proclamation against Nullification, Webster's great Reply to Ha^'ne, and a copv of the Constitution.

When ilr. Lincoln started for W^ashington to be inaugurated, the inaugural address was placed in a special satchel and guarded with special care. At Harrisburg the satchel was given in charge of Robert T. Lincoln, who accompanied his father. Before the train started from Harrisburg the precious satchel was missing. Robert thought he had given it to a waiter at the hotel, but a long search failed to reveal the bag with its precious document. Lincoln was annoyed, angry, and finally in despair. He felt certain that the address was lost beyond recovery, and, as it lacked only ten days until the inauguration, he had no time to prepare another. He had not even preserved the notes from which the 01-iginal copy had been written.

Mr. Lincoln went to Ward Lamon, his former law partner, then

304 THE STORY-LIFE OF LINCOLN

one of his body-guard, and informed him of the loss in the following words :

" Lamon, I guess I have lost my certificate of moral character, written by myself. Bob has lost the gripsack containing my inaugural address. " ....

The clerk at the hotel told Mr. Lincoln that he would probably find his missing satchel in the baggage-room. Arriving there, Mr. Lincoln saw a satchel which he thought was his, and it was passed out to him. His key fitted the lock, but, alas ! when it was opened the bag contained only a soiled shirt, some paper collars and a bottle of whiskey. A few minutes later the satchel containing the inau- gural address was found among the pile of baggage.

The recovery of the address reminded Mr. Lincoln of a story, which is thus narrated by Ward Lamon in his "Recollections of Abraham Lincoln " :

, The loss of the address and the search for it was the subject of a great deal of amusement. Mr. Lincoln said many funny things in connection with the incident. One of them was that he knew a fellow once who had saved up fifteen hundred dollars, and had placed it in a private banking establishment. The bank soon failed, and he afterward received ten per cent, of his investment. He then took his one hundred and fifty dollars and deposited it in a savings bank, where he was sure it would be safe. In a short time this bank also failed, and he received at the final settlement ten per cent, on the amount deposited. When the fifteen dollars was paid over to him, he held it in his hand and looked at it thoughtfully, then he said :

" Now, darn you, I have got you reduced to a portable shape, so I'll put you in my pocket. "

Suiting the action to the word, Mr. Lincoln took his address from the bag and carefully placed it in the inside pocket of his vest, but held on to the satchel with as much interest as if it still con- tained his " certificate of moral character. "

Abe Lincoln's Yarns and Stories, 'EfiiteAhy Col. Alex. K. McClure, page iii.

The Morning Before the Inauguration

Daybreak of March 4, 1861, found the city of Washington astir. The Senate, which had met at seven o'clock the night before, was still in session; scores of persons who had come to see the inau-

¥■.■■•■.: ]-::■■ !-■::,• Story of Abraham Liucrb:. liV.':.\.r ^. Kr ■ ■.. .

ABRAHAM LINCOLN DELIVERING HIS INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 1861

Seated behind Lincoln, from left to right: Chief-Justice Taney, President Buchanan, Mrs. Liner In, and Senator Baker. Senator Douglas is standing behind Mr. Justice Taney, holding Lincoln's hat.

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CHAPTER Xlir

At the Hei.m of State

The Inaugural Address

The Inaugural had but one general theme. Some points of it are detachable as indicating the purposes and policy which the new President had in mind at the beginning; while as a whole it is one of his most impressive papers. He said :

"Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States, that by the accession of a Republican administration their property and their peace and personal security are endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of hiin who no^^• addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that ' I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. ' I believe I have no lawful right to do so ; and I have no inclination to do so. "

He cited also a resolution of the convention which nominated him, as "clear and emphatic" on this matter,' and continued:

"I now reiterate these sentiments ; and in doing so I only press upon .the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the incoming administra- tion. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently %^ ith the Constitution and the laws, can be given, ^^'ill be cheerfullj^ given to all States when lawfully demanded, for whate\-er cause, as cheerfully to one section as to another

"I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules."

From The Life of Ahmham Lincoln. Ma M. TarlK.41.

LINCOLN IN 1861

The President-elect sat for this photograph in his inauguration clothes not long before leaving for Washington.

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AT THE HELM OF STATE

373

etiquette at all. But he was still more astonished when Mr. Lincoln, instead of waiting for a ceremonious bow, shook him by the hand like an old acquaintance and said in his hearty way that he was glad to see the brother-in-law of "this young man here," and that he hoped the Americans treated him well. Mrs. Lincoln —" Mary, " as the President again called her — was absent, being otherwise engaged, and there were no other guests. So we had Mr. Lin- coln at the table all to ourseh'es. He seemed to be in excellent spirits, asking many questions about Hamburg, which my bro- ther-in-law, who spoke English fiu- ently, answered in an entertaining manner, and Mr. Lincoln found several occasions for insert ing funny stories, at which not only we, but he him- self, too, laughed most heartily. As we left the White House, my companion could hardly find words to express his puzzled admiration for the man who, having risen from the bottom of the social ladder to one of the most exalted sta- tions in the world, had remained so perfectly natural and so abso- lutely unconscious of how he appeared to others — a man to whom it

The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Ida M. Tarbell. LINCOLN IN '6i.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD

coin's Secretary of State. He had been the foremost of the Republican candidates for nomination to the Presidency, having been for many years a political leader. Seward began by attempting to manage the Lincoln Administration, but he was the first of the Cabinet to recognize the true great- ness of his chief, writing to his wife: 'The President is the best of us."

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CHAPTER XIV Secession, Disaster, Sorrow

News of the First Battle of Bull Run

On Sunday, July 2 1 , when the battle of Bull Run was fought, the military telegraph-line had reached Fairfax Court-House, and an improvised office had been opened at that point. Communication with General McDowell's headquarters at the front was maintained by means of a corps of mounted couriers, organized by Andrew Carnegie, tmder the immediate direction of William B. Wilson, who then served as our manager. These couriers passed back and forth all day long between Fairfax and the front. Lincoln hardly left his seat in our office and waited with deep anxiety for each succeed- ing despatch. At all times during the awful day. General Scott would confer with the President or Secretary Cameron for a short period, and then depart to put into effect some urgent measures for protect- ing the capital

All the morning and well along into the afternoon. General McDowell's telegrams were more or less encoirraging, and Lincoln and his advisers waited wth eager hope, believing that Beauregard was being pushed back to Manassas Junction ; but all at once the despatches ceased coming. At first this was taken to mean that McDowell was moving farther away from the telegraph, and then, as the silence became prolonged, a strange fear seized upon the assembled watchers that perhaps all was not well. Suddenly the telegraph-instrument became alive again and the short sentence "Our army is retreating, " was spelled out in the Morse characters. This brief announcement was followed by meagre details concern- ing the first great disaster that had befallen our troops and the panic that follov>'ed.

The crowded telegraph office was quickly deserted by all except the operators, but Lincoln returned at intervals until after mid- night, and shortly afterwards the outlying office at Fairfax Court- House was abandoned. When morning dawned, our demoralized troops began to straggle, and then to pour, in an ever-increasing

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3 So

THE STORY -LIFE OF LINCOLN

him a weak, passive child. I did not dream that his rugged na- ture should be so moved ; I shall never forget those solemn

moments There is a grandeur as well as a simplicity about

the picture that will never fade

Mrs. Lincoln was inconsolable In one of her par- oxysms of grief the President kindly bent over his wife, took her bv the arm, and gentlv led her to the window. With a solemn,

stately gesture lie point- ed to the lunatic asylum.

"Mother, do you see that large, white building on the hill yonder? Try and con- trol your grief, or it will drive you mad, and we may have to send you there. "

Mrs. Lincoln was so completely over- whelmed with sorrow that she did not attend

the funeral

The White House was draped in mourn -

Nathaniel Parker Willis, the genial poet, wrote a beautiful sketch of Willie Lincoln, which closed as follows : "The funeral was very touching. Of the entertainments in the

East Room the boy had been a most life-giving variation

He was his father's favorite. They were intimates — often seen hand in hand. And there sat the man, with a burden on the brain at which the world marvels — bent now with the load at both heart

WILLIE LINCOLN From a photograph in the collection of Charles W. McLellan.

SPTESSIOX, DISASTER. SORKOW 3S1

and brain — stagycring under a bluw liku the taknig fr(jni him of his child. His men of power sat around him — McClellan, with a moist eye when he bowed to the prayer, as I could see from where I stood ; and Chase and Seward, with their austere features at work ; and senators, ambassadors and soldiers, all struggling with their tears — great hearts sorrowing with the President as a stricken man and a brother. That God may give him strength for all his burdens is, I am sure, the prayer of a nation. "

This sketch was much admired by ]\Irs. Lincoln. I copy it from the scrap-book in which she pasted it, with many tears, with her own hands.

Behind the Seems, Elizabeth Keckley (Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House), page gS.

39°

THE STORY -LIFE OF LIXCOLX'

Winchester, which is probably reinforced from Alanassas. The wiser plan is to rebuild the railroad bridge as rapidly as possible, and then act according to the state of affairs."

It will be observed that this dispatch contained no intimation that the orders for the advance of troops to sustain those who had been posted in Virginia against the alleged threatened advance from Manassas had been countermanded.

^^

LINCOLN IN >62

Before leaving the Department Stanton had replied as follows : " If the lift -lock is not big enough, why cannot it be made big snoughr Please answer immediately. "

LINCOLN AND McCLELLAN

3 93

The President cjuietly listened to my reading of the telegram, and then said that it reminded him of a notorious liar, who attained such a reputation as an exaggerator that he finally instructed his servant to stop him, when his tongue was running too rapidly, by

■^i«?

Tke Rcminiscenscs of Carl Schurz, Vol. II, page 3.()a.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN AT GENERAL McCLELLAN'S HEADQUARTERS

pulling his coat or touching his feet. One day the master was relat- ing wonders he had seen in Europe, and described a building which was about a mile long and a half-mile high. Just then the servant's

LLYCOLX AXn McCLEI.LAN

"I Should Like to Borrow the Army for a Day or Two"

In November, 1862, I found myself in Washington, whither I had been summoned to attend a council of women connected with tiie Sanitary Commission. It was a gloomy time all over the country. The heart of the people had grown sick with hope de- ferred; and the fruitless undertakings and timid, dawdling policy of General McClellan had perplexed and discouraged all loyalists, and strengthened and made bold all traitors. The army was always entrenched or entrenching. Its advance was forbidden by the autumnal rains and the policy of its commanding general, whatever that might have been. The rebel army was in front, and every day a new crop of rumors was harvested in reference to its purpose. One hour, "Washington was safe!" and "All was qtuet on the Potomac!" The next, "The rebels were marching on to Washington!" "They were blocking our river communications!" "They were threatening to overwhelm our forces!" or, "They had already taken our position!" Despondency sat on every" face.

" I wonder whether McClellan means to do anything!" said Mr. Lincoln one day to a friend. " I should like to borrow the army of him for a day or two. "

My Story of Ihe War. Mary A.

Why Antietam Was a Drawn Battle

When the Woman's Council adjourned, we were glad to accept an invitation to call on the President in a body. The President had appointed an early hour for our reception.

I shall never forget the shock which his presence gave us. Not more ghastly or rigid was his dead face, as he lay in his cofnn, than on that never-to-be-forgotten night. His introverted look and his half-staggering gait were like those of a man walking in sleep. He seemed literally bending under the weight of his burdens. A deeper gloom rested on his face than on that of any person I had ever seen. He took us each by the hand mechanically, in an awk- ward, absent way, until my friend Mrs. Hoge, of Chicago, and my- self were introduced, when the name of the city of our residence appeared to catch his attention, and he sat down between us.

"So you are from Chicago!" he said, familiarly; "you are not

/■

From Abraham Liticohi: A History, J.jhn G. Xidlay a:>l J-.'r.Ti Hay

PRESIDENT LINCOLN VISITS GENERAL McCLELLAN'S HEADQUARTERS JUST AFTER THE

BATTLE OF ANTIETAM

' Little Mac " stands directly facing the President.

LIX'COLX AX1> McCLELLAX

40S

thousand deserters and stragglers who have been arrested and sent there. Don't you see that the country and the army fail to realize that we are engaged in one of the greatest wars the world has ever seen, and which can onl}' be ended b}' hard fighting? General Mc- Clellan is responsible for the delusion that is untoning the whole army — that the South is to be conquered by strategy."

" Is not death the penalty of desertion?'' we inquired.

"Certainly it is. "

" And does it not lie Avith the President to enforce this penalty? "

"Yes. "

" Whv not enforce it then? Before many soldiers had suffered death for desertion, this wholesale depletion of the army would be ended. "

"Oh, no, no!" replied the President, shaking his head ruefully. "That can't he done; it would be unmerciful, barbarous."

" But is it not more merciful to stop desertions, so that when a battle comes off it may be decisiA'c, instead of being a drawn game, as vou say Antietam was?"

" It might seem so. But if I should go to shooting men by scores for desei-tion, I should have such a hullabaloo about my ears as I haven't had yet and I should deserve it. You can't order men shot by dozens or twenties. People won't stand it and they ought not to stand it. Xo, -we must change the condition of things in some other way. "

My Slorv of Ihc War, Mary .\. Liverniore, page 555.

Humor of the Soldiers

Anything that savored of the wit and humor of the soldiers was especially welcome to Lincoln. His fondness for good stories is a well-accepted tradition, but an}^ incident that showed that "the boys" were mirthful and jolly in all their privations seemed to commend itself to him. He used to say that the grina grotesqueness and extravagance of American humor were its most striking char- acteristics. There was a story of a soldier in the Army of the Po- tomac, carried to the rear of battle M-ith both legs shot oft", who, seeing a pie -woman hovering about, asked,

" Say, old lady, are them pies sewed or pegged? " And there was another of a soldier at the battle of Chancellors- ville, whose regiment, waiting to be called into the fight, was taking

4o6 THE STORY-LIFF. OF A/.VCOLA'

coffee. The hero of the story put to his Ups the crockery mug which he had carried, with infinite care, through several campaigns. A stray bullet just missing the coffee-drinker's head, dashed the mug into fragments, and left only the handle on his finger. Turning his head in that direction, the soldier angrily growled, "Johnny, you can't do that again. " Lincoln, relating these two stories together, said, " It seems as if neither death nor danger could quench the grim humor of the American soldier."

]Vjshinglon in Lincoln's Time, Noah Brooks, page 292.

"No Influence with This Administration"

On the table near him he kejjt a package of blank cards, such as one finds on every hotel counter. On these were written, in lead pencil, some of the most important orders of the war. Very often he would address Secretary Stanton with a pencilled request, " if the exigencies of the service would permit, " to " let up " on some chaplain, civilian or soldier who complained of the rough treatment of the Secretary of War. Stanton sometimes granted these re- quests, 1)ut just as often he Avould tear up the card in the face of the applicant, and tell him to go 1 )ack to Mr. Lincoln and tell him he'd "bed — d if he would d<i it. " .... When Lincoln would again be appealed to he would simply look uj") or down on the A^ictimof Stanton's wrath, and say, quizzicalh-, ' AVell, I never did have much influence with this administration. "

! of Abraham Lincoln. James M. Scovcl. Lippincotfs Magazine. Vol. LXIV, .August, iSSg, page 246.

McClellan Recalled by Lincoln after Being Dismissed from His Command

Xotc by the Editor. — This order of September 2, 1862, was the last order ever issued to General McClellan giving him any command. He seems ne\-er to have known that it actuallj^ appeared in two forms within twenty-four hours, first as an order from the President by direction of the Secretary of War, second as a simple order of Gen- eral Halleck. The history of its origin and modification is obscure. .... When these events are seen in close relation every honest mind must be filled with amazement at the duplicitv T\nth ^^-hich McClellan was surrounded

On the morning of September i, AlcClellan went up from Alexandria to Washington, and now Halleck verballv placed him in

LIXCOLX AMD McCLELLAN 411

" I have a little girl here who wants to shake hands with \'ou. " He went over to her, and took her up and kissed her and talked to her. She will never forget it if she lives to be a thousand years old.

Recollections of ihc Civil War, Charles A. Dana, page 1S4.

Stanton "Nearly Always Right !"

Some of the biographers arc enthusiastic admirers of Mr. Stanton, who seems never, until the close of the war, to have enter- tained cordial feelings toward the President. On some occasions Mr. Lincoln's patience with the Secretary of War is rather aston- ishing than admirable. A committee, headed by Mr. Lovejoy, brought the Secretary an important order of the President's and met with a flat refusal to obey.

" But we have the President's order, " said Lovejoy.

"Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind?" said Stanton.

" He did, sir. "

"Then he is a d — d fool, " said the irate Secretary.

The conversation was immediately reported to the President.

"Did he say I was a d — d fool?" asked the President, at the close of the recital.

"He did, sir, and repeated it."

After a moment's pause, and looking up, the President said :

" If Stanton said I was a d — d fool, then I must be one, for he is nearly always right, and generally says what he means. I will step over and see him. "

The President probably wished to conceal from strangers, at some sacrifice of personal dignity, the possibility of di^-isions in the Cabinet.

The Saturday Re-jien-. Editorial on Rice's Reminiscences, Vi,l. LXIIl, November 6, 1SS6, page 624.

"There Was Such a Charm about His Expression."

The relations between Mr. Lincoln and the members of his Cabinet were always friendly and sincere on his part. He treated every one of them with unvarying candor, respect, and kindness; but, though several of them were men of extraordinary force and self-assertion — this was true especially of Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Stanton — and though there was nothing of self-hood or domination in his manner toward them, it was always plain that he was the master and they the subordinates. They constantly had

i CI

S t

Fnn \hraham Li i n T,. Xicolay and John Hay.

EDWIN M. STANTON, SECRETARY OF WAR

From a bitter and abusive enemy Stanton became a loyal and devoted admirer of President Lincoln. The story of this transformation is of rare interest.

■III«flll»llllllllll

s -ss

<^3

^ SS

W ^ !

r///T STORY-IJFE OF LIXCOLX

The great quality of his appearance was benevolence and benignity : the wish to do somebody some good if he could ; and yet there was no fiabby philanthropj' about Abraham Lincoln. He was all solid, hard, keen intelligence combined with goodness. Indeed, the expression of his face and of his bearing which impressed one most, after his benevolence and benignity, was his intelligent understanding. You felt that here was a man who saw through things, who understood, and you respected him accordingly.

Recollections of the Civil War. Charles A. Dana, page i 7 i .

How Newspaper Stories Grow

From January, 1862, until the close of the war, the telegraphic reins of Government were held by a firm and skilful hand in the \Yiii- Department and in their guiding influence upon the affairs of the nation were all-powerful for good. Dating, also, from the appoint- ment of Stanton to the Cabinet, Lincoln began to make the War Department telegraph ofifice his lounging-place, and during the winter of 1862 we saw him daily, although our office at that time was crowded and inconvenient. It was in the first-floor rear room that I first heard one of his humorous remarks. General Robert C. Schenck, who after the war became minister to England (but who is perhaps better remembered as the author of a treatise on the gentle art of playing poker, of -which game the English public became enamored about that time), was in command of our forces near Alexandria. One evening he sent a telegram from Drainsville, Virginia, announcing a slight skirmish with the enemy, resulting in the capture of thirty or forty prisoners, all armed with Colt's revolvers. As Lincoln read the message, he turned to the operator who had handed it to him, and said, with a twinkle in his eve, that the newspapers were given to such exaggeration in publishing army news that we might be sure when General Schenck's dispatch appeared in print next day all the little Colt's revolvers would have grown into horse pistols.

Lincoln in the Telegraph Office. David Homer Bates. Century :\Iagazine. Vol. LXXIV, Ma

1907,

CHAPTER XVI

The Emancipation Proclamation

Writing the First Draft of the Emancipation Proclamation

Until very recently it has not been known, except by a few persons, that Lincoln wrote the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation while seated at Major Eckert's desk in the cipher roona of the War Department telegraph office.

Some of the incidents connected with the writing of the immor- tal document have now been recorded by Eckert, as follows :

" As you know, the President came to the ofhce every day and invariably sat at my desk while there. Upon his arrival early one iTLorning in June, 1862, shortly after McClellan's seven days' fight, he asked me for some paper, as he wanted to write something special. I procured some foolscap and handed it to him. He then sat down and began to write. I do not recall whether the sheets were loose or had been made into a pad. There must have been at least a quire. He would look out of the window a ^^■hile and then put his pen to paper, but he did not write much at once. He would study between times and when he had made up his mind he would put down a line or two, and then sit quiet for a few minutes. After a time he would resume his writing, only to stop again at intervals to make some remark to me or to one of the cipher operators as a fresh dispatch from the front was handed to him.

'■ Once his eye was arrested by the sight of a large spider-web stretched from the lintel of the portico to the side of the outer win- dow-sill. This spider-web was an institution of the cipher-room and harbored a large colony of exceptionally big ones. We fre- quently watched their antics, and Assistant-Secretar}^ Watson dubbed them 'Major Eckert's lieutenants.' Lincoln commented on the web, and I told him that my lieutenants would soon report and pay their respects to the President. Not long after a big spider appeared at the cross-roads and tapped several times on the strands, whereupon five or six others came out from different directions. Then what seemed to be a great confab took place, after \\-hich they

(415)

4i6

THE STORY -LIFE OF LINCOLN

separated, each on a different strand of the web. Lincohi was much interested in the performance and thereafter, while working

at the desk, would often watch for the appearance of his visitors.

"On the first day Lincoln did not cover one sheet of his spec- ial writing paper (nor indeed on any subsequent day). When

trtfe. ^ ^"SSMW W^ ready to leave,

gt J^f' *& "aHB a M ^^ asked me to

y \\ iA^f — iKm ' -v^M MB t?ik& charge of

what he had written and not allow any one to see it. I told him I would do this with pleas- Lire and would not read it my self. ' Well, ' he said, 'I should be glad to know that no one will see it, although there is no ob- jection to your looking at it ;

but please keep it locked up until I call for it to-mon-ow. ' I said

his wishes would be strictly complied with.

"When he came to the office on the following day he asked for

the papers, and I unlocked my desk and handed them to him and he

again sat down to write. This he did nearly every day for several

•THINKING IT OVER"

CHAPTER XVII

"The Burden and Heat of the Day"

Billy Brown Goes to Washington Just to Visit Mr. Lincoln

"That night I footed it up to the Soldiers' Home where Mr. Lincoln was livin' then, right among the sick soldiers in their tents.

" There was lots of people settin' around in a little room, waitin' fer him, but there wa'n't anybody there I knowed and I was feelin' a little funny, when a door opened and out came little John Nicolay. He came from down this way, so I just went up and says, 'How'd you do, John; where's Mr. Lincoln?'

"Well, John didn't seem over glad to see me."

" 'Have you an appointment with Mr. Lincoln?' he says.

" 'No sir,' I says; 'I ain't, and it ain't necessary. Maybe it's all right and fittin' for them as wants post-offices to have appoint- ments, but I reckon Mr. Lincoln's old friends don't need 'em, so you just trot along, Johnnie, and tell him Billy Brown's here and see what he says.' Well, he kind of flushed up and set his lips together, but he knowed me, and so he went off.

"In about two minutes the door popped open and out came Mr. Lincoln, his face all lit up. He saw me first thing, and he laid hold of me, and just shook my hands fit to kill. 'Billy,' he says, 'now I am glad to see you. Come right in. You're goin' to stay to supper with Mary and me.' Didn't I know it? Think bein' President would change him? — not a mite. Well, he had a right smart of people to see, but as soon as he was through we went out on the back stoop and set down and talked and talked. He asked me about pretty nigh everybody in Springfield. I just let loose and told him about the weddin's and births and the funerals and the buildin', and I guess there wan't a yarn I'd heard in the three years and a half he had been away that I didn't spin for him. Laugh — you ought to ha' heard him laugh — just did my heart good, for I could see what they'd been doin' to him. Always was a thin man, but, Lordy, he was thinner'n ever now, and his face was kind a drawn and gray — enough to make you cry.

(42-0

THE BURDEN AND HEAT OF THE IKW

4-3

" Well, \vc had supper and then talked some more, and about ten o'clock I started down town. Wanted me to stay all night, but I says to myself, 'Billy, don't you overdo it. You've cheered him up, and you better light out and let him remember it when he's tired.' So I said, 'Nope, Mr. Lincoln, can't, goin' back to Spring- field to-morrow. Ma don't like to have me away and my boy ain't no great shakes keepin' store,' 'Billy,' he says, 'what did you come down here for?' '1 caine to see you, Mr. Lincoln.' 'But you ain't asked me for anything, Billy. What is it? Out with it. Want a post-office?' he said, gigglin', for he knowed I didn't. 'No, Mr. Lincoln, just wanted to see you — felt kind a lonesome — been so long since I'd seen you, and I was afraid Ld forgit some of them yarns if I didn't unload soon.'

"Well, sir, you ought to seen his face as he looked at me. 'Billy Brown,' he says, slow-like, 'do you mean to tell me you came all the way from Springfield, Illinois, just to have a visit with me, that you ain't got no complaints in your pockets, nor any advice up your sleeve?'

" 'Yes, sir,' I says, 'that's about it, and I'll be durned if I W'Ouldn't go to Europe to see you, if I couldn't do it no other way, Mr. Lincoln.'

" Well, sir, I never was so astonished in my life. He just grabbed my hand and shook it nearly off, and the tears just poured

A POPULAR PORTRAIT

a photograph by Brady, and made familiar because eproduced on postage stamps and bank-notes.

■■ 77//<: BURDEX AXD HEAT OF THE /'.IV 4^5

Spcakii\y; of social conditions and habits, he said, among other things, that to his astonishment he had heard that many gentlemen in America were in the habit of blacking their own boots. " That is true, " said ]\Ir. Lincoln, "but would gentlemen in your country not do that?" "No, certainly not," the Englishman replied with emphasis.

"Well!" said Mr. Lincoln quietly, "whose boots do they black?"

Reminiscences of Carl Schurz. Vol. II. page 3.50.

The President Like a Tight-Rope Walker with a Man on His Back

When (liffcrenccs in the Cabinet became dangerous enough to threaten its dissolution, he ceased to call his constitutional advisers together, and for over a year they had no formal cabinet session. Twenty United States Senators called upon him in a body, intent on complaining of Stanton's conduct of the War. The President's sense of humor did not desert him, and he told a story about Blondin crossing Niagara.

" Would you, " said he, " v\-hen certain death waited on a single false step, would you cry out, 'Blondin, stoop a little more! Go a little faster ! Slow up ! Lean more to the north ! Lean a little more to the south !' No ; you would keep your mouths shut.

" Now we are doing the best we can. We are pegging away at the rebels. We have just as big a job on hand as vcas ever intrusted to mortal hands to manage. The Government is carrv'ing an immense weight; so, don't badger it. Keep silent, and we will get you safe across. "

No delegation of senators ever again attempted to dictate to Abraham Lincoln the manner in Avhich our end of the Civil War should be conducted.

Recolleclions of Lincoln. James II. Scovel. Lippincoirs Magazine, Vol. LXIII, February. iSgg, page 27.S.

"A Habit of Being Dissatisfied"

How^ wofuUy the friends had exaggerated the power of such a proclamation as they prayed the President to issue, is well shown in the reminiscences of Moncure D. Conway, published on August

THE STORV-IJFE OF IJXCOLX

30th, in which he tells of the intcr\-ie\v between the President, Senator Williams, Wendell Phillips, himself (Conway) and others, which occurred on the 24th of January, 1S63.

The object of this delegation was to complain of the failure of the Emancipation Proclamation, and Mr. PhilHps, as its spokesman,

hinted that "the Northern people, |; . j now generally anti-slavery, were

' ' not satisfied that it was being hon-

estly carried out by the nation's agents and generals in the South. " The President said he "had not :; . expected much from it at first,

and, consequently, had not been disappointed," and gave it as his impression that "the masses of the country generally are only dissatisfied at our lack of military successes. " He did not hesitate in the course of the interview with these distinguished men to say that "most of us here present have l^een nearly all our lives working in minorities and many have got into a habit of being dissatisfied;" and when this conclusion was deprecated, he added: "At any rate, it has been very rare that an opportimity of running this administration has been lost." And when Mr. Phillips patronizingly said : "If we see this administration earnestly working to free the countrv from slavery and its rebellion, we will show vou how we can run it in another four years of power, " to which, possibly remembering ]\Ir. Phillips' description of him as "a mosaic," and a "man who had never walked a straight line in his life," 'Sir. Lincoln said:

"Oh, ]\Ir. Phillips, I have ceased to have any personal feelings • or expectation in that matter, — I don't say I never had any, — so abused and borne upon as I have been:" and Mr. Conway tells us that his last utterance to the delegation as it left him was :

" I must bear this load which the country has entrusted to me as well as I can, and do my best. "

Lincoln and Stanton. William D. Keller, M.C. Appendi.x, page S7.

WENDELL PHILLIPS

THE BURDEN AND HEAT OF THE D.AV" 427

"Nothing Touches the Tired Spot"

Early in i\pril, 1863, I accompanied the President, Mrs. Lincoln, and their youngest son, "Tad," on a visit to the army of the Potomac — Hooker then being in command, with headquarters on Falmouth Heights, opposite Fredericksburg

The infantry reviews were held on several different days. On April 8th was the review of the Fifth Corps, under Meade; the Second, under Couch ; the Third, under Sickles, and the Sixth, under Sedgwick. It was reckoned that these four corps numbered some 60,000 men, and it was a splendid sight to witness their grand martial array as they wound over hills and rolling ground, coming from miles away, their arms shining in the distance, and their bayonets bristling like a forest on the horizon as they marched away. The President expressed himself as delighted with the appearance of the soldiery, and he was much impressed by the

parade It was noticeable that the President merely

touched his hat in return salute to the officers, but uncovered to

the men in the ranks After a few days the weather

grew warm and bright .... and the President became more cheerful and even jocular. I remarked this one evening as we sat in Hooker's headquarters, after a long and laborious day of review- ing. Lincoln replied :

"It is a great relief to get away from Washington and the politicians. But nothing, touches the tired s])ot. "

On the gth the First Corps, commanded by General Reynolds, was reviewed by the President on a beautiful plain at the north of Potomac Creek, about eight miles from Hooker's headquarters. We rode thither in an ambulance over a rough corduroy road ; and as we passed over some of the more difficult portions of the jolting way, the ambulance driver, who sat well in front, occasionally let fly a volley of suppressed oaths at his wild team of six mules. Finally Mr. Lincoln, leaning forward, touched the man on the shoulder, and said:

" Excuse me, my friend, are you an Episcopalian?"

The man, greatly startled, looked around and replied:

"No; Mr. President, I'm a Methodist."

" Well, " said Lincoln, " I thought you must be an Episcopalian

THE STORY -LIFE OE LIXCOLX

because ^■ou swear iu^t like Ciii\'fnn_>r Seward, wliu is a church- warden. "

The chiver swore no more.

Wasliingloii in Lincoln's Time, Xoah Brooks, page 45.

"I Am Only a Retail Dealer" in Stories

Lincoln very seldom in\'entcd a stor\-. Once he said to me, "You speak of Lincoln stories. I d<.)n't think that is a correct phrase. I don't make the stories mine by telling them. I am only a retail dealer. "

Numberless stories were repeated to him as being from him, but he once said that, so far as he knew, only about one-sixth of all those w'hich were credited to him had e\ev been told b>' him. He ne^■er forgot a good story, and his apt application of those which lay in his mind gave them peculiar crispness and freshness. Here is a case in point:

In 1S63, a certain captain of volunteers was on trial in AVash- ington for a misuse of the funds of his company. The accused officer made only a feeble defense, and seemed to treat the matter with indifference. After a while, however, a new charge — that of disloyalty to the government — came into the case. The accused was at once excited to a high degree of indignation, and made a vigorous defense. He appeared to think lightly of being convicted of embezzling, but to be called a traitor Avas more than he could bear.

At the breakfast -table, one morning, the President, who had been reading an account of this case in the neAvspaper, began to laugh and said:

'■ This felloAv reminds me of a juror in a ease of hen-stealing Avhich I tried in Illinois many years ago. The accused man Avas summarily conA^icted. After adjournment of court, as I was riding to the next town, one of the jurors in the case came cantering up behind me, and complimented me on the vigor AA'ith Avhich I had pressed the prosecution of the hen-thief. Then he added :

" 'Why, Avhen I was young, and my back Avas strong, and the country Avas ncAV, I didn't mind taking off a sheep uoaa* and then. But stealing hens! Oh, Jerusalem!'

" Now this captain has CA'idently been stealing sheep, and that is as much as he can bear. "

"THE BURDEN AND HEAT OF THE DAV 431

which, tmder the orders ot" the government, had been biiilt by the famous engineer, Ericsson, and which had been qtiietly towed from^ Xew York to Hampton Roads. The savior arrived in good time. The "Monitor" proved as in\uhierable as the " Merrimac, " and even more effective. After a duel between the two champions, lasting several hours, the "Merrimac" retreated into Elizabeth Ri\-er, and the "Monitor" remained in undisturbed possession of the field. When I saw Mr. Lincoln the next day, his mind was still so full of the great event that it gave him evident delight to tell me the whole story. He described vividly the arrival of the first tidings of disaster, and his own and the several Cabinet members' dismay at the awful prospect thus opened, and their sighs of relief when the telegraph announced the appearance of "the little cheese-box" which drove the rebel Goliath off the field.

r/K7 Reminisceyices of Carl Schurz, Vol. II, page 327.

"Blunt as a Meat-Ax and Keen as a Razor"

Those who accuse Lincoln of frivolity never knew him. I never saw a more thoughtful face. I never saw a more dignified face. He had humor of which he \\"as totall}' unconscious, but it was not frivolitv. He said wonderfully witty things, but never from a desire to be witty. His wit was entirely illustrati\-e. He used it because, and only because, at times he could say more in this way, and better illustrate the idea with which he w^as pregnant. He never cared how he made a point so that he made it, and he never told a story for the mere sake of telling a story. When he did it, it was for the purpose of illustrating and making clear a point. He was essentially epigrammatic and parabolic. He was a master of satire, which was at times as blunt as a meat-ax, and at others as keen as a razor, but it was always kindly except when some horrible injustice was its inspiration, and then it was terrible. Weakness he was never ferocious with, but intentional wickedness he never spared.

In this interview the name came up of a recently deceased politician of Illinois, whose undeniable merit was blemished by overweening vanity. His funeral was largely attended :

"If General had known how big a funeral he would

have had, " said Mr. Lincoln, " he would have died years ago. "

Remixiscenn-s of Abraham Lhicoht. Da\-id R. Locke ("Petroleum V. Nasby"). Edited by Allen Thomdike Rice, page 441.

'•thp: BL'uni-.x .wn heat of the dav i,^,:;

prey on the mind and life ul' the President. The eountry has been slain by treason — he knows it, and that it cannot recover itself."

Our business ended, before we withdrew we made one ni<ire attempt to draw encouraging words from the reluctant head of the nation.

"Mr. President," we said timidly, "we find ourselves greatly depressed by the talk of last evening; you do not consider our national affairs hopeless, do you? Our country is not lost? "

" Oh, no ! " he said with great earnestness, "our affairs are by no means hopeless, for we hzvxc the right on our side. AVe did not want this war, and we tried to avoid it. We were forced into it ; our cause is a just one, and now it has become the cause of freedom. (The Emancipation Proclamation had just been promulgated.) " And let us also hope it is the cause of God, and then we may be sure it must ultimately triumph. But between that time and now there is an amount of agony and suffering and trial for the people that they do not look for, and are not prepared for. "

No one can ever estimate the suffering endured by President Lincoln during the War. I saw him several timfes afterwards, and each time I was impressed anew with the look of pain and weariness stereotyped on his face.

" He envied the soldier sleeping in his blanket on tHe Potomac, " he would say, in his torture. And sometimes, when the woes of the country pressed most heavily on him, he envied the dead soldier sleeping in the cemetery.

"Whichever way the War ends, " he said to a friend of mine, " I have the impression that / shall not last long after it is over. "

After the dreadful repulse of our forces at Fredericksburg, when the slaughter was terrific, the agony of the President wrung from him the bitter cry:

" Oh, if there is a man out nf hell that suffers more than I do, I pity him!"

My Story oj the War, Mary A. Livermon?, page 510.

"Oh, What Will the Country Say!"

Early in May (1863) the country was anxiously waiting for

news from Chancellorsville. The grand movement had been only

partially successful, but everybody expected to hear that the first

repulse was only temporary, and that the army was pressing on

(558)

THE STORV-JJFh: OF fJXCOI.X

citizens. I asked what was the trouljle. Tliey said he was not fit

to eonimand sueli iiu

T

A CARD OF INTRODUCTION

like Grant, I should like to some of the other generals."

Grant. Lincoln and the FnrJmc,

(1 wliy, and they said he sometimes

drank too nitieh and was unfit

for such a position. I then began to ask them if they knew what lie (h'ank, what brand of whiske)- he used, telling them most seriously that I wished they would find out. The)' conferred with each other and concluded they could mjt tell what brand he used. I urged them to ascertain and let me know, for if it made fighting generals et some of it for distribution among

Eaton. Ph.D., LL.D.. p.ige S7.

Two Applications for Pardon — with Opposite Results

I had an opporttmity during the war of \\'itnessing the rece]:)tion by the President of two applications for pardon, which met with widely dift'erent fates. The case of the first was this :

A young man, belonging to a Virginia family of most treason- able character, remained in Washington when the rest of the house- hold went with the Confederacy. Though he took no acti\'e jKirt with the loyalists of the Capital, he was so ciuiet and prudent as to allay their suspicions concerning him, and finally to gain their confidence. He opened a market and kept for sale the very best quality of meats, supplying many of the families of prominent officers of the government, and for a time the family at the White House. He even managed to obtain a sort of intimacy in some of these households, through the intrigues of disloyal servants. As afterwards appeared, he possessed himself of information that was valuable to the rebels, and which he imparted to them promptly and unreservedh'.

When Lee moved up into Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863, this young man was suddenly missing "He was tuiex-

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

447

V^^

hurrying back to his office, soon rejoined me with a long envelope in his hand. When we were fairly started, he said that the envelope held an advance copy of Edward Everett's address to be delivered at the Gettysburg dedication on - -

the following Tuesday. Drawing it out, I saw that it was a one-page supplement to a Boston paper, and that Mr. Everett's address nearly covered both sides of the sheet.

The President expressed his admiration for the thoughtfulness of the Boston orator who had sent this copy of this address in order that Mr. Lincoln might not trav- erse the same lines that the chosen speaker of the great occasion might have laid out for himself. When I exclaimed at its length, the President laughed and quoted the line,

"Solid men of Boston, make no long orations, "

which he said he had met somewhere in a speech by Daniel Webster. He said that there was no danger that he should get upon the lines of Mr. Everett's oration', for what he had ready to say was very short, or as he emphatically expressed it, — " short, short, short ! " In reph' to a question as to the speech having been already written, he said it was written, "luit not finished." He had brought the paper with him, he explained, hoping that a few minutes of leisure while waiting for the movements of the photographer and his processes would give him a chance to look over the speech.

Glimpses of Lincoln in War Time. Noah Brooks, The Century Magazine. Vol. XXYII, January,

EDWARD EVERETT

The President and Party at Gettysburg

The President's special train left Washington at noon of Wednesday the i8th. Three members of the Cabinet — Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, Mr. Usher, Secretary of the Interior, and Mr. Blair, Postmaster General — accompanied the President, as did the

FACSIMILE OF THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS As written by Lincoln for the Soldiers' and Sailors' Fair at Baltimore, in April, 1864.

CfjUyV ^<2-c<'3-'-J) cunx>o ^^-e-tA^ni/ ^jo-oytJ ^^-f^ ^^xtv-^S^^^^e^

//Vr^e...Cji:> '4Tr»' ^A?M3-e5 irJ^i-O -Y^£/i-0 A-O^U'O C^r^'i^ ^^^v*^

LINCOLN AND GRANT

457

the Constitution of the United States should be amended so that slavery should be prohibited. This was not only a change in our national policy, it was also a most important military measure. It was intended not merely as a means of abolishing slavery for- ever, but as a means of affecting the judgment and the feelings and the anticipations of those in rebellion. It was believed that such an amendment to the Con- stitution would be equivalent to new armies in the field, that it would be worth at least a million men, that it would be an intel- lectual army that would tend to paralyze the enemy and break the continuity of his ideas.

In order thus to amend the Constitution, it was necessary first to have the proposed amendment approved by three-fourths of the States. When that question came to be considered, the issue was seen to be so close that one State more was necessary. The State of Nevada was organized and admitted to the Union to answer that purpose. I have sometimes heard people complain of Nevada as superfluous and petty, not big enough to be a State; but when 1 hear that complaint, I alwavs hear Abraham Lincoln saying:

'' It is easier to admit Nevada than to raise another million of soldiers. "

Recollections of the Civil War. Charles A. Dana, page i74.

"Mr. Secretary, It Will Have to be Done"

I will cite one instance in relation to Stanton.

After compulsory military service was resorted to. States and districts tried to fill their quotas, and save their own citizens from being drafted into the army, by voting bounties to buy men where- ever^hey could be found. The agent appointed by a county m one of the Middle States, and supplied with bounty money, learned that

CHARLES A. DANA

Assistant Secretary of War

Lincoln and Stanton.

4"-

THE STORY -LIFE OE LIXCOLX

I answered that I knew nothing ; that I had been so far away from Grant since the opening of the campaign that I had not heard what he thought.

"Well," said Lincohi, "the disaffected are trying to get him to run, but I don't think they can do it. If he is the great general we think he is, he must have some consciousness of it, and know that he cannot be satisfied with himself, and secure the credit due for his great generalship if he does not finish his job. I do not

believe," he repeated, "that

From Gram , Lincoln and the Frrcdnu-):.

FACSIMILE OF PASS BY LINCOLN

they can get him to run. " . . It was distinctly not the personal rivalrv with Grant which Air. Lincoln dreaded, l:)Ut rather the loss which our cause would sutler if Grant could be induced to go into politics before the military situation was secure. This the President made unmis- takably plain to me. His con- fidence in Grant was one of the finest things I ever witnessed. The generals, he said, had failed him, one after the other, until Grant had come to the front.

" Before Grant took command of the Eastern forces, " said the President, "we did not sleep at night here in Washington. We began to fear the rebels would take the Capital, and once in posses- sion of that, we feared that foreign countries might acknowledge the Confederacy. Nobody could foresee the evil that might come from the destruction of records and of property. But since Grant has assumed command on the Potomac, I have made up my mind that whatever it is possible to have done, Grant will do, and what- ever he doesn't do, I don't believe is to be done. And now," he added with emphasis, "we sleep at night. "

Grajit. Lincoln and the Freedmen. John Eaton, Ph.D.. LL D,, race 1,^4.

The President in the Streets of the Capital

August 12th (1864). I see the President almost every day, as I happen to live where he passes to or from his lodgings out of town. He never sleeps at the White House during the hot season,

474

THE STORY-LIFE OF LIXCOLX

pleasantly, "I must initiate you," and then repeated with enthu- siasm the message he had sent to the author :

" For the genius to write these things I would gladly give up my ' office. "

Rising from his seat, he opened a desk behind, and, taking from it a pamphlet collection of the ("Nasby") "Letters" already published, proceeded to read from it with infinite zest while his melancholy features grew bright. It was a delight to see him surrender so completely to the fasci- nation. Finding that I listened, he read for more than twenty minutes, and was still proceeding, when it occurred to me that there must be many at the door waiting to see him on graver matters. Taking advantage of a pause, I rose, and, thanking him for the lesson of the morning, went away. Some thirty persons, includ- ing senators and representatives, were in the ante-chamber as I passed out.

Introduction to The Struggles of Petrokiim V . Nasby, Charles Sumner, page 14.

CHARLES SUMNER

"The End Has Almost Come!"

The next time I met Air. Lincoln was early on the morning of April 7, 1 86 5, in the log cabin now standing in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and then known as " Grant's Headquarters at City Point. " I was in search of a pass to get through the lines to the army, to see my brother, and, as I hoped, to witness the last fight of the Army of the Potomac. As I entered the room, a voice from behind the open door called my name, and as I turned, Mr. Lincoln rose from a desk and pleasantly made a few inciuiries about myself. He then said, " Oh! let me give you the latest news, " and picking up a paper which lay on his table, he read to me Sheridan's telegram to General Grant, repeated word for word bv the latter to the President, in which the capture of seven thousand men and five

THE STORY -LIFE OF LIXCOLX

"What a Pity We Have to Fight Such a Gallant Fellow !"

j\Ir. Lincoln was generous by natm-e, and though his whole heart was in the War, he could not but respect the valor of those opposed to him. His soul was too great for narrow, selfish views or partisanship. Brave by nature himself, he honored bravery in

others, even his foes. Time and again I have heard him speak in the highest terms of the s )ldierly qualities of such brave Confederate Generals as Lee, ' ■ Stonewall " Jackson and Joseph E. Johns- ton. Jackson was his ideal soldier.

" He is a brave, honest, Presbyterian soldier, " were the Presi- dent's words. '"What a pity that we should have to fight such a gallant felloAv! If we only had such a man t:) lead the armies of the North, the country would not be appalled with so many disas- ters."

The very morning of the day on which he was assassinated, his son. Captain Robert Lincoln, came into the room with a portrait of General [Robert E.] Lee in his hand. The President took the picture, laid it on the table before him, scanned the face thought- fully, and said :

" It is a good face; it is the face of a noble, noble, brave man. I am glad that the War is over at last." Looking up at Robert, he continued :

ROBERT E. LEE e of a noble, noble, brave i

MARTYRDOM ' 579

" Well, my son, you Ikinc returned safely from the front. The War is now closed, and we soon will live at peace with the brave men that have been fighting against us. I trust that the era of good feeling has returned with the end of the War, and that hence- forth we shall live in peace. Now, listen to me, Robert: You must lay aside your uniform and return to college. I wish you to read law for three years, and at the end of that time I hope we shall be able to tell whether you will make a lawyer or not. "

His face was more cheerful than I had seen it for a long while, and he seemed to be in a generous, forgiving mood.

Behind the Scenes, Elizabeth Keckley, page .;6.

The Morning of Lincoln's Last Day

"The War is over." Throughout the breadth of the North this was the jubilant cry with which people greeted one another on the morning of April 14, 1865. For ten days reports of victories had been coming to them; Petersburg evacuated, Richmond fallen, JefTerson Davis and his Cabinet fled, Lee surrendered. Mobile cap- tured. Nothing of the Confederacy, in short, remained but Johns- ton's army, and it was generally believed that its surrender to Sherman was liut a matter of hours. How completely the conflict was at an end, however, the people of the North had not realized until they read in their newspapers, on that Good Friday morning, the order of the Secretary of War suspending the draft, stopping the purchase of military supplies and removing military restrictions from trade. The War was over indeed

One man before all others in the nation felt and sho^^•ed his gladness that day — the President, Abraham Lincoln. . . . There was a marked change in his appearance. All through 1863 and 1864 his thin face had day by day grown more haggard, its hues had deepened, its pallor had become a more ghastly gray. His eye, always sad when he was in thought, had a look of unutterable grief. Through all these months Lincoln was, in fact, consumed by sorrow.

" I think I shall never be glad again, " he said once to a friend. But as one bv one the weights lifted, a change came over him; his form straightened, his face cleared, the lines became less accentu- ated.

" His whole appearance, poise, and bearing had marvellously changed," says the Hon. James Harlan. "He was, in fact, trans-

5S2 THE STORY-LIFE OF LTXCOLX

"'Gentlemen, something very extraordinary is going to happen, and that very soon.' "

To which the Attorney-General had observed : "Something very good, sir, I hope?" when the President answered \'ery gravely :

" I don't know — I don't know. But it will happen, and shrrtly too. "

As they were all impressed b}' liis manner, the Attorney-Gen- eral took him up again.

" Have you received any information, sir, not yet disclosed to us ? "

" Xo, " answered the President, "but I have had a dream. And I have had the same dream three times : once the night pre- ceding the battle of Bull Run, once on the night preceding such another" (naming a battle also not favorable to the North). His chin sank on his breast again, and he sat reflecting. "j\Iight one ask the nature of this dream, sir?" said the Attor- ney-General.

"Well," I'eplied the President, witlnait lifting his head (ir changing his attitude, "I am on a great, broad, rolling river — and I am in a boat — and I drift — and I drift — but this is not business, " suddenly raising his voice and looking around the table as Mr. Stanton entered :

" Let us proceed to business, gentlemen. "

ilr. Stanton and the Attorney -Gen- eral said, as they walked on together, it would be curious to notice whether any- thing ensued on this, and they agreed to notice.

Of those who met at this council, one of the latest survivors was the Hon. James Speed, of Louisville, then Attor- ney-General. His attention having been called to this account from Dickens, its verity was confirmed in a letter. . . .in which Mr. Speed said : "I cannot attempt to gi^"e in better words than ^h. Dickens an account of that Cabinet meeting, although it made an indelible impression upon my memory. Even after the lapse of so many

MAKTYRIXXM

5SS

Treasury a group of friends, among them Richard Oglesby, then Governor of Illinois.

" Come back, boys, come back, " he shouted.

The party turned, joined the President on the portico, and went up to his office with him.

"How long we remained there I do not remember," says Governor Oglesby. " Lincoln got to reading some humorous book; I think it was by 'John Phoenix.' They kept sending for him to come to dinner. He promised each time to go, but would continue reading the book. Finally he got a sort of peremptorv order that he must come to dinner at once. It was explained to me by the old man at the door that they were going to have dinner and then go to the theater. "

A theater party had been made up by Mrs. Lincoln for that evening — General and Mrs. Grant being her guests — to see Laura Keene, at Ford's Theater, in "Our American Cousin. " Miss Keene was ending her season in Washington that night with a benefit. The box had been ordered in the morning, and unusual preparations had been made to receive the Presidential party. The parti- tion between the two upper pi-oscenium boxes at the left of the stage had been removed, comfortable upholstered chairs had been put ford-s theater

in, and the front of the box had been draped

with flags. The manager, of coutse, took care to announce in the afternoon papers that the "President and his lady," and the "Hero of Appomattox" would attend Miss Keene's benefit that evening.

By eight o'clock the house was filled with the half -idle, half- curious crowd of a holiday night. Many had come simply to see General Grant, whose face was then unfamiliar in Washington. Others, strolling down the street, had dropped in because they had nothing better to do. The play began promptly, the house following its nonsensical fun with friendly eyes and generous applause, one eye on the President's box.

The presidential party was late. Indeed it had not left the house until after eight o'clock, and then it was made up differently

MART]'Rr>OM

Mr. Lincoln replied with considerable warmth of manner,

"I have done with commissions. I believe they are con- trivances to cheat the gc\-ernment out of every pound of cotton they can lav their hands on. "

Mr. Ashmun's face flushed, and he replied that he hoped the President meant no personal imputation. Mr. Lincoln saw that he had wounded his friend, and he instantly repUed :

"You did not understand me, Ashmun. I did not mean what y(Xi inferred. I take it all back. ... I apologize to you, Ash- mun. "

He then engaged to see Mr. Ashmun early the next morning, and taking a card, he wrote :

These were his last written w( irds. Turning t(.i Mr. Colfax he said :

" You will accompany Mi"s. Lincoln and me to the theater, I hope ? ' '

Mr. Colfax pleaded other engagements, — expecting to start on his Pacific trip the next morning. The party passed out on the portico together, the President saying at the very last :

"Colfax, don't forget to tell the people of the mining regions what I told A'ou this morning about the development when peace comes;" then shaking hands with both gentlemen, he followed ]\Irs.

5 88

THE STORY-LIFE OF LIXCOLX

Lincoln into the carriage, leaning forward, at the last moment, to say as they were driven off :

" I will telegraph you, Colfax, at San Francisco. "

Six Months at the White House, F. B. Carpenter, page 2S4.

The Tragedy Described by an Eye-Witness

About the middle of the first act the President and party arrived, and were received with loud and hearty applause. The band played " Hail to the Chief!" which stopped the performance for a few minutes while they were proceeding to their seats. On reach- ing the box the President took a large arm-chair in front and to the Jeft as they entered; ^Ivs. Lincoln took a chair in front to the right, and Miss Harris one near Mrs. Lin- coln, but not quite as far forward. Major Rathbone was seated farther back than the ladies, on an old- fashioned sofa that ran along the wall on the extreme right.

About the middle of the third act a shot was heard and immediately thereupon rang out John Wilkes Booth's cry, "Sic semper tyrannis!" — not after he reached the stage, as has been stated in some accounts; neither did he jump from the box full height, with arms outspread and upstretched, as we often see him in illustrations. On the contrary', he placed both hands upon the rail of the box and swung himself over in that manner, thereby lessening the fall by the distance of his own height. One of his spurs caught in the American colors with which the box was draped, and he probably landed his whole weight on one foot. On striking the stage he pitched forward on all fours, and I then saw the blade of a long stiletto or dagger glisten in the footlights, as his hand lay on the floor. He quickly rose to his feet and took one or two uncertain steps, then, turning

Sfo

THE STORY -LIFE OF I.IXCOLX

onlv about three or four feet

FORD'S TKEATES

, J^lr..

PATRIOTIC SMC AND CHORUS HoNOHio OBaeoLDiEas

BEBEnTof iliss JSNHIE GQIJBUY

: EDW^: ADAMS

Leslie's Weekly. March jr,. ,„oS

LINCOLN'S PLAY-BILL

" That the marks thereon are the life-blood of Abraham Lincoln is certain."

mediately gave spurs to his

back (.)f the cliair in which Mr. Lincohi sat. I recall the weapon as a single- barreled percussion -cap affair, of the Derringer type, shorter and more compact than the dueling pistols so much in favor among gentlemen of the old school in those days.

As we started to leave the theater we met, at the head of the stairway, a policeman, \\-ho inquired if we were present at the time of the shooting, etc., and said we had better give our names and addresses, as it might be necessary to call us as witnesses. I drew the pistol out of my pocket and gave it to the policeman to take charge of against the chance of its being called for as evi- dence. . . .

Within an hour's time a continuous line of pickets from one fortification to another was thrown around Washington, or at least such was stated to have been the case. Orders were issued for- bidding any one to leave the city, and all precautions possible were taken to pre^'ent escape; but Wilkes Booth had within a half hour's time crossed the eastern branch of the Potomac, dashed on ])ast the military asylum, and thence into Maryland. At the bridge the sentry demanded the password, but Booth replied ^\•ith a plausible explanation and im- horse. He had ridden this horse

AIARTVRDOM 591

repeatedly over the same s^rouiicl tluring several preceding weeks, as a sort of rehearsal of his flight.

A A"nf Story of the Assassination of Lincoln, W. H. Taylur. Leslie's Weekly, Vol. CVI, March 26, 190S, page 302.

How the Dastardly Deed Was Done

It was at the close of the second act that (John Wilkes) Booth and his two fellow-conspirators appeared at the door. Booth said, "I think he will come down now, " and they aligned themselves to await his coming. Their communications with each other were in whispered tones. Finding that the President would remain until the close of the play, they then began to prepare to assassinate him in the theater. The neatly dressed man called the time three times in succession at short intervals, each time a little louder than before. Booth now entered the saloon, took a drink of whiskey, and then went at once into the theater. He passed quickly along next to the wall behind the chairs, and having reached a point near the door that led to the passage behind the box, he stopped, took a small pack of visiting cards from his pocket, selected one and replaced the others; stood a second with it in his hand, and then showed it to the President's messenger, who was sitting just below him, and, then, without waiting, passed through the door from the lobby into the passage, closing and barring it after him. Taking a hasty, but careful, look through the hole which he had had made in the door for the purpose of assuring himself of the President's position, cocking his pistol and with his finger on the trigger, he pulled open the door, and stealthily entered the box, where he stood right behind and within three feet of the President. The play had advanced to the second scene of the third act, and whilst the audience was intensely interested. Booth fired the fatal shot — the ball penetrating the skull on the back (jf the left side of the head, inflicting a wound in the brain..

As soon as Booth had fired his pistol, and was satisfied that his end was accomplished, he cried out, "Revenge for the South!" and throwing his pistol down, he took his dagger in his right hand, and placed his left on the balustrade preparatory to his leap of twelve feet to the stage. Just at this moment Major Rathbone sprang forward and tried to catch him. In this he failed, but received a severe cut on his arm from a back-handed thrust of Booth's dagger.

THE STOR\'-I.II'l-: (>!■' I.IXCOLX

he said, "has entered the left side of his head." I immediately hurried upstairs . . . .to Captain Robert Lincoln's room. He had just come from the front that morning, where he had been doing duty on the staff of General Grant. . . . I simply said, "Captain, there has something happened to the President ; you had better go down to the theater and see what it is. "

He said to me, "Go and call llajor Hay." I said to him, "Major, Captain Lincoln wants to see you at once. The President has been shot. " He ^^•as a handsome young man with a bloom on his cheeks just like that of a beautiful young lady. When I told him the news, he tuimed deathly pale, the color entirely leaving his cheeks. He said to me, " Don't allow anj^bod}^ to enter the house. " I said, "Very good, Major. Nobody shall come in." The}- took their departure immediately for the theater. They had been gone probably half an hour, when poor little Tad returned from the National Theatre and entered through the east door of the basement of the White House. He came up the stairway and ran to me, while I was in the main vestibule, standing at the window, and before he got to me he burst out crying, " O Tom Pen ! Tom Pen ! they have killed Papa dead, they've killed Papa dead!" and burst out crying again

At nearly twelve o'clock that night I got Tad somewhat pacified, and took him into the President's room, which is in the southwest portion of the building. I turned down the cover of his little bed, and he undressed and got in. I covered him up and lay down beside him, put my arm around him, and talked to him tmtil he fell into a sound sleep.

Ah ! that was a sad night for the nation, and to me it was simply awful, for I loved ilr. Lincoln probably better than I loved any one else in the world.

Thirly-Six Years in the White House, Thomas F. Pendel. Doorkeeper, page 42.

The Flickering Light Goes Out

The first floor of the house where Mr. Lincoln had just been carried was composed of three rooms, opening on the same corridor. It was in the third, a small room, that the dying man lay.

His face, lighted by a gas-jet, under which the bed had been moved, was pale and li^-id. His body had already the rigidity of death. iVt intervals only the still audible sound of his breathmg

. The Lijc'l Abraham

LIFE MASK OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN Made by Leonard W. Volk, the sculptor, of Chicago.

(654)

596 THE STORY -LIFE OE LTXCOLX

could be faintly heard, and at intervals again it would be lost entirely. The sm-geons did not entertain hope that he might recover a moment's consciousness. Judge William T. Otto, a thirty years' friend of Mr. Lincoln's, was standing at the bedside holding his hand ; around the bed stood also the Attorney General, Air. Speed, and the Rev. Mr. Gurney, pastor of the church Mr. Lincoln usually attended.

Leaning against the wall stood ilr. Stanton, who gazed now and then at the dying man's face, and who seemed overwhelmed with emotion. From time to time he wrote telegrams or ga-ve orders which, in the midst of the crisis, asswed the preservation of peace. The remaining members of the Cabinet and several senators were pacing up and down the corridor. Thus the night passed on. At last, tov.-ard seven o'clock in the morning, the surgeon announced that death was at hand, and at t\\'enty minutes after se\'en the pulse ceased beating.

Every one present seemed then to emerge from the stupor in which the hours of the night had been spent. Mr. Stanton approached the bed, closed Mr. Lincoln's eyes, and drawing the sheet over the dead man's head, uttered these words in a very low voice : —

" He is a man for the ages. "

Personal Recollections of Mr. Lincoln. The Marquis de Chambrun. Scribners Magazine, Vol. XHI, January, iSq3, page 37.

"Don't Cry So, Mamma You Will Break My Heart!"

Retm-ning to ilrs. Lincoln's room I found her in a new parox- ysm of grief. Robert was bending over his mother with tender affection, and little Tad was crouched at the foot of the bed with a world of agony in his young face. I shall never forget the scene — the wails of a broken heart, the rmearthl}^ shrieks, the terrible con- vulsions, the wild tempestuous outbursts of grief from the soul. I bathed ]\Irs. Lincoln's head with cold water, and soothed the terrible tornado as best I could. Tad's grief at his father's death was as great as the grief of his mother, but her terrible outburst awed the boy into silence. Sometimes he would throw his arms around her neck and exclaim, between his sobs :

" Don't cry so, !Mamma, don't cry, or you will make me cry too! You will break mv heart. "

MARTM-inOM

599

Gay read the article, and asked the foreman if he had any private place where he could lock up the type, to which no one but himself had access. The foreman said he had. Gay bade him tie up the type, lock the galley with this article in his cupboard, and tell no one what he had told him. Of course no such article appeared in the Tribune the next inorning;.

But when Gay arrived on the next day at the office, he was met with the news that "the old man" wanted him, v,-ith the intimation that "the old man" was very angry. Gay waited upon Greeley.

"Are you there, Mr. Gay? I have been looking for you. Thev tell me that you ordered my leader out of this morning's paper. Is it youi" paper or mine? I should like to know if I cannot print what I choose in my own newspaper. " This in great rage.

" The paper is yours, Mr. Greeley. The article is in type up- stairs, and you can use it v\'hen you choose. Only this, Mr. Greeley: I know New York, and I hope and believe, before God, that there is so much virtue in New York that, if I had let that article go into this morning's paper, there would not be one brick left upon another in the Tribune office now. Certainly I should be sorrv if there were. "

Mr. Greeley was cowed, to the subject again.

James Russell Lou'cll and His Friends, Edward Everett Hale, page i

HORACE GREELEY

He said not a word, nor ever alluded

Richmond Receives News of the Assassination

During this period of waiting came the news of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. Perhaps I ought to chronicle that the announce- ment was received with demonstrations of sorrow. If I did, I should be Iving for sentiment's sake. Among the higher officers and the mo.st intelligent and conservati^'e men, the assassination caused a shudder of horror at the heinousness of the act, and at the

•/■///•: irOAV./' /,V MiU'RNING 62s

1'art of the First Bale of Fkek Cotton

Was shipped from West Virginia, U. S., to Liverpool, 1865.

Free Cotton is King. But what did it cost?

The story of that bale of cotton is soon told. People from all the towns "footed it" to Liverpool and got a "lurry" (fiat wagon), and trimmed it with flowers and bunting, and placed the bale of cotton in the center of the wage )n. and the flag that you know so well newly vindicated in liberty, and the flag imder which I ^\-as born, and which, in spite of all its mistakes and blunders of the i 770's, is a glorious flag, and between them the picture that you lo^'e, that my father loved, that you sufl^ered for, that my folks sufiiered for, the plain picture that appeals to plain people in all the world — Abraham Lincoln.

My Story of Abraham Lincoln. James E. Holdcn. The Oiithok. Vol. LXX, March 22, 1002, page 71.S.

Abraham Lincoln — " The First American "

Such was he, our Maityr-Chief,

Whom late the Nation he had led.

With ashes on her head. Wept with the passion of an angry grief ; Forgive me, if from present things I turn To speak what in my heart will lieat and burn, And hang my wreath on his world -honored urn.

Nature, they say, doth dote.

And cannot make a man

Save on some worn-out plan.

Repeating us by rote : For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw.

And, choosing sweet clay from the breast

Of the unexhausted AVest, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new. Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.

How beautiful to see Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed. Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead ; One whose meek flock the people joyed to be.

INDEX

"A. Lincoln's Imp'd Manner of

Buoying Vessels " 223

Abbott's Biographies, Lincoln reads,2i5

Abbott, Willis J., On Lincoln 347

Abolition, Great leaders of 243

317, 40-1, S4<'^ Abraham, Family name, Lincoln's

,E;randfather 17

"Abraham," "Father," soldiers'

nickname 2S4

"Abraham Lincoln, " Bryant's fvnie-

ral ode 607

Account (Stanton's) of first reading of Emancipation Procla- mation . 3S3

Adams, Charles Francis, Ambassa- dor 2S7, 303

John, President ig

John Oiiincy, President 74

Address, Farewell to Springfield 203

First Inaugtiral 255

Greeley's opinion of '. 257

General reception of 258

Gettysburg 450-433

Second Inaugural 504

Tcinperancc (Lincoln's) 17S

Administration, Cautious policy of.., 280 Criticisms and Complaints against.. .299, 315, 417, 444

Early perplexities of 279

Seward's suggestions for 2S0

Alton, Last Debate at i gS

Ancestry, Lincoln's American and

English 3, 1 7-2 I

Anderson, Robert, Lieutenant in

Black Hawk War. .106, 107 Major, in command at Fort

Sumter 300-303

(64

Anderson, General 413

Anderson ville, Lineohi's sorrow over 319

Hanging, Commander of 615

Antietam, Battle of 3s-'

Lincoln's visit to McClellan's

Headquarters 385

Why a "drawn " battle 403

Anti-slavery agitation 17J

2 7, 253, 494, 546

Attitude of Lincoln's father 29

Arithmetic, Lincoln's "home-made" 46 Armory .Harper's Ferry, John Brown 187

Confederates capture 276

Arms, Length and strength of Lin- coln's 89, 102, 599

Armstrong, Hannah 120, 223

Jack 88, 89, 120

William ("Duff") murder trial 223

Army, Increase of 343

of the Cumberland 377

of Potomac, Inaction of 28S, 307, 334 Trials with. ... 255, 303, 328

of the Tennessee 397

of Virginia 288

Pemberton's, "like S^-kes's yel- low dog " 404

IT. S. scattered by Sec. Floyd. .279 Arnold, Isaac N., Lincoln's friend

and biographer 41

84, no, 153, 229, 414 Arsenal, seized by Confederates.. .. 276 --S7. 31S "Artemus Ward" (Charles F. Browne) visits the Presi- dent "Eleck" -'-^7--'3o

Ashmun, George, Chairman Repub- lican Convention, i860., 249 Chamn. Notification Committee 254 Lincoln's letter of acceptance to, 257 Lincoln's last writing for 597

I)

INDEX TO THE BOOK

This single page illustrates the general style of the thorough index which will be published in the complete book. It will give the correct page references to every event or person named in the work, and will enable the reader to find in an instant any story or episode connected with Lincoln and those around him This important feature adds fully 50 per cent, to the value of the work and will be appreciated by every reader.

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MILLION EDITION

WHIPPLE'S

STORY-LIFE OF LINCOLN

Price only $1.75

The largest, best written and best illustrated Life of Lincoln ever sold for the money

The Million Edition of The Story-Life of Lincoln (sold at only $1.75) is exactly like the larger (iditioii (as represented by this prospectus and sold for $2.50 in cloth) in the followmg respects:

The Million Edition contains the same number of pages as the larger and higher priced I'diticiii. Pii'th editions contain 700 pages. The Million Edition is not an abridged work.

The type in the Million Edition is the same as used in t\v- larger and higher jiriced edition. The illustrations in the Million Edition are the same as used in the larger and higher priced edition, including the sixteen beautiful plates printed in photogravure effect.

The paper used in the Million Edition is of the same character of high finished stock, and nf tl] Lime quality as is used in the larger and highi I ii'iced edition.

The Binding of the Million Edition is shown opposite. This sample also shows the beavitiful medallion stamping that is used on the Milhon Edition, and also represents the exact size of the Million Edition Book.

THE ONLY DIFFERENCE between the Million Edition and the larger and higher priced edition is that the Million Edition is jjrinted on a lighter weight paper with slightly smaller margins. Thf i-iiiiiiilctc liiink in the Million Edition mea- sures aliiiiit S;| xi\\ inches and 1\ inches thick.

Subscribers need have no hesitancy in ordermg the Milhon Edition. This edition has lici'u prepared to meet the large demand for a low ■ iri re book. It is worth much more than we ask for ! c , tjut we made this low price so that no family in die land need deny itself a copy of this necessary _.^ook for the home. No one ever purchased the Million Edition who did not express surprise at the i gi-eat value obtained. Words cannot express the i value in this book, but the book will spe^k for itself. Sold through our Authorized Agents only. Price $1.75, No more. No less

■' ■. ,7E QUARANT-iE THE BOOK EXACTLY AS REPRESENTED

rLINCOLK

BY WAYNE WHIPPLE

ILLU^IMAII::^

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