This is not a conventional biography. It is a collection of sketches in which an attempt is made to portray the character of Abraham Lincoln as the highest type of the American from several interesting points of view. He has doubtless been the subject of more literary composition than any other man of modern times, although there was nothing eccentric or abnormal about him; there were no mysteries in his career to excite curiosity; no controversies concerning his conduct, morals, or motives; no doubt as to his purposes; and no difference of opinion as to his unselfish patriotism or the success of his administration of the government in the most trying period of its existence. Perhaps there is no other man of prominence in American history, or in the history of the human family, whose reputation is more firmly and clearly established. There is certainly none more beloved and revered, whose character is so well understood and so universally admired, and whose political, moral, and intellectual integrity is so fully admitted by his opponents as well as his supporters.

Of such a man, wrote a well-known writer, the last word can never be said. Each succeeding generation may profit by the contemplation of his strength and triumphs. His rise from obscurity to fame and power14 was almost as sudden and startling as that of Napoleon, for it may truthfully be said that when Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency he was an unknown man. He had occupied no important position; he had rendered no great public service; his reputation was that of a debater and politician, and did not become national until he delivered a remarkable speech at Cooper union, New York. His election was not due to personal popularity, nor to the strength of the party he represented, nor to the justice of his cause; but to factional strife and jealousies among his opponents. When the American people were approaching the greatest crisis in their history, it was the hand of Providence that turned the eyes of the loyal people of the North to this plain man of the prairies, and his rugged figure rose before them as if he were created for their leader.

Napoleon became dizzy; yielded to the temptations of power, betrayed his people, grasped at empire, and fell; but the higher Lincoln rose the more modest became his manners, the more serene his temper, the more conspicuous his unselfishness, the purer and more patriotic his motives. With masterful tact and force he assumed responsibilities that made men shudder. The captain of a company of uncouth volunteers began to organize vast armies, undertook the direction of military campaigns and of a momentous civil war, and conducted the diplomatic relations of a nation with skill and statesmanship that astonished his ministers and his generals. He, an humble country lawyer and local politician, suddenly took his place with the world's greatest statesmen, planned and managed the legislation of Congress, proposed financial measures that involved the wealth of the nation, and alone, in the midst of the confusion of war and the clamor of greedy politicians and the dissensions of his advisers, solved problems that staggered the wisest minds of the nation. The popular story-teller of the cross-roads, the crack debater15 of the New Salem Literary Club, became an orator of immortal fame. The rail-splitter of the Sangamon became the most honored and respected man of his generation.

Such men are not accidents. The strength of a structure depends upon the material used and the treatment it has received. Poor material may be improved and good material is often spoiled in the making; but only when the pure metal has passed through the fire and the forge is it fit to sustain a severe strain. Thus Abraham Lincoln, unconscious of his destiny, by the struggles and privations of his early life was qualified for the task to which Infinite Wisdom had assigned him.

Abraham Lincoln's father was descended from Samuel Lincoln, who emigrated from the west of England a few years after the landing of the Pilgrims and settled at the village of Hingham, on the south shore of Massachusetts Bay, between Boston and Plymouth. Eight men bearing that name came over on the same ship and are supposed to have been related. An army of their descendants is scattered over the union. One of them, Samuel Lincoln, left a large family which has produced several prominent figures besides a President of the United States. One of his grandsons in the third generation, Levi Lincoln, was recognized for a generation as the leader of the New England bar. He was Secretary of State and Attorney-General in the Cabinet of President Jefferson, a member of the Legislature of Massachusetts, and one of the ablest and most influential men of his day.

The fourth son of Samuel Lincoln, Mordecai, I, acquired wealth as a manufacturer. His eldest son, who inherited his name, moved to Berks County, Pennsylvania, and had a son named John, who took up a tract of land in Virginia about the year 1760, where, like the rest of his name, he raised a large family. John Lincoln, II, his second son, became prominent in public16 affairs, and was a member of the Convention that framed the first Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania.

On July 10, 1760, Abraham, I, the third of the five sons of John Lincoln, II, married Anna Boone, a cousin of Daniel Boone, the most famous of American pioneers, and his father gave him a farm in the Shenandoah Valley. By frequent intermarriages between the Boones and the Lincolns they were closely allied. By the will of Mordecai Lincoln, II, his "loving friend and neighbor George Boone" was made executor of his estate and Squire Boone, father of the celebrated Daniel, was appointed to make an inventory of the property. Hananiah Lincoln was a partner of Daniel Boone in the purchase of a tract of land on the Missouri River in 1798, and it was there that the great woodsman died.

The name Abraham was a favorite among the Lincoln family. It occurs frequently in their genealogy. A young man named Abraham Lincoln distinguished himself for courage and brutality on the Confederate side during the Civil War. He killed a Dunkard preacher whom he suspected of furnishing information to the union army. The union President received several letters of offensive tone from his kinsman in the South during the earlier part of his administration.

The farm of Abraham Lincoln, I, in the Shenandoah Valley, was on the great national highway along which the course of empire took its westward way, and, infected by continual contact with the emigrants and encouraged by the greatest of American pioneers, he sold the property his father had given him, packed his wife and five children into a Conestoga wagon, and followed the great migration until it led him to what is now Hughes Station, Jefferson County, Kentucky, where he entered a large tract of land and paid for it one hundred and sixty pounds "in current money." The original warrant, dated March 4, 1780, is still in existence. By the blunder of a clerk in the Land Office the name was17 misspelled Linkhorn, and Abraham, I, was too careless or busy to correct it, for it appears that way in all the subsequent records. Hananiah Lincoln, the partner of Daniel Boone, furnished the surveyor's certificate.

Four years later, in the spring of 1784, occurred the first tragedy in the annals of the Lincoln family. Abraham, I, with his three sons, were at work clearing ground upon his farm when they were attacked by a wandering squad of Indians. The first shot from the brush killed the father. Mordecai, III, the eldest son, started to the house for his rifle; Josiah ran to the neighbors for assistance, leaving Thomas, a child of six, alone with his father. After Mordecai had recovered his rifle he saw an Indian in war-paint appear upon the scene, examine the dead body of his father, and stoop to raise the lad from the ground. Taking deliberate aim at a white ornament that hung from the neck of the savage, he brought him down and his little brother escaped to the cabin. The Indians began to appear in the thicket, but Mordecai, shooting through the loopholes of the cabin, held them off until Josiah returned with reinforcements.

From circumstantial evidence we must infer that Anna 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, where she disappears from human knowledge. Her eldest son, Mordecai, III, appears to have inherited his father's money, as the rules of primogeniture 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. Late in life he removed to Hancock County, Illinois, where he died and is buried. Josiah, the second son, crossed the Ohio River and took up a homestead in what is now called Harrison County, Indiana. Mary,18 the eldest daughter, married Ralph Crume, and Nancy, the fourth child, married William Brumfield. Their descendants are still found in Hardin, Washington, and other counties in that neighborhood.

Explanations are wanting for the circumstance that Thomas, the youngest son and brother of this prosperous family, whose father was slain before his eyes when he was only six years old, was turned adrift, without home or care, for at ten years of age we find him "a wandering, 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 was twenty-five years old he had saved 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.

While learning his trade in the carpenter shop of Joseph Hanks, Thomas Lincoln married Nancy Hanks, his own cousin, and the niece of his employer. He probably met her at the house of Richard Berry, with whom she lived, and must have seen a good deal of her at the home of her uncle. At all events, the cousins became engaged; their nuptial bond was signed according to the law on June 10, 1806, and two days later they were married by the Rev. Jesse Head, at the home of Richard Berry, near Beechland, Washington County, Kentucky.

Nancy Hanks was descended from William Hanks, who came to this country in 1699 and settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Four of his five sons moved to Amelia County, Virginia, where they had a large tract of land. One of their descendants, Joseph Hanks, married Nancy Shipley, and in 1789 moved to Kentucky19 with a large party of his relatives. In 1793 he died, leaving eight children, who were scattered among their relatives, and Nancy, the youngest, when nine years old, found a home with her aunt, Lucy Shipley, the wife of Richard Berry. She is represented to have been a sweet-tempered and handsome woman, of intellect, appearance, and character superior to her position; and could even read and write, which was a remarkable accomplishment among the women of that day. She taught her husband to write his name. But she had no means whatever, being entirely dependent upon her uncle, and it is probable that she was willing to marry even so humble a husband as Thomas Lincoln, for the sake of securing independence and a home.

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

Thomas Lincoln either failed to earn sufficient money to meet his household expenses or grew tired of his carpenter work, for, two years later, he left Elizabethtown 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 water, 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 furnished20 a brief autobiography to Mr. Hicks, an artist who was painting his portrait, in which he said,—

    "I was born February 12, 1809, in then Hardin County, Kentucky, at a point within the now County of Larue, a mile or a mile and a half from where Hodgen's mill now is. My parents being dead, and my own memory not serving, I know no means of identifying the precise locality. It was on Nolen Creek.

    "A. Lincoln.

    "June 14, 1860."

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

In 1813 the family removed to a more comfortable home on Knob Creek, six miles from Hodgensville, where Thomas Lincoln bought a better farm of two hundred and thirty-eight acres for one hundred and eighteen pounds and gave his note in payment. This was Abraham Lincoln's second home, and there he lived for four years.

We know little about his childhood, except that it was of continual privation in a cheerless home, for Thomas Lincoln evidently found it difficult to supply his family with food and clothing. Mr. Lincoln seldom talked freely of those days, even to his most intimate friends, although from remarks which he dropped from time to time they judged that the impressions of his first years were indelible upon his temperament and contributed to his melancholy. On one occasion, being asked if he remembered anything about the War of 1812, he said that when a child, returning from fishing one day, he met a soldier in the road and, having been admonished by his mother that everybody should be good to the soldiers, he gave him his fish.

Thomas and Nancy Lincoln had three children. Sarah, the eldest, at the age of fourteen married Aaron21 Griggsby and died in childbirth a year later. Thomas, the third child, died when only three days old.

When Abraham was about seven years old his father became restless and went across the river into Indiana to look for a new home. It has been represented by some of Lincoln's biographers that the motive of his removal was his dislike of slavery; that he wished to remove his son from its influence; but Lincoln attributed the determination to other reasons, particularly his father's difficulty in securing a valid title to his land. It is quite as probable that, like other men of his temperament, he thought he could do better in a new place; like other rolling stones, that he could gather more moss in a new soil. He found a purchaser for his farm who gave him in payment twenty dollars in money and ten barrels of whiskey, which Thomas Lincoln loaded upon a flat-boat, with his household furniture, floating it down Knob Creek to Rolling Fork, to Salt River, to the Ohio River, and down the Ohio to Thompson's Ferry in Perry County, Indiana. The boat upset on the way and part of the whiskey and some of his carpenter tools were lost. He plunged into the forest, found a location that suited him about sixteen miles from the river, called Pigeon Creek, where he left his property with a settler, and, as his boat could not float upstream, he sold it and walked back to Hodgensville to get his wife and two children. He secured a wagon and two horses, in which he carried his family and whatever of his household effects were then remaining.

Arriving at his location, which was a piece of timber land a mile and a half east of what is now Gentryville, Spencer County, he built a log cabin fourteen feet square, open to the weather on one side, and without windows or chimney. This was Abraham Lincoln's third home, and the family lived in that rude, primitive way for more than a year, managing to raise a patch of corn and a few vegetables during the following summer, which,22 with corn meal ground at a hand grist-mill seven miles away, were their chief food. Game, however, was abundant. The streams were full of fish and wild fruits could be gathered in the forest. The future President of the United States slept upon a heap of dry leaves in a narrow loft at one end of the cabin, to which he climbed by means of pegs driven into the wall. A year after his arrival Thomas Lincoln entered the quarter section of land he occupied and made his first payment under what was familiarly known as the "two-dollar-an-acre law," but it was eleven years before he could pay enough to obtain a patent for half of it. He then erected a permanent home of logs which was comparatively comfortable and was perhaps as good as those occupied by most of his neighbors.

In the fall of 1818 the little community of pioneers was almost exterminated by an epidemic known as "milk sickness," and among the victims was Nancy Hanks Lincoln, who was buried with her neighbors in a little clearing in the forest in a coffin made of green lumber, cut with a whip-saw by her husband. There were no ceremonies at her burial, but several months later Abraham, then ten years old, wrote to Parson David Elkin, the itinerant Free-will Baptist preacher at Hodgensville, of his mother's death, and begged him to come to Indiana and preach her funeral sermon. Nancy Lincoln must have been highly esteemed or this poor parson would not have come a hundred miles through the wilderness in answer to this summons from her child, for several months later he appeared according to appointment, and all the settlers for many miles around assembled to hear him. It was the most important event that had ever occurred in the community and was remembered longer than any other.

The death of Mrs. Lincoln left the child Sarah, then only eleven years old, to care for the household, and, with the assistance of her brother, she struggled through23 the next year until the autumn of 1819, when their father returned to Hodgensville and married Sally Bush Johnston, a widow with three children (John, Sarah, and Matilda), whom he had courted before he married Nancy Hanks. She seems to have been a woman of uncommon energy and nobility of character, and in after-life her step-son paid her a worthy tribute when he said that the strongest influence which stimulated and guided him in his ambition came from her and from his own mother. Under her management conditions improved. She brought a little property and some household goods into the family as well as three children, stimulated her husband to industry, and taught his children habits of order, cleanliness, and thrift. There was never any friction between her and her step-children, and her own brood, John, Sarah, and Matilda, were received cordially and treated with affection. Nor in their after-lives was any distinction made by either of the parents. The step-mother recognized in Abraham a boy of unusual talent, and encouraged and assisted him by every means within her power.

Abraham's life was spent at hard labor. He was a boy of unusual stature and, from the time he was ten years old, did a man's work. He learned all the tricks in the trades that a pioneer's son must know; hired out upon the neighboring farms when there was nothing for him to do at home, and his wages (twenty-five cents a day) were paid to his father. He cared little for amusement, and hunting, which was the chief recreation of young men of his age, had no attractions for him. In his brief autobiography, which was prepared for the newspapers the day after his nomination for the Presidency, he says,—

"A flock of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin, and Abraham, with a rifle gun, standing inside, shot through the cracks and killed one of them. He has never since pulled a trigger on any larger game."24 He joined in the rude amusements and sports of the community like other boys and enjoyed them. His quick intelligence, ready sympathy, wit, humor, and generous disposition made him a great favorite. He was the best talker and story-teller in the neighborhood. His tall stature and unusual strength made him a leader in athletic sports, and his studious habits and retentive memory gave him an advantage among his comrades, a few of whom had a little, but the most of them no education. His less gifted comrades recognized his ability and superiority; they learned to accept his opinions and to respect his judgment. He became an instructor as well as a leader, and the local traditions represent him as a sort of intellectual phenomenon, whose wit, anecdotes, doggerel verses, practical jokes, muscular strength, and skill made him the wonder of the community and are a part of the early history of that section.

When he was sixteen he operated a ferry-boat at the mouth of Anderson's Creek, transporting passengers across the Ohio River, and it was then that he earned the first money that he could claim as his own. One evening in the White House, while he was President, he told the story to several members of his Cabinet, and Mr. Secretary Seward gives the following account of it:

"I was contemplating my new flat-boat, and wondering whether I could make it stronger or improve it in any particular, when two men came down to the shore in carriages with trunks, and looking at the different boats singled out mine, and asked: 'Who owns this?' I answered, somewhat modestly, 'I do.' 'Will you,' said one of them, 'take us and our trunks out to the steamer?' 'Certainly,' said I. I was glad to have the chance of earning something. I supposed that each of them would give me two or three bits. The trunks were put on my flat-boat, and the passengers seated themselves on the trunks, and I sculled them out to the steamer.

25 "They got on board, and I lifted up their heavy trunks and put them on deck. The steamer was about to put on steam again, when I called out that they had forgotten to pay me. Each of them took from his pocket a silver half-dollar and threw it on the floor of my boat. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up the money. Gentlemen, you may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me a trifle; but it was the most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day—that by honest work I had earned a dollar. The world seemed fairer and wider before me. I was a more hopeful and confident being from that time."

When he was nineteen Mr. Gentry, the most prominent man in the neighborhood, from whom the town of Gentryville was named, and who kept the "store," embarked in a new enterprise, and sent Abraham with his son Allen upon a flat-boat to New Orleans with a load of bacon, corn meal, and other provisions, paying him eight dollars a month and his passage home on a steamboat. Thus the future President obtained his first glimpse of the world outside the Indiana forest, and the impressions left upon his mind by this experience were never effaced. It was the beginning of a new life for him and the awakening of new ambitions.

"He was a hired man merely," wrote Lincoln of himself nearly thirty years afterwards, "and he and a son of the owner, without any other assistance, made the trip. The nature of part of the 'cargo load,' as it was called, made it necessary for them to linger and trade along the sugar-coast, and one night they were attacked by seven negroes with intent to kill and rob them. They were hurt some in the mêlée, but succeeded in driving the negroes from the boat, and then 'cut cable,' 'weighed anchor,' and left."

26 The prairies of Illinois were becoming a great temptation to pioneers in those days, and the restless disposition of Thomas Lincoln could not be restrained; so he and several of his relatives joined the migration, making a party of thirteen. Lincoln himself tells the story in these words:

"March 1st, 1830, Abraham having just completed his twenty-first year, his father and family, with the families of the two daughters and sons-in-law of his step-mother, left the old homestead in Indiana and came to Illinois. Their mode of conveyance was wagons drawn by ox-teams, and Abraham drove one of the teams. They reached the county of Macon, and stopped there some time within the same month of March. His father and family settled a new place on the north side of the Sangamon River, at the junction of the timber land and prairie, about ten miles westerly from Decatur. Here they built a log cabin, into which they removed, and made sufficient of rails to fence ten acres of ground, fenced and broke the ground, and raised a crop of sown corn upon it in the same year."

The sons-in-law of his step-mother referred to were Dennis Hanks and Levi Hall, who had married Sarah and Matilda, Lincoln's step-sisters. Hanks was a son of the Joseph Hanks with whom Thomas Lincoln learned the carpenter's trade in Kentucky. Another son, John Hanks, was a member of the family, and it was he who appeared at the State convention at Decatur, May 9, 1860, bearing two weather-worn fence-rails decorated with streamers and a banner inscribed to the effect that they were from the identical lot of three thousand rails which Lincoln had cut on the Sangamon River in 1830. This dramatic scene was devised by Richard J. Oglesby, afterwards Governor and United States Senator, and one of Lincoln's most ardent admirers and faithful supporters. Little did Lincoln dream when he was splitting rails in the walnut woods with John Hanks that he and27 his companion would appear in a drama of national interest with samples of their handiwork to electrify the country with enthusiasm and confer upon the long-legged farmer boy the sobriquet of "The Illinois Rail-Splitter."

Delegates had been elected to the second National Republican Convention to be held at Chicago a week later, when Mr. Oglesby arose and announced in a serious and mysterious manner that an old citizen of Macon County had something to present to the Convention. Then, with great dramatic effect, John Hanks entered, bearing the relics which were to become the symbols of the National Convention. The assembly was transformed into a tumult, and Lincoln was brought to the platform, where, when order could be restored, he said,—

"Gentlemen: I suppose you want to know something about those things. Well, the truth is, John Hanks and I did make rails in the Sangamon bottom. I don't know whether we made those rails or not; fact is, I don't think they are a credit to the maker [and his awkward frame shook with suppressed laughter]; but I know this, I made rails then and I think I could make better ones than these now."

The rails were taken to the National Convention at Chicago and had a prominent place at the Illinois head-quarters, where, trimmed with flowers and lighted by tapers by enthusiastic ladies, they were the subject of much private and newspaper attention. Later in the campaign they were sent from place to place in the country and other rails from the old farm were also used as campaign emblems. A Philadelphia speculator sent to Illinois and purchased a car-load of them.

Through the remainder of the year and the following winter (1830-31) young Lincoln was employed about his father's new home and at intervals assisted the neighbors in farm work in company with John Hanks.28 When he reached his twenty-first year he started out for himself according to the custom of the country. He was the most promising young man in that neighborhood. He had a better education than any of the community, his intellectual and conversational powers were beyond all rivalry, and his physical strength and endurance were remarkable even among the giants of those days. He stood six feet four inches in his stockings, and could outlift, outwork, outrun, and outwrestle every man of his acquaintance. And his pride in his physical accomplishments was greater than in his intellectual attainments. For a man of his natural modesty he was very vain of his stature and strength, and was accustomed to display and boast of them even after he became President. He retained his muscular strength to the end of his life, although he then took very little physical exercise. The muscles of his body were like iron. General Veile says that he could take a heavy axe and, grasping it with his thumb and forefinger at the extreme end of the handle, hold it out on a horizontal line from his body. "When I was eighteen years of age I could do this," he said with pride, "and I have never seen the day since when I could not do it." The attachés of the office of the Secretary of War relate curious stories of his frequent displays of muscular strength when he visited the War Department to read the despatches from his generals. He frequently astonished visitors at the Executive Mansion by asking them to measure height with him, and one day shocked Senator Sumner by suggesting that they stand back to back to see which was the taller. A delegation of clergymen appeared at the White House one morning bursting with righteous indignation because slavery was still tolerated in the rebellious States and bearing a series of fervid resolutions demanding immediate abolition. One of the number was a very tall man, and the President could scarcely wait until he had completed his carefully prepared oration presenting the29 memorial. As soon as he had uttered the last word, Mr. Lincoln asked eagerly,—

"Mr. Blank, how tall are you?"

The clergyman turned scarlet and looked around at his colleagues in amazement.

"I believe I am taller than you," continued the President. "What is your height?"

"Six feet three inches," responded the divine with evident irritation.

"Then I outmeasure you by an inch," said Mr. Lincoln with a satisfied air, and proceeded to explain the situation as to slavery.

A similar scene occurred on another occasion when, however, the visitor happened to be a trifle taller than the President. One of his friends who was present says that the latter showed more irritation than he had ever seen him exhibit before; nor did he forget it, but the next time his friend called he referred to the matter and remarked that he considered himself the tallest man in Washington, although he didn't pretend to be as handsome as General Scott.

When the notification committee came from the Chicago Convention to his home at Springfield, they were presented one after another to their candidate, and, as Governor E. D. Morgan, of New York, reached him, he asked his height and weight. Mr. Morgan gave the information with some amusement, whereupon Lincoln remarked,—

"You are the heavier, but I am the taller."

In 1859, when he went to Milwaukee to deliver an address at a State fair, a cannon-ball tosser in a sideshow interested him more than anything else on the grounds. Lincoln insisted upon testing the weights he handled, and was quite chagrined because he was not able to throw them about as easily as the professional. As they parted he remarked in his droll way,—

30 "You can outlift me, but I could lick salt off the top of your hat."

Thomas Lincoln did not remain long at his home on the bluffs overlooking the Sangamon River. He was always afflicted with the fever of unrest. Like so many of his class, he continued to advance westward, keeping on the skirmish line of the frontier. He removed three times after he came to Illinois in search of better luck, and never found it. He owned three farms, but never paid for any of them, and was always growing poorer and signing larger mortgages. Finally, when he had reached the end of his credit, Lincoln bought him a tract of forty acres near Farmington, Coles County, where he lived until January 17, 1851, long enough to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing his son one of the foremost men in the State. He was buried near the little hamlet. His wife survived both him and her famous step-son, and was tenderly cared for as long as the latter lived. Before starting for his inauguration he paid her a visit, in February, 1861, when they spent the day in affectionate companionship. She had a presentiment that she should never see him again and told him so, but neither dreamed that he would die first. She lived until April, 1869, a pious, gentle, intelligent, and well-loved woman, and was buried beside her husband. Robert T. Lincoln has erected a monument over their graves.

John Johnston, Lincoln's step-brother, was an honest, but uneasy and shiftless man, and gave him a great deal of trouble. He lived with his mother and step-father most of his life, but never contributed much to their support, and was always in debt, although Lincoln several times give him means to make a fresh start. Lincoln's letters to his step-brother, several of which have been preserved, throw considerable light upon his character.

In 1851, after Thomas Lincoln's death, Johnston proposed to leave his mother and go to Missouri, where he thought he could do better than in Illinois, and asked31 permission to sell the farm which Lincoln had bought to secure his step-mother a home for life.

"You propose to sell it for three hundred dollars," wrote Lincoln in his indignation, "take one hundred dollars away with you, and leave her two hundred dollars at eight per cent, making her the enormous sum of sixteen dollars a year. Now, if you are satisfied with seeing her in that way I am not."

Then Johnston proposed that Lincoln should lend him eighty dollars to pay his expenses to Missouri.

"You say you would give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars," Lincoln wrote his step-brother. "Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. What I propose is that you shall go to work 'tooth and nail' for somebody who will give you money for it.... I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your own labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar.... In this I do not mean that you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close at home in Coles County. Now, if you will do this, you will soon be out of debt, and, what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would be just as deep as ever."

A few months later Lincoln wrote Johnston again in regard to his contemplated move to Missouri:

"What can you do in Missouri better than here? Is the land any richer? Can you there, any more than here, raise corn and wheat and oats without work? Will anybody there, any more than here, do your work for you? If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to32 go to work, you cannot get along anywhere. Squirming and crawling about from place to place can do you no good. You have raised no crop this year; and what you really want is to sell the land, get the money, and spend it. Part with the land you have, and, my life upon it, you will never after own a spot big enough to bury you in. Half you will get for the land you will spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you will eat, drink, and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought. Now, I feel it my duty to have no hand in such a piece of foolery."

Shortly after leaving his father's primitive home in the spring of 1831, Lincoln obtained employment with Denton Offutt, a trader and speculator, who, having heard that he had already made a voyage on a flat-boat from Indiana to New Orleans, engaged him for a similar expedition, in company with John D. Johnston, his step-brother, and John Hanks, his cousin, for twelve dollars a month each with their return expenses. It took some time to build the boat, and at the very beginning of the voyage it stuck midway across a dam at the village of New Salem. The bow was high in the air, the stern was low in the water, and shipwreck seemed absolutely certain when Lincoln's ingenuity rescued the craft. Having unloaded the cargo, he bored a hole in the bottom at the end extending over the dam; then he tilted up the boat and let the water run out. That being done, the boat was easily shoved over the dam and reloaded. This novel exhibition of marine engineering so impressed the inhabitants of the neighborhood that Abraham Lincoln's genius was discussed at every fireside for months thereafter, and he gained a reputation at New Salem that proved to be of great value. He was so much interested in what he had done that twenty years later he developed the idea and applied for a patent for a curious contrivance for lifting flat-boats over shoals.

The journey to New Orleans was a valuable experience.33 Lincoln's first actual contact with the system of slavery made him an abolitionist for life, and the impressions he received were retained throughout his entire career. He returned to St. Louis by steamer, walked across the country to New Salem, and became a clerk in the store of Denton Offutt, measuring calico, weighing out sugar and nails, tending a grist-mill, and making himself useful to his employer and popular with the people.

The following year he engaged in a mercantile adventure on his own account at New Salem which failed disastrously, and found himself loaded with obligations which, in humorous satire upon his own folly, he called "the national debt." His creditors accepted his notes in settlement, and during the next seventeen years he paid them in instalments unto the uttermost farthing, although the terrible responsibility darkened all the days of his life.

"That debt," he once said to a friend, "was the greatest obstacle I have ever met in my life; I had no way of speculating, and could not earn money except by labor, and to earn by labor eleven hundred dollars besides my living seemed the work of a lifetime. There was, however, but one way. I went to the creditors, and told them that if they would let me alone I would give them all I could earn over my living, as fast as I could earn it."

As late as 1849, when a member of Congress, so we are informed by Mr. Herndon, he sent home money saved from his salary to be applied on these obligations. Only a single creditor refused to accept his promises. A man named Van Bergen, who bought one of his notes on speculation, brought suit, obtained judgment against him, and levied upon the horse, saddle, and instruments used by him daily in surveying, and with which, to use his own words, he "kept body and soul together."

James Short, a well-to-do farmer living a few miles34 north of New Salem, heard of the trouble which had befallen his young friend, and, without advising Lincoln, attended the sale, bought in the horse and surveying instruments for one hundred and twenty dollars, and turned them over to their former owner. After Lincoln left New Salem James Short removed to the far West, and one day thirty years later he received a letter from Washington, containing the surprising but gratifying announcement that he had been commissioned as Indian agent.

It was this honorable discharge of the obligations in which he became involved through the rascality of another man that gave Lincoln the sobriquet of "Honest Old Abe," which one of his biographers has said "proved of greater service to himself and his country than if he had gained the wealth of Cr?sus."

It was while he was struggling along, trying to do business with his partner Berry, that he was appointed postmaster at New Salem, which office he continued to hold until it was discontinued in May, 1836. His duties as postmaster, as well as his compensation, were very light, because there were only two or three hundred patrons of the office and their correspondence was limited. He carried their letters around in his hat and read all of their newspapers before he delivered them.

A widely circulated story that Lincoln was once a saloon-keeper was based upon the fact that the firm of Berry & Lincoln obtained a license to sell liquors, which was the practice of all country storekeepers in those days; but, as a matter of fact, the firm never had money or credit sufficient to obtain a stock of that class of goods, and committed the offence only by intention.

In the great debate in 1858, Douglas, in a patronizing manner and a spirit of badinage, spoke of having known Lincoln when he was a "flourishing grocery-keeper" at New Salem. Lincoln retorted that he had never been a "flourishing" grocery-keeper; but added that, if he35 had been, it was certain that his friend, Judge Douglas, would have been his best customer.

His employment as surveyor began in 1834 and continued for several years while he was serving in the Legislature. John Calhoun, the County Surveyor, from whom he received an appointment as deputy, was a man of education and talent, and an ambitious Democratic politician who afterwards played a prominent part in the Kansas conspiracy.

Judge Stephen T. Logan saw Lincoln for the first time in 1832. He thus speaks of his future partner: "He was a very tall, gawky, and rough-looking fellow then; his pantaloons didn't meet his shoes by six inches. But after he began speaking I became very much interested in him. He made a very sensible speech. His manner was very much the same as in after-life; that is, the same peculiar characteristics were apparent then, though of course in after-years he evinced more knowledge and experience. But he had then the same novelty and the same peculiarity in presenting his ideas. He had the same individuality that he kept through all his life."

Like other famous men of strong character and intellectual force, Lincoln was very sentimental, and had several love-affairs which caused him quite as much anxiety and anguish as happiness. The scene of his first romance was laid in Indiana when he was a barefooted boy, and was afterwards related by him in these words:

"When I was a little codger, one day a wagon with a lady and two girls and a man broke down near us, and while they were fixing up, they cooked in our kitchen. The woman had books and read us stories, and they were the first I had ever heard. I took a great fancy to one of the girls; and when they were gone I thought of her a great deal, and one day, when I was sitting out in the sun by the house, I wrote out a story in my mind. I36 thought I took my father's horse and followed the wagon, and finally I found it, and they were surprised to see me. I talked with the girl and persuaded her to elope with me; and that night I put her on my horse, and we started off across the prairie. After several hours we came to a camp; and when we rode up we found it was the one we had left a few hours before, and we went in. The next night we tried again, and the same thing happened—the horse came back to the same place; and then we concluded that we ought not to elope. I stayed until I had persuaded her father to give her to me. I always meant to write that story out and publish it, and I began once, but I concluded that it was not much of a story. But I think that was the beginning of love with me."

David R. Locke, of Toledo (Petroleum V. Nasby), said, "I was in Washington once more in 1864, when the great struggle was nearer its close. My business was to secure a pardon for a young man from Ohio who had deserted under rather peculiar circumstances. When he enlisted he was under engagement to a young girl, and went to the front very certain of her faithfulness. It is needless to say that the young girl, being exceptionally pretty, had another lover. Taking advantage of the absence of the favored lover, the discarded one renewed his suit with great vehemence, and rumors reached the young man at the front that his love had gone over to his enemy, and that he was in danger of losing her entirely. He immediately applied for a furlough, which was refused him, and, half mad and reckless of consequences, deserted. He married the girl, but was immediately arrested as a deserter, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be shot. I stated the circumstances, giving the young fellow a good character, and the President at once signed a pardon, saying,—

"'I want to punish the young man; probably in less than a year he will wish I had withheld the pardon.37 We can't tell, though. I suppose when I was a young man I should have done the same fool thing.'"

Among his acquaintances at New Salem while he was clerk, postmaster, and surveyor was a blue-eyed girl named Anne Rutledge, who, according to the local traditions, was very beautiful and attractive. Her father, James Rutledge, was one of the founders of the village and kept the tavern at which Lincoln was a regular boarder. He came of a distinguished family and was especially proud of the fact that his grandfather was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Before Lincoln met his daughter she had become engaged to John McNeill, alias McNamara, one of the wealthiest and most prosperous of the young men in that part of Illinois. After the announcement of their engagement, McNeill went East to arrange certain business affairs before settling down permanently in Illinois. At first he wrote frequently to his sweetheart, but the intervals between letters grew longer and longer, and finally they ceased altogether.

About this time young Lincoln appeared upon the scene, and, of course, as there were no secrets among neighbors in those days, he was informed of the story. The poor girl's sorrow awakened a sympathy which soon ripened into love. He saw her constantly at her father's tavern, sat by her side at breakfast, dinner, and supper, and usually spent his evenings with her upon the tavern steps or wandering in the lanes of the neighborhood. It was a long time before the girl would listen to his suit; but, convinced that her former lover was either dead or had deserted her, she finally yielded and promised to become Lincoln's wife. As she desired to complete her education, she went to Jacksonville to spend the winter in an academy while he went to Springfield to attend the session of the Legislature and continue his law studies, it being agreed that in the spring, when he had been admitted to the bar, they should be married;38 but in the mean time the girl fell ill and died. The neighbors said that her disease was a broken heart, but the doctors called it brain fever. Lincoln's sorrow was so intense that his friends feared suicide. It was at this time that the profound melancholy which he is believed to have inherited from his mother was first developed. He never fully recovered from his grief, and, even after he had been elected President, told a friend, "I really loved that girl and often think of her now, and I have loved the name of Rutledge to this day."

He finally recovered his spirits and continued his law studies, politics, and surveying. He removed to Springfield two years later, became a partner of one of the leading attorneys of the State, and took quite an active part in the social affairs of the State capital. Although careless of forms and indifferent to the conventionalities of the day, he was recognized as a rising man, and his humor and conversational powers made him a great favorite. His name appears frequently in the reports of social events at that time; he was an habitual speaker at public banquets and one of the managers of a cotillion party given at the American House, December 16, 1839.

About a year after the death of Anne Rutledge he became involved in a rather ludicrous complication with Miss Mary Owens. It was an undignified and mortifying predicament, but the way he carried himself showed his high sense of honor and obedience to his convictions of duty. It began with a jest. The young lady had visited Springfield, where she had received considerable attention, and Mrs. Able, her sister, before starting for a visit to Kentucky, told Lincoln that she would bring her sister back with her if he would agree to marry her. The bantering offer was accepted, and a few months later he learned with consternation that the young lady expected him to fulfil the agreement. Lincoln39 was greatly distressed, but his sense of honor would not permit him to deny his obligations. To Mrs. O. H. Browning, whose husband was afterwards a United States Senator and a member of the Cabinet, he explained his predicament, as follows: "I had told her sister that I would take her for better or for worse, and I make a point of honor and conscience in all things to stick to my word, especially if others had been induced to act on it, which in this case I have no doubt they had, for I was now fairly convinced that no other man on earth would have her, and hence the conclusion they were bent on holding me to my bargain. At once I determined to consider her my wife, and this done, all my powers of discovery were put to work in search of perfections in her which might be fairly set off against her defects."

She was several years his senior and not personally attractive, but he assumed that she was an honorable woman with an affectionate regard for him, and wrote her with the utmost candor, explaining his poverty and the sacrifices that she would have to make in marrying him. "I am afraid you would not be satisfied," he wrote; "you would have to be poor without the means of hiding your poverty. Do you believe you could bear that patiently? Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I could imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort. I know I should be much happier with you than the way I am, provided I saw no signs of discontent in you. What you have said to me may have been in the way of a jest, or I may have misunderstood it. If so, then let it be forgotten; if otherwise, I much wish you would think seriously before you decide. What I have said I will most positively abide by, provided you wish it. My opinion is that you had better not do it. You have40 not been accustomed to hardship, and it may be more severe than you now imagine. I know you are capable of thinking correctly on any subject, and if you deliberate maturely upon this before you decide, then I am willing to abide your decision."

Miss Owens was evidently not pleased with the situation, and replied with equal candor, telling Lincoln, among other unpleasant things, that she never had any intention or desire to marry him, for he was "deficient in those little links which go to make up a woman's happiness." He rejoiced at his release, but her words stung, and he wrote Mrs. Browning, "I was mortified in a hundred different ways. My vanity was deeply wounded by the reflection that I had so long been too stupid to discover her intentions, and at the same time never doubting that I understood them perfectly; and also that she, whom I had taught myself to believe nobody else would have, had actually rejected me with all my fancied greatness. And, to cap the whole, I then for the first time began to suspect that I was a little in love with her. But let it go; I will try and outlive it. Others have been made fools of by girls, but this can never with truth be said of me. I most emphatically, in this instance, made a fool of myself. I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I never can be satisfied with any one who would be blockhead enough to have me."

But it was not long before he was again involved in the chains of Cupid. Miss Mary Todd, also of Kentucky, came to Springfield to visit her sister, the wife of Ninian W. Edwards, one of Lincoln's colleagues in the Legislature. She received much attention from the most prominent young men in Springfield, including Stephen A. Douglas, James Shields, and other of Lincoln's political associates and rivals; but it was soon apparent that she preferred him, and against the protests41 of Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, who were familiar with his hopeless pecuniary circumstances, they became engaged.

The course of their love did not run smooth. Their tastes were different. Miss Todd was absorbed in social pleasures and demanded admiration and devotion. Lincoln was absorbed in his studies and political affairs and was not so ardent a lover as she desired. Misunderstandings and reproaches were frequent, and at last Lincoln became so thoroughly convinced that they were unsuited to each other that he asked to be released from the engagement. The young woman consented with tears of anger and grief, and Lincoln, having discovered, when it was too late, the depth of her love for him, accused himself of a breach of honor so bitterly that it preyed upon his mind. He wrote Joshua F. Speed, of Kentucky, who was the most intimate friend he had, and whose brother was afterwards a member of his Cabinet, "I must regain my confidence in my own ability to keep my resolves when they are made. In that ability I once prided myself as the only or the chief gem of my character. That gem I have lost. How and where you know too well. I have not yet regained it, and until I do I cannot trust myself in any matter of much importance."

Everybody in Springfield knew of the broken engagement and that it was the cause of Mr. Lincoln's intense remorse and melancholy. He did not deny or attempt to disguise it. He wrote Mr. Stuart, his law partner, three weeks after the fatal first of January, "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell; I awfully forebode that I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or get better." To other of his intimates he spoke with equal freedom of the sense of dishonor and42 despair that possessed him, and they persuaded him to visit his friend Speed, who carried him off to Kentucky and kept him for several months. The visit did much to brighten his spirits, and his own distress was forgotten in his efforts to comfort Speed, who in the meantime had become engaged, was afraid that he did not love his sweetheart well enough to marry her, and confided his doubts to Lincoln.

In the mean time Miss Todd appears to have regained her self-possession and calmly awaited the will of the fates who were to restore relations with her sensitive and remorseful lover. The incident which finally brought them together was a comedy of national interest.

Among the most conspicuous Democratic politicians in Illinois at that time was James Shields, an impulsive Irishman of diminutive stature who was afterwards a general in two wars and a member of the United States Senate from two States. His ardent admiration for the ladies and his personal eccentricities exposed him to ridicule, about which he was very sensitive, and when he found himself the subject of a satirical letter and doggerel poem in a Springfield newspaper he became enraged, called upon the editor, and demanded the name of the author. The satires happened to have been the joint composition of Miss Todd and Julia Jayne, one of her girl friends, who afterwards became the wife of Lyman Trumbull. In his dilemma the editor asked the advice of Mr. Lincoln, who replied,—

"Tell Shields that I wrote them."

Whereupon he received a challenge which was promptly accepted. According to the code, Lincoln, being the party challenged, was entitled to the choice of weapons, and, as he did not believe in duelling, he tried to compel Shields to withdraw his challenge by proposing the most absurd conditions, which, however, Shields accepted without appearing to perceive the purpose43 of his antagonist. Lincoln was a very tall man with unusually long arms. Shields was very short,—so short that his head did not reach to Lincoln's shoulder,—yet the conditions were that they should go down to an island in the Mississippi River and fight with broadswords across a plank set up on edge, and whichever of the contestants retreated three feet back of the plank lost the battle.

The parties actually went across the country,—a journey of three days on horseback,—the plank was set on edge, and the battle was about to begin when mutual friends intervened and put an end to the nonsense. One of the spectators described the scene in most graphic language; how the two antagonists were seated on logs while their seconds arranged the plank. "Lincoln's face was grave and serious," he said, "although he must have been shaking with suppressed amusement. Presently he reached over and picked up one of the swords, which he drew from its scabbard. Then he felt along the edge of the weapon with his thumb like a barber feels of the edge of his razor, raised himself to his full height, stretched out his long arm, and clipped off a twig above his head with the sword. There wasn't another man of us who could have reached anywhere near that twig, and the absurdity of that long-reaching fellow fighting with cavalry sabres with Shields, who could walk under his arm, came pretty near making me howl with laughter. After Lincoln had cut off the twig, he returned the sword solemnly to the scabbard and sat down again on the log."

Upon the return of the duelling party to Springfield, several conflicting explanations were made by friends, the supporters of Lincoln making the affair as ridiculous as possible, while the defenders of Shields endeavored to turn it to his credit. It was Lincoln's last personal quarrel. Happily, more ink than blood was shed, but the gossips of Springfield were furnished the most44 exciting topic of the generation, and Miss Todd and Mr. Lincoln, who had been estranged for nearly a year, were brought together with mutual gratification. On November 4, 1842, they were married at the residence of Mr. Edwards, the brother-in-law of the bride, and Mr. Lincoln's melancholy disappeared or was dissipated by the sunshine of a happy home. He took his bride to board at the Globe Tavern, where, he wrote his friend Speed, the charges were four dollars a week for both, and returned to the practical routine of his daily life with the patience, industry, and intelligence which were his greatest characteristics. His partnership with Stuart lasted four years until the latter was elected to Congress, when a new one was formed with Judge Stephen T. Logan, who had studied Lincoln's character and learned his ability while presiding upon the circuit bench.

Mr. Lincoln's talent was acknowledged by every one who knew him. He was rapidly assuming leadership in politics and at the bar. Compared with most of his neighbors and associates he was a man of learning, and his wisdom and sense of justice made him an umpire and arbitrator in all forms of contest from wrestling matches to dissensions among husbands and wives. His gentle sympathy, sincerity, candor, and fearless honesty were recognized and appreciated by the entire community. No man in Springfield or in that part of the State where he was best known ever questioned his word or his integrity of character. With the encouragement of Judge Logan, he undertook a deeper and more serious study of the law, and the eminence of his partner brought to the firm much lucrative business which Lincoln was able to manage. His income increased in a corresponding manner, and he was able to indulge his wife and family in greater comforts and luxuries; but at the same time he was very poor. His step-mother and step-brother were burdens upon him; he was still struggling45 to pay what he called "the national debt" as rapidly as possible, and laid aside every cent he could spare from his household expenses for that purpose.

But he was never a money-maker. That talent was sadly lacking in him as in other great men. While he was in New York to make his Cooper Institute speech in the spring of 1860, he met an old acquaintance from Illinois, whom he addressed with an inquiry as to how he had fared since leaving the West. "I have made a hundred thousand dollars and lost all," was his reply. Then, turning questioner, he said, "How is it with you, Mr. Lincoln?" "Oh, very well," he said; "I have a cottage at Springfield and about eight thousand dollars in money. If they make me Vice-President with Seward, as some say they will, I hope I shall be able to increase it to twenty thousand; and that is as much as any man ought to want."

With the fee received from one of his earliest important cases he purchased a modest frame house in an unfashionable part of Springfield, which was afterwards enlarged, and was his only home. It was also the only piece of property he ever owned, with the exception of two tracts of wild land in Iowa which he received from Congress for his services in the Black Hawk War. In that house he received the committee that came to notify him of his nomination for the Presidency, and its members were impressed with the simplicity of his life and surroundings. It was more comfortable than commodious, and not unlike the residences of well-to-do members of his profession throughout the country. He lived well, he was hospitable to his friends, and Mrs. Lincoln took an active part in the social affairs of the community.

One who often visited him, referring to "the old-fashioned hospitality of Springfield," writes, "Among others I recall with a sad pleasure the dinners and evening parties given by Mrs. Lincoln. In her modest46 and simple home, where everything was so orderly and refined, there was always on the part of both host and hostess a cordial and hearty Western welcome which put every guest perfectly at ease. Their table was famed for the excellence of many rare Kentucky dishes, and for venison, wild turkeys, and other game, then so abundant. Yet it was her genial manner and ever-kind welcome, and Mr. Lincoln's wit and humor, anecdote and unrivalled conversation, which formed the chief attraction."

They had four children: Edward Baker, born March 10, 1846, who died in infancy; William Wallace, born December 21, 1850, died in the White House February 20, 1862; Thomas, born April 4, 1853, died in Chicago July 15, 1871; and Robert Todd, the only survivor, born August 1, 1843, a graduate of Harvard University and a lawyer by profession. He filled with distinction the office of Secretary of War during the administrations of Presidents Garfield and Arthur, was minister to England under President Harrison, and now resides in Chicago as President of the Pullman Sleeping Car Company.

Mr. Lincoln was very fond of his children, and many anecdotes are related of his adventures with them. He frequently took his boys about with him, finding more satisfaction in their companionship than among his old associates. He seldom went to his office in the morning without carrying his youngest child down the street on his shoulder, while the older ones clung to his hands or coat-tails. Every child in Springfield knew and loved him, for his sympathy seemed to comprehend them all. It has been said that there was no institution in Springfield in which he did not take an active interest. He made a daily visit to a drug store on the public square which was the rendezvous of politicians and lawyers, and on Sunday morning was always to be found in his pew in the First Presbyterian Church. He was one of47 the most modest yet the most honored member of the community, and his affection for his neighbors could have been no better expressed than in his few words of farewell when he left Springfield for his inauguration at Washington:

"My friends: no one not in my position can realize 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 my children were born and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. I go to assume a task more difficult than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine blessing which sustained him; and on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support. And I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive that Divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain. Again I bid you an affectionate farewell."

Mrs. Lincoln died at the residence of her sister, Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards, in Springfield, July 16, 1882. Dr. Thomas W. Dresser, her physician during her last illness, says of her, "In the late years of her life mental peculiarities were developed which finally culminated in a slight apoplexy, producing paralysis of which she died. Among the peculiarities alluded to, one of the most singular was the habit she had during the last year or so of her life of immuring herself in a perfectly dark room and, for light, using a small candle-light, even when the sun was shining bright out of doors. No urging would induce her to go out into the fresh air. Another peculiarity was the accumulation of large quantities of silks and dress goods in trunks and by the cart-load, which she never used and which accumulated until it was really feared that the floor of the storeroom48 would give way. She was bright and sparkling in conversation, and her memory remained singularly good up to the very close of her life. Her face was animated and pleasing, and to me she was always an interesting woman; and while the whole world was finding fault with her temper and disposition, it was clear to me that the trouble was really a cerebral disease."

In appearance Lincoln was a very plain man. Folks called him ugly, but his ugliness was impressive. He was gaunt and awkward, his limbs and arms were very long, his hands and feet were large, and his knuckles were prominent. His neck was long, the skin was coarse and wrinkled and the sinews showed under it. There was so little flesh upon his face that his features were more pronounced than they otherwise would have been. His nose and chin were especially prominent. In all his movements he was as awkward as he was uncouth in appearance, but it was an awkwardness that was often eloquent.

General Fry left this pen portrait: "Lincoln was tall and thin; his long bones were united by large joints, and he had a long neck and an angular face and head. Many likenesses represent his face well enough, but none that I have ever seen do justice to the awkwardness and ungainliness of his figure. His feet, hanging loosely to his ankles, were prominent objects; but his hands were more conspicuous even than his feet,—due, perhaps, to the fact that ceremony at times compelled him to clothe them in white kid gloves, which always fitted loosely. Both in the height of conversation and in the depth of reflection his hand now and then ran over or supported his head, giving his hair habitually a disordered aspect."

Mr. Lincoln's indifference about dress did not improve his appearance. His old-fashioned "stovepipe hat" was as familiar an object around Washington as it49 was in Springfield, and his family and associates were unable to induce him to purchase a new one. He usually wore a suit of broadcloth with a long frock coat, the customary garments of the legal profession in the West and South in those days, and, instead of an overcoat, a gray shawl which was more than half the time hanging carelessly over one shoulder.

He enjoyed jokes at the expense of his personal appearance, and used to appropriate to himself this ancient incident which has been told of so many other ugly men. "In the days when I used to be on the circuit," he often said, "I was once accosted in the cars by a stranger, who said, 'Excuse me, sir, but I have an article in my possession which belongs to you.' 'How is that?' I asked, considerably astonished. The stranger took a jack-knife from his pocket. 'This knife,' said he, 'was placed in my hands some years ago with the injunction that I was to keep it until I found a man uglier than myself. I have carried it from that time until this. Allow me now to say, sir, that I think you are fairly entitled to the property.'"

Another of his stories about himself concerned a certain honest old farmer who, visiting the capital for the first time, was taken by the member from his "deestrick" to some large gathering at which he was told he could see the President. Unfortunately, Mr. Lincoln did not appear; and the Congressman, being a bit of a wag and not liking to have his constituent disappointed, pointed out a gentleman of a particularly round and rubicund countenance. The worthy farmer, greatly astonished, exclaimed, "Is that Old Abe? Well, I do declare! He's a better-looking man than I expected to see; but it does seem as if his troubles had driven him to drink."

One night Lincoln had a dream which he used to relate with great gusto to his friends and family. He said that he was in some great assembly and the crowd opened to let him pass. One of the multitude remarked,50 "He is a common-looking fellow," whereupon Lincoln turned and rebuked him, saying, "Friend, the Lord prefers common-looking people; that is why he made so many of them."

As is well known, Mr. Lincoln's nature sought relief in trying situations by recalling incidents or anecdotes of a humorous character. It was his safety-valve, and when his memory awakened the story he sought, there would be a sudden and radical transformation of his features. His face would glow, his eyes would twinkle, and his lips would curl and quiver. His face was often an impenetrable mask, and people who watched him when a perplexing question was proposed, or when he was in doubt as to his duty, could never interpret what was going on in his mind. He never declined to face any person, however annoying or dangerous, and this faith in his own strength sufficed to guide him through some of the severest trials that have ever fallen to the lot of a public man.

At times Mr. Lincoln stood almost transfigured, and those who were with him declare that his face would light up with a beauty as if it were inspired. When in repose it wore an expression of infinite sadness, which was due to his natural melancholy temperament as well as to the continual strain of anxiety and his familiarity with the horrors inseparable from war. There was no heart so tender for the sufferings and sorrows of the soldiers and their families in all the country, and he seemed to share the anguish of the broken-hearted mothers whose sons had fallen in battle or were starving in prison beyond his rescue. When death entered his own household his sorrow could scarcely be measured; his sympathetic soul yielded so often to importunities that his generals declared that he was destroying the discipline of the army. His own career had been an incessant struggle, a ceaseless endeavor, and his tenderness is traceable to impressions thus formed. No man51 ever occupied a similar position whose experience had been so closely parallel with that of the plain people he represented. Nowhere in all literature can be found a more appropriate or touching expression of sympathy than his letter to Mrs. Bixby, of Boston, who, it was then supposed, had given five sons to her country:

    "Dear Madam:—I have been shown, in the files of the War Department, a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic that they have died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

    "Yours very sincerely and respectfully,

    "Abraham Lincoln."

Mr. D. R. Locke (Petroleum V. Nasby), of whose writings he was so fond, said, "Those who accuse Lincoln of frivolity never knew him. I never saw a more thoughtful face, I never saw a more dignified face, I never saw so sad a face. He had humor of which he was totally unconscious, but it was not frivolity. He said wonderfully witty things, but never from a desire to be witty. His wit was entirely illustrative. He used it because, and only because, at times he could say more in this way and better illustrate the idea with which he was 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. He52 was essentially epigrammatic and parabolic. He was a master of satire, which at times was as blunt as a meat-axe 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."

One day the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens called at the White House with an elderly lady in great trouble, whose son had been in the army, but for some offence had been court-martialled and sentenced either to death or imprisonment at hard labor for a long term. There were extenuating circumstances, and after a full hearing the President said, "Mr. Stevens, do you think this is a case which will warrant my interference?" "With my knowledge of the facts and parties," was the reply, "I should have no hesitation in granting a pardon." "Then," returned Mr. Lincoln, "I will pardon him," and he proceeded forthwith to execute the paper. The gratitude of the mother was too deep for expression, save by tears, and not a word was said until half-way down the stairs, when she suddenly broke forth, in an excited manner,—

"I knew it was a Copperhead lie!"

"What do you mean, madam?" asked Mr. Stevens.

"Why, they told me he was an ugly looking man," she replied with vehemence. "He is the handsomest man I ever saw in all my life."

The doorkeepers at the White House had standing orders that, no matter how great might be the throng, the President would see every person who came to him with a petition for the saving of life. A woman carrying a baby came three days in succession. Her husband had deserted from the army, and had been caught and sentenced to be shot. While going through the anteroom, Mr. Lincoln heard the child cry, rang a bell, and, when the doorkeeper came, asked,—

53 "Daniel, is there a woman with a baby in the anteroom? Send her to me at once."

She went in, told her story, and the President pardoned her husband. As she came out from his presence her lips were moving in prayer and the tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"Madam, it was the baby that did it!" said the messenger.

Mr. A. B. Chandler, who had charge of the telegraph office at the War Department, says that on several occasions Lincoln came to the office near midnight with a message written by his own hand in order that there should be no mistake or delay in sending respite to a condemned soldier. "I think," said Mr. Chandler, "he never failed to interpose his power to prevent the execution of a soldier for sleeping at his post, or any other than a wilful and malicious act; and even in such cases, when brought to his attention, he made the most careful review of the facts, and always seemed more anxious to find the offender innocent than guilty; and when guilty he was disposed to take into consideration, as far as possible, any extenuating circumstances in favor of the wrong-doer.

"On New Year's morning, 1864," continued Mr. Chandler, "Mr. Lincoln was about opening the door of the military telegraph office. A woman stood in the hall, crying. Mr. Lincoln had observed this, and as soon as he was seated he said to Major Eckert, 'What is the woman crying about just outside your door? I wish you would go and see,' said Mr. Lincoln. So the major went out and learned that the woman had come to Washington expecting to be able to go to the army and see her soldier husband, which was not altogether unusual for ladies to do while the army was in the winter-quarters; but very strict orders had recently been issued prohibiting women from visiting the army, and she found herself with her child, in Washington, incurring more54 expense than she supposed would be necessary, with very little money, and in great grief. This being explained to the President, he said, in his frank, off-hand way, 'Come, now, let's send her down: what do you say?'

"The major explained the strict orders that the Department had issued lately, the propriety of which Mr. Lincoln recognized, but he was still unwilling to yield his purpose. Finally the major suggested that a leave of absence to come to Washington might be given the woman's husband. The President quickly adopted the suggestion, and directed that Colonel Hardie, an assistant adjutant-general on duty in an adjoining room, should make an official order permitting the man to come to Washington."

But when provoked, or when his sense of justice was violated, Lincoln showed a terrible temper. It is related that on one occasion when the California delegation in Congress called upon him to present a nominee for an office, they disputed the right of Senator Baker, of Oregon, to be consulted respecting the patronage of the Pacific coast. One of them unwisely attacked the private character and motives of the Oregon Senator, forgetting that he had been one of Lincoln's oldest and closest friends in Illinois. The President's indignation was aroused instantly, and he defended Baker and denounced his accusers with a vehemence that is described as terrible. The California delegation never questioned the integrity of his friends again.

"Of all public men," said John B. Alley, "none seemed to have so little pride of opinion. He was always learning, and did not adhere to views which he found to be erroneous, simply because he had once formed and held them. I remember that he once expressed an opinion to me, on an important matter, quite different from what he had expressed a short time before, and I said, 'Mr. President, you have changed your mind entirely55 within a short time.' He replied, 'Yes, I have; and I don't think much of a man who is not wiser to-day than he was yesterday.' A remark full of wisdom and sound philosophy. Mr. Lincoln was so sensible, so broad-minded, so philosophical, so noble in his nature, that he saw only increasing wisdom in enlarged experience and observation."

Senator Conners, of California, said, "One morning I called on the President to talk with him on some public business, and as soon as we met he began by asking if I knew Captain Maltby, now living in California, saying, 'He is visiting here and his wife is with him.' I replied that I knew of him, and had heard he was in Washington. He said that when he first came to Springfield, where he was unknown, and a carpet-bag contained all he owned in the world, and he was needing friends, Captain Maltby and his wife took him into their modest dwelling; that he lived with them while he 'put out his shingle' and sought business.

"He had known Maltby during the period of the Black Hawk War. No one was ever treated more kindly than he was by them. He had risen in the world and they were poor, and Captain Maltby wanted some place which would give him a living. 'In fact,' said he, 'Maltby wants to be Superintendent of the Mint at San Francisco, but he is hardly equal to that. I want to find some place for him, and into which he will fit, and I know nothing about these things.' I said, 'There is a place—Superintendent of Indian Affairs in California—where the incumbent should be superseded for cause, and the place is simply a great farm, where the government supplies the means of carrying it on; there is an abundance of Indian labor, and making it produce and accounting for the products are the duties principally.' He replied, 'Maltby is the man for this place,' and he was made entirely happy by being able to serve an old and good man."