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BANQVET
Celebrating The
One hundred and fourth Anniversary
of the birth of
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
by the ^
Lincoln Centennial Association
IFednesday^ February the twelfth
nineteen hundred and thirteen
The Illinots State Armoury
Springfield
*
Invocation The Reverend William Schulzke
IntroduBion The Honourable J Otis Humphrey
Lincoln as Germany Regarded Him
Baron Von Bernstorff
The German Ambassador
If Lincoln Lived in This Day
The Honourable Joseph W. Bailey
of Texas
MENV
\
Cotuits
Salted Ahmnds
Green Sea Turtle
Celery Olives
Fresh Lobster Newhurg
Martini Cocktail
Chateau La Tour Blanche
Tenderloin of Beef Fresh Mushrooms
Potatoes Parisienne PofHtnafd
Punch
Breast of Squab Guinea Au Cresson
Potato Chips Heart of Lettuce Roquefort Dressing
Ice Cream Cake
Pommery Sec
Cheese Crackers
Apollinaris
Coffee
Curacoa Cognac Cigarettes Cigars
THt LINCOLN BirtOCfIT CW. ^PRINCrtCLO, ILL.
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Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive
\n 2010 with funding from
Tlie Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant
http://www.archive.org/details/lincolnmast2195roth
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LnCITKD TO EIGHT HU3n>RBI> COPIES OF ^HICE T3I5 COPT IS SXUBKK
730
m)t Ifncoln Centennial a^isoriatfon
OBJECT
Properly to observe tlie one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln ; to preserve to posterity the memory of his words and works, and to stimulate the patriotism of the youth of the land by appropriate annual exercises.
u
THE LINCOLN CENTENNIAL ASSOCIATION
FORMER GUESTS OF HONOR.
The Honorable Wm. H. Taft, President of the U. S.
The Right Honorable James Bryce, The British Ambassador.
The Honorable J. J. Jusserand, The French Ambassador. *The Honorable Jonathan P. Dolliver of Iowa.
The Honorable William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska.
The Honorable Robert T. Lincoln of Illinois.
The Honorable N. C. Blanchard of Louisiana.
The Honorable Fred T. Dubois of Idaho.
The Honorable Charles S. Deneen of Illinois.
The Honorable Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts. *The Honorable John W. Noble of Missouri.
The Honorable Martin W. Littleton of New York.
The Honorable Frank B. Willis of Ohio.
The Honorable Richard Yates of Illinois.
The Honorable Peter S. Grosscup of Illinois.
The Honorable William H. Seaman of Wisconsin.
The Honorable Albert B. Anderson of Indiana. *The Honorable Alfred OrendorfE of Illinois.
The Honorable James S. Harlan of Washington, D. C.
The Honorable William A. Rodenburg of Illinois.
The Honorable John P. Hand of Illinois.
Dr. Booker T. Washington of Alabama. *The Honorable Howland J. Hamlin of Illinois^,
The Honorable William H. Stead of Illinois.
The Honorable Francis G. Blair of Illinois.
* Deceased.
HI
INCORPORATORS.
*Hon. Melville W. Fuller, Chief Justice U. S. Supreme Court.
Hon. Shelby M. Cullom, United States Senator.
Hon. Albert J. Hopkins.
Hon. Joseph G. Cannon, Member of Congress.
Hon. Adlai E. Stevenson.
Hon. Charles S. Deneen, Governor of Illinois.
Hon. John P. Hand, Justice Supreme Court, Illinois.
Hon. J. Otis Humphrey, Judge U. S. District Court. *Hon. James A. Rose, Secretary of State.
Hon. Ben. F. Caldwell.
Hon. Richard Yates.
Melville E. Stone, Esq., New York.
Horace White, Esq., New York.
John W. Bunn, Esq.
Dr. William Jayne.
OFFICERS.
President J. Otis Humphrey
Vice President John W. Bunn
Secretary Philip B. Warren
Treasurer J. H. Holbrook
DIRECTORS.
Shelby M. Cullom J. Otis Humphrey
John W. Bunn Charles S. Deneen
* James A. Rose
* Deceased.
IV
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
John W. Bunn. Thomas Rees.
Victor Bender. George Reisch.
Clinton L. Conkling. *James A. Rose.
Shelby M. Cullom. Nicholas Roberts.
Charles S. Deneen. Edgar S. Scott.
E. A. Hall. George B. Stadden.
Logan Hay. Louis C. Taylor.
J. Otis Humphrey. Jas. R. B. VanCleave.
William Jayne. Philip B. Warren.
William B. Jess. Howard K. Weber.
Edward D. Keys. Bluford Wilson.
George Pasfield, Jr. W. F. Workman.
Edward W. Payne. Loren E. Wheeler.
MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE. Nicholas Roberts. Verne Ray.
James A. Easley. Latham T. Souther.
Arthur D. Mackie.
PUBLICITY COMiVHTTEE. *James A. Rose. Henry M. Merriam.
Jas. R. B. VanCleave. Thomas Rees.
BANQUET COMMITTEE.
George B. Stadden. John McCreery.
Philip Barton Warren. Walter McClellan Allen.
MUSIC COMMITTEE. Robert C. Brown. Albert Guest.
Clark B. Shipp.
SPEAKER'S COMMITTEE.
Shelby M. Cullom. Charles S. Deneen.
J. Otis Humphrey.
SOUVENIR AND PRINTING COMMITTEE. Jas. R. B. VanCleave. Archibald L. Bowen.
Harrison C. Blankmeyer.
CEREMONIES COMMITTEE. ♦James A. Rose. Francis G. Blair.
J. H. Collins.
DECORATION COMMITTEE. Henry Abels. H. D. Swirles.
George B. Helmle. Frank S. Dickson.
* Deceased.
LIFE MEMBERS.
ARKANSAS.
LUXORA.
S. E. Simonson.
CALIFORNIA.
San Francisco. Geo. N. Armsby.
CANADA.
Toronto. Horace S. Reardon.
COLORADO.
Colorado Springs. Jos. W. Norvell.
Pueblo. Wm. Sheehan.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
Washington. Shelby M. CuUom. ♦Melville W. Fuller. George C Rankin. Wm. Barrett Ridgely.
INDIANA.
WiNIMAC.
Moses A. Dilts. IOWA.
OSKALOOSA.
J. F. McNiel.
MASSACHUSETTS.
Amherst. E. F. Leonard.
MICHIGAN. Albion. C. A. Fiske.
Detroit. Arthur D. Mackie.
Battle Creek. Charles W. Post.
* Deceased.
MINNESOTA. St. Paul. Asa G. Briggs.
MISSOURI. St. Louis. Wells H. Blodgett. W. L. Desnoyers. V. E. Desnoyers. David R. Francis. James C. Jones. Warrick M. Hough.
B. C. Winston.
NEW JERSEY. AsBUKT Park. John W. Aymar.
NEW YORK. New York City. Bird S. Coler. *W. N. Coler. Melville E. Stone. Horace White.
OHIO. Toledo.
C. S. Morse.
OKLAHOMA. McAlester. B. R. Stephens.
ViNITA.
Joseph A. Gill.
PENNSYLVANIA.
Clearfield. Warren E. Partridge.
Philadelphia. *William H. Lambert.
VI
VIRGINIA. Norfolk. Wm. G. Burns.
WISCONSIN. Milwaukee. John E. Burton. H. F. Whitcomb.
ILLINOIS. Alton. J. A. Cousley. Anna. H. H. Kohn.
Ashland. Edwin C. Beggs. F. C. Wallbaum. Auburn. W. W. Lowry. Aurora.
Ira C. Copley. Albert J. Hopkins. Henry C Pyle.
Belleville.
Wm. U. Halbert.
Bethany.
John A. Freeland. A. R. Scott.
Bloomington.
J. H. Cheney. LaFayette Funk. Frank Gillespie. Thos. C. Kerrick. John T. Lillard. Adlai E. Stevenson.
Buffalo.
Henry C. Garvey. Oliver McDaniel.
Buffalo Hart. John S. Hurt.
Cairo. F. A. DeRosset. Geo. Parsons.
Cambridge. John P. Hand. Canton. U. G. Orendorff. Wm. H. Parlin.
Cantrall. Chas. P. Power. Carbondale.
E. E. Mitchell. George W. Smith.
Carlinville. William H. Behrens. Frank L. Burton. John I. Rinaker. Robert B. Shirley.
Carthage. James F. Gibson. Champaign. J. C. Carl. Joseph's C. Dodds.
Charleston. Frank K. Dunn. Chatham. Ben. F. Caldwell.
Chicago. Jacob M. Appel. J. Ogden Armour. A. C. Bartlett. Wm. G. Beale. W. L. Brown. Patrick J. Cahill. William T. Church. Alex Chystraus. C. E. Crafts.
F. P. Daniels. Richmond Dean. Richard Dean.
vu
Charles S. Deneen. *Theodore Finn.
Peter S. Grosscup.
Ernest A. Hamill.
Isaac Miller Hamilton. *J. T. Harahan.
Geo. B. Harris.
Jesse Holdom.
L. S. Hungerford.
Albert M. Johnson.
Frank H. Jones.
Nicholas E.. Jones.
S. O. Knudson.
Chas. R. E. Koch.
Joseph Leiter.
Robt. T. Lincoln.
H. A. Mathews.
Willard M. McEwen.
Willis Melville. *Wm. H. Mitchell.
Edward Morris.
Edward H. Morris.
Frank W. Morse.
Verne Ray.
James H. Roberts.
Nicholas Roberts. *W. C. Seipp.
Emil G. Schmidt.
Frank L. Shepard.
WiUiam T. Smith.
Byron L. Smith.
Orson Smith.
A. A. Sprague.
S. W. Strauss.
Charles S. Sweet.
Charles S. Sweet, Jr.
W. H. Swett.
John D. Warfield.
George W. Webster.
Elijah N. Zoline. Dajstville.
Joseph G. Cannon.
Walter J. Grant.
* Deceased.
Wm. R. Jewell. Frank Lindley. John L. Watts.
Decatur. Everett J. Brown. Hugh Crea. O. B. Gorin. Milton Johnson. E. S. McDonald. Joseph J. Sheehan.
Dekalb.
A. J. Kennedy.
DiVERNON.
*Charles G. Brown.
Dixon. *S. H. Bethea.
DONAVAN,
John Nelson.
DWIGHT.
Frank L. Smith.
East St. Louis. J. B. Maguire. Wm. E. Trautman.
Edwardsville.
B. B. Clawson.
Elgin. Sydney D. Wilgus.
Elkhart. John D. G. Oglesby.
EvANSTON.
J. Seymour Currey.
Farmersville. John Ball.
Galesburg. W. E. Terry.
Granite City. R. E. Neidringhaus.
vm
Hamilton. Edmund P. Denton.
Harrisbxjrg. Harry Taylor. I. R. Tuttle.
Jacksonville. A. L. Adams. H. B. Carriel. Thos. B. Orear. Andrew Russel. Miller Weir. Thomas Worthington.
JOLIET.
W. W. Smith.
Kankakee. Frank P. Norbury." Len Small
Lanesville. J. p. Kent. H. C. Whittemore.
La Salle. F. W. Matthiessen.
Lincoln. J. A. Lucas.
Litchfield. J. Carl Dodds.
Madison. F. A. Garesehe.
Mattoon. Jas. W. Craig.
Mechantcsburg. W. S. Bullard.
Moline. J. B. Oakleaf.
Morrison. F. E. Ramsey.
Mt. Sterling. J. F. Regan.
Mt. Vernon. W. C. Arthurs.
New Berlin.
B. W. Brown. J. Brown Hitt.
Newman.
Scott Burgett. W. M. Young.
Normal.
David Felmley. R. N. McCauley.
Oregon. Frank O. Lowden.
Ottawa. M. T. Moloney.
Pana. A. H. McTaggert.
Paris. Charles P. Hitch.
Pawnee.
Edward A. Baxter. Frank Morrell. Thos. A. Shepherd.
Paxton.
Charles Bogardus.
Pearl City.
Charles Musser.
Peoria.
Edward U. Henry. Robert H. Lovett. H. W. Lynch. W. G. McRoberts. I. C. Pinkney. P. G. Rennick. Frederick H. Smith. Joseph A. Weil.
IX
PiTTSFIELD.
Harry Higbee.
PONTIAC.
J. M. Lyon.
Prentice. J. H. Hubbs.
QUINCY.
J. O. Anderson. * Edward J. Parker. W. S. Warfield. Fred Wilms.
Richland. Tavner Anderson.
RiVEKTON. Jobn Deal.
Robinson. A. H. Jones.
Rochester. Ira F. Twist.
ROCKFORD.
Wm. W. Bennett. Robert Rew.
Rock Island.
Joseph DeSilvia.
RUSHVILLE.
John S. Little.
Sharpsburg. O. S. Nash.
Shelbyville.
J. W. Yantis.
Streator.
0. B. Ryon. W. H. Boys.
Taylorville. John E. Hogan. Ernest Hoover.
Urbana.
Edmund J. James.
Vandalia.
Jno. J. Brown. W. M. Farmer.
ViRDEN.
S. H. Humphrey. Joseph N. Ross. J. H. Shriver. H. C Simons. Howard T. Wilson.
Virginia. *RIchard W. Mills.
Williamsburg.
J. F. Prather. John W. Prather.
WiLMETTE.
W. T. Smith.
Winchester. A. P. Grout.
Springfield.
Henry Abels. Alfred Adams. O. G. Addleman. Walter McC Allen. A. A. Anderson. *Jas. H. Anderson. Oscar Ansell.
W. P. Armstrong. O. B. Babcock. L. L. Bacchus. Raymond V. Bahr. Richard Ball. John A. Barber. H. E. Barker.
* Deceased.
S. A. Barker. James H. Barkley. A. J. Barnes. Edgar S. Barnes. W. B. Barry. Geo. A. Bates. Chas. T. Bauman. R. J. Beck. H. S. Beckemeyer. Geo. H. Becker. Victor E. Bender. Robert L. Berry. Chas. T. Bisch. Harold P. Bisch. John W. Black. Ira B. Blackstock. Francis G. Blair. Harrison C. Blankmeyer. Frank H. Bode. Alfred Booth. C. M. Bowcock. Archibald L. Bowen. W. L. Bowlus. T. M. Bradford. Wm. A. Bradford. Jas. L. Brainerd. Charles Bressmer. John Bressmer. John E. Bretz. John F. Bretz. Geo. M. Brinkerhoff, Sr. Geo. M. Brinkerhoff, Jr. John H. Brinkerhoff. Stuart Broadwell. A. Campbell Brown. C E. Brown. Milton Hay Brown. Owsley Brown. Robert C Brown. Stuart Brown. W. H. Bruce. Fred Buck. E. H. Buckley. Samuel A. BuUard.
^Deceased.
Wm. A. M. Bunker.
Geo. W. Bunn.
Henry Bunn.
Jacob Bunn.
John W. Bunn.
Joseph F. Bunn.
Willard Bunn.
Edmund Burke.
Saml. T. Burnett.
William J. Butler.
J. F. Cadwallader.
E. E. Cantrall.
C. C. Carroll. * Noah M. Cass.
Stanley Castle.
E. L. Chapin.
Geo. W. Chatterton, Sr.
Henry L. Child.
Robt. A. Clarkson.
George E. Coe.
Louis J. Coe. ♦Harry E. Coe.
E. R. Coggswell.
Nathan Cole.
L. H. Coleman.
Logan Coleman.
Louis G. Coleman.
J. H. CoUins.
Clinton L. Conkling.
Wm. H. Conkling.
J. Fleetwood Connelly.
James A. Connolly.
Robert Connolly.
A. E, Converse.
A. L. Converse.
Henry A. Converse.
Wm. O. Converse.
Thomas Condell.
T. J. Condon.
W. H. Conway.
Jas. L. Cook.
John C. Cook.
James A. Creighton. *A. N. J. Crook.
ti
Shelby M. CuUom. L. A. Danner. Gaylord Davidson. Henry Davis. J. McCan Davis. Geo. Edward Day. Don Deal. T. E. Dempcy. Charles S. Deneen. D. A. DeVares. Frank S. Dickson. Isaac R. Diller. J. W. Diller. Henry A. Dirksen. Fred C. Dodds. R. N. Dodds. Thos. M. Dolan. Harry F. Dorwin.
Shelby C. Dorwin.
James E. Dowling.
B. F. Drennan.
Lincoln Dubois.
Geo. C. Dunlop.
E. J. Dunn.
James A. Easley.
R. H. Easley.
A. W. Edward.
Albert S. Edwards.
Richard Egan.
Anton Elshoff.
Emory Ennis.
James Fairlie.
Joseph Farris.
D. Frank Fawcett.
Clarence W. Feaster.
J. H. Feltham.
Thomas F. Ferns.
William Fetzer.
Joel C. Fitch.
Frank R. Fisher.
Arthur M. Fitzgerald.
Ed. J. Flinn.
J. G. Fogarty.
John L. Fortado.
* Deceased.
John J. Foster. Carl D. Franke. John B. Franz.
C. A. Frazee.
D. C. Frederick. James Furlong. M. B. Garber. G. J. George. Cornelius J. Giblin. George B. Gillespie. Frank Godley. Hugh J. Graham. James M. Graham. John H. Green.
J. L. Greene. R. A. Guest. Rudolph Haas. A. Lee Hagler. Elmer E. Hagler. Nathan Halderman. E. A. HaU. James A. Hall. Wathen Hamilton. C. F. Handshy.
Saml. J. Hanes.
Wm. B. Hankins. *Edw. F. Hartman.
Frank L. Hatch.
Pascal E. Hatch.
Robt. E. Hatcher.
Charles E. Hay.
Logan Hay.
E. F. Hazell.
Ernest H. Helmle.
George B. Helmle.
J. C. Helper.
G. B. Hemenway.
J. E. Hemmick.
A. L. Hereford. *R. F. Herndon.
Timothy Hickey. George C Hickox. Howard T. Hicks.
B. R. Hieronymus.
xu
Adelbert P. Higley. Alonzo Hoflf. J. H. Holbrook. W. J. Horn. W. M. Howard. James L. Hudson. Ridgely Hudson. Arthur F. Hughes. J. Otis Humphrey. Otis S. Humphrey. R. G. Hunn. Charles H. Hurst. Harry L. Ide. Roy Ide. Edwin F. Irwin. Horace C. Irwin. W. M. Jageman.
A. C. James. Frank R. Jamison. William Jayne. James W. Jefferson. Roy T. Jefferson. Wm. B. Jess. Edward S. Johnson. James A. Jones. James T. Jones.
M. A. Jones. Strother T. Jones. Charles P. Kane. Alvin S. Keys. Edward D. Keys. Edward L. Keys. George E, Keys. John M. Kimble. Richard F. Kinsella. Ben M. Kirlin. Carl Klaholt. Benjamin Knudson. Geo. N. Kreider. Frank T. Kuhl.
B. A. Lange. Geo. C. Latham. Henry C. Latham. F. M. Legg.
* Deceased
Jerome A. Leland.
Warren E. Lewis.
Harry B. Lewis.
Gersham J. Little.
G. L. Lloyd.
John H. Llovd.
T. D. Logan.
E. F. Lomelino.
Fred W. Long.
Harry T. Loper. *J. H. Lord. *John S. Lord.
Henry B. Lubbe.
T. P. Luby.
John Lutz.
Thos. E. Lyon.
Alex. B. Macpherson.
J. F. Macpherson.
Charles J. Maldaner.
James M. Margrave.
William Marlowe.
John D. Marney.
H. W. Masters.
Robert Matheny.
James H. Matheny.
Rodman C. O. Matheny.
A. F. Maurer.
O. F. Maxon.
R. H. McAnulty.
Plato McCourtney.
John McCreery.
James S. McCuUough.
Frank M. McGowan.
Harry O. McGrue.
J. F. McLennan.
Henry B. McVeigh.
John E, Melick.
H. M. Merriam.
J. F. Miller.
L. S. Miller.
Charles F. Mills.
Lewis H. Miner.
W. H. Minton.
John P. Mockler.
zui
C. F. Mortimer. S. E. Munson. P. F. Murphy.
C. R. Murray. Geo. W. Murray. Thos. J. Murray. Albert Myers. Louis H. Myers. W. H. Nelms. Harry W. Nickey. W. A. Northcott. P. J. O'Reilly.
* Alfred Orendorff. James R. Orr. W. A. Orr.
E. W. Osborne. James H. Paddock. H. C. Page. Geo. Thomas Palmer. A. J. Parons. George Pasfield, Sr. George Pasfield, Jr. Charles L. Patton. James W. Patton. William L. Patton. Wm. A. Pavey. Edward W. Payne. Jesse K. Payton. A. T. Peters.
D. Lyman Phillips. J. Robt. Phillips. Herman Pierik. John C. Pierik.
A. C. Piersel. *John Pope. A. J. Portch. Fred W. Potter. Rufus M. Potts. Charles A. Power. H. T. Pride. Arthur E. Prince.
* John A. Prince. Edgar C Pruitt.
G. W. Quackenbush.
* Deceased.
John Quinlan.
John P. Ramsey.
Albert H. Rankin.
Isaac N. Ransom.
Roy R. Reece.
Thomas Rees.
Carl M. Reisch.
Edward Reisch.
Frank Reisch.
George Reisch.
George Reisch, Jr.
Joseph Reisch.
Leonard Reisch.
Henry C. Remann.
Benjamin Rich.
Franklin Ridgley.
William Ridgley.
Chas. D. Roberts.
Chas. H. Robinson,
Edward S. Robinson.
W. E. Robinson.
Roy F. Rogers.
Euclid B. Rogers.
John D. Roper. *James A. Rose.
C. H. Rottger.
Albert Salzen stein.
Emanuel Salzenstein.
L. J. Samuels.
M. D. SchafE.
G. H. Schonbacher.
F. L. Schlierbach.
John S. Schnepp.
J. B. Scholes.
Saml. D. Scholes.
Charles Schuck.
C. W. H. Schuck.
J. H. Schuck.
Edgar S. Scott.
John W. Scott.
O. G. Scott. *Thomas W. Scott.
Roy M. Seeley.
Richings J. Shand.
XIV
Lawrence Y. Sherman. *Chas. M. Shepherd.
Wm B. Shepherd.
Clark B. Shipp.
John H. Sikes.
A. W. Sikking.
Frank Simmons.
Geo. M. Skelly.
Dewit W. Smith.
E, S. Smith.
Glenn D. Smith.
Hal M. Smith.
Wm. W. Smith.
E. A. Snively.
H. M. Solenberger.
W. C. Sommer.
Latham T. Souther.
J. W. Southwick.
W. J. Spaulding.
E. A. Stadden.
Geo. B. Stadden.
W. C. Starck.
Wm. H. Stead.
Geo. F. Stericker.
Albert D. Stevens. *Henry A. Stevens.
J. H. Story.
Sam'l J. Stout.
R. H. Strongman.
J. W. Stuart.
Thos. W. Sudduth.
R. M. SuUivan.
Wm. H. Sullivan.
W. W. Swett, Jr.
H. G. Swirles.
J. Mack Tanner. Louis C. Taylor. Will Taylor. E. R. Thayer. James W. Templeman. W. A. Townseud.
*Deceased.
Wm. W. Tracey. H. H. Tuttle. Joseph W. Vance. Burke Vancil. Jas. R. B. VanCleave. Walter S. Van Duyn. Peter Vredenburgh, Sr. Robert O. Vredenburg. Thos. D. Vredenburg. Wm. R. Vredenburg. C. H. Walters. J. C. Walters. Philip B. Warren. Howard K. Weber. Frank Weidlocher. Charles Werner. Charles R. Wescott. Loren E. Wheeler. Frank D. Whipp. *J. E. White. Charles S. Whitney. Lewis N. Wiggins. Harry T. Willett. Samuel J. Willett. Daniel T. Williams. Bluford Wilson. G. M. Wilson. H. Clay Wilson. Henry W. Wilson. J. F. Wilson. Thomas W. Wilson. Chas. G. Wineteer. T. E. Wing. C. M. Woods. W. F. Workman. Richard Yates. John York. W. A. Young. William Zapf . Joseph Zimmerman. Chas. W. Zumbrook.
XT
LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
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SPEC
m
LINCOLN
MASTEK or MEN a ^tuD^ (n Ci^atartct;
BY
ALONZO ROTHSCHILD
SPECIAL EDITION PUBLISHED FOR THE
LINCOLN CENTENNIAL ASSOCIATION BY
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
^hz mitetj^ibe pce^i^ Cambribge
1912
COPYRIGHT 1906 BY ALONZO ROTHSCHILD ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
TO THE MEMORY OP
MY FATHER
JOHN ROTHSCHILD
ONE OF THE PLAIN PEOPLE
WHO BELIEVED IN LINCOLN
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED
CONTENTS
I. A Samson of the Backwoods 1
II. Love, War, and Politics 34
in. Giants, Big and Little 79
IV. The Power behind the Throne .... 121
V. An Indispensable Man . 157
VI. The Curbing of Stanton 223
VII. How the Pathfinder lost the Trail . . 289
VIII. The Young Napoleon 327
A List of the Books cited 427
Notes ^39
Index ^97
ILLUSTRATIONS
Abraham Lincoln Frontispiece
From an unretouched negative, made in March, 1864, when the President commissioned Ulysses S. Grant Lieutenant-General and placed him in command of all the armies of the Republic. This negative, with one of General Grant, was made, it is said, in commaemoration of the event.
Abkaham Lincoln 34
From an original photograph belonging to Mr. William Lloyd Garrison of Lexington, Mass. This photograph was made by S. M. Fassett of Chicago in October, 1859, and the negative was lost in the great Chicago fire of 1871. Another photograph taken at the same sitting, but with a different expression and inclina- tion of the head, is in the collection of Mr. Herbert W. Fay of DeKalb, Illinois, and was reproduced in half-tone for Miss Ida M. Tarbell's Life of Lincoln in McClure's Magazine.
Stephen A. Douglas 80
From a photograph by Brady in the Library of the State De- partment at Washington.
William H. Seward 130
From a photograph by Brady in the Library of the State De- partment at Washington.
Salmon P. Chase 158
From a photograph by Daniel Bendann, Baltimore, Md.
Edwin M. Stanton 224
From a photograph by Brady in the Library of the State De- partment at Washington.
John C. Fremont 290
From a photograph by Brady in the Library of the State De- partment at Washington.
George B. McClellan 328
From the Collection of the Massachusetts Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
CHAPTER I A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS
The spirit of mastery moved Abraham Lincoln at an early age — how early, history and tradition are not agreed. Scantily supported stories of boyish control over his schoolmates, supplemented by more fully authenti- cated narratives of his youthful prowess, leave no doubt, however, that his power came to him before the period at which some of his biographers are pleased to take up the detailed account of his life. Trivial as the records of these callow triumphs may seem, they are essential to an understanding of the successive steps by which this man mounted from obscurity to the government of a great people.
If, as has been asserted by an eminent educator, the experiences and instructions of the first seven years of a person's life do more to mold and determine his charac- ter than all subsequent training, the history of Lincoln's development, like that of most great men, lacks an im- portant chapter ; for the scraps about this period of his childhood that have been preserved yield but a meagre story. A ne'er-do-well father, destined to drift from one badly tilled patch of land to another, a gentle mother, who is said to have known refinements foreign to the cheerless Kentucky cabin,^ a sparsely settled community of " poor whites," two brief snatches of A B C schooling under itinerant masters, stinted living, a few chores, still fewer pastimes, and all is said. Not quite all, for the
2 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
playmates of that childhood have, in their old age, recalled a few incidents that are not without interest.
One of these anecdotes belongs here. It reveals "a mere spindle of a boy," as one old gentleman ^ describes the little Abraham, giving 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 mill with corn to be ground. While awaiting their turn, they passed the time, as at the noon recesses, with frolics and fights. In these Lincoln did not participate.
" He was," says Major Alexander Sympson, who tells the tale, "the shyest, most reticent, most uncouth and awkward-appearing, homeliest and worse dressed of any in the entire crowd." So superlatively wretched a butt could not hope to look on long unmolested. 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 very 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." We may fancy this juvenile Fitz- James shouting : —
" Come one, come all ! this tree shall fly From its firm base as soon as I."
Yet who shall say whether in the other little boys' dis- colored eyes
" Respect was mingled with surprise, And the stern joy which warriors feel In foemen worthy of their steel " ?
The veracious historian has nothing to offer under this head ; but he assures us, which is perhaps more to the point, that the hero of the scene " was disturbed no more, then or thereafter." ^
Abraham was in his eighth year when the Lincoln family migrated from its rude surroundings on Knob
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 3
Creek to a still ruder frontier settlement in southern Indiana.* Here the boy grew to manhood under the crass conditions at that time peculiar to the New West. Fron- tier life with its toil, its hardships, and its ever recur- ring physical problems furnished, no doubt, certain of the elements which were some day to be combined in his much-extolled strength of character. What is not so easily accounted for, is the eagerness of easy-going Tom Lincoln's son to lead his fellows, in school and out, on that uninspiring dead level called Pigeon Creek. The settlers were, in the main, coarse-grained and illiterate ; for education was an exotic that, naturally enough, did not thrive in the lower fringe of the Indiana wilderness. "There were some schools so called," wrote Mr. Lincoln many years later, " but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond ' readin', writin', and cipherin' ' to the Rule of Three. If a straggler, supposed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education." ^ Nothing, indeed, un- less we accept Mr. Emerson's theory of life as a search after power, an element with which the world is so satu- rated to the remotest chink or crevice, that no honest seek- ing for it goes unrewarded. How honestly Abraham at this time pursued the search, and with what success, may be learned from the early companions upon whom his strenuous efforts to learn " by littles," as he himself once quaintly expressed it,^ left a lasting impression. They supply glimpses of him snatching a few minutes for reading while the plow-horses rested at the end of a row, trying his hand at odd hours on the composition of *' pieces " like those in the newspapers, poring at night over his books in the uncertain light of the logs, and cov- ering the blade of the wooden fire-shovel, in lieu of a slate, with examples, which were laboriously scraped off by means of a drawing-knife after they had been trans- ferred to his carefully economized exercise-book.^
4 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
Sucli industry could not, even in a backwoods " chink or crevice," fail of its reward. The twelve months of spo- radic schooling* that stretched between Abraham's sev- enth and seventeenth years yielded many small triumphs. " He was always at the head of his class," writes Nathaniel Grigsby, " and passed us rapidly in his studies." ^ As spelling was the most popular branch, he made himself so proficient in it as to become the acknowledged leader of the school. In fact, the whole country is said to have gone down before him in spelling-matches, the side upon which he happened to stand holding a guaranty of victory. Hence he was not infrequently, like the old medal winners at the art exhibitions, ruled out of the contest. Becoming by dint of practice, moreover, the best penman in the place, he was often called upon to write the letters of his untutored neighbors ; and his younger schoolfellows, in their admiration of his penmanship, also paid tribute to his skill by asking him to set them copies.^** One man recalled, many years later, this text, which, among others, Lincoln had written for him : —
" Good boys who to their books apply Will all be great men by and by."
The writer of the couplet, it may be added, applied him- self so eagerly to his own books, and to those that he managed to borrow, as to increase betimes his modicum of importance." " He was the learned boy among us un- learned folks," says a lady whose girlish ignorance he, on more than one occasion, sought to enlighten.^ Nor was she the only schoolmate upon whom he impressed this supe- riority. " Abe beat all his masters," says another, " and it was no use for him to try to learn any more from them." ^^ While still another testifies : " When he appeared in com- pany, the boys would gather and cluster around hira to hear him talk. . . . Mr. Lincoln was figurative in his speeches, talks, and conversations. He argued much from analogy, and explained things hard for us to understand^ by stories, maxims, tales, and figures. He would almost
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 5
always point his lesson or idea by some story that was plain and near to us, that we might instantly see the force and bearing of what he said." " Reference is here made, no doubt, to some of the accomplishments that Abraham owed to no school ; but which he employed, none the less, in these youthful attempts at scholastic leadership.
The taste for stump speeches that prevailed in the Pigeon Creek region, as in other western communities, offered an early incentive to Lincoln's ambition. As a boy, he gathered his playmates about him and repeated with droll mimicry what he could remember of some sermon that he had recently heard ; or improvised his own discourse, if some transgression on the part of one of his auditors hap- pened to suggest a subject. The topics to which he devoted his eloquence, as he grew older, were naturally based upon the political controversies of the day. So clever did he be- come at these " speeches " that he lost no opportunity for winning applause with them when an appreciative audience was at hand. Then, not even the ordinary considerations of time and place restrained his enthusiasm. "When it was announced that Abe had taken the stump in the har- vest-field, there was an end of work," records Mr. Lamon. " The hands flocked around him, and listened to his curi- ous speeches with infinite delight. ' The sight of such a thing amused us all,' says Mrs. Lincoln, though she admits that her husband was compelled to break it up with the strong hand ; and poor Abe was many times dragged from the platform, and hustled off to his work in no gentle man- ner." ^^ But after working-hours, he met with no such check in the nearby village store at Gentryville, where he entertained the admiring loungers until midnight with arguments, stories, jokes, and coarse rhymes.^^ The qualities, moreover, that made him the oracle of the gro- cery won for him undisputed preeminence at the prim- itive social gatherings of the neighborhood. His arrival was the signal for the festivities to begin, and his lead, as
6 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
the chronicles indicate, was maintained with a sure hand, to the end.
It is not to be assumed that Abraham was generally considered a prodigy by the people among whom he grew to manhood, or that he himself was at all times conscious of his steady trend toward leadership in these small affairs of his daily life. The few incidents strung together here have a significance to the student of history that they could not have had for the rude settlers who saw them in unrelated parts, and unillumined by the search-light which the halo of the great man's later career casts back over his humble beginnings. Yet there can be no doubt that the superiority of " the learned boy " was recognized by many of his associates. His second-mother — for why apply to this sterling woman a title that would ill describe her ? — had a confidence in his powers which she influenced her husband, not without difficulty, to share. ^' Thomas Lin- coln, like some of his relatives and neighbors, was inclined to regard as lazy this son who preferred a book to a spade. And speaking of Abraham many years later, cousin Dennis Hanks, one of the companions of his boyhood, said: —
" Lincoln was lazy, a very lazy man. He was always reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing poetry and the like." ''
To which neighbor John Romine, whose recollections had also somehow escaped becoming steeped in the in- cense of hero-worship, adds : —
" He worked for me, but was always reading and think- ing. I used to get mad at him for it. I say he was awfully lazy. He would laugh and talk — crack his jokes and tell stories all the time ; did n'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." ^^
None of these persons understood the boy, but it is not at all clear that the boy understood himself. With Abra- ham's desires to excel his schoolfellows were mingled vague dreams of larger competitions, that carried him, in fancy,
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 7
far beyond the narrow horizon of his chinks and crevices, into the broad world beyond. There, like his favorite hero, Parson Weems's impossible Washington, he hoped to achieve greatness.^" Indeed, when Mrs. Josiah Crawford, who took a motherly interest in the lad, reproved him for teasing the girls in her kitchen, and asked him what he supposed would become of him, he promptly answered, " I '11 be President." This prediction, so common in the mouths of American boys, whose eyes are fixed early upon the first place in the nation, is said to have been repeated by him, from time to time, whether seriously, some of his biographers are inclined to doubt.^^ There can be no question, however, as to the more important fact — this particular boy had taken his first halting steps up the steep which leads to that eminence.
The mental superiority which gave Lincoln a certain distinction in the eyes of some of the settlers among whom he spent his youth would have been regarded, even by them, with scant respect, had it not been ac- companied by what appealed to the admiration of all his neighbors alike — physical preeminence. Strength of body was rated high by these frontiersmen, whose very existence depended upon the iron in their frames. Over- coming, with rugged self-reliance, the obstacles which uncompromising nature opposed to them on every side, they had hewn their homes out of the wilderness by sheer force of muscle. Somewhat of that same vigfor was re- quired, after the clearings had been made and the rude shelters had been thrown up, to win day by day a sem- blance of human comfort. What wonder that these men were concerned with facts, not theories ; with the harden- ing of the sinews, not the cultivation of the brain ! No mere bookman, however witty or wise, could long have held their esteem. Their standard of excellence, though rough, had the merit of being simple — so simple that the very children might grasp its full meaning. One of them certainly did. For Abraham's singular ambition to know
8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
was not allowed to diminish his part in the more com- mon ambition to do. On the contrary, the two aspirations appear to have kept pace so evenly in him as to reen- force each other. What of ascendancy his alert mind alone failed to gain was easily established when the intel- lect called into play his powerful physique.
The sturdy constitution that Lincoln inherited from five generations of pioneers was hardened by the toil and exposure to which, even more than most backwoods boys, he was subjected from early childhood.^^ " Abraham, though very young, was large of his age, and had an ax put into his hands at once," wrote he, referring, in that all too brief autobiography, to the time of the settlement near Little Pigeon Creek, " and from that till within his twenty-third year he was almost constantly handling that most useful instrument — less, of course, in plowing and harvesting seasons." ^^ The fifteen years of labor thus summarily disposed of constituted, for the most part, the physical discipline of Lincoln's life. How severe this was may be inferred from the mere mention of what was re- quired of him. As he became strong enough, he cleared openings in the forest, cut timber, split rails, chopped wood, guided the cumbrous shovel-plow, hoed corn, and pulled fodder. When the grain was ripe, he harvested it with a sickle, threshed it with a flail, cleaned it with a sheet, and took it to the mill, where it was laboriously ground into unbolted flour with equally primitive con- trivances. Together with these tasks of seed-time and harvest, he fetched and carried, carpentered and tinkered, in short, earned his supper of corn-dodgers and his shake-down of leaves in the loft, many times over. Never- theless, when the home work was done, Thomas Lincoln, who, whatever may have been his faults, cannot justly be accused of erring on the side of indulgence, hired him out as a day laborer among the neighbors.^^ They, of course, did not spare the boy any more than did his father. No chore was deemed too mean, no job too great, for this
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 9
good-natured young fellow. So that, all in all, heavy- drafts must have been made upon him.^^ He met them — despite his dislike for manual labor — on demand, checking out freely of his strength, while unconsciously acquiring, by way of exchange, more than the equivalent in virile self-reliance ; and the perfect command over his resources, in any emergency, that later became characteristic of him, should in large measure be credited to this pioneer ac- counting. In fact, of Lincoln may be said what Fuller quaintly said of Drake, the " pains and patience in his youth knit the joints of his soul."
For the more palpable returns in kind from his outlay of brawn, Abraham did not have to wait long. As early as his eleventh year began the remarkable development in physique which culminated before he had reached his seventeenth birthday. At that time, having attained his full height, — within a fraction of six feet and four inches, — he was, according to accepted descriptions of him, lean, large-boned, and muscular, thin through the chest, narrow across the slightly stooping shoulders, long of limb, large of hand and foot, sure of reach, and powerful of grip, — the very type of the North Mississippi valley pioneer at his best.^* The strength of the young giant, as well as his skill in applying it, easily won for him the lead among the vigorous men of this class on Pigeon Creek. They have handed down tales of his achievements that call to mind the legends with which have been adorned the histories of Samson and of Milo. Like these heroes, Lincoln is said to have performed prodigies of muscle; and still further like them, despite the skepti- cism aroused, naturally enough, by extraordinary details, he may be looked upon as having been endowed with the attributes upon which the stories essentially rest. Whether or not he performed this or that particular feat exactly as it is described, he did, beyond question, impress him- self upon the settlers as '* the longest and strongest " of them all.
lo LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
Lincoln's employment throughout the neighborhood as a hired man afforded him abundant opportunity for the display of his powers. A certain good-humored sense of duty, no less than a never flagging ambition to excel, stimulated him to make " a clean sweep," as he once phrased it, of whatever he did. These jobs, it should be remembered, were not entirely to his taste, and he " was no hand," says one old lady, " to pitch into his work like killing snakes " ; ^^ yet, when he did take hold — and his services were always in request — he was bound to out- work his employers. One of them, who became his fast friend, asserted : —
" He could strike with a maul a heavier blow — could sink an ax deeper into wood than any man I ever saw." ^
And cousin Dennis, a not too consistent Boswell, forgot, in a moment of enthusiasm, his published opinion that Abraham was "lazy, very lazy," long enough to exclaim:
" My, how he would chop ! His ax would flash and bite into a sugar-tree or sycamore, and down it would come. If you heard him fellin' trees in a clearin', you would say there were three men at work by the way the trees fell." "^
A stripling who handled, in that fashion, the back- woodsmen's favorite implement could not fail to command their respect ; but it was when Lincoln threw the ax aside and put forth his strength unhampered, that he com- pelled the homage so grateful to his pride. " Some of his feats " — Mr. Lamon is our authority — " almost surpass belief. . . . Richardson, a neighbor, declares that he could carry a load to which the strength of ' three ordinary men ' would scarcely be equal. He saw him quietly pick up and walk away with ' a chicken-house, made of poles pinned together and covered, that weighed at least six hundred, if not much more.' At another time the Richardsons were building a corn-crib. Abe was there, and, seeing three or four men preparing ' sticks ' upon which to carry some huge posts, he relieved them of all further trouble by shouldering the posts, single-handed, and walking away
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS ii
with them to the place where they were wanted." ^" The Richardson chicken-house and the posts of the corn-crib should obviously go down in story, side by side with those doors and posts of Gaza that were carried, with similar ease, on the shoulders of the Hebrew Hercules.
More remarkable even than the feats that, on occa- sion, distinguished Lincoln at work, were the exploits in sport, to which the applause of the crowd quickened his sinews.^^ Not content with a mastery easily maintained over his comrades in the rough games and contests popu- lar on the frontier, he gave exhibitions of strength that established his reputation as an athlete without a peer. This preeminence he held against all comers during his youth on Pigeon Creek and his early manhood in New Salem.^ At the latter place he seems to have reached the acme of his physical powers ; and some of his recent biographers, the limit of their credulity. Messrs. Lamon and Herndon, however, whose records of this period are the most complete, sustain each other in the story that Lincoln one day astonished the village by lifting a box of stones which weighed about a thousand pounds.^^ This, they explain, was done by means of a gearing of ropes and straps, with which he was harnessed to the box — a method somewhat like that employed at the present time by the " strong men " who, for the entertainment of dime- museum spectators, raise even heavier weights.
Another of Lincoln's notable performances, for the authenticity of which Mr. Herndon also vouches, grew out of the admiration with which the young giant was regarded by his companions. One of them, William Gr. Greene by name, was once lauding him, so the story goes, as the strongest man in Illinois, when a stranger, who happened to be present, claimed that honor for another. The dispute led to a wager in which Greene bet that his champion could lift a cask holding forty gallons of whiskey, high enough to take a drink out of the bung-hole. In the test that ensued, Lincoln with " apparent ease " and " to
12 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
the astonishment of the incredulous stranger," did as had been stipulated. " He did not," the narrator is careful to add, " stand erect and elevate the barrel, but squatted down and lifted it to his knees, rolling it over until hia mouth came opposite the bung."
" The bet is mine," said Greene, as the cask was replaced upon the floor ; " but that is the first dram of whiskey I ever saw you swallow, Abe."
" And I have n't swallowed that, you see," replied Lin- coln, as he spurted out the liquor.^*
In this final episode of the little story is to be found a clue, if not to the source of his extraordinary vigor, at least to its continued preservation, unimpaired by the vices that have shorn so many Samsons of their strength. ^^
Physique was not the only criterion of leadership among the rough-and-ready settlers of the West. Neither the strong man nor the tall man was necessarily " the best man." That title was reserved for him who, when there were no Indians to cope with, made good his claim to it against his neighbors, in the friendly wrestling-matches of common occurrence, as well as in the more serious, though happily less frequent, fights by which the back- woodsmen, remote from courts and constables, were wont to settle their disputes. Under such conditions, the most peaceable of men learn — as the phrase goes — to give a good account of themselves. This was probably the case with our five generations of Lincoln pathfinders ; for the strain of Quaker blood, that flowed at some distant point into their veins, had lost much, if not all, of its non- resistant quality before reaching Abraham.^^ His father, although a man of quiet disposition, had allowed no scru- ples to get between him and the adversary who aroused his slow anger. A sinewy, well-knit frame, handled with courage and agility, had marked Thomas Lincoln, in his prime, as a dangerous antagonist. " He thrashed," says the chronicle, " the monstrous bully of Breckinridge County, in three minutes, and came off without a scratch."
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 13
Several other border Hectors, according to tradition, found him to be invulnerable ; and one, with whom he had a bitter quarrel, came out of a rough-and-tumble combat of teeth, as well as of fists, without his nose.^' Moreover, it should be borne in mind that Abraham's uncle Mordecai, " fond," as we are told, in his younger days, " of playing a game of fisticuffs," had been an inveterate Indian hunter ; ^ and that the father of Mordecai and Thomas, he for whom Abraham was named, had, in the days of Daniel Boone, been killed by the savages, while taking part in the struggle for Kentucky. The scion of such stock could not, under favorable circumstances, lack the qualities that, in personal encounters, make a man formidable. In fact, these traits, when combined with the intelligence and strength that so early distinguished Abraham, rendered him, as was to be expected, almost invincible.
Lincoln's advantage during this pioneer period is to be ascribed largely, but not altogether, to preponderance of size and muscle. Those abnormally long arms and legs, impelled by sinews of iron, counted, it is true, for much. On the other hand, there was little that suggested the wrestler in his lank, loosely jointed form with its thin neck, contracted chest, and insufficient weight. These defects must therefore have been offset, as indeed they were, by alertness, skill, and — most important of all — those inherited attributes of mastery which were summed up by the ancients in the single word, stomach. The spirit with which, as a schoolboy, Abraham was observed, in the opening scene, to defend himself against heavy odds, carried him successfully through many subsequent encounters. Whether these were in sport or in earnest, they usually left him, as one old friend expressed it, " cock of the walk." ^ Another, who presumably made frequent trials in boyhood of Abraham's powers, said : " I was ten years older, but I could n't rassle him down. His legs was too long for me to throw him. He would fling one foot upon my shoulder and make me swing
14 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
corners swift." *" Still others bore witness to his pugilis- tic triumphs ; and Mr. Lincoln himself found pleasure in recalling his chaplet of wild olives many years later — even after the ballots of a nation had been woven into his ripest laurels. " All I had to do," said he, " was to extend one arm to a man's shoulder, and, with weight of body and strength of arms, give him a trip that gener- ally sent him sprawling on the ground, which would so astonish him as to give him a quietus."*^ Such victo- ries had carried his fame, by the time he had reached his nineteenth year, throughout the Pigeon Creek clear- ings and beyond, so that none of the Hoosiers who knew him or who knew of him were willing — if the record may be trusted — to hazard at once their bones and their reputations, in unequal combat against so redoubtable a champion.
Debarred from the wrestling-ring as he had been ex- cluded from the spelling-match, and for the same flatter- ing reason, our Crichton of the backwoods wore his honors as soberly as could be expected. He appears, notwithstand- ing the coarse, unrestrained manners of the people about him, to have misapplied his superiority in comparatively few instances. These cases, such as they are, should, nevertheless, not be overlooked, however much the men- tion of them may offend the sensitive piety of the hero- worshipers. They need a reminder, now and then, do these worthy people, that their idol, when in the flesh, stood, like other human creatures, on the earth. If their image of him, therefore, is to be faithful, its head may be reared to the clouds in all the glory of fine gold, so they see to it that the feet are of clay. What of sludge lies hidden at the bottom of the character usually rises, when agitated by passion, to the surface. As this is observed in the case of ripened manhood, how much more is it to be looked for during those hobbledehoy days that, lying between youth and maturity, partake at times of the nature of both — the mischievousness of the boy together
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 15
with the pride of the man. It was at such a period that Abraham's resentment toward those against whom he had grievances, real or fancied, sometimes found vent. His weapons, in this respect at least, like those of the versatile young Scot, might have been physical or intellectual, at will ; for, among other accomplishments, he had attained a certain facility at the scribbling, in prose and in doggerel verse, of the coarsest of satires. These, thanks to their wit no less than to their audacity, are said to have left deeper and more enduring hurts than even his fists could have inflicted. Hence the few persons who were so un- fortunate as to incur the satirist's anger were impaled on the nib of his goose-quill, amidst laughter which started with the grocery store loungers and did not cease until it had echoed and reechoed through the neighborhood for many a day. That some of these lampoons were indelicate, even indecent, need not be dwelt upon here. It is sufii- cient to notice that they were well adapted to their pur- pose, and that the author employed them as a means of laying low those whom he might not otherwise have over- come.
The victims of these attacks did not, for obvious rea- sons, retaliate in kind. Nor might they hope, on any field, to humiliate this masterful " fellow, who could both write and fight and in both was equally skilful." One quarrel, however, waxed so hot that, by common consent, nothing would cool the fevered situation but bloodletting. And this is how it happened. Abraham's only sister had died shortly after her marriage to Aaron Grigsby. Thereupon arose between the Grigsbys and the Lincolns a feeling of ill-will, the cause of which is not clear, nor is it material now. It was important enough then to result in the exclu- sion of the tall young brother-in-law from the joint wed- ding celebration of Aaron's two brothers — a memorable entertainment, full to overflowing with feasting, dancing, and merry-making. Such a frolic was not to be had every day, and Abraham's regret that he was not present to
i6 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
lead the fun, as was his wont, must have been keen. The slight vexed him even more than did the disap- pointment, for the Grigsbjs constituted "the leading family " in the community. To punish them, he forthwith wrote The First Chronicles of Reuben, a narration in mock-scriptural phrase, of an indelicate prank that is said to have been played upon the young wedded couples, at his instigation.*^ The public ridicule which this brought down upon the family failed to appease the satirist's wounded self-love ; and he followed it, in rhyme, with an onslaught even more stinging. The outraged honor of the Grigsbys demanded satisfaction according to the Pigeon Creek code ; so the eldest son, William, throwing discre- tion to the winds, issued a challenge for a fight, which their tormentor readily accepted.
When the combatants were about to enter the ring, Abraham chivalrously announced that as his antagonist was confessedly his inferior in every respect, he would forego the pleasure of thrashing him, and would let his step-brother,^ John, do battle in his stead. This offer, having, together with other magnanimous declarations, been applauded by the spectators, was accepted by Grigsby. The fight then began ; but alas ! for Abraham's good resolutions. They were not proof against his cham- pion's defeat. By a singular coincidence, moreover, Lin- coln's biographers, as well as he, deviate just a trifle, at this point, from the straight course ; that is to say, all of them save Mr. Lamon, who sticks to his text, and, in the face of popular disapproval, describes the unworthy scene which ensued. " John started out with fine pluck and spirit," says he, "but in a little while Billy got in some clever hits, and Abe began to exhibit symptoms of great uneasiness. Another pass or two, and John flagged quite decidedly, and it became evident that Abe was anxiously casting about for some pretext to break the ring. At length, when John was fairly down and Billy on top, and all the spectators cheering, swearing, and pressing
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 17
up to the very edge of the ring, Abe cried out that Bill Boland showed foul play, and, bursting out of the crowd, seized Grigsby by the heels, and flung him off. Having righted John and cleared the battle-ground of all oppo- nents, he swung a whiskey bottle over his head, and swore that he was ' the big buck of the lick.' It seems that nobody of the Grigsby faction, not one in that large assem- bly of bullies, cared to encounter the sweep of Abe's tre- mendously long and muscular arms, and so he remained master of ' the lick.' He was not content, however, with a naked triumph, but vaunted himself in the most offen- sive manner. He singled out the victorious but cheated Billy and, making sundry hostile demonstrations, declared that he could whip him then and there. Billy meekly said he did not doubt that, but that if Abe would make things even between them by fighting with pistols, he would not be slow to grant him a meeting. But Abe replied that he was not going to fool away his life on a single shot ; and so Billy was fain to put up with the poor satisfaction he had already received." *^ The question naturally suggested, as to whether Abraham was justified in his behavior, may be disregarded here. Not so, the account of the incident itself, which, irrespective of ethics or good taste, is essential to an understanding of what may be termed the aggressive side of his character, during these formative days.
Equally significant, though not so discreditable as the Grigsby broil, was an encounter in which young Lincoln figured not long after this. It brings us to his river life, with the novel responsibilities and dangers that must have entered — how much or how little no one can say — into the making of the master. Like so many native Kentuck- ians, he evinced, while still a boy, an aptitude for the management of a boat among the uncertain currents of the Ohio. This made him particularly useful to James Taylor, the ferry-keeper at the mouth of Anderson's Creek, to whom he was hired in his seventeenth year ; but, what
1 8 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
was of greater importance, it secured to him, three years later, his first voyage down the Mississippi.^^ A trading expedition to the towns on the banks of the river as far as New Orleans was projected, after the manner of the times, by James Gentry, the storekeeper in Gentryville, near by. His son, Allen, was placed in charge of a flat- boat, with a cargo of produce, and Lincoln was hired to accompany him as bow-hand.^^
The trip was, so far as is known, prosperous and un- eventful, until the voyagers tied up, one night, at the plantation of Madame Duchesne, a few miles below Baton Rouge. A gang of her slaves, seven in number, thinking, no doubt, that to rob and perhaps to murder the two boys while they slept would be a simple affair, boarded the boat. Their shuffling footsteps aroused Allen, who, to frighten them off, shouted, " Bring the guns, Lincoln ! Shoot them ! " The big bow-hand responded promptly, but, for reasons that we need not stop to explain, he brought no guns. He did bring what must have been very like a grievous crab-tree cudgel, with which, after the fashion of the giant in the allegory, he laid about him so impartially that those of the negroes who were not tumbled overboard took to their heels. As they fled, he carried the war into Africa, pursuing them, with Gentry, in the darkness for some distance. Then, bleed- ing but triumphant, the boys hastened back, and to avoid a return of the enemy in force, they speedily, as Mr. Lin- coln himself once, in nautical phraseology, expressed it, " cut cable, weighed anchor, and left." This was the first occasion on which the negro question brought itself to his attention forcibly. It may be said to have left its impres- sion in more ways than one. For, many years afterward, he showed his friends the scar on his forehead from a wound received in the fracas ; and still later, when he briefly put before a nation the important incidents of his life, a place was found for that midnight victory over brute strength and superior numbers. ^^
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 19
During the ensuing few years, the young boatman must have kept his laurels green. At least, he did not, even in the first absorbing struggles of life on his own account, suffer them to wither. His reputation as a wrestler appears to have preceded him to Thomas Lincoln's last home, in Coles County, Illinois, when Abraham, after his second flat-boat voyage down the Mississippi in the summer of 1831, came there on a brief visit. The arri- val of so noted a wrestler called for action on the part of Daniel Needham, the local champion. This worthy lost no time in issuing a challenge, which the newcomer as promptly accepted. In the public contest that ensued, the boatman grassed his opponent twice with such ease as to arouse the latter's anger and the delight of the spectators.
"Lincoln," he shouted, "you have thrown me twice, but you can't whip me ! "
" Needham," was the answer, " are you satisfied that I can throw you ? If you are not, and must be convinced through a thrashing, I will do that too, for your sake."
Upon second thought, the defeated bully, who had no doubt expected to overawe his antagonist with the threat of a fight, concluded that he was " satisfied," and his honors reverted to Lincoln. ^^
Several weeks later, the young man, then in his twenty- third year, entered upon his duties as clerk of Den- ton Offutt's country store, which had just been opened at New Salem, in western Illinois. The village was in- fested by a lawless, rollicking set of rowdies from a neighboring settlement, known as " the Clary's Grove boys." Easy-going in everything save mischief, and always ready on the shortest possible notice for sport or riot, they dominated the place at an expenditure of energy that would have worked wonders had it not been mis- applied. As it was, they lived up to certain crude notions of chivalry that led them, at times, into acts of generos- ity toward the village folk ; but kindness to the stranger within their gates had no place, be it understood, in their
20 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
code. On the contrary, the desire to test a newcomer's mettle appears to have prompted conduct the reverse of kind. When their impertinent challenges to contests of various sorts were not acceptable to a stranger, he was asked to say what he would do in case another gentleman should pull his nose or otherwise make free with him. *' If," says the sympathetic historian, " he did not seem entirely decided in his views as to what should properly be done in such a contingency, perhaps he would be nailed in a hogshead and rolled down New Salem hill; perhaps his ideas would be brightened by a brief ducking in the Sangamon ; or perhaps he would be scoffed, kicked, and cuffed by a great number of persons in concert until he reached the confines of the village, and then turned adrift as being unfit company for the people of that settle- ment. If, however, the stranger consented to engage in a tussle with one of his persecutors, it was usually arranged that there should be foul play, with nameless impositions and insults, which would inevitably change the affair into a fight." These gentle ruffians had either taken the mea- sure of Offutt's tall clerk, or had accepted the standing with which rumor invested him. At all events, they made no attempt " to naturalize " him, as they termed it ; and Lincoln might have enjoyed entire immunity had it not been for the boastful tongue of his employer.
Denton Offutt, a good-hearted, talkative, reckless specu- lator, of the Colonel Sellers type, regarded Lincoln as the most promising of his many investments. His ad- miration for the young fellow, whom he had previously employed as a boatman, was, unlike most of his fads, based upon experience. Indeed, he had sounded the depths of Lincoln's talents, mental as well as physical, with remarkable precision. From repeated predictions of his protege's destined greatness, Offutt usually turned to the more timely declaration that Abe could whip or throw any man in Sangamon County. Such a boast could of course not go long unchallenged in the hearing of " the
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 21
Clary's Grove boys." Presently Bill Clary himself laid a wager of ten dollars with Off utt, matching against Lin- coln the biggest bruiser of the gang, Jack Armstrong by name, a sort of local Brom Bones, who is described as " a powerful twister, square built and strong as an ox." The proposed contest, in view, perhaps, of "the boys' " reputed disregard of fair play, had no charms for the new clerk. He would gladly have kept clear of it, but Offutt had committed him so far that he could not refuse without in- curring the charge of cowardice. Moreover, as the gang had looted several stores of the village, they would in all probability not have spared Offutt's for any length of time after they had ceased to respect the clerk in charge. Lincoln accordingly consented, stipulating, however, that the match was to be a friendly one and fairly conducted. All New Salem, with money, drinks, and portable property of various kinds staked on the result, gathered at the ring. The contestants were well matched. They strug- gled and strained, for some time, with seemingly equal strength and equal skill. They appear to have resembled the mighty two who wrestled before Achilles, as
" with vigorous arms They clasped each other, locked like rafters framed By some wise builder for the lofty roof Of a great mansion proof against the winds. Then their backs creaked beneath the powerful strain Of their strong hands ; the sweat ran down their limbs; Large whelks upon their sides and shoulders rose, Crimson with blood. Still eagerly they strove For victory and the tripod. Yet in vain Ulysses labored to supplant his foe, And throw him to the ground, and equally Did Ajax strive in vain, for with sheer strength Ulysses foiled his efforts."
But here, we grieve to say, the parallel, such as it was, ceased. When the Homer of the prairies sings the story of the later combat, he will not, if truth as well as beauty has a claim upon him, picture his champions leaving the
22 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
field, as did the Greek heroes, with gallantly divided honors. Such a conclusion, indeed, appeared fitting to Lincoln ; for, when neither he nor the man from the Grove seemed able to prevail he said : —
" Now, Jack, let 's quit. You can't throw me, and I can't throw you."
Armstrong, rendered desperate by his failure and urged on by the clamor of his friends, instead of answering, hurled himself upon Lincoln to get a foul hold. The latter, enraged at the trick, seized the fellow by the throat and, putting forth all his strength, " shook him," as the chronicler tells us, "like a rag." Some of "the boys" hurried to their leader's assistance, while others rushed to Offutt and demanded the stakes. Above the tumult could be heard Lincoln's voice ordering Offutt not to pay, and declaring his willingness to fight all Clary's Grove, if necessary. He had, in fact, backed against the store to meet the gang's attack. At that moment, it might have gone hard with him against such odds, had not the leading citizen of the place interfered. Then Armstrong, having recovered breath, expressed his admiration of so much pluck and muscle, in this outburst : —
" Boys, Abe Lincoln is the best fellow that ever broke into this settlement ! He shall be one of us."
And one of them, in a sense at least, Lincoln became. His quondam opponent, like most men of his class, knew no middle ground between enmity and affection. Ever afterward, Armstrong, together with all that he had, was at Lincoln's command, and the rest of " the Clary's Grove boys " passed with their chief under the yoke.*^
How Lincoln exercised his influence over these rough fellows is illustrated by an incident that occurred not long after the fight. A stranger to the village was attacked one day, in a spirit of frolic, by the gang, under Arm- strong's leadership. Jack applied to him a string of epi- thets, among which " coward " and " damned liar " were the least objectionable. The victim of this onslaught,
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 23
finding himself at a disadvantage, backed up to a wood- pile, seized a stick, and struck Armstrong a blow that felled him. Regaining his feet. Jack rushed forward to punish the stranger, when Lincoln, who happened upon the scene, persuaded " the boys " to make him arbitrator of the difficulty.
"Well, Jack," he asked, proceeding in Socratic fashion, "what did you say to the man?" Armstrong repeated his language.
"Well, Jack," was the next question, "if you were a stranger in a strange place, as this man is, and you were called a damned liar, and so forth, what would you do ? "
" Whip him, by God ! " was the ready answer.
"Then this man," said. the arbitrator, "has done no more to you than you would have done to him."
Even Armstrong felt the force of the golden rule when so lucidly applied by the only man whose interference he would not resent.
"Well, Abe," said he, taking the stranger by the hand, " it 's all right." Then, in accordance with the time-honored custom, for such occasions established, he treated. *«
The pastimes of these wild young fellows, no less than their quarrels, suffered a change under the pressure of Lincoln's authority. He vetoed one of the gang's favor- ite diversions, that of rolling persons who had incurred their displeasure down a perilously steep hill in a hogs- head. A form of amusement so rich in possibilities. Jack and his playful savages were disinclined to relinquish. If they were not to have their little fun, now and then, with an unwilling victim, said they, what harm could there be in rolling one that was willing ? Accordingly, an elderly toper was hired by Armstrong to make the descent, for a gallon of whiskey. Even this unprecedented concession to decorum did not, strangely enough, satisfy the censor. He insisted that the sport — brutal under any conditions — must be stopped, and stopped it was.^" On another
24 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
occasion, when the spirit of deviltry animated an election celebration, "the boys" enticed a fellow, endowed with more pluck than sense, into a bet that he could ride through their bonfire, on his pony. The animal trotted nimbly enough up to the edge of the blaze, where he balked and tossed his rider headforemost into the flames. The affair had been observed by Lincoln, who, laughing in spite of himself, ran to the fellow's assistance. " You have carried this thing far enough," he said angrily to Armstrong. The big rowdy, upon the arrival of his "conscience," became so contrite that, not content with leading the sufferer to a doctor to have the burns dressed, he took him to his own cabin for the night, and sent him home the next morning, after giving him a breakfast and a sealskin cap.^^
The encounters of Offutt's brawny clerk with the exu- berant young men of New Salem, in behalf of law and order, were not always, even ostensibly, of a friendly character. One day, while waiting upon some women in the store, he was annoyed at the loud profanity of a fellow who made a practice of lounging about the place. Lincoln, leaning over the counter, asked him, as ladies were present, not to use offensive language. The other retorted that he would talk as he pleased, and intimated that the clerk was not man enough to check him. His abuse continued until the women had left the store. Then Lincoln, stepping forward, said : —
" Well, if you must be whipped, I suppose I may as well whip you as any other man."
The offender, nothing loath, followed his critic out of doors, where ensued a contest, brief but decisive. Throw- ing the fellow to the ground, Lincoln held him down with one hand, while with the other he rubbed a bunch of the smart- weed, which grew within reach, into the up- turned face and eyes. The man of oaths bellowed with pain, while he of the protests, having administered plenary discipline, hastened for water and tenderly bathed the
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 25
aching parts. These ministrations were accompanied, it is surmised, by " quaint admonition," from which the suf- ferer may be assumed to have profited. For he became, as we are told, the life-long friend of the man who tutored him thus violently in gentle manners.^^
During these early days of " wooling and pulling," to use one of Lincoln's phrases, his conquests over the hearts of his antagonists were, in most cases, as complete as his triumphs over their bodies. To defeat a man in such a manner as to compel his lasting friendship, no less than his respect, was apparently easy for this manly young fellow. A singularly fine character had already, undevel- oped though it was, manifested itself, here and there, in traits which shone through his commonplace life like veins of gold in a lump of quartz. To inquire how these quali- ties came to enter into the make-up of a lad reared in the fringe of the western wilderness, is as foreign to the purpose of this study as would be an effort to account, in an essay on the currency, for the presence of the precious metal in a dirty clod. The social no less than the physical marvel might draw us fruitlessly far afield. Suffice it to say that Lincoln did, even at this time, have moral as well as muscular strength, and that the ignorant, rough, or vicious men among whom he grew to manhood felt — not always consciously, perhaps — the sway of both. These people, admirers of brute force though they were, would assuredly not have fallen with such complete self-surrender under the dominion of this powerful hand, had it not been for the corresponding superiority of the head and the heart by which it was controlled. A combination so strik- ing had naturally led Lincoln's schoolmates to lay their boyish differences before him ; and, as he advanced in years, it caused his associates to appoint him umpire of their sports, arbitrator of their disputes, referee of their un- avoidable fights, and authority in general. The decisions, let us add, were not only remarkable for their fairness, but for the promptness, as well, with which they were enforced
26 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
by the judge. He did not hesitate, moreover, to act in this capacity without waiting for an invitation from the per- sons most concerned. Rushing between two fighting men, he would fling them apart and insist upon settling their quarrel for them amicably. Good feeling, indeed, pervaded most, if not all, of young Lincoln's muscular activities. Such advantages as he possessed over others were so rarely abused, on the one hand, and were so commonly employed with credit, on the other, that an account of his prowess in the ring, which did not emphasize the facts, would be misleading. ^^ To understand the Lincoln of this period, one must bear in mind that side by side with his pugilistic victories were these less palpable, but possibly more important, triumphs of character. " It is excellent to have a giant's strength," and excellent to use it as this giant did.
To the end of his life, Mr. Lincoln evinced an almost childish pride in his superior physique. As he stood, during the Civil War, watching, from the Potomac front of the Treasury, a forest on the Virginia hills fall before the blows of a regiment of Maine lumbermen, he ex- claimed : —
" I don't believe that there is a man in that regiment with longer arms than mine, or who can swing an ax bet- ter than I can. By jings! I should like to change works with one of them." ^*
Indeed, the strength that had contributed to his early distinction among the settlers of the backwoods was dis- played to the more refined associates of his later career frequently enough, though not always opportunely. When- ever an ax happened to be within the President's reach, his hand grasped it in some exhibition of dexterity or endurance. Thus, after he had insisted on shaking hands, one day, with a considerable number of the sick and wounded soldiers in the City Point hospital, when those who were with him expressed fears that he might be dis- abled by the exertion, he is said to have answered, " The
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 27
hardships of my early life gave me strong muscles." Then, stepping through the open doorway, he took up a large, heavy ax that lay near a log, and, chopping vigorously, sent the chips flying in all directions. Presently he stopped and, with arm extended at full length, held out the ax horizontally by the extreme end of the handle. " Strong men, who looked on," so runs the tale, " — men accustomed to manual labor — could not hold the same ax in that position for a moment." ^ At another time, some officers and newspaper correspondents were returning with him from the Navy Yard, where they had gone to view the testing of certain new artillery inventions. As they sat on the steamer discussing what they had seen, the President caught sight of some axes that hung outside of the cabin. Walking over to where the implements were, he said : —
" You may talk about your Raphael repeaters and your eleven-inch Dahlgrens, but I guess I understand that there institution as well as anything else. There was a time when I could hold out one of these things at arm's length."
Whereupon, he took down one of the axes and held it as has been described. Several of the party tried to imi- tate him, but none succeeded. " When I was eighteen years of age I could do this," said Mr. Lincoln, on a sim- ilar occasion, to General Egbert L. Viele, " and I have never seen the day since that I could not do it." This was, in fact, one of his favorite feats. He seemed to enjoy the discomfiture of those who made unsuccessful efforts to equal it, no less than the admiration that it never failed to excite in the beholders.^^
Mr. Lincoln's triumphs of physical strength led him into the practice of almost unconsciously comparing him- self, in this respect, with other men. The habit is well illustrated in an incident related by Governor John Wesley Hoyt, for many years secretary and manager of the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. He escorted
28 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
Lincoln, in the autumn of 1859, through the fair of the association, at which the Illinois visitor had made the ad- dress. They spent some time in one of the tents, watch- ing the performance of a "strong man," who tossed about huge iron balls, catching and rolling them on his arms and back with remarkable brawn and agility. The exhibition appeared to interest the orator of the day so intensely that, at its conclusion, the manager introduced the athlete to him. Mr. Lincoln stood looking down upon the man, who was very short, as if wondering that one so much smaller than he could be so much stronger. Then he said abruptly, in his quaint fashion, " Why, I could lick salt off the top of your hat." ^^ Nor was this the only occasion on which he remarked smallness of stature.^^ His first meeting with Stephen A. Douglas, in the Illinois legisla- ture of 1834,^^ was memorable not, as might be expected, for any impression which the " Little Giant's " genius made upon him, but for his comment on the undersized Vermonter as " the least man " that he had ever seen.®"
So, in Congress, during the winter of 1848, when an- other small great man, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, moved Mr. Lincoln to tears by " the very best speech of an hour's length " that he had heard, he did not, in writ- ing about it to his partner, Mr. Herndon, forget to describe the speaker as " a little, slim, pale-faced, consumptive man." ^^ The diminutive orator and his tall admirer met seventeen years later, at the Hampton Roads Conference, under strangely changed conditions — the one as an envoy of the dying but still struggling Confederacy, the other as the President of the Union. A momentous meeting, this. Upon its issue depended peace or continued blood- shed. Yet Mr. Lincoln was not so much engrossed in the serious questions under consideration as to put aside en- tirely his interest in Mr. Stephens's size. The little com- missioner had protected his frail body against the mid- winter cold with a profusion of overcoats and wraps, which, after reaching the River Queen's warm cabin, he peeled
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 29
off, layer by layer. As the wearer finally emerged, the President is said to have remarked in an aside to the Secretary of State, who was with him, " Seward, that is the largest shucking for so small a nubbin that I ever saw." ^^ This particular nubbin, meagre though it was, the speaker held in high esteem ; still, here, as in the case of Douglas, he appears to have had a complacent sense of his own more ample proportions.^^
The sight of a tall man usually aroused in Mr. Lincoln a desire to know whether he or the other had the more inches. This hobby he sought to gratify, in season and out, concern, as it might, a chance visitor from the country, or a dignified Senator. Indeed, at what was, per- haps, one of the most impressive moments of his life, when face to face with some of the leading public men of the day, the question, "Who is the taller?" seemed — if one may judge solely by what happened — to be uppermost in his mind. He had just responded in a few formal words to the official notification of his first nomination for the presidency, brought to his Springfield home by the com- mittee of the Chicago Convention ; and he had started, under the guidance of the chairman, the Hon. George Ashmun, to make the rounds of the delegation, for per- sonal introductions. The party included such men as William M. Evarts, Carl Schurz, George S. Boutwell, John Albion Andrew, Gideon Welles, Caleb B. Smith, William D. Kelley, Francis P. Blair, Sr., David K. Cart- ter, and Norman B. Judd ; but his eye rested upon the most commanding figure of all, that of Edwin Dennison Morgan, then Governor of New York and chairman of the National Republican Executive Committee. Before him Mr. Lincoln stopped first and, with a cordial greet- ing, said : —
" Pray, Governor, how tall may you be ? "
" Nearly six feet three," answered the great man from the Empire State.
An embarrassing silence that followed was relieved by
30 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
Judge Kelley, the delegate from Pennsylvania, who was somewhat of a poplar, himself. " And pray, Mr. Lincoln," said he, " how tall may you be ? "
"Six feet four," answered the candidate, taking the benefit of a doubtful fraction. Whereupon the Judge, as he relates, bowed and said : —
" Pennsylvania bows humbly before New York, but still more humbly before Illinois. Mr. Lincoln, is it not curious that I, who for the last twelve years have yearned for a President to whom I might look up, should have found one here in a State where so many people believe they grow nothing but ' Little Giants ' ? " e^
Mr. Lincoln was not usually content, as in this instance, to take the word of tall men as to their height. So im- portant a matter, it appears, could be determined to his satisfaction by actual measurement only. This, Congress- man John Sherman learned to his surprise, as he paid his respects to the President-elect, on the evening after Mr. Lincoln's arrival in Washington. " When introduced to him," says Mr. Sherman, " he took my hands in both of his, drew himself up to his full height, and looking at me steadily, said, ' You are John Sherman ! Well, I am taller than you. Let 's measure.' Thereupon we stood back to back, and some one present announced that he was two inches taller than I. This was correct, for he was six feet three and one half inches tall when he stood erect. This singular introduction was not unusual with him, but if it lacked dignity, it was an expression of friendliness and so considered by him."^
Dignity ! The pomp and circumstance of the White House itself did not abate Mr. Lincoln's fondness for measuring. How deeply rooted this trait was, may be gathered from the following typical scene, described by one who happened to be present. On one of the President's public audience days, a stalwart caller, evidently from the rural West, approached Mr. Lincoln awkwardly and man- aged to explain that, being on a visit to the Capital, he
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 31
desired before leaving to see the President, and to have the honor of shaking hands with him. Mr. Lincoln, as he smilingly complied, surveyed the big man from head to foot and said, in his playful way : —
" I rather think you have a little the advantage of me in height. You are a taller man than I am."
" I guess not, Mr. President," replied the visitor ; " the advantage cannot be on my side."
" Yes, it is," was the rejoinder. " I have a pretty good eye for distances, and I think I can't be mistaken in the fact of the advantage being slightly with you. I measure six feet three and a half inches in my stockings, and you go, I think, a little beyond that."
As the other still politely demurred, Mr. Lincoln said, *' It is very easily tested." Rising from his chair, he placed a book edgewise against the wall, just higher than his head. Then, turning to his visitor, he bade him, " Come under." This the ofranger hesitated to do, his countenance the while wearing a bewildered yet half-smiling expression that, we are told, was comical to see.
" Come under, I say," repeated the President in a more peremptory tone, and the visitor slowly complied. When Mr. Lincoln, in his turn, stepped under the book, he was found to have fallen a trifle short of the other's measure- ment.
" There," said he, " it is as I told you. I knew I could n't be mistaken. I rarely fail in taking a man's true altitude by the eye."
" Yes, but Mr. President," said the man, to the merri- ment of the company, " you have slippers on and I boots, and that makes a difference."
" Not enough to amount to anything in this reckoning," was the reply. " You ought at least to be satisfied, my honest friend, with the proof given that you actually stand higher to-day than your President." ^
Even more averse to Mr. Lincoln's yard-stick than this modest citizen was the senior Senator from Massachusetts.
32 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
" Sumner," said the President, " declined to stand up with me, back to back, to see which was the taller man, and made a fine speech about this being the time for uniting our fronts against the enemy and not our backs. But I guess he was afraid to measure, though he is a good piece of a man. I have never had much to do with Bishops where I live ; but, do you know, Sumner is my idea of a Bishop." «^
A palpable hit, this, when we recall the imposing pre- sence and the massive frame of the cultured Bostonian, who, after towering for years above his contemporaries, was evi- dently not willing to surrender, in an idle moment, the physical preeminence in which he, too, took not a little pride.*^ Perhaps his eye had become as practiced " in taking a man's true altitude," as the President's. If so, it gave warning that when the loosely jointed figure before him unfolded to its full height,^^ "Old Abe " would, in one respect at least, prove to be Charles Sumner's superior.
The scholarly statesman from the East, no less than the man of the people from the West, owed something of that subtle, indefinable force which issued in mastery over their fellows, to mere physique. However slight this debt may have been, they did not fail to recognize it — each in his characteristic way. Sumner, whether he gave to the world an oration with carefully studied pose and gesture, or privately employed his powers of persuasion in further- ing one of the lofty aims of his career, was ever conscious of the advantage that lay in his commanding figure, and he improved it to the utmost. Lincoln, rarely, if ever, self- conscious, made no such application of his strength and stature ; but the exhibitions of them that he scattered through his life abundantly manifest his half -serious, half- joking sense of their importance. This appreciation of a superiority, purely physical, by leaders so unlike in tem- perament and training, is sufficient to warrant the attention that has been given here to a seemingly unessential matter. Moreover, it is no mere coincidence that the three most
A SAMSON OF THE BACKWOODS 3^
forceful personalities that have directed the fortunes of the American people from the President's chair were embodied in frames of uncommon size and vigor. Their habits of command, confirmed early in life by ability to enforce their wishes, armed them with the irresistible powers of control by means of which they triumphed in great crises of our nation's history. The heaviest demands of this nature were, beyond a question, laid upon Abraham Lincoln, and he, consistently enough, was, of all the Presidents, the tallest and sturdiest.
CHAPTER II
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS
Lincoln's quickly acquired ascendancy, such as it was, over the people of New Salem, received formal confir- mation almost as speedily. In less than ten months from that lazy summer day on which, as he himself de- scribed it, the young stranger had lodged in the place like a piece of floating driftwood, he was singled out by his neighbors for the choicest honor then within their gift — a military command. The Black Hawk War, narrowly averted during the preceding year, had broken out in the spring of 1832, spreading panic along the Illinois frontier. Rock River valley in the northern part of the State, once the hunting-ground of the united Sac and Fox Indians, was overrun by a band of their warriors under the famous old leader for whom history has named the struggle that ensued. He had, the previous summer, in accordance with existing treaties, ceded the land to the government, and had removed with his people beyond the Mississippi. But Black Hawk's inveterate hatred of the Americans, engendered by wrongs not altogether imaginary, and kept alive, since the war of 1812, by the Englishmen in Canada, had aroused him to one final raid for the recovery of his home. Having recrossed the river at the head of his so- called British band, — for most of the Sac and Fox nations were in favor of peace, — he held the lives and property of the settlers in his hands. At this juncture. Governor Reynolds called for volunteers to drive the Indians back over the Mississippi. Among the first to respond was a company from New Salem that included Abraham Lin- coln and many of his Clary's Grove friends.
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LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 35
On their way to the rendezvous at Beardstown, the volunteers halted to elect a captain. The office was sought by two candidates, Abraham Lincoln and William Kirkpatrick. The latter, as the owner of a sawmill and as a person of standing in the community, considered the honor to be his due, particularly as he who disputed it with him was a newcomer and a mere hired man. Lincoln had, in fact, upon his arrival in the neighborhood, done an odd job or two in Kirkpatrick's mill. To the proprie- tor's unfair treatment of him, on that occasion, may be ascribed the workman's keen desire to defeat him in a public contest. Upon hiring Lincoln, Kirkpatrick had promised to buy for him a hook with which to move some heavy logs ; but finding that by reason of the young man's strength and skill the work was done as well with a common hand-spike, he had agreed, at Lincoln's sugges- tion, to give him the two dollars that the hook would have cost. When pay-day arrived, Kirkpatrick had refused to keep his promise. The trick rankled in Lincoln's mem- ory. As soon as he heard of the mill-owner's ambition for military rank he said to his friend Green : —
" Bill, I believe I can now make Kirkpatrick pay that two dollars he owes me on the cant-hook. I '11 run against him for captain."
The election that followed was characteristic in its sim- plicity. The candidates stood apart ; the voters, together. At a signal, the latter stepped over to the man whom they severally preferred. Three out of every four of them went promptly to Lincoln.^ Whereupon the minority, who stood with his competitor, left their candidate one by one to join the successful party. This continued until Kirk- patrick stood almost alone. His punishment had been severe. " Damn him," muttered Lincoln to his friend, " I 've beat him. He used me badly in our settlement for my toil." The more audible impromptu speech in which the new Captain thanked his company was probably expressed in language less unparliamentary. It has not
^6 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
been preserved, but a minute of the speaker's gratifica- tion has. Recalling the event, in that frank little third- person autobiography of 1860, Mr. Lincoln wrote : —
" He says he has not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction."
And with reason, for this election meant far more to him than the humbling of an influential man who had wronged him. It was the first formal public recognition of his ability to lead.^
How creditably the young officer conducted himself may be determined only after an inspection of the mate- rial at his command. A motley company it was, every man of it equipped after his own fashion, and intent upon maintaining, in behavior as well as in appearance, the frontiersman's cherished individuality. Having joined his neighbors, on equal terms, for an expedition against the Indians, he became restive under discipline whenever, in his good judgment, it did not bear directly upon the affair in hand. This prejudice against subordination he had, it is true, overcome sufficiently to participate, on the democratic plan described, in the choice of a captain ; but with his vote probably went the private reservation to obey that officer or not as occasion might suggest. Thus far, the men of Lincoln's company differed from the rest of Governor Reynolds's hastily gathered army in no im- portant particular. Beyond this, however, lay a marked variation in degree, if not in kind. The volunteers from New Salem savored strongly of Clary's Grove. Un- trained, disorderly, even mutinous, they distanced the other companies in their violation of rules, and soon won the distinction of being a "hard set of men." Their Captain once recalled that his first order to one of them was answered by, " Go to the devil, sir ! " The officer hastened to the manual instead, so that no time might be lost in making soldiers out of his unpromising recruits.
The task of compelling obedience from such men, difficult under the best of conditions, must have taxed
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 37
to their utmost the faculties of a captain no less deficient than they in military training. How Lincoln pieced out his ignorance and saved the of&ciai dignity from disaster is illustrated by the droll anecdotes with which he was ac- customed, some years later, in the post-office of the House, to amuse his fellow Congressmen. One of these stories dealt with his first attempt to drill the awkward squad.^ They were marching with a front of about twenty men across a field, when it became necessary to pass through a narrow gateway. " I could not for the life of me," said he, " remember the proper word of command for getting my company endwise so that it could get through the gate. So, as we came near the gate, I shouted, ' This company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again on the other side of the gate!' " ^ It was not so easy, be it said, for Lincoln to gloss over all his shortcomings. He failed, in one instance at least, to understand that he who would command must first learn to obey. Hence, shortly after his company had joined the main body of the army, we find him in disgrace for disobedience of a general order. This decree, issued while the horses were making a precarious crossing over the Henderson River, prohib- ited, for obvious reasons, the discharge of firearms within fifty paces of the camp limits. Deliberately ignoring the order, our Captain fired his pistol within ten steps of the camp. He was promptly deprived of his sword, and was placed under arrest for the day.^
About a week later, Lincoln was again subjected to punishment, but this time for the misdeeds of his men. They had, upon their arrival near the seat of war, been received into the United States service. The military prestige of the nation appears, however, to have restrained their unruly spirits no more than had that of the state. When the army was about to march in search of the Indians, one bright May morning, Captain Lincoln di- rected the orderly sergeant to parade his company. They failed to respond to the officer's calls, and the sounds that
38 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
issued from beneath some of the blankets gave intimation of what soon proved to be the terrible truth. These valiant men had, during the night, made a sortie, on their ovrn account, upon an enemy that, more powerful than the Sacs or the Foxes, had laid them low. The warriors from New Salem were dead — drunk. Livestigation re- vealed that they had broken into the officers' stores, and had stolen enough liquor to render marching, a few hours later, an unreasonable proposition. Indeed, all the efforts of their mortified commander, who of course had been kept in ignorance of the spree, failed to maintain them on their feet long enough to start with the other troops. Some time after the army had marched, he man- aged to set his besotted ranks in motion ; but as stragglers dropped here and there along the road, to finish their interrupted slumbers, the company did not overtake the main body before nightfall. Then Captain Lincoln was again placed under arrest, with orders to carry for two days — oh, cutting mockery ! — a wooden sword." The punishment was in keeping with the opera bouffe element that runs through the incident. Yet, there is no reason for assuming that the young officer, keen of humor though he was, found aught in the affair, at the time, but chagrin. This failure to maintain control over his men, together with his own violation of discipline, a few days before, must have made clear to him that he had now to face entirely new problems in leadership.
New problems may sometimes be solved in old ways. So must have thought this captain of volunteers, for he sought to establish his military authority not by apply- ing the unfamiliar regulations in the articles of war, but by employing the means that had already stood him in such good stead. Courage, skill, and strength had secured to him at home a certain ascendancy over these rough fellows. Why not, he may have asked himself, hold that ascendancy in camp by further exhibitions of these qual- ities ? Opportunities were plentiful enough in the sports
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 39
with which the soldiers tried to relieve the hardships of the campaign, and in which Lincoln appears, as was his wont, to have excelled them all. This was especially so in wrestling. With a handkerchief knotted around his waist, he would jump into the ring, on notice however short, to uphold the reputation of his company. The vol- unteers from New Salem believed that no man in the army could throw their Captain, a faith which he shared, and in which he took not a little pride. Indeed, long after his ambitions had undergone a change, he was fond of recalling these triumphs. They had a prominent place among the reminiscences with which he entertained his congressional friends. Telling them once about a cham- pion of the southern Illinois companies who challenged him, Mr. Lincoln said : —
" He was at least two inches taller than I was, and somewhat heavier, but I reckoned that I was the most wiry, and soon after I had tackled him I gave him a hug, lifted him off the ground, and threw him flat on his back. That settled his hash." ^
Lincoln continued to settle the hashes dished up for him by his enthusiastic followers, until a certain Dow Thompson, not otherwise known to fame, was pitted against him. On the day appointed, the respective sup- porters of the men, having wagered their money and val- uables upon the result, formed a ring for the contest. Lincoln's confidence in his ability to throw Thompson underwent a change after the first few passes. Turning to his friends, he said : —
" This is the most powerful man I ever had hold of. He will throw me and you will lose your all, unless I act on the defensive."
The New Salem champion appeared, in fact, to be outclassed. He managed to keep his feet for some time, but he was at last fairly thrown. Two falls out of three were to decide the match, so the wrestlers tried another bout. The second differed somewhat from the first. Lin-
40 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
coin fell heavily, pulling Thompson to the ground with him. As both went down, this looked like a " dog-fall," and it was so declared by Lincoln's friends. The adher- ents of Thompson, on the other hand, as warmly claimed it to be' a fair fall. A general fight seemed imminent, but before the angry partisans could come to blows, Lincoln, who had regained his feet, rushed between them, and said to his supporters : —
" Boys, give up your bets ; if he has not thrown me fairly, he could."
This magnanimous course put an end to the quarrel, while it left Lincoln's reputation as a wrestler not seri- ously impaired. For his men, though they paid their bets in obedience to his commands, refused to concede that he had been defeated, or that any athlete in the army was his match.^
The pride of Lincoln's troopers in their Captain went far toward reconciling them to his authority. He was, in fact, the only officer whom they learned to obey. More- over, "they were fighting men," as one historian says, " and but for his personal authority would have kept the camp in a perpetual uproar." Even Lincoln's control was, before he got through with them, put to a severe strain, — the severest that can come to an officer, be he recruit or veteran, — open mutiny. This is how it happened. After the disgraceful rout known as " Stillman's defeat," Gov- ernor Reynolds and his army started in hot pursuit of the Indians. The savages, as they fled, left ghastly traces of their presence, here and there, in sacked homes and murdered people ; but, applying their skill in woodcraft, they confused their trail so well that their pursuers sought them, for some time, in vain. The volunteers, unaccustomed to the consequent privations, became exas- perated against the enemy and unruly toward their officers. During one of these fruitless marches, a weary and hun- gry old Indian wandered into camp. He professed to be a friend of the whites, and showed a safe-conduct signed
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 41
by General Cass. This declared him to have done good service and to be faithful to the government. Disregard- ing the pass, some of the Sangamon volunteers, actuated by their recently inflamed hatred of the red man, and recalling, no doubt, the frontiersman's maxim, that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, rushed upon the re- fugee, determined to kill him. At this juncture. Captain Lincoln, stepping between them and their victim, knocked up the leveled muskets.
" Men," said he, his voice ringing above their shouts, " this must not be done. He must not be shot and killed by us."
For a moment it seemed as if the speaker, as well as the creature that crouched behind him, was in danger. Then the courage and resolution in the young officer's attitude gained the mastery. Beneath his fixed gaze the mutinous group sullenly fell back with murmurs of dis- appointment and vengeance.
" This is cowardly on your part, Lincoln ! " cried one of them.
" If any man thinks I am a coward, let him test it," was the reply.
" You are larger and heavier=than we are," said another.
" This you can guard against. Choose your weapons,'* rejoined Lincoln.
To this the mutineers made no answer. They had never before seen him so aroused. There was nothing left for them but submission. One by one they slunk away, and left the Indian in peace. How imminent had been his danger may be inferred from the fact that one of his race, aged and blind, who threw himself upon the mercy of another company, a few weeks later, was murdered by the enraged soldiers. To oppose such men, be it said, in the height of their frenzy, was beyond the ability of most militia officers. Captain Lincoln, however, knew the crowd with which he had to deal. It was only by sinking the officer and asserting the man that he could have hoped for
42 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
a real conquest. He miglit, it is true, have enforced obedi- ence by recourse to military discipline ; but tbe influence over this rough citizen-soldiery, which he so highly prized, would probably have been lost to him forever. As it was, neither his courage nor his authority was again questioned ; for, as he himself afterwards declared, he had, at the risk of his life, finally established both.^
The force of character manifested in these incidents is sufficient to account for the inexperienced militia cap- tain's sway over men whom no one else could handle ; yet the respect and even the affection with which, before the close of the campaign, his conduct inspired them, con- tributed somewhat, no doubt, toward this result. Tactfully taking the middle ground between that of the commander and the comrade, he did not let " the boys " forget that he was their superior, although none of them entered more keenly than he into their pleasures or their troubles. Here was a captain of volunteers, indeed ! When the duties of the day had been disposed of, he was always ready to join the men in their pastimes ; when fatigues or hunger discouraged them, — for the marching was hard and the commissary too often missing, — he gathered them at night about the camp-fire, to turn their faultfinding into laughter over his inexhaustible flow of jests and stories ; finally, when injustice threatened their welfare, he became so watchful of their comfort, so tenacious of their rights, that, in the language of one of the men, he "attached officers and rank to him, as with hooks of steel." The volunteers, be it known, had for some time suffered under the discriminations in favor of the regular troops, that inevitably arise from the employment of the two branches in the same service. The militia had, indeed, been accepted by the government; but it was a State body, under State control, none the less, and it accordingly did not escape the customary prejudice. Abuses continued, until Captain Lincoln, one day, received an order that appeared to be improper. He obeyed it, but, improving the opportunity,
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 43
went directly to the regular officer, who had issued it, and protested against the injustice to which his men had been subjected. Lincoln is said to have stated the case in good, set terms, concluding with : —
" Sir, you forget that we are not under the rules and regulations of the War Department at Washington ; are only volunteers under the orders and regulations of Illinois. Keep in your own sphere and there will be no difficulty, but resistance will hereafter be made to your unjust orders. And, further, my men must be equal in all particulars — in rations, arms, camps, and so forth — to the regular army."
This demand was effectual. The wisdom, if not the jus- tice, of acceding to it had been made clear to the regu- lar officers ; and they discontinued, from that time, their unfair treatment of the volunteers. As for the militiamen themselves, they, naturally enough, regarded him who had thus championed their cause, with devotion.^"
The victory over the epaulets at headquarters was not less satisfactory than had been our Captain's little private campaign for the mastery of his own men. Their surrender to him, at discretion, was — as we now view it — of far deeper significance than the subsequent capture of Black Hawk and all his savages. The so-called war would, in fact, like the other struggles of its class, be well-nigh forgotten to-day, if it were not for the few participants who became eminent." And certainly, to none of these was the brief experience so momentous as to the raw youth whose task of leading seventy recruits was destined to be followed, within a few decades, by the supreme com- mand, at one time, of over a million soldiers.
Lincoln's apprenticeship to discipline had, it should be added, in those early days, a two-fold character. When the volunteers, after five weeks of service, demanded their discharge, he was mustered out with his company.^ As the new levies had then not yet arrived at the seat of war, Governor Reynolds appealed to the patriotism of the dis-
44 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
banded troops for a regiment of volunteers that would, in the interim, protect the frontier. Among those who reen- listed was the ex-captain from the Sangamon. He served then, and during a still later enlistment, as a private in an Independent Spy Company that was called upon to supply couriers, scouts, and skirmishers. Of his conduct in the difficult, and presumably dangerous, duties that were assigned to him, no record has been preserved, save in the few random recollections of his fellow soldiers. One of them recalls that whenever, on the march, scouts were to be sent out to examine a covert, in which an ambush might be concealed, Lincoln was the first man selected. Moreover, many of those who rode forward with him are said to have habitually found an excuse, as they neared the place, for dismounting to adjust their girths or their saddles, but "Lincoln's saddle," it is dryly added, "was always in perfect order." ^^ He had probably learned, by this unusual inversion of military rank, how to receive orders as well as he had mastered the art of giving them. At all events, he was a faithful soldier to the end. For, when he was finally mustered out of service, a few weeks before the close of the war, it was not, as had been the case with so many of the volunteers, at his own wish, but in the general disbandment necessitated by the lack of provisions. Thus ingloriously terminated Abraham Lin- coln's less than three months of soldiering, during which, as it happened, he caught sight of no enemy and took part in no battle. If this vexed the volunteer, he may have reflected, as he made his way back to New Salem, that it was, at least, as creditable to his courage to have saved an Indian as to have killed one. He had, moreover, engaged in sundry struggles with those who ranked above and those who ranked below him ; he had tasted the sweets of office, and had felt its responsibilities ; he had, in short, learned many new lessons in the rudiments of leadership. The campaign, it is true, as he himself once facetiously said, does not afford material for writing him
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 45,
" into a military hero " ; yet the part that he had played in it gave indications, at least, of the stuff out of which heroes, military and otherwise, are sometimes developed.
The horizon of Lincoln's ambition had, even before the Black Hawk War, distinctly widened. To extend throughout the county the influence that he had attained over the village became, within a few months after he had taken his place behind Offutt's counter, one of his aspi- rations. In order to gratify it by the readiest means, he went, as the phrase goes, into politics. The road to pub- lic preferment did not then, as now, in Illinois, follow the devious windings of caucuses and conventions." A straight course lay before candidates for elective offices, and as many as pleased entered the race. Each compet- itor, having merely announced that he intended to run, started off after his own fashion and made his way as best he could towards the winning post. These heats were not without rude jostlings — even collisions, for the runners were many and the posts few. But what would you have, when
" The grave, the gay, the fop ling, and the dunce, Start up (God bless us !) statesmen all at once."
This array of all the talents, moreover, usually scrambled for the same places — seats in the legislature. Sublimely ignorant of existing laws many of them were, to be sure, but this ignorance, as it left the prospective law-maker somewhat untrammeled in legislating according to the wants of his constituency, was not invariably regarded as a disability. Hence, the announcement one morning that the young clerk at the grocery store had become a candi- date for the legislature was not so absurd, in the spring of 1832, as it might be to-day. Lincoln had, in fact, been " encouraged by his great popularity among his immedi- ate neighbors" — so read the autobiographical notes — to offer himself as a representative of the people in the Gen- eral Assembly.
The election was to take place late in the summer,
46 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
but lie had issued at onoe, in accordance with custom, an " address " to the voters of Sangamon County. This was his first formal application to the public for political power. As such, the document, particularly its conclud- ing paragraph, is of interest here.
" Every man," he wrote, " is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly es- teemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed. I am young, and unknown to many of you. I was born, and have ever remained, in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of the county ; and, if elected, they will have conferred a favor upon me, for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate. But, if the good people, in their wisdom, shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined." ^^
How sincere was the writer's desire to be " truly es- teemed " had been manifested, a few weeks later, at the outbreak of the war. Abandoning his canvass, before it was well begun, he had in response to the first call, as we have seen, marched off, with some of his neighbors, to the defence of the State.
The volunteer, upon his discharge, returned to New Salem with the politician's dearest attribute — a record, such as it was, of military service. That our ex-captain did not, then or thereafter, so far as is known, parade his sword for votes should be mentioned to his credit. This forbearance was especially noteworthy in the case of Lincoln's first canvass, which had been so interrupted by that very service as to leave the candidate, after his return from the front, but ten days for his contest. It was con- ducted, nevertheless, manfully on its merits. Seizing the
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 47
few opportunities still open to him, he made little speeches in which, besides approving of certain popular local ideas, he declared himself to be "a Clay man," and in favor of Henry Clay's so-called "American system." Such national politics doomed his already heavily handicapped canvass ; for the county, as well as the state and the coun- try, was at that time overwhelmingly devoted to the policy of President Jackson. The Democratic leader's partisans, moreover, growing intolerant in their might, had adopted his proscriptive methods toward political enemies, who were to be " whipped out of office like dogs out of a meat house." ^* Yet this penniless and obscure young man, eager for office as he was, had the courage and self-reli- ance — let us say nothing of conscience — to take his first plunge into politics in accordance with his convictions and against the tide on which the victorious spoilsmen were carrying all before them. He went down, on election day, with the other Clay men, suffering his first and only de- feat by a direct vote of the people. A glance, however, at the poll-book, reveals a crumb of comfort larger than usually falls to the lot of unsuccessful candidates. Of the twelve men who ran for the legislature, four were elected, and Lincoln, running 158 votes behind his lowest suc- cessful competitor, stood eighth on the list. Somewhat different was the order in Lincoln's home, the precinct of New Salem. There, of the 300 voters who balloted for representatives, 277 voted for him and but 23 against him.^' This almost unanimous support of his neighbors has been explained by Judge Stephen T. Logan, one of the rising young men of that day.
" The Democrats of New Salem," said he, " worked for Lincoln out of their personal regard for him. ThaA was the general understanding of the matter here at the time. In this he made no concession of principle what- ever. He was as stiff as a man could be in his Whig doctrines. They did this for him simply because he was popular — because he was Lincoln."
48 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
The strengtli of this hold upon the people may be appreciated to its fullest extent only when we remember that in the national election, a few weeks later, these same voters gave General Jackson a majority of 115 over Mr. Clay. Under such conditions, Lincoln's defeat was not without honor. Indeed, so extraordinary a local triumph at once established his standing among the Warwicks of the county, as a man to be reckoned with thencefor- ward.
During the two years following, Lincoln strove to pre- pare himself for the political career opened to him by his brilliant, if unsuccessful, start. The canvass had made clear to the candidate that he was at a disadvantage in two particulars, at least. The people of the county at large did not know him well enough, and — what may have been less evident to others, though it was even more deeply impressed upon him — he did not know enough to cope, on an equal footing, with some of the leaders whom he had encountered. The first of these deficiencies was largely overcome, strange as it may seem, through the kindness of a Democratic officer, the Surveyor of Sanga- mon County. This follower of Jackson, John Calhoun by name, so far forgot his "whole-hog" obligations as to admire the new " Clay man." He even went farther in his treason. Having persuaded Lincoln to study the rudi- ments of surveying,^* he appointed him his deputy, and kept him so busy — for speculation in land was at its height — that the young man had ample opportunity not only to make many new acquaintances, but to win their confidence as well. The second deficiency was not so easily disposed of, though Lincoln's efforts to that end were untiring. Whether, as happened during this period, he picked up a living by doing odd jobs, keeping store, carrying letters, or laying out town lots, he invariably found time for the study of such newspapers, law books, and odd volumes as came within his reach.^^ Conse- quently when, during the summer of 1834, he again
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 49
presented himself as a candidate for the legislature, he made, in this respect also, a better showing. Still, the homely, ill-clad young fellow must, in appearance at least, have fallen short of even Sangamon standards, simple as they were. " He wore," said a friend who had accompa- nied him in the preceding canvass, " a mixed jeans coat, clawhammer style, short in the sleeves, and bobtail — in fact it was so short in the tail he could not sit on it ; flax and tow-linen pantaloons, and a straw hat. I think he wore a vest, but do not remember how it looked. He wore pot-metal boots." ^" This wardrobe had evidently not been greatly improved when Lincoln made his second appeal for the suffrages of the people, inasmuch as a cer- tain doctor, looking him over contemptuously while he was on one of his electioneering tours, asked : —
" Can't the party raise any better material than that? "
" Go to-morrow and hear all before you pronounce judgment," said a common friend, who after the meeting on the following day inquired : —
" Doctor, what say you now? "
" Why, sir," was the answer, " he is a perfect take-in. He knew more than all of the other candidates put together." ^^
On election day Lincoln was found to have been chosen by a flattering plurality. He stood second on the list of four Assemblymen, and but fourteen votes below the first man.^^ This success was repeated in 1836, when he led the poll ; in 1838, after he had become a lawyer, with his home at Springfield ; and in 1840, when he made what, by his own choice, proved to be his last run for the office. The five canvasses themselves did not differ essentially from those conducted at the time by other young poli- ticians of the neighborhood. In one respect, however, Lincoln appears to have made his contests distinctive. They afforded occasions, which he did not neglect, for the exercise of his aggressive faculties. Indeed, careful scru- tiny of the few incidents that have here and there been chronicled reveals how the vein of mastery, which we
50 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
have traced to this point, continued unbroken through the entire decade.
Lincoln's first canvass — in fact, his first appearance on the stump — was attended by a little scene that appro- priately introduced the subduer of Clary's Grove to a community fully as capable of appreciating grit and muscle. A crowd of voters that had collected at Papps- ville, getting full of whiskey and enthusiasm, began a general fight. Among those who were roughly handled was a follower of the New Salem candidate. Jumping from the platform, Lincoln rushed through the melee, seized his friend's assailant as if to make him " walk Spanish," tossed him off ten feet or so, resumed his place on the stand, and calmly began his little speech. This prelude, it is safe to say, did not lessen the warmth of his welcome from an audience akin to " the bare-footed boys," " the huge-pawed boys," or " the butcher-knife boys," who, in the elections of those days, so often held the balance of power.^^
During the canvass of four years later, when Lincoln spoke at Mechanicsburg, he "jumped in and saw fair play " — so a bystander relates — for another friend who was getting the worst of it in a similar fight.^* By that time, however, he had learned to use his tongue and his pen no less effectually than his hands in repelling an attack. Suiting the weapon to the occasion, he mani- fested, in those primitive electioneering encounters for the Assembly, something of the power and adroitness that in mature years distinguished his more ambitious efforts. None of the candidate's later triumphs excelled, in this respect, his victory, during the contest, over George For- quer, a politician of prominence and uncommon ability. A lawyer by profession, his words, as a speaker and as a writer, were weighted with the prestige which naturally attaches to one who had been member of the Assembly, Secretary of State, Attorney-General, and State Senator. He had recently deserted the Whig Party to join the
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 51
Jackson Democrats, a defection which the administration had rewarded with the lucrative place of Register of the Land Office at Springfield. This worthy might have sat for Hosea Biglow's portrait of Gineral C. : —
" a dreffle smart man : He 's ben on all sides that give places or pelf ; But consistency still wnz a part of his plan, —
He 's ben true to 07ie party, — an' thet is himself."
Forquer's pretentious new house, from which projected a lightning-rod, — the only one in the county, — had been pointed out to Lincoln as he rode into town, one evening, with a few of his friends. They were unable to answer the young man's eager questions about the " new-fangled " rod. It was there to keep off the lightning. More than that none of them could say.^^ On the following day, in the debate which took place at the court-house, between the candidates for office, Lincoln made a good impression. In fact, his success was so marked that, as the audience was dispersing, the Democrats deemed it necessary to put forward one of their strong men to reply. This task was committed to Forquer, who, as he was not a candidate, had taken no part in the discussion. He responded to the call, nevertheless, with the vigor and skill of a practiced de- bater. Not content with what could be said in answer to Lincoln's arguments, the speaker sought to overwhelm the young man beneath a flood of personal abuse and ridi- cule. The onslaught was so severe that the candidate's friends trembled for their favorite. What could he say in rejoinder ? Lincoln, evidently laboring under great excite- ment, stood a few paces distant, intently eyeing the speaker. At the conclusion of the attack, he remounted the stand to reply.
" I have heard him often since," writes his friend Joshua F. Speed, who was present, " in the courts and before the people, but never saw him appear and acquit himself so well as upon that occasion. His reply to For- quer was characterized by great dignity and force."
52 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
This praise was merited, if we may judge from the con- clusion, which alone has been preserved.
"Mr. Forquer," said Lincoln, "commenced his speech by announcing that the young man would have to be taken down. It is for you, fellow citizens, not for me to say whether I am up or down. The gentleman has seen fit to allude to my being a young man ; but he forgets that I am older in years than in the tricks and trades of politi- cians. I desire to live, and I desire place and distinction ; but I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, live to see the day that I would change my politics for an office worth three thousand dollars a year, and then feel compelled to erect a lightning-rod to protect a guilty con- science from an offended God." ^®
Our Register and his rod had indeed drawn the light- ning. The hit was a palpable one. It left the young candidate master of the field, from which his antagonist retired with a hurt that never entirely healed. When Forquer thereafter spoke in public meetings, his oppo- nents usually found occasion to remind his audiences that he was the turncoat whom Abe Lincoln had accused of erecting a lightning-rod " to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God."^^
The controversy with Forquer was typical of a can- vass noted for its bitterness. Personal conflicts, not only between excited partisans, but even between the candidates themselves, disgraced the contest. In such a struggle, Lincoln, of course, could not hope to escape slander any more than he had avoided abuse. Vague charges against him and one of his colleagues were circulated by Colonel Robert Allen, a Democratic politician, who, for lack of argument, resorted to this shift for prejudicing the Whig cause. Lincoln's method of meeting the attack was in striking contrast with the violence to which similar acts, in the rough-and-tumble canvass of that year, gave rise. He sent Allen this letter, which is worthy of a place here, in full: —
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 53
New Salem, June 21, 1836.
Dear Colonel, — I am told that during my absence last week you passed through the place and stated publicly that you were in possession of a fact or facts which, if known to the public, would entirely destroy the prospects of N, W. Edwards and myself at the ensuing election ; but that through favor to us you would forbear to divulge them. No one has needed favors more than I, and, gen- erally, few have been less unwilling to accept them ; but in this case favor to me would be injustice to the public, and therefore I must beg your pardon for declining it. That I once had the confidence of the people of Sangamon County is sufficiently evident ; and if I have done any- thing, either by design or misadventure, which if known would subject me to a forfeiture of that confidence, he that knows of that thing and conceals it is a traitor to his country's interest.
I find myself wholly unable to form any conjecture of what fact or facts, real or supposed, you spoke ; but my opinion of your veracity will not permit me for a moment to doubt that you at least believed what you said. I am flattered with the personal regard you manifested for me ; but I do hope that, on mature reflection, you will view the public interest as a paramount consideration, and therefore determine to let the worst come.
I assure you that the candid statement of facts on your part, however low it may sink me, shall never break the ties of personal friendship between us.
I wish an answer to this, and you are at liberty to pub- lish both if you choose.
Very respectfully,
A. Lincoln.
A remarkable production this, from a half -fledged back- woods politician, in the heat of an election contest ! The refined irony of Lincoln's thrust — for a notorious per- verter of facts was the Colonel — left this old campaigner
54 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
as helplessly impaled upon its point as was the other veteran upon the barb of his own lightning-rod. Allen — need we say ? — did not avail himself of the permission to publish the letter or an answer thereto. He was silenced. His son, finding the letter, long after the incident had been forgotten, gave to the public this further evidence of how " the young man," who was " to be taken down," exchanged roles, on occasion, with the gentlemen in charge of the performance.^
The canvass of 1836, stirring as it was, did not put the candidates so much on their mettle as did that of 1840 — the annus mirabilis of American politics. The enthu- siasm of " the hard-cider campaign," with its acres of mass-meetings, its processions, frolics, songs, free drinks, log-cabins, and coon-skins, pervaded, as elsewhere, the local elections in Illinois. State questions were lost sight of in national issues, such as they were, and Lincoln, besides his candidature for the Assembly, had a place on the Whig electoral ticket. Entering into the contest with his accus- tomed zeal, he was much in evidence throughout Illinois that year ; yet what he said in debate and on the stump is, as was the case in previous struggles, largely a matter of conjecture.^ On the other hand, some of the things that he did impressed themselves, firmly enough, in the people's memory.
The voters of 1840 flocked into political meetings not to learn and to reflect, but to shout, to scuffle, to laugh, and to sing. How cleverly Lincoln adapted himself to such an audience and, at the same time, crushed an opponent, with a turn of the wrist, as one might say, has been re- lated by some of his associates. He was frequently opposed on the stump — so runs the story — by Colonel Dick Tay- lor, a demagogue with a weakness for sarcasm and fine clothes. Severely Democratic in theory, however, the Colo- nel took care to keep as much of his finery as possible out of sight, while he had his flings at the aristocratic preten- sions of the Whigs, or warned " the hard-handed yeomanry "
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 55
against " rag-barons " and " manufacturing-lords." Such taunts made up the stock of his inflated oratory, as usual, one day, when Lincoln, " to take the wind out of his sails," as he expressed it, slipped to the speaker's side and catch- ing his vest by the lower edge, gave it a sharp pull. " It opened wide," says one of the narrators, " and out fell upon the platform, in full view of the astonished audience, a mass of ruffled shirt, gold watch, chains, seals, and glitter- ing jewels." According to another veracious historian, the vest, when so rudely shaken, merely " opened and revealed to his astonished hearers " the Colonel's concealed gran- deur. At all events, Lincoln, guiltless of linen and soft raiment, made the most of the situation. Pointing to the mortified orator, he exclaimed : —
" Behold the hard-fisted Democrat ! Look, gentlemen, at this specimen of the bone and sinew. And here, gen- tlemen,"— laying his large, coarse hand on his heart, and bowing, — " here, at your service, here is your aris- tocrat ! Here is one of your silk-stocking gentry. Here is your rag-baron with his lily-white hands. Yes, I sup- pose I, according to my friend Taylor, am a bloated aris- tocrat."
After speaking of the demagogue's customary vaporings, he went on : —
" While Colonel Taylor was making these charges against the Whigs over the country, riding in fine car- riages, wearing ruffled shirts, kid gloves, massive gold watch-chains with large gold seals and flourishing a heavy gold-headed cane, I was a poor boy, hired on a flat-boat at eight dollars a month, and had only one pair of breeches to my back, and they were buckskin. Now, if you know the nature of buckskin, when wet and dried by the sun, it will shrink ; and my breeches kept shrinking until they left several inches of my legs bare, between the tops of my socks and the lower part of my breeches ; and whilst I was growing taller they were becoming shorter, and so much tighter that they left a blue streak around my legs that
S6 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
can be seen to this day. If you call this aristocracy, I plead guilty to the charge."
Lincoln's humor and the discomfiture of his opponent were irresistible. Amidst Gargantuan peals of laughter, in which one of the audience " nearly broke his heart with mirth," was this elegant Democrat pilloried, in Sangamon County, for the rest of his career. As to " the young man," he had simply " taken down " one more lofty antagonist.^"
There were times, during this extraordinary canvass, when raillery, as well as argument, failed to move a crowd ; when, in fact, physical courage alone sufficed to control the turbulent spirits. It was on such an occasion, one evening, that Lincoln's friend, Edward Dickinson Baker, who already gave promise of the brilliant career that lay before him, addressed a hostile audience, in the Springfield court-room. The place happened to be directly below the law office of Stuart & Lincoln, in which the junior member of the firm lay listening, through a trap-door that opened above the platform. The speaker, as he warmed to his subject, denounced, with the impetuous eloquence that afterward made him famous, the dishonesty of Democratic officials. " Wherever there is a land-office, there you will find a Democratic newspaper defending its corruptions ! " he thundered.
" Pull him down ! " shouted John B. Weber, whose brother was the editor of the local administration sheet.
There was a noisy rush toward the platform, and, for the moment, it seemed as if Baker, who stood pale yet firm, would be punished for his temerity. Then, to the astonishment of the advancing crowd, a lank form dangled through the scuttle, and Lincoln dropped upon the plat- form between them and the object of their anger. After gesticulating in vain for silence, he seized the stone water- jug and shouted : —
" I '11 break it over the head of the first man who lays a hand on Baker ! "
As the assailants hesitated, he continued : —
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 57
" Hold on, gentlemen, let us not disgrace the age and country in which we live. This is a land where freedom of speech is guaranteed. Mr. Baker has a right to speak and ought to be permitted to do so. I am here to protect him, and no man shall take him from this stand, if I can prevent it."
The crowd receded, quiet was restored, and Baker finished his speech without further interruption.^^
It was under somewhat similar circumstances, and dur- ing this same contest, that the muscular candidate in- terposed his commanding presence between some enraged Democratic partisans and another Whig orator. The speaker, in that instance, was General Usher F. Linder. He delivered before a large audience, in the Springfield State House, a spirited address, which was interrupted by threats and insults. Thereupon, Lincoln and Baker, who were present, mounted the platform and stationed them- selves one on each side of him. As soon as the speaker had concluded, they passed their arms through his, and Lincoln said : —
" Linder, Baker and I are apprehensive that you may be attacked by some of those ruffians who insulted you from the galleries, and we have come up to escort you to your hotel. We both think we can do a little fighting, so we want you to walk between us until we get you to your hotel. Your quarrel is our quarrel and that of the great Whig Party of this nation ; and your speech, upon this occasion, is the greatest one that has been made by any of us, for which we wish to honor, love, and defend you."
The three men walked unmolested through the crowd that, following them to the hotel, gave the orator, before it dispersed, three hearty cheers.^
The violence that marked " the hard-cider campaign '* consistently extended to the very polls. On election day, word was brought to Lincoln that a certain railroad con- tractor, named Radford, had, in the interests of the Demo- crats, taken possession with his workmen of a polling-place
58 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
and was hindering the Whigs from voting. Lincoln, seiz- ing an ax-handle, made for the scene of action, on a run.
" Radford," he said, as he opened a way to the ballot- box, " you '11 spoil and blow, if you live much longer." ^
The contractor, who knew the character of the man with whom he was dealing, did not stay to argue the question. He at once withdrew, somewhat — it must be admitted — to the disappointment of the candidate, who confided to his friend Speed that he wanted Radford to show fight, as he " intended just to knock him down and leave him kicking." Lincoln's "stern advice," as one writer terms it, was sufficient, however, to rout the heelers, and to secure the Whigs, that day, at least, against any further encroachments upon their rights.^^
The spirit with which our campaigner plunged into conflict in behalf of his party, his friends, or himself, lost none of its vigor when the scene of his activities was transferred from the stump to the legislature. There, though one of the youngest and probably one of the least experienced of the members, he took his position, after the initiation of his first term, as if it were a matter of course, on the battle line. In the stirring session of 1836- 37, county was arrayed against county, town against town. Their several representatives struggled for a prize, dear to every ambitious community — the State capitol. The seat of government was to be removed from Vandalia, but whither ? Among the most strenuous claimants was San- gamon County, which had entrusted the task of securing this honor for Springfield to its Assemblymen and Sen- ators. They constituted a notable group, — sons of Anak, all, — to whom was applicable, in more respects than one, their sobriquet, the " Long Nine " ; ^ and the longest of them was the member from New Salem. His colleagues, recognizing at the very outset his talent for leadership, assigned to him the management of their fight ; for fight indeed it was. The opponents of Springfield were numerous and stubborn. Twice they prevailed so far as to lay the
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 59
bill in its behalf on the table ; but Lincoln contested every inch of the ground. " In those darkest hours," says one of his associates, " when our Bill to all appearances was beyond resuscitation, and all our opponents were jubilant over our defeat, and when friends could see no hope, Mr. Lincoln never for one moment despaired ; but, collecting his colleagues to his room for consultation, his practical common-sense, his thorough knowledge of human nature, then made him an overmatch for his compeers and for any man that I have ever known." ^
Holding his delegation well in hand, and casting its influence, on most questions, as a unit, Lincoln availed himself of the then current craze for " internal improve- ments " so as steadily to increase the Springfield following. To what extent he indulged in the reprehensible practice of trading votes, and whether or not he merited " the repu- tation of being the best log-roller in the legislature," may not be considered here. Suffice it to say that he did roll up the pledges for his bill, at every move, and that, shortly before adjournment, he carried the day for Springfield. This success, though much of it was due to Lincoln's skil- ful political manipulation, is to be ascribed, in part as well, to what may be best described as his personal magnetism. " He made Webb and me vote for the removal," says Jesse K. Dubois, one of the Whig Assemblymen, " though we belonged to the southern end of the State. We defended our vote before our constituents by saying that necessity would ultimately force the seat of government to a cen- tral position. But, in reality, we gave the vote to Lincoln because we liked him, because we wanted to oblige our friend, and because we recognized him as our leader." His party in the Lower House, remarkable as it must have seemed, had in fact, before the close of the session, begun to look for guidance to this new man. In that uneven contest of Sangamon against the field were manifested not a few of the qualities which parliamentary minorities look for in their captains.
6o LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
Having demonstrated his ability to conduct an aggres- sive campaign, it remained for the Sangamon Chief, as Lincoln was now sometimes called, to prove his mettle on the defensive. An opportunity soon presented itself, inasmuch as somewhat of the animosity engendered by the struggle for the capitol outlived the legislature that dealt with the question. In the extra session, called during the following summer, the opponents of Spring- field made a vigorous attempt to repeal the law which had established that town as the seat of government. The movement was led by General William L. D. Ewing, ex- United States Senator, who in a stinging address accused the " Long Nine " of having won their victory by " chi- canery and trickery." Sparing neither invective nor sar- casm, he arraigned the members from Sangamon with a severity that called for immediate reply. Who would take up the gage flung down by this formidable antagonist — a man of culture, standing, and distinguished personal courage ? Lincoln promptly did so. In a spirited speech, he defended the " Long Nine," and made countercharges of corruption against Ewing and his associates. So keen was this denunciation that the House believed the speaker, as one of the auditors reports, to be " digging his own grave." " This was the time," says that same friend, " that I began to conceive a very high opinion of the talents and personal courage of Abraham Lincoln." And with reason, for General Ewing, masterful and hot-tem- pered, would surely close such a controversy with a chal- lenge. " Gentlemen," he said, turning to the Sangamon section, " have you no other champion than this coarse and vulgar fellow to bring into the lists against me ? Do you suppose that I will condescend to break a lance with your low and obscure colleague ? " What justification Ewing had, on that occasion, for so harsh a reference to his opponent's breeding cannot be determined, as there is no report of what Lincoln said, extant. The speech must have been effectual, however. " Our friend carries the
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 6i
true Kentucky rifle," was the comment of a Springfield editor, on Lincoln, at about that time, " and when he fires, he seldom fails of sending the shot home." " The weapon used on Ewing was doubtless double-barreled ; for the scheme to have the Capital Law repealed fell to the ground, and the assailant of the " Long Nine " was so hard hit that the interference of friends alone prevented a duel.^ Small wonder that the General did not approve of " this coarse and vulgar fellow," or that the Sangamon delega- tion was content to leave its standard in the hands of such a champion.
The force and fearlessness that had marked the reply to Ewing were not soon forgotten. Whenever thereafter, in the legislature or outside of it, the " Long Nine " were assailed, — and their enemies were numerous enough, — Lincoln was put forward to defend them. Once they were intemperately attacked by Jesse B. Thomas, a lawyer of ability and one of the most distinguished Democratic politicians in the State. While he spoke, Lincoln, who happened to be absent from the meeting, was sent for. Hastening to the court-house, in which the incident took place, the Sangamon chief mounted the platform after the speaker and made a reply, the language of which none of his auditors remembered, but the manner and effect of which were never effaced from their memories. Denunciation of Thomas, ridicule of his foibles, even mimicry of certain physical peculiarities followed one another, in rapid succession, amidst uproarious laughter and applause. So sharp was the onslaught that its object is said to have wept with vexation as he hurried from the scene. His emotion tempered the triumph of his adver- sary, who hunted him up, and, with characteristic good nature, apologized for the severity of the reply. This speech, like the invective against Ewing, has unfortu- nately not been preserved. The impression it made, how- ever, in the political circles of Springfield may be inferred from the fact that it became a byword under the title
62 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
of " the skinning of Thomas." From that time forward, moreover, but few Democratic orators, if we may judge from the records, cared to concern themselves with the iniquities of the " Long Nine." ^
The judgment of Sangamon in the selection of its chief was vindicated, not alone by his successful battles in its behalf, but also by the action of his party. The Whigs, in the Assembly of 1837, as has been said, had begun to regard Lincoln as their head. In 1838, when the Lower House was organizing, they awarded him that dis- tinction, beyond a doubt, by making him their candidate for the speakership. This was no small honor for a man of twenty-nine, particularly when that man was the " low and obscure " Lincoln ; while his opponent, the Democratic nominee, happened to be no less a notability than that Ewing who had applied these epithets to him, a few months before. As the Whigs were in the minority, they of course did not elect their candidate. He maintained his place, nevertheless, at their head, and again received their votes for the office, in the legislature of 1840. Then, as in the former election, he was pitted against Ewing, and, because of the weakness of his party, with the same result. But the vital fact for us, the point which stands out above the flat details of these speakership contests, is the elevation of Offutt's gawky clerk, in an almost incredibly short period, to parliamentary leadership.
The steps by which Lincoln mounted to the mastery of his party in the legislature are not clearly defined. Nor is it easy to place one's hand upon the quality or quali- ties, in his make-up, which contributed most to that result. Courage, force, devotion, tact, and ready wit underlie the few narratives here set down ; but as the incidents were selected with a view to illustration, rather than to historical completeness, they leave unnoticed other traits that deserve mention, even though they have not been severally crystallized in the heart of a good story. The political honesty that led Lincoln to cast his lot with a
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 63
party in apparently hopeless minority ; the loyalty that held him true to the interests of that party, when others turned their coats ; the intellectual thoroughness and candor which rendered him formidable in debate, as well as influential in council ; the extreme of self-reliance that rarely required assistance or advice, yet could receive without impatience what it did not want ; the homely, unaffected good humor that expressed itself at every turn in a funny story or a sympathetic word, and won for him the title of " uncommon good fellow," even from men with whom he would neither smoke nor drink, — these also are some of the plus factors, as one might say, which in this his first political epoch already entered into the making of the master's character. He cannot, it is true, be said to have evinced, all in all, remarkable generalship, either on the stump or in the House. Indeed, if Lincoln's public career had closed with his last term in the Assem- bly, even local history might have found scant inspira- tion in those few electioneering episodes, or in the wild- cat legislation to which he contributed no unimportant part. As it is, however, the decade forms an essential link in the chain of our investigation. It may be termed the transition period from physical to intellectual power. Both held sway by turns, yet so conjointly that we can almost discern how the aggressive quality of the one was merged into that of the other. In this readjustment of his forces Lincoln, still held his own. Novel conditions speedily became familiar environment, and new men, great as well as small, took therein their proper places. As for the tall member from Sangamon, when he found his place, it was — need we add ? — at the head.
Nor did Lincoln fail to maintain this ascendancy in several severe quarrels that took place outside of the legislature. Two, of a quasi-political nature, in which he became involved subsequent to his controversy with Ewing, afford further glimpses of his character, on its forceful side. The first of these encounters occurred dur-
64 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
ing the summer of 1837, shortly after he had become a lawyer and had taken up his residence in Springfield, as the partner of a Black Hawk War comrade, Major John T. Stuart. The firm had been retained by a widow to prosecute a claim against a certain General James Adams, whom she accused of acquiring title to a ten-acre lot by the forgery of her deceased husband's signature. While the case was pending, the defendant, a chronic aspirant for public office, became a candidate for the place of probate justice. A few days before the election, he was unsparingly attacked for his conduct, in an anonymous handbill, which closed with the sentence : —
" I shall not subscribe my name, but hereby authorize the editor of the Journal to give it up to any one who may call for it."
Copies of the document having been scattered broad- cast about the streets, they gave rise to a controversy, which was heightened rather than allayed by the election of Adams. He denied the charges in a long letter to the Sangamo Journal. The issue of the paper in which his communication appeared also contained a reprint of the original handbill, with an announcement by the editor that " A. Lincoln, Esq.," was its author. The quarrel raged for several weeks in the columns of the Journal and of the Springfield Republican. Step by step, Lincoln followed Adams up, exposing the seamy side of his career, and capping the climax with a copy of an indictment for forgery, found against him in Oswego County, New York, nineteen years before. An unscrupulous adventurer, this ; yet the young barrister does not seem to have hesitated. In fact, the worse " the General's " character proved to be, as his past life was unfolded, the more fearless became his adversary's denunciations. Replying to Adams's flings at lawyers, Lincoln wrote : —
" He attempted to impose himself upon the community as a lawyer, and he actually carried the attempt so far as to induce a man who was under the charge of murder to
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 65
enti-ust the defence of bis life to his hands, and finally took his money and got him hanged. Is this the man that is to raise a breeze in bis favor by abusing lawyers ? . . . If he is not a lawyer, he is a liar; for he proclaimed himself a lawyer, and got a man hanged by depending on him. . . . Farewell, General, I will see you again at court, if not before — when and where we will settle the question whether you or the widow shall have the land." ^
The widow did get the land, Adams was completely discredited, and one more scalp hung from the belt of the Sangamon Chief.
The second quarrel, like the first, mingled public with private motives, and grew, in similar fashion, out of an anonymous composition from Lincoln's pen. In the one case, as in the other, moreover, he manifested the fear- less and masterful spirit with which we have by this time become familiar. But further than that the resemblance did not go ; for Lincoln's exposure of a scamp like Adams had little in common with his unwarrantable attack upon James Shields. Shields was a brave, quick-tempered young Irishman, with a full share of his countrymen's taste for love and politics. An ardent Democrat of course, he had been elected to the Illinois Assembly even before observing the trivial formality of naturalization, and, a few years later, his services to the party had been re- warded with the place of State Auditor. The office gave him a certain prominence, which he is said to have made the most of in Springfield society. In truth, this gallant bachelor from County Tyrone was a very " lion among ladies." It is not surprising, therefore, that his social vanities, no less than his political flourishes, offered a tempting mark to the assaults of the Whigs. Their ani- mus against the Auditor was intensified, during the sum- mer of 1842, when the insolvent condition of the State treasury and the depreciation in the value of State Bank notes caused the Governor and his financial officers to issue a proclamation forbidding the payment of taxes
66 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
in the almost worthless bank paper. As this was, practi- cally, the only money in the hands of the people, they assailed the Democratic State government, from every quarter, with an outburst of indignation, which the Whigs — regardless of their own part in the extravagant improvement legislation that had given rise to the trouble — lost no opportunity of stimulating. The newspapers and leaders of the m.inority party were severe in their censure of the State authorities, among whom, by the way, the Auditor had rendered himself especially obnoxious. Upon him, in the midst of the denunciations, fell the heaviest charge of all ; for it was directed by that same Kentucky marksman who seldom failed, as one of his admirers told us, " of sending the shot home."
The caustic humor that, from The First Chronicles of Reuben to " the skinning of Thomas," had now and then been so effectively employed by Lincoln in mastering an opponent, here again came into play. He contributed to the Sangamo Journal of September 2, edited at the time by his friend Simeon Francis, a singular composi- tion. It purported to be A Letter from the Lost Town- ships, written by a Democratic widow who signed herself "Rebecca."^ In robust country dialect, she denounced "these officers of State" as a hypocritical set, that ought to be supplanted in the places they disgraced by men who would " do more work for less pay, and take fewer airs while they are doing it." The " airs " of the Auditor had particularly aroused Rebecca's ire; for upon that func- tionary burst almost the whole torrent of her coarse ridicule.
" I seed him," she reports a neighbor as saying, " when I was down in Springfield last winter. They had a sort of a gatherin' there one night among the grandees, they called a fair. All the gals about town was there, and all the handsome widows and married women, finickin' about trying to look like gals. ... I looked in at the window, and there was this same fellow Shields floatin' about
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 67
on the air, without heft or earthly substances, just like a lock of cat fur where cats had been fighting. He was pay- ing his money to this one, and that one, and t'other one, and sufferin' great loss because it was n't silver instead of State paper ; and the sweet distress he seemed to be in — his very features, in the ecstatic agony of his soul, spoke audibly and distinctly : — ' Dear girls, it is distressing, but I cannot marry you all. Too well I know how much you suffer ; but do, do remember, it is not my fault that I am so handsome and so interesting.' As this last was expressed by a most exquisite contortion of his face, he seized hold of one of their hands, and squeezed, and held on to it about a quarter of an hour. ' Oh, my good fel- low ! ' says I to myself, ' if that was one of our Democratic gals in the Lost Townships, the way you 'd get a brass pin let into you would be about up to the head.' "
So much for ridicule ; as to abuse, there was nothing in the letter more severe than this comment on a circular, issued by the Auditor : —
" I say it 's a lie, and not a well told one at that. It grins out like a copper dollar. Shields is a fool as well as a liar. With him truth is out of the question ; and as for getting a good, bright, passable lie out of him, you might as well try to strike fire from a cake of tallow."
Fighting words these, as the writer must have known, especially when applied to a man of Shields's calibre.
Touched to the quick by the satire, and enraged by the attack upon his honor, the hot-blooded young Auditor did not conduct himself with that coolness which is alone effectual against such assaults. On the contrary, amidst the merriment of the town, he gave way to his fury after a fashion that must have gratified his assailant. More than that, it started the mischievous pens of two Whig- gish and, we may add, waggish young ladies, Mary Todd and her friend Julia M. Jayne. Their interest in politics is accounted for by the fact that within the next few months they became respectively Mrs. Abraham Lincoln
68 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
and Mrs. Lyman Trumbull. Moreover, what is more to the point, the former of these ladies was, at the time, con- ducting a clandestine renewal of her interrupted court- ship with the author of A Letter from the Lost Townships, under the roof of Editor Francis. His hospitality opened to her the columns of the Journal^ as well as his house, when she and her confidante, taking up the theme where Lincoln had left it, concocted a second letter. In this sequel, Shields's threats of vengeance appear to have frightened Rebecca into a proposal of marriage, by way of compromise. She prefers "matrimonial bliss" to "a lickin' " ; but, if the Auditor persist in his demands for "personal satisfaction," she, on her side, as the challenged party, will insist on the choice of weapons. "Which bein' the case," she concludes, " I '11 tell you in confidence that I never fights with anything but broomsticks, or hot water, or a shovelful of coals, or some such thing ; the former of which, being somewhat like a shillalah, may not be very objectional to him. I will give him choice, however, in one thing, and that is, whether, when we fight, I shall wear breeches or he petticoats ; for, I presume that change is sufficient to place us on an equality." But the affair terminated — that is to say according to the fair satirists — without bloodshed; for they closed their literary labors with some doggerel verses, celebrating the nuptials of the bachelor and the widow.
Not so peacefully disposed was the object of these attacks. In his veins, be it remembered, still flowed the ichor of Donnybrook. He was an expert swordsman, moreover, and in his youth had been an instructor in fencing. Smarting more than ever under a sense of injury, he sent his friend General John D. Whiteside, of Black Hawk War fame, to the editor, with a demand for the name of the author. If this was not complied with, Fran- cis was himself to be held responsible. In his dilemma, thes editor consulted Lincoln, who, about to leave town on the fall circuit, directed Francis to give his name, but
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 69
to make no mention of the ladles. That the creator of " Rebecca " understood what the situation involved is evinced by the fact that he had sought out a certain dragoon major, who, broadsword in hand, drilled him in
" fencing, and the use of arms, The art of urgiug and avoiding harms, The noble science and the mastering skill Of making just approaches how to kill."
As for Shields, following Lincoln to Tremont, he lost as little time as might be in sending Whiteside to him with a letter which, considering the state of society in the Springfield of that day and the writer's provocation, wo are hardly inclined to ridicule. The missive, truth to say, conformed to Sir Lucius O'Trigger's rule, that when a man frames a challenge, he must " do the thing decently and like a Christian." It protested, temperately enough, against the " slander, vituperation, and personal abuse " in the Lost Townships articles, and concluded with : —
" I will not take the trouble of inquiring into the reason of all this, but I will take the liberty of requiring a full, positive, and absolute retraction of all offensive allusions used by you in these communications, in relation to my private character and standing as a man, as an apology for the insults conveyed in them. This may prevent con- sequences which no one will regret more than myself."
Lincoln's reply was singularly lacking in regard to the homely candor that is the particular charm of his corre- spondence. He wrote : —
" You say you have been informed, through the medium of the editor of the Journal^ that I am the author of certain articles in that paper which you deem personally abusive of you ; and, without stopping to inquire whether I really am the author, or to point out what is offensive in them, you demand an unqualified retraction of all that is offensive, and then proceed to hint at consequences. Now, sir, there is in this so much assumption of facts, and so much of menace as to consequences, that I cannot
70 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
submit to answer that note any further than I have, and to add, that the consequences to which I suppose you allude would be matter of as great regret to me as it possibly could to you."
Shields rejoined, disavowing any intention of menacing Lincoln, asking whether he had written the articles in question, and repeating his request, if so, for a retraction of the offensive allusions. This letter Lincoln refused to answer unless Shields's first communication were with- drawn ; but the demand met with no response.
By this time, the critical phase of the quarrel had been reached. The principals, as well as their representa- tives, treated one another with the top-lofty dignity which usage immemorial has, for such occasion, established. Lincoln, nevertheless, would gladly have withdrawn from the squabble, if this had been possible without discredit. To one of his friends, Dr. E. H. Merryman, who, with another, hastened to Tremont, in order to stand by him during the affair, he expressed himself as wholly opposed to dueling, and as willing to do anything to avoid a fight, that might not degrade him in the estimation of himself or of his friends. ^^ Accordingly, in some instructions which he drew up for the doctor's guidance, he pledged himself, provided all letters were withdrawn and repara- tion were properly requested, to give this answer : —
" I did write the ' Lost Townships ' letter which ap- peared in the Journal of the 2d instant, but had no par- ticipation in any form in any other article alluding to you. I wrote that wholly for political effect. I had no intention of injuring your personal or private character or standing as a man or a gentleman ; and I did not then think, and do not now think, that that article could pro- duce, or has produced, that effect against you ; and had I anticipated such an effect, I would have forborne to write it. And I will add that your conduct toward me, so far as I know, had always been gentlemanly, and that I had no personal pique against you, and no cause for any."
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 71
The memorandum then prescribed the conditions under which, if the explanation were not accepted, the writer, as the challenged party, would fight. The meeting was to take place near Alton, on the Missouri side of the river, within the following two or three days.
" Weapons : — Cavalry broadswords of the largest size, precisely equal in all respects and such as now used by the cavalry company at Jacksonville.
" Position : — A plank ten feet long, and from nine to twelve inches broad, to be firmly fixed on edge, on the ground, as the line between us, which neither is to pass his foot over upon forfeit of his life. Next, a line drawn on the ground on either side of said plank and parallel with it, each at the distance of the whole length of the sword and three feet additional from the plank ; and the passing of his own such line by either party during the fight shall be deemed a surrender of the contest."
This formidable document was read by Dr. Merryman to Shields's friend General Whiteside, but without the desired result ; for, a few days thereafter, two parties, con- sisting of the principals, their seconds, surgeons, and other attendants, met on an island — Bloody Island,*^ if you please — in the Mississippi, below Alton. Upon reaching the ground, Shields found Lincoln already there, ax in hand and coat thrown off, clearing away the underbrush, for that fateful parallelogram. Before the duel could take place, however, Colonel John J. Hardin and Dr. R. W. English, common friends of the combatants, arrived upon the scene, and patched up a peace by persuading Shields to withdraw his letters and to accept the explanation that Lincoln had offered.
The duelists left the field in amiable spirits toward each other, as may be gathered from the reminiscences of an old resident of Alton, who, with others, stood at the ferry anxiously awaiting the issue. " It was not very long," said he, " until the boat was seen returning to Alton. As it drew near, I saw what was presumably a mortally
72 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
wounded man lying on the bow of the boat. His shirt appeared to be bathed in blood. I distinguished Jacob Smith, a constable, fanning the supposed victim, vigor- ously. The people, on the bank, held their breath in sus- pense, and guesses were freely made as to which of the two men had been so terribly wounded. But suspense was soon turned to chagrin and relief when it transpired that the supposed candidate for another world was nothing more nor less than a log covered with a red shirt. This ruse had been resorted to in order to fool the people on the levee ; and it worked to perfection. Lincoln and Shields came off the boat together, chatting in a nonchalant and pleasant manner." ^* Your votaries of " the code " might frown upon that playful device of the bleeding log. It set at naught the niceties of decorum, which are their meat and drink ; yet how characteristic it was of at least one of those smiling gentlemen !
All the hot blood engendered by this affair did not, as might be supposed, cool off so readily. Two weeks later, we find Lincoln writing to his friend Speed : —
" You have heard of my duel with Shields, and I have now to inform you that the dueling business still rages in this city. Day before yesterday. Shields challenged But- ler,^ who accepted, and proposed fighting next morning, at sunrise, in Bob Allen's meadow, one hundred yards' distance, with rifles. To this Whiteside, Shields's second, said 'no' because of the law. Thus ended duel No. 2. Yesterday, Whiteside chose to consider himself insulted by Dr. Merryman, so sent him a kind of quasi-challenge, inviting him to meet him at the Planter's House, in St. Louis, on the next Friday, to settle their difficulty. Merry- man made me his friend, and sent Whiteside a note, in- quiring to know if he meant his note as a challenge, and if so, that he would, according to the law in such case made and provided, prescribe the terms of the meeting." ^®
Duel No. 3, suffice it to say, — for we have had enough of "the dueling business," — was, like No. 1 and No. 2,
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 73
fought with the tongues and the pens of the combatants to a bloodless finish.
Having made his single appearance as a principal, and then as a second, on the so-called " field of honor," Lincoln quickly recovered his moral equilibrium. He ap- pears to have become ashamed of his share in the quarrel, and to have refrained, for the most part, from discussing it with his friends. Several of them, in fact, record their failures to draw him into conversation on the subject. His partner, Mr. Herndon, reports this one voluntary reference to the duel : —
" I did not intend to hurt Shields unless I did so clearly in self-defence. If it had been necessary, I could have split him from the crown of his head to the end of his backbone." ^^
Lincoln's confidence in his power to vanquish Shields, no less than his freedom from animosity towards him, was further manifested shortly after the meeting, in a few words dropped to Usher F. Linder. As they stood together, near the Danville court-house, Lincoln picked up a lath and went through the broadsword manual. His friend, improving the occasion, asked why broadswords had been chosen for the proposed duel. The man with the lath answered : —
" To tell you the truth, Linder, I did n't want to kill Shields and felt sure I could disarm him, having had about a month to learn the broadsword exercise ; and furthermore, I did n't want the damned fellow to kill me, which I rather think he would have done if we had se- lected pistols." ^
The ghost of the duel still hovered over the scene. In the spring of the following year, Lincoln closed a letter on politics to Hardin with : —
" I wish you would measure one of the largest of those swords we took to Alton, and write me the length of it, from tip of the point to tip of the hilt, in feet and inches. I have a dispute about the length." ^^
74 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
Thereafter, Lincoln's friends respected his desire that the affair should not be spoken of, and it seemed to have been forgotten.
Greatly to Mr. Herndon's surprise, while on his visit in the Eastern States during the spring of 1858, to promote his partner's senatorial ambitions, he was fre- quently asked for an account of the so-called duel. Upon his return, the fact was reported to Lincoln, who sadly remarked : —
" If all the good things I have ever done are remem- bered as long and well as my scrape with Shields, it is plain I shall not soon be forgotten." ^"
The " scrape " was not so well remembered by the speaker's enemies as might have been expected. Two years later, the muckrake of a bitter opposition failed — if we may judge from the now available campaign litera- ture of 1860 — to turn up the incident. So the " Party of Moral Ideas " was spared the mortification of defending its candidate's atrocities as a duelist.^^ During the Civil War, the story, having again made its rounds, returned to plague its hero, for the last time. A few weeks before his death, the President, together with Mrs. Lincoln, entertained a distinguished officer of the army. During the conversation, the visitor said ; —
"Is it true, Mr. President, as I have heard, that you once went out to fight a duel for the sake of the lady by your side ? "
" I do not deny it," answered Mr. Lincoln, with a flushed face, "but if you desire my friendship, you will never mention the circumstance again." ^^
This admission, which indeed was but the grudging half-truth of a man who wished to dispose of a distaste- ful topic, seems to warrant the oft-repeated claim that Miss Todd was responsible for all the obnoxious articles, and that her lover, to shield her, chivalrously avowed himself to be their author. Here is a pleasing fiction plentifully vouched for, which we should like to accept.^^ The
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 75
facts, however, — weeds of fact will persist in springing up among the flowers of romance, — leave no ground for doubt as to the authorship of the first and most offensive of the letters ; while those same dull realities make short work of the gallantry which, when pressed, merely con- sisted in acknowledging that authorship.
Still less defensible are the efforts usually made to gloss over Lincoln's conduct, at Shields's expense. The special pleading takes a wide range — as wide as the Mississippi itself, at the mile crossing, where, according to one story, the challenged party had, with grotesque humor, stipulated that the duelists should stand on oppo- site banks and fight with broadswords.^^ Somewhat on this order is the effort of Dr. Irelan — not by any means a through-thick-and-thin eulogist — to treat the affair as one of Lincoln's jokes. Says he : —
" Mr. Lincoln was absolutely opposed to dueling, and very well knew from the first that there would be no duel in this case. And here is where the ridiculousness of the whole thing appears. The gory Shields and his friends overlooked this entirely. The cavalry broadswords were procured, and these were of from thirty-six to forty inch blades ; then, under Mr. Lincoln's requirement, the com- batants were not only to stand the length of the two swords apart, but also six feet further, thus actually placing them at least twelve feet apart. With this arrange- ment, the most they could have done would have been to touch the points of their swords, if Shields could have measured half of that distance with his arm and sword. Lincoln had made these impossible provisions in full view of this funny side of the case. Even if the distance be- tween the men had not been so preposterously great, the poor Irishman would have had no chance without crossing the board, which would have forfeited his life, while the long body and arm of Lincoln might have rendered his own position disagreeable. Mr. Lincoln's conduct in this matter was deliberate and premeditated, and this it was
76 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
that took from him the odium of stooping to the savage and unchristian 'code.' With him, Mr. Shields's case began in fun, and ended in fun." ^^
A glance at the conditions, however, reveals that the distance of twelve feet mentioned by the Doctor was not to intervene between the combatants, but was, in fact, the length of the ten by twelve foot oblong within which the duelists, separated by the plank " on edge " only, were to fight. Dr. Irelan's misinterpretation of the terms is shared by the historians of Illinois, in whose opinion, also, the position " prescribed for the combatants on the field looks a good deal like the cropping out of one of Lincoln's irrepressible jokes ; as if both were placed out of harm's way, and that they might beat the air with their trenchant blades forever and not come within damaging reach of each other." ^^
The fancy for separating the duelists by a river, or even by a dozen feet, does not, of course, extend to aU the writers who laugh at poor Shields and his wrongs. The quarrel, in the eyes of one biographer, was " serio-comic " ; another terms it " a silly fracas " ; while a third dismisses it as " certainly a boyish alfair " ; still another thinks that " nothing but a tragedy could have prevented its being a farce " ; a recent author would have us believe that the challenged party tried to avert a duel " by proposing the most absurd conditions " ; and Lincoln's loyal secre- taries, in view of the so-called " ludicrousness " of the incident, devote most of their chapter on the subject to the belittling of Shields, without, however, increasing the stature of their hero." The amusing aspects of the story, on which these writers lay so much stress, appear, for the most part, to have escaped Lincoln's own usually keen sense of humor. He had realized, early in the progress of the broil, that he was on the wrong side of it. This alone must have been sufficient to sober him. At all events, as we have seen, he treated the affair seriously enough, and had the grace to be ashamed of his jiart in it ever after-
LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS 77
ward. No amount of laughter at Shields, whatever occa- sion that volatile gentleman may have afforded, relieves Lincoln of the onus which attaches to his attack upon the Auditor and to his acceptance of the challenge.
The difficulty with Shields constituted Lincoln's last personal quarrel. He had run the gamut from that first schoolboy fight with his fists to the preliminaries, at least, of what might have been a serious duel ; and with it end our chronicles of his early encounters. Culled from the first thirty-three years of his life, they have been strung together, be it remembered, on the single thread of his masterful nature. Although the nobler, gentler traits have been thus practically disregarded, it would be man- ifest error to forget that they, too, entered into the fash- ioning of that strangely woven character, and that they became stronger and deeper as the man developed. In- deed, from this time forth, a mellower tone pervades his behavior.^^ How much of the change was due to the hu- miliation of the Shields squabble, to Lincoln's marriage with Miss Todd, which followed it by but a few weeks, to the requirements of a higher standing in his profession and in political circles, cannot, of course, be determined. We do know, however, that he never again became involved in a private quarrel. Holding his own — yes, more than holding^ his own — throusfhout the warmest con- troversies and fiercest struggles in his country's history, he is destined, as we shall learn, still to be master among men, to control them as firmly as in the frontier days of Faustrecht^ and withal, so gently, that they do not know themselves to be controlled. Here is no simple achieve- ment, yet it took the President but a moment once, and that when the turmoil was at its height, to explain the marvel, in part at least, by a simple formula. It was ad- dressed to a young officer, who had been court-martialed for quarreling with one of his fellows : —
" The advice of a father to his son, ' Beware of en- trance to a quarrel, but, being in, bear 't that the opposed
78 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
may beware of thee,' is good, but not the best. Quarrel not at all. No man, resolved to make the most of himself, can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right ; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite." 5«
A far cry this, from the Lost Townships diatribe and the rendezvous with broadswords on Bloody Island ; yet the philosopher of 1862 may not, for all that, be thought less spirited than the Hotspur of 1842. What of true metal rang in the deeds of earlier times was not wanting in later days, though its form, as we shall see, was changed — changed, now and then, almost beyond recognition ; for it became tempered and purified, in the fierce heat of a fire that all but consumed a nation.
CHAPTER III GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE
The early encounters and controversies of Lincoln were insignificant when compared to the rivalry that existed, for almost twenty-five years, between him and Stephen A. Douglas. First as enthusiastic adherents of opposing parties, and later as acknowledged leaders of those par- ties, they so conducted themselves that the orbits of their political ambitions crossed and recrossed each other. The star of Douglas was generally in the ascendant. He be- came, successively, State's Attorney, member of the Illinois legislature. Register of the Land Office at Springfield, Secretary of State for Illinois, Judge of the Supreme Court of that State, member of Congress, and United States Senator. His rival's planet, on the other hand, showed, during that same period, the comparatively mea- gre glory of four terms in the State legislature and one in the Lower House of Congress. Yet the inferior light, swinging in season and out, across the pathway of the other, became steadily brighter in the reflected rays of the larger luminary, until suddenly they presented a sin- gular phenomenon. The lesser became the greater, for while the one had grown, the other had diminished ; and the rising orb, throwing off at last the borrowed beams, shone by its own intense power — so intense, indeed, that as its splendor spread, the waning star went out in total eclipse.
The political careers of these two men started at about the same time and place. When Lincoln entered upon his first term in the Illinois Assembly at Vandalia, he met in the lobby a shrewd little Vermonter, four years
8o LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
his junior, who, notwithstanding extreme youth and brief- ness of residence in the West, was conducting among the members of the legislature what proved to be a successful canvass for the office of State's Attorney for the first judicial district. The newcomer was Stephen A. Douglas. Identifying himself with the dominant party, he became as pronounced in his Democracy as Lincoln was in his Whigism. On opposite sides of the next Assembly, — both of them were elected to the legislature of 1836, — they clashed, from time to time, in tactics and debate. The antagonism thus started in Vandalia was transferred the following year to Springfield, where, within a few months of each other, the young men took up their resi- dence. Here differences in character and temperament, rather than in party affiliations, acted as a bar to the friendship, or even to the esteem, that is not uncommon between contending politicians. If Douglas took one side of a question, Lincoln might safely be looked for on the other; and their rivalry soon became a recognized factor in the spirited local contests of the day.
The first of these encounters concerning which any details have been preserved took place during " the hard- cider campaign." At the very beginning of that memo- rable contest, one night in December, 1839, a group of disputatious young politicians sat around the stove in Joshua F. Speed's store. The argument, which is said to have been mainly between Lincoln and Douglas, was at its warmest when the latter sprang to his feet and said : —
" Gentlemen, this is no place to talk politics. We will discuss the questions publicly with you."
This informal challenge was followed within a few days by a resolution, which Lincoln offered in a meeting of the Whigs, inviting their opponents to a debate. The Demo- crats, accepting, appointed Stephen A. Douglas, John Calhoun, Josiah Lamborn, and Jesse B. Thomas to meet Stephen T. Logan, Edward D. Baker, Orville H. Brown- ing, and Abraham Lincoln. These champions, for eight
GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 8i
evenings, in the order named, defended and attacked by- turns President Van Buren's independent treasury pro- ject, with an occasional tilt over the other economic ques- tions on which their respective parties differed. " The great debate," as it was called, drew large audiences at the outset ; but by the time Lincoln's evening, the last in the series, arrived, the attendance had considerably dimin- ished. This had a chilling effect upon the speaker, yet he warmed up sufficiently to make what was considered the best address of all — so good, in fact, that it was published as a campaign document, not only in friend Francis's newspaper, but also in pamphlet form.^ A glance through the speech reveals how keenly, at that time already, the " Sangamon Chief " was on the trail of his pet antagonist. The other Democratic speakers, it is true, were mentioned here and there, in refutation ; but to Douglas fell the severest, and by far the largest share of Lincoln's atten- tion. Here is a sample paragraph : —
" I return to another of Mr. Douglas's excuses for the expenditures of 1838, at the same time announcing the pleasing intelligence that this is the last one. He says that ten millions of that year's expenditure was a contin- gent appropriation, to prosecute an anticipated war with Great Britain on the Maine boundary question. Few words will settle this. First, that the ten millions appro- priated was not made till 1839, and consequently could not have been expended in 1838 ; second, although it was appropriated, it has never been expended at all. Those who heard Mr. Douglas recollect that he indulged himself in a contemptuous expression of pity for me. ' Now he 's got me,' thought I. But when he went on to say that five millions of the expenditure of 1838 were payments of the French indemnities, which I knew to be untrue ; that five millions had been for the Post-office, which I knew to be untrue ; that ten millions had been for the Maine boundary war, which I not only knew to be untrue, but supremely ridiculous also ; and when I saw that he was
82 LINCOLN, MASTER OF MEN
stupid enough to hope that I would permit such ground- less and audacious assertions to go unexposed, — I readily consented that, on the score both of veracity and sagacity, the audience should judge whether he or I were the more deserving of the world's contempt." ^
This utterance was significant. Like the leading motive in the overture to a music-drama, it struck, at the very beginning of the Lincoln- Douglas struggle, a note that was destined to run through many similar scenes, in which these two were to be the principal actors.
During the canvass that followed the debate, Lincoln and Douglas stumped the State in the interests of their respective candidates, with equal enthusiasm.^ Collisions between them were frequent, for the bearer of the Whig standard lost no opportunity of speaking from the same platform with the Democratic orator. In one of these debates, Lincoln charged Van Buren with having voted at the New York State Constitutional Convention of 1821, for negro suffrage with a property qualification. This Douglas denied. Whereupon, Lincoln, to prove his assertion, read, from Holland's Life of Van Buren, the Wizard of Kinderhook's own statement that he had so voted. Thus neatly cornered, "Douglas got mad," as the story goes, and jumped up to dispose of both the charge and the evidence, in characteristic fashion. Snatching the volume from the reader's hand, he exclaimed, " Damn such a book!" and hurled it among the audience.* In another of their encounters, Douglas had no occasion for so desperate a defence. On the contrary, he forced the fighting too ably for his antagonist. " Lincoln," says a friend of those days, " did not come up to the require- ments of the occasion. He was conscious of his failure, and I never saw any man so much distressed. He begged to be permitted to try it again, and was reluctantly in- dulged J and in the next effort he transcended our highest expectations. I never heard, and never expect to hear, such a triumphant vindication as he then gave of Whig
GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 83
measures or policy." ^ But the victory of the canvass, so far as it concerned our two young campaigners, rested with Douglas. His opponent, it is true, was elected to the Assembly ; yet the five electoral votes of Illinois, the real prize of the contest, remained in the Democratic column.
The next important conflict between the rivals was in a widely different field — as different, indeed, as hearts are from ballots. Yet love and politics — witness the Shields affair — were not so far apart as they might have been, in the Springfield of 1840. At that time, Miss Mary Todd, pretty, talented, and vivacious, had recently come from her Kentucky home to live with her sister, Mrs. Ninian W. Edwards. The hospitalities of the house were naturally extended by Mr. Edwards, one of the "Long Nine," to the leader of his delegation, so that Lincoln was a frequent visitor. He paid court to the fas- cinating little woman from his native State, and speedily became her accepted suitor. Lincoln's success, no less than the lady's charms, fanned the spirit of contention that already existed between him and Douglas. The little Vermonter, dashing and comely, followed his ungainly an- tagonist into the lists to dispute with him, as vigorously as in their political contests, the possession of this precious trophy. How the fight was conducted cannot — unfortu- nately for the romance of it — be told with the exactness of detail that usually makes such episodes entertaining. Says one old resident of Springfield : —
" As a society man, Douglas was infinitely more accom- plished, more attractive, and influential than Lincoln ; and that he should supplant the latter in the affections of the proud and aristocratic Miss Todd is not to be mar- veled at. He was unremitting in his attentions to the lady, promenaded the streets arm-in-arm with her — fre- quently passing Lincoln — and, in every way, made plain his intention to become the latter's rival."
This was merely — so some said — a flirtation on the part of Miss Todd to tease her lover. Others went so far
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as to say that Douglas made a proposal of marriage and was refused, " on account of his bad morals." Accord- ing to still another account, she grew to prefer him, and would have accepted his offer if she had not given her promise to Lincoln. " The unfortunate attitude she felt bound to maintain between these two young men," relates the writer of this version, " ended in a spell of sickness. Douglas, still hopeful, was warm in the race ; but the lady's physician, her brother-in-law, Dr. William Wallace, to whom she confided the real cause of her illness, saw Douglas and induced him to end his pursuit, which he did with great reluctance." So much for the doubtful inci- dents of the contest ; but what of the result ? Douglas withdrew, and Lincoln, after an otherwise not untroubled courtship, led Miss Todd to the altar.*'
The private passage of arms between our politicians did not, of course, lessen their public antagonism. Yet, during the decade following the marriage, they had, it appears, no noteworthy encounters. This may have been due, in part at least, to the fact that Lincoln, diligently practicing his profession, found less time than previously for politics. He did, it is true, participate in conventions and campaigns — even emerging into public life, in 1847, for one term in Congress ; but there is no evidence that these activities brought him into personal conflict with his brilliant adversary. Moreover, the uninterrupted rise of Douglas, during this same period, from the Illinois Supreme Court Bench to Congress, and thence to the United States Senate, carried him somewhat out of Lin- coln's range. As the latter took his seat in the Lower House, the former entered upon his career in the Upper. The one, at the expiration of his term, returned to Spring- field and the small-fry litigation of the Eighth Circuit, without having achieved distinction ; the other soon be- came a figure of national importance.
Each success of the man whom he regarded as his particular rival added a pang to the ex-member's dis-
GIANTS, BIG AND LITTLE 85
appointment. The trophy of Miltiades would not let The- mistocles sleep ; and Lincoln, though he had come to look upon political affairs with comparative indifference, could not take his eyes off Douglas. So it happened that dur- ing the presidential canvass of 1852, when the Senator opened his stumping tour of the States, at Richmond, in a speech that was extensively republished, Lincoln obtained permission from the Scott Club of Springfield to deliver an answer, under its auspices.^ The effort was not credit- ^ able. Depressed by the hopelessness of the Whig cause in Illinois, and carried away by his jealousy of Douglas, he descended to a tone unworthy of himself or of the occasion. Referring to the Richmond address, he said : —
" This speech has been published with high commen- dations in at least one of the Democratic papers in this State, and I suppose it has been and will be in most of the others. When I first saw it and read it, I was re- minded of old times, when Judge Douglas was not so much greater man than all the rest of us, as he is now, — of the Harrison campaign twelve years ago, when I used to hear and try to answer many of his speeches ; and believing that the Richmond speech, though marked with the same species of ' shirks and quirks ' as the old ones, was not marked with any greater ability, — I was seized with a strange inclination to attempt an answer to it; and this inclination it was that prompted me to seek the privilege of addressing you on this occasion," ^
Like the speaker's one failure during that very Harri- son campaign, this defeat — as his friends regarded it — in the Pierce-Scott contest was destined to be followed by brilliant victories. But not at once, for Douglas was still rising toward the zenith of his power, and Lincoln's hour had not yet struck.
The " Little Giant," as the admirers of the Senator from Illinois fondly called him, had been a candidate, at Baltimore, for the Democratic nomination to the presi- dency, which had fallen, by way of compromise, to Frank-
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lin Pierce. That gentleman owed his selection largely to the bitterness of the struggle between the " Old Fogies," under such favorites as Cass, Marcy, and Buchanan, on the one hand, and "Young America," championed by Douglas, on the other. The youthful leader, though he had not himself attained the prize, had been strong enough to keep his powerful competitors from getting it. Here was glory enough for a first attempt, and Douglas emerged from the Convention still on the high- road to the White House. That road had, for many years, wound through the Southern States. It was dotted with the headstones of presidential aspirants, who had fallen beneath the slaveholder's whip ; but surely this adroit politician, stepping off so firmly, would not fall. He ad- vanced steadily enough while the growing differences between North and South could be turned into the prim- rote paths of compromise. Not only had the measures that secured the so-called Compromise of 1850 his support, but he had, at the same time, solemnly reaffirmed the great Missouri Compromise itself. "It had its origin," said he, *'in the hearts of all patriotic men, who desired to pre- serve and perpetuate the blessings of our glorious Union — an origin akin to that of the Constitution of the United States, conceived in the same spirit of fraternal affection, and calculated to remove forever the danger which seemed to threaten, at some distant day, to sever the social bond of union. All the evidences of public opinion, at that day, seemed to indicate that this Compromise had been canon- ized in the hearts of the American people, as a sacred thing which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough to disturb." * Yet, within somewhat over four years, the speaker himself, of all men in the world, was guilty of that sacrilege.^" At the command of the South, his own hand violated the hallowed instrument. The Compromise had served its turn — at least for the Slave States. Having enjoyed the benefits allotted to them by the compact, they viewed with alarm the prospect that the Free States were
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about to come into their share of it. This was to be pre- vented at all hazards. The lash cracked above the head of Douglas. He promptly responded, in his Kansas- Nebraska Bill, with the fateful amendment which declared the slavery restrictions of the Compromise "inoperative and void."
The storm of indignation, aroused in the North by the passage of the bill, swept its author home in the autumn of 1854 to defend himself before his constituents." The people of Chicago, whom he first tried to address, gath- ered in an angry multitude and refused to hear him ; ^^ but elsewhere throughout the State, in the so-called Anti- Nebraska as well as in the Nebraska districts, his popu- larity secured to him large and respectful audiences. This tour was ostensibly in the interests of the party's State and Congressional tickets. In reality, however, it involved a strenuous bid for the endorsement of Dougflas himself. His colleague. General Shields, who had sup- ported him in the Senate, was to stand for reelection before the next legislature. Hence the votes about to be cast, particularly those for members of that body, would afford the best immediate test as to whether or not he of the " ruthless hand " was sustained by the people.
With all his wonted skill and energy, Douglas threw himself into the struggle. Improving the opportunity offered by the large gathering of voters and politicians, at the State Agricultural Fair, in Springfield, he presented himself at the capitol, on the opening day, and made a speech. Like most of his utterances, it was specious but attractive. To answer it effectually would require ability of no mean order, and, as if by common consent of the several Anti-Nebraska elements, the task was assigned to his old antagonist, Abraham Lincoln. This selection appears, in fact, to have been made before Douglas had sjDoken. " I will mention," said the Senator in his opening remarks to the audience which crowded the hall of the State House, " that it is understood by some gentlemen that Mr. Lin-
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coin, of this city, is expected to answer me. If this is the understanding, I wish that Mr. Lincoln would step for- ward and let us arrange some plan upon which to carry out this discussion." ^^ Mr. Lincoln, as he happened to be absent at the moment, did not step forward then ; but, on the following day, in the same place and before an equally large assemblage, he took a step forward that must have galled the great man's kibe. Aroused by the moral, no less than by the political obliquity of Douglas's course, Lincoln arose above the petty personalities which had dis- figured his Scott Club address, and delivered a speech that evoked the praise of even the Senator's supporters. Doug- las himself, as his frequent interruptions of the speaker indicated, was greatly disconcerted by the unexpected sweep and strength of the reply. Moreover, in his excite- ment and anger, the two hours before supper-time left to him for rejoinder were occupied to so little purpose that he closed with a promise to resume in the evening. Evening came and so did the audience, but not the "Little Giant." Whether he had tumbled into one of the seven- league boots that was putting a comfortable distance be- tween him and the big giant, contemporary history saith not. It does relate that when he failed to return, his dis- appointed auditors drew the inevitable conclusion — and so may we.^*
That the Senator should retrieve, unopposed, in other parts of the State, the ground he had lost in Springfield, was of course not on the program of the Anti-Nebraska leaders. They urged Lincoln to follow Douglas until, as one of them expressed it, he " ran him into a hole or made him halloo, ' Enough ! ' " Their champion was eager enough for pursuit, but to the " Little Giant," the pros- pect of continuing the combat had " no relish of salvation in 't." Douglas was cordial to his opponent when they met, a few days later, in Bloomington ; but as soon as further debates were suggested, he became greatly irri- tated. " It looks to me," said he to Jesse W. Fell, who
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had made the proposition, " like dogging a man all over the State. If Mr. Lincoln wants to make a speech, he had better get a crowd of his own ; for I most respectfully decline to hold a discussion with him." ^^ To persist in this refusal, among a people whose rude sense of chivalry- still delighted in the test of man to man, would have cost Douglas much of his hard-earned prestige. So we find him, twelve days after the Springfield debate, again shar- ing the platform with Lincoln — this time, in Peoria. Here, as at the Capital, the Whig's ambition to address large audiences — we say nothing of his confidence in his powers — led him to be content with one speech, while the Democrat had two, the opening and the close. Con- cerning this arrangement Lincoln quaintly said in his introduction : —
" I doubt not but you have been a little surprised to learn that I have consented to give one of his high reputa- tion and known ability this advantage of me. Indeed, my consenting to it, though reluctant, was not wholly unself- ish, for I suspected, if it were understood that the Judge was entirely done, you Democrats would leave and not hear me ; but by giving him the close, I felt confident you would stay for the fun of hearing him skin me." ^^
But it proved, as they say in the East, to be " the other way round." Douglas got the flaying, and no one realized this more keenly than he himself. Going to his antago- nist, after the meeting, — so one story runs, — he said :
" Lincoln, you understand this question of prohibiting slavery in the Territories better than all the opposition in the Senate of the United States. I cannot make anything by debating it with you. You, Lincoln, have here and at Springfield given me more trouble than all the opposition in the Senate combined." ^^
Then, throwing himself upon the other's magnanimity, he begged him to discontinue the pursuit. According to another tale, Douglas made a feigned illness the ground for his request.^^ At all events, the Senator's discomfiture,
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whether mental or physical, disarmed Lincoln. He granted the truce proposed by Douglas — both to abandon the field and to return to their respective homes. Accordingly, when, on the following day, they arrived at Lacon, where the next debate was to take place, Douglas excused him- self from speaking, on the ground of hoarseness, and Lin- coln declined to take advantage of his " indisposition." Thereupon, they separated, Lincoln going directly home, as had been agreed ; but Douglas stopped at Princeton, where a chance meeting with Owen Love joy betrayed him into a violation of the compact.^^ This breach of faith should be borne in mind by him who would comprehend the characters of these adversaries ; yet the little great man in retreat and crying, " Hold, enough ! " while the big one stays his hand, is a still more significant spectacle.
The election that ensued was virtually a defeat for Douglas.^*' He beheld the majority by which he had twice been sent to the United States Senate crumble away ; and when, during the following winter, the new legislature met in joint session to elect General Shields's successor, the choice lay in the hands of the Anti-Nebraska members. Their favorite, consistently enough, was Lincoln.^^ The champion who had so neatly unhorsed the Nebraska man, himself, on the local field, should have been granted his desire — so thought most of them — to continue the fight, in the national arena. Five of their number, however, as pronounced in their Democracy as in their opposition to Douglas, could not bring themselves to vote for a Whig. They supported Lyman Trumbull, while the Douglas Dem- ocrats voted first for Shields and then for Governor Joel A. Matteson.^^ After a number of ballots with varying but indecisive results, when Matteson's election became imminent, Lincoln directed his followers to unite upon Trumbull, who thus won the day. The new Senator, though in times gone by a political opponent of the Whig leader, now agreed with him in uncompromising antago- nism toward Douglas and his Kansas-Nebraska legislation.
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