:•;•:; ABRAHAM JNCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY MEMORIAL the Class of 1901 founded by HARLAN HOYT HORNER and HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/followingabrahamOOwall Follower ABRAHATVl ie>0°> — 1565 :>r «-..:.,•>..•;;•-;:•:. Abraham Lincoln {From an Original Etching by Bernhardt Wall) roLkOWHSa ABRAflAlYl l©0'^ — 1565 PRIHTE© BY* z*im®> rock* ocrrN TH& ■JWIS£rJ»i«taiUOW.:COM&ANir* £»y?M*i&K£T*&-S*£W "YORK, ^73.7^3 BOM A former president of the United States of America [Abraham Lincoln] used to tell of a boy who was carrying an even smaller child up a hill. Asked whether the heavy burden was not too much for him, the boy answered, "It's not a burden. It's my brother!" — From the Christmas Day Speech by King George, VI, 1942 Foreword Bernhardt wall is well known as an etcher of beautiful books. His works have all been strictly limited editions, privately printed and distributed from Lime Rock, Connecticut. Some of his books have found their way into great libraries, but mostly they have been snapped up by collectors of rare and beautiful editions — book lovers who understand that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever," and gladly pay almost any price for a new treasure to add to their collection. Mr. Wall's greatest achievement is his eighty-five volume series called Following Abraham Lincoln. For eleven years he followed the footsteps of our great war President in his travels, making etchings — several hundred of them — of the Lincoln landmarks in America. These were etched on copper plates and printed on a hand press by the artist at Lime Rock. It was a big undertaking. Had it not been a labor of love, it is doubtful that Mr. Wall could have carried the work through to completion. His Lincoln series was finished only recently and his great achievement was promptly recognized by Lincoln Memorial University, which has conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. While visiting the Lincoln shrines Mr. Wall became person- ally acquainted with people in these various communities who know and treasure the Lincoln memories that cluster around these sacred landmarks. From this source he has gathered to- gether intimate glimpses that reveal the true character of / vn 1 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Lincoln. These character sketches are retold here briefly in connection with the etchings that are now reproduced for the first time. Lincoln has grown in stature every year since his death. His influence is greater today than ever before ; in fact, he is recog- nized throughout the entire world as the patron saint of democ- racy. With our country engaged in a total war that has become global, it is vastly important that we turn again to Abraham Lincoln, our greatest spiritual force in American history. In issuing a popular edition of Mr. Wall's monumental work, the publishers feel that they are making available to all Ameri- cans a new and unfailing source of inspiration. i Vlll i Table of Contents Abraham Lincoln's Ancestry 17 The Virginia Lincolns 26 Lincoln's Grandfather Leaves the Shenandoah Valley for Kentucky 28 Nancy Hanks and Thomas Lincoln 31 "Nancy's Got a Boy Baby!" . 34 Tom Lincoln Moves to "Indianny" 38 The Death of Lincoln's Mother 42 The Boyhood of Abe Lincoln ... 48 Lincoln Arrives in New Salem . 57 Lincoln Finds Himself in New Salem 65 "It Can't Happen That a Sucker Like Me Can Have a Gal Like Her" 77 Lincoln Leaves New Salem 81 Mary Todd of Lexington, Kentucky 93 Lincoln Dons a Stovepipe Hat . . . 101 Lincoln Campaigns for Henry Clay 107 Lincoln Goes to Congress 112 A "Sucker Whig" Invades New England 124 Lincoln at Home 133 Riding the Circuit 143 The Stepson Gives Advice to the Son of His Stepmother 157 Lincoln and -Douglas Clash at the State Fair in Spring- field 163 The Republican Party Is Born 171 y ix * CONTENTS Lincoln Is Defeated for the Senate 179 The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 187 Lincoln Gets His First $500.00 Retainer-fee . . . . 217 The November Election 223 Lincoln for President 227 The Cooper Union Speech . . . , 237 The "Rail Candidate" Is Nominated for President . . 251 The Presidential Campaign 259 Lincoln Takes Leave of Springfield 263 The Trip to Washington 271 Lincoln Becomes President 299 Fort Sumter 304 Lincoln Calls for Volunteers . . 309 Bull Run 317 The Monitor and the Merrimac 325 "McClellan Has Got the Slows" 331 Burnside, the Emancipation Proclamation and Hooker 337 McClellan Is Given Another Chance 353 Lincoln Tries Another General 355 The Crest of the Southern Wave 357 Lincoln's Gettysburg Address 364 Lincoln's Fighting General Arrives 371 I Purpose to Fight It Out on This Line if It Takes All Summer 373 The National Union Party Renominates Lincoln . . . 377 "Atlanta Is Ours and Fairly Won" 383 "With Malice Toward None; With Charity for All" . 387 The Fall of Richmond and Appomattox 390 "He Now Belongs to the Ages" 397 The Funeral 405 i X 1 List of Illustrations Abraham Lincoln Portrait frontispiece Paris Church, Hingham, Norfolk, England 18 Church at Swanton-Morley, Norfolk, England 19 Ancient Parish Church, Great Yarmouth 21 Samuel Lincoln House, Hingham, Massachusetts .... 22 Old Ship Church, Hingham, Massachusetts 23 Grave of General Benjamin Lincoln, Hingham, Massachusetts 23 Church, Scituate, Massachusetts . 24 Mordecai Lincoln's House, Scituate, Massachusetts .... 24 Mordecai Lincoln's Home, Berks County, Pennsylvania . . 25 John Lincoln's Home, Harrisonburg, Virginia 27 Cabin in Which Lincoln's Parents were Married .... 28 Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace, Hodgenville, Kentucky . . 33 Knob Creek Cabin 35 Abe Lincoln's Schoolhouse, Knob Creek, Kentucky ... 36 The Lean-to at Little Pigeon Creek, Indiana 39 Abraham Lincoln's Home, Gentry ville, Indiana .... 41 Grave of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Lincoln City, Indiana . . 43 Little Pigeon Creek Baptist Church, Spencer County, Indiana . 45 Josiah Crawford Farm, Gentryville, Indiana 46 Grave of Sarah Lincoln, Gentryville, Indiana 47 Abraham Lincoln's First Illinois Home, Marion County, Illinois . 49 Major William Warnick's Home, Decatur, Illinois .... 51 Thomas Lincoln's Home, Goose Nest Prairie, Illinois 53 Denton Offutt's Store, New Salem, Illinois ...... 55 Rutledge Tavern, New Salem State Park, Illinois .... 56 Lincoln and Berry Store, New Salem, Illinois 58 Interior of Lincoln and Berry Store, New Salem, Illinois . . 59 Hill-McNamar Store, New Salem, Illinois 61 i XI i LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Samuel Hill Residence, New Salem, Illinois 62 Trent Brothers' Residence, New Salem, Illinois 62 Cabin of Martin Waddell, New Salem, Illinois 63 Isaac Burner's Cabin, New Salem, Illinois 63 Mentor Graham's School, New Salem, Illinois 64 Isaac Gulihur Residence, New Salem, Illinois 66 The Clary Grocery, New Salem, Illinois 66 Onstot Cooper Shop, New Salem, Illinois 68 Old Kirkpatrick Mill, New Salem, Illinois 69 Dr. Francis Regnier's Cabin, New Salem, Illinois .... 70 Joshua Miller- Jack H. Kelso Cabin, New Salem, Illinois . . 70 Joshua Miller's Shop, New Salem, Illinois 71 Dr. John Allen's House, New Salem, Illinois 71 Father Dixon's Cabin and Ferry, Rock River, Illinois ... 72 Vandalia, State Capitol of Illinois 73 Charters Hotel, Vandalia, Illinois 74 Flack's Old Hotel, Vandalia, Illinois . 75 Store in which Lincoln was Banquetted, Athens, Illinois . . 76 Grave of Ann Rutledge, New Salem, Illinois 79 Peter Lukins' Residence, New Salem, Illinois ..... 80 Cabin of Robert Johnson, New Salem, Illinois 80 Ruins of Squire Bowling Green's Home, New Salem, Illinois . 83 The Carding Machine, New Salem, Illinois 84 Stuart and Lincoln's Law Office, Springfield, Illinois ... 85 Major John T. Stuart's Home, Springfield, Illinois .... 86 William Butler's House, Springfield, Illinois 87 Sangamon County Court House 88 Ebenezer Capp's Tavern, Vandalia, Illinois 89 Old Second Presbyterian Church, Springfield, Illinois ... 90 First Christian Church, Springfield, Illinois - 90 House of Representatives Hall, Springfield, Illinois ... 91 Lincoln's Desk, Springfield, Illinois 92 Old Home of Mary Todd Lincoln, Lexington, Kentucky . . 94 Summer Home of Robert S. Todd 96 i xn i LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Home of Ninian W. Edwards, Springfield, Illinois .... 97 Hodgen Home, Pittsfield, Illinois 98 Law Office of Stephen T. Logan and Abraham Lincoln, Spring- field, Illinois 99 Globe Tavern, Springfield, Illinois 100 Home of S. T Logan, Springfield, Illinois 102 Diller's Drug Store, Springfield, Illinois 104 Melvin's Drug Store, Springfield, Illinois 104 Lincoln's and Herndon's Law Office, Springfield, Illinois . . 105 Henry Clay's Home, Lexington, Kentucky. Henry Clay (Por- trait) 106 The Old School House, Bruceville, Indiana 108 Old Tavern, Rockport, Indiana . 108 Home of Judge Abner T. Ellis, Vincennes, Indiana . . . 109 Home of Major W. Bruce, Bruceville, Indiana . . . . no Menard County Court House, Petersburg, Illinois . . . . 1 1 1 Old Home of Eliza Parker, Lexington, Kentucky . . . . 113 Joshua F. Speed's Home, Louisville, Kentucky . . . . 115 The National Capitol, Washington, D. C 116 Site of Brown's Indian Queen Hotel, Washington, D. C. . . 118 St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Springfield, Illinois . . . . 119 Daniel Webster's Home, Washington, D. C 120 Carroll Row, Washington, D. C 121 Philadelphia Museum Building 122 State House, Boston, Massachusetts . . . . . . . . 123 Tremont House, Boston, Massachusetts 125 Liberty Hall, New Bedford, Massachusetts 126 Temperance Hall, Dedham, Massachusetts 128 Lincoln House, Worcester, Massachusetts 129 Home of Levi Lincoln, Jr., Worcester, Massachusetts . . . 130 Old South Church, Worcester, Massachusetts 131 Chicago's Second Court House 132 Lincoln's Home, Springfield, Illinois 135 Lincoln's Home, Springfield, Illinois 136 Parlor in Lincoln's Home, Springfield, Illinois 137 / xiii i LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Backyard of the Lincoln Home, Springfield, Illinois . . . 138 First Presbyterian Church, Springfield, Illinois 140 County Court House, Logan County, Illinois 141 Latham Tavern, Elkhart, Illinois 142 Old McLean County Courthouse, Bloomington, Illinois . . 144 Macon County's First Court House, Decatur, Illinois . . . 145 Macon County Court House, Decatur, Illinois 145 Home of General Milton Alexander, Paris, Illinois . . . . 146 Home of "Uncle" Leander Munsell, Paris, Illinois . . . . 146 Home of Colonel Cyrus M. Allen, Vincennes 147 Old Metamora House, Woodford County, Illinois . . . . 149 Old Metamora Court House, Woodford County, Illinois . . 150 Lushpaugh House, Mt. Pulaski, Illinois 151 Old Inn, Mt. Pulaski, Illinois 151 The Old Taylor House, Havana, Illinois 153 Mason County Court House, Havana, Illinois 153 Green Tree Inn, Paris, Illinois 154 Old Brick Edgar County Court House, Paris, Illinois . . . 154 Home of General John M. Palmer, Carlinville, Illinois . . . 156 Blockburger Inn, Hillsboro, Illinois 156 Home of General William Ward Orme, Bloomington, Illinois . 159 The Owsley Home, Springfield, Illinois 160 Home of Jesse K. Dubois, Springfield, Illinois 160 The Old Knox County Courthouse, Knoxville, Illinois . . . 161 Residence of William H. Ray, Rushville, Illinois . . . . 161 The Old Quincy House, Quincy, Illinois 162 Richard Latham Home, Springfield, Illinois 164 Old Tazewell County Court House, Pekin, Illinois . . . . 166 Long Tavern, Taylorville, Illinois 167 Oldest House in Pittsfield, Illinois 167 Old Edwardsville Hotel, Edwardsville, Illinois "169 Hancock County Court House, Carthage, Illinois . . . . 170 Home of Joe Thomason, Sullivan, Illinois 170 Musical Fund Hall, Philadelphia, Pa . . 172 Old Major's Hall, Bloomington, Illinois 173 / xiv 1 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Home of Judge David Davis, Bloomington, Illinois . . . 174 The Pike House, Bloomington, Illinois 176 City Hall, Beardstown, Illinois 177 Home of Hezekiah G. Wells, Kalamazoo, Michigan . . . 178 Tablet on Stone, Bronson Park, Kalamazoo, Michigan . . 178 Barnum Building, Danville, Illinois 180 Vermillion County Court House, Danville, Illinois . . . . 181 The Jail at Danville, Illinois 182 State House, Springfield, Illinois 183 Tremont House, Chicago, Illinois 184 Chicago Tribune Building, Chicago, Illinois 185 DeWitt County Court House, Clinton, Illinois 186 Bryant House, Bement, Illinois 188 Peoria County Courthouse, Peoria, Illinois 190 Home of Francis Low, Havana, Illinois 191 Private Residence, Henry, Illinois 191 Fulton County Court House, Lewistown, Illinois . . . . 192 Old Walker Home, Lewistown, Illinois . . . . , . . 192 The Brewster House, Freeport, Illinois 193 McDonough County Court House, Macomb, Illinois . . . 193 The Glover Home, Ottawa, Illinois 194 Bancroft House, Galesburg, Illinois 195 The Springfield Marine and Fire Insurance Company . . . 196 Randolph House, Macomb, Illinois 198 American House, Carlinville, Illinois 199 Macoupin County Court House, Carlinville, Illinois . . . 199 Madison County Court House, Edwardsville, Illinois . . . 200 Home where Lincoln was Entertained, Highland, Illinois . . 200 Franklin House, Greenville, Illinois 201 Rev. Enoch Kingsbury's Home, Danville, Illinois . . . .201 The Capitol House, Charleston, Illinois 202 Home of John Green Shastid, Pittsfield, Illinois .... 204 The S. S. Phelps Home, Oquawka, Illinois 204 The Old Hebard House, Knoxville, Illinois 205 / XV i LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Stark County Courthouse, Toulon, Illinois 206 Abner Leech's Hotel, Paris, Illinois 206 Home of Dr. William Fithian, Danville, Illinois . . . .208 Home of Col. William Ross, Pittsfield, Illinois . ; 208 Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois 209 Home of Henry R. Sanderson, Galesburg, Illinois . . . . 210 Scene of the Sixth Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Quincy, Illinois . 212 Home of O. H Browning, Quincy, Illinois 213 City Hall, Alton, Illinois 214 Home of Alexander Sympson, Carthage, Illinois . . . . 215 Residence of Thomas Hamer, Vermont, Illinois . . . . 215 Burnet House, Cincinnati, Ohio 216 Bunn Banking House, Springfield, Illinois 218 Federal Building, Cincinnati, Ohio .220 The Latham Home, Lincoln, Illinois 222 Menard House, Petersburg, Illinois 224 The Jesse W. Fell Home, Normal, Illinois 226 Phoenix Hall, Bloomington, Illinois 228 Home of Hon. John B. Helm, Hannibal, Missouri .... 229 Stockton Hall, Leavenworth, Kansas 230 St. Joseph, Missouri Journal . .230 Buggy Used by Lincoln in Kansas 232 The William Tallman Residence, Janesville, Wisconsin . . 233 Young American Hall, Janesville, Wisconsin 234 Congregational Church, Janesville, Wisconsin 234 Newhall House, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 235 Hanchette Block, Beloit, Wisconsin 235 The Astor House, New York City . .236 Cooper Union, New York City 238 City Hall, Dover, New Hampshire 239 The George Mathewson Home, Dover, New Hampshire . . 240 Mrs. J. B. Clarke's Boarding House, Exeter, New Hampshire . 242 Town Hall, Exeter, New Hampshire 243 Amos Turk's Home, Exeter, New Hampshire . . . r . 244 / xvi / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Old City Hall, Hartford, Connecticut 245 Union Street, New Haven, Connecticut 246 Old Town Hall, Meriden, Connecticut 247 City Hall, Bridgeport, Connecticut ..«.«.... 248 Railroad Depot, New York City 249 Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, New York 250 The Wigwam, Chicago, Illinois 252 Briggs House, Chicago, Illinois 254 Old North Market Hall, Chicago, Illinois 254 Chatterton Building, Springfield, Illinois 255 Illinois State Journal Building, Springfield, Illinois . . . 255 Home of Elisha P. Ferry, Waukegan, Illinois 257 Post Office, Chicago, Illinois 258 Sangamon County Court House, Springfield, Illinois . . . 260 The Enos Home, Springfield, Illinois 262 Senator Marshall's Home, Charleson, Illinois 264 The Moore House, Farmington, Illinois 266 Grave of Thomas Lincoln, Coles County, Illinois . . . .268 The Great Western Railway Station, Springfield, Illinois . . 269 Chenery House, Springfield, Illinois 270 Desk on which Lincoln wrote his Inaugural Address . . . 272 Bates House, Indianapolis, Indiana 273 Governor's Mansion, Indianapolis, Indiana 275 Capitol, Columbus, Ohio 276 Monongahela House, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania . . . . . 278 Waddell House, Cleveland, Ohio 279 Home of Millard Fillmore, Buffalo, New York 280 Delavan House, Albany, New York 281 State Capitol, Albany, New York 283 Entrance Astor House, New York City 285 City Hall, New York City 286 Capitol, Trenton, New Jersey 287 Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . . .288 Continental Hotel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 290 1 xvii i LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Lancaster, Pennsylvania 291 Capitol, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania ...... . . 292 Jones House, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 294 Old Willard Hotel, Washington, D. C 295 National Hotel, Washington, D. C 296 St. John's Church, Washington, D. C 297 Capitol, Washington, D. C. 298 The White House, Washington, D. C 300 Poem, "Nancy Hanks" by Rosemary Benet 302—303 Home of Commander Charles Wilkes, Washington, D. C. . . 305 Executive Office, White House 308 Home of Secretary of State William H. Seward, Washington . 310 Home of Salmon P. Chase, Washington, D. C 312 Home of Edwin M. Stanton . 314 Old War Department Building, Washington, D. C. . . . 315 Old Naval Observatory, Washington, D. C 316 Carver Hospital, Washington, D. C 318 The Washington Monument . 320 Washington Home of General McClellan 322 Battle Between the Monitor and the Merrimac 324 Reception Aboard Monitor 326 New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C. . 328 Wharf at City Point, Virginia 329 The Minnesota 330 Blair Home in Maryland 332 Soldiers' Home, Washington, D. C 333 General Sumner's Headquarters, Harper's Ferry .... 336 Mrs. Stuntz's Toy Shop, Washington, D. C. . . . . . 340 Riggs and Co. Bank, Washington, D. C 343 Alexander Gardner's Photograph Gallery, Washington, D. C. .345 Brady's Studio, Washington, D. C 348 Admiral Porter's Flagship, Malvern 352 Monument on Site of Fort Stevens, Washington, D. C. . . 358 Soldiers National Monument, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania . . 360 i xviii / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The "William Mason" 363 The David Wills Home, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania .... 365 Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address 366-367 Bedroom in the Wills House, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania . . . 369 Railway Coach in which President Lincoln Traveled to Gettys- burg 370 The River Queen 376 Front Street Theatre, Baltimore, Maryland 378 General Grant's Headquarters, City Point, Virginia. General Ulysses S. Grant 380 Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia 382 Castle Thunder, Richmond, Virginia 386 The Completed Dome of the Capitol, Washington, D. C. . . 388 Simon Seward Residence, Petersburg, Virginia 391 The White House of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia . 393 The Capitol, Richmond, Virginia 395 Ford's Theatre, Washington, D. C . . . 396 Carriage in which Lincoln rode to Ford's Theatre . . . 398 Chair in which Lincoln sat in Ford's Theatre .... 398 The Lincoln Box in Ford's Theatre, Washington, D. C. . . 399 House No. 510 Tenth Street, Washington, D. C . . . . 400 Funeral Bier of Lincoln 404 The Funeral Car 406 Lincoln Funeral Train in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania . . . 407 Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania .... 409 The Lincoln Funeral Train arriving at Chicago, Illinois . . 410 Old Court House in Chicago, Illinois 411 State House, Springfield, Illinois .412 The Lincoln Hearse, Springfield, Illinois 413 Abraham Lincoln Monument and Tomb, Springfield, Illinois 414 The Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D. C 415 ■f xix / Abraham Lincoln's Ancestry In the seventy-eight years since Abraham Lincoln's death, enough books have been written about him to fill a good-sized library. There are nearly three thousand books and pamphlets in all, making the annual average crop close to forty items. The favorite formula with most of these writers is to begin with Lincoln's father in Kentucky. They describe him as an illiterate farmer or a "rolling stone," overlooking the fact that there were many generations of Lincolns before Thomas. The great Lincoln is not descended from a line of aristocrats. In fact, there are none such in his ancestry, but in each generation beginning in the Mother Country, there may be found a goodly number of solid citizens bearing the name of Lincoln. The city of Lincoln in Lincolnshire is one of the oldest towns in England. During the Roman occupation the town was Lindum-Colonia (Lindum Colony), then Lindcolon, later Lindcoln, and finally Lincoln. At the time of the Norman conquest Lincoln was a place of importance. Lincoln Cathedral, one of the finest in all Eng- land, was begun by Remiguis, the first Norman bishop. It was started just twenty years after William the Conqueror landed in England. It took nearly five hundred years to complete it. The Lincoln family name is a place-name. It first appears in the Doomsday Book of 1086. At one time it seems that almost everyone living in the county bore the name de Lincoln. Now, however, all the Lincolns seem to have disappeared from Lin- colnshire. 1 i 7 y PARkStf CHURCH AT HintT^HAJV^Koj^^KS ..:__. .: ___:_:.__. 7n //m parish for many generations lived the Lincolns, ancestors of Abraham Lincoln, to whom, greatest of that lineage, many citizens of the United States have erected this memorial in the hope that for all ages, between that land and for all lands, there shall be malice toward none and charity for all. Inscription on tablet in old church at Hingham, England, where a bust of Lincoln was unveiled by Ambassador John W. Davis, October 15, 1919. i 18/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN *igr FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN The Lincoln family that gave us our great President came from Norfolk, England, to Massachusetts in 1637. Between 1633 and 1645 eight adult Lincolns came to Massachusetts and settled in Hingham. Three of them were brothers, Thomas, Daniel and Samuel. The latter, from whom Abraham Lincoln is descended, came as an indentured apprentice to Francis Lawes, a weaver, and his wife, and a servant named Anne Smith, nineteen years of age. Francis Lawes settled in Salem, Massachusetts, but in some way unknown to us Samuel Lincoln established himself in Hingham, where he died in 1690. His large rambling house still stands, and is worthy of inspection. * 20* FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN •PPL. v\njuuiAjtyv is - e>ARTorO r 21 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN SAMUEL X*INT OUTS BOtT^S, JP3ItT<^KAM,, M£u?J ; ^ftlUEl^ ialH- COI*rr WAt^ Tl-If^ 4RBAT-^PEAT- ^OEAT-^RLAT ^RATID- FATHER. OF AtftAliAm kOTCOX^T. ITS. TDXH1D IIST 16QO, 77z£ /zr.rt 0/ Lincoln's ancestors to set foot on American soil was a young man of eight- een. He came to America as an indentured apprentice to a weaver by the name of Francis Lawes who settled in Salem, Massa- chusetts, in 1637. i 22 i n»x* win. ^ . jE^iyatr oi 8 ^ *5#>2* o? <§»n W^lnm&fato. C *> lit" CT I < >5a^W'* , 'l.. ..^-'-- -""' " ~" """ X " ! ^ & wfibrtilia-toL Ldirxrolia wdnJ bom «*. -rniie etn.dl ,K.**itzxcKv, Feb-ruary 12», ISo 9, - "Nancy's got a boy baby!" Thomas Lin- coln's announcement of the birth of his son Abraham. i W / 33 "Nancy's Got a Boy Baby!" The thomas Lincoln s were now living in a cabin on Nolin's Creek, about two and a half miles from Hodgen- ville, Kentucky. It was a small piece of barren ground called the Rock Creek farm. They lived in a log cabin with one window, and a door that swung open on leather hinges. Thomas Lincoln had built it himself from timbers cut in the nearby forest. Mother Earth provided the floor and the clay for the chimney that carried away the smoke from the log fire that warmed the one-room cabin. Early one February morning, Thomas Lincoln stopped a passing neighbor and asked him to tell "the granny woman" that Nancy would be needing her help soon. The following Sunday morning, February 1 2th, 1 809, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, with the kindly assistance of Aunt Peggy Walters, "the granny woman," and her husband, became the proud mother of a baby boy whose skin looked "just like red cherry pulp squeezed dry, in wrinkles." Later that morning the slow, quiet father, Thomas Lincoln, walked two miles down the road to his neighbors, the Sparrows, and announced : "Nancy's got a boy baby!" Dennis Hanks, a boy the Sparrows had adopted, hearing the news, rushed up the road to the Lincoln cabin to see his new cousin. "What you goin' to name him, Nancy?" the excited" boy inquired. "Abraham, after his grandfather." '34' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN j t&xob Gr^eiC CgibiTi oosaae ox " 12! "^46^, ^ow go to school now, and I'am all you kin!" Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, '35' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN : i. This was a "blab school, 33 so called because the pupils in learning their lessons said them out loud to themselves. 36 i <3Lied in 1&L&, "/ have no wife and you no husband. I came a-purpose to marry you. I knowed you from a gal and you knowed me from a boy. I've no time to lose; and if you're willing let it be done straight off." Thomas Lincoln's proposal of marriage to Sarah Bush Johnston. 41 The Death of Lincoln's Mother The Lincoln s had now been living for a year in their new cabin on the Pigeon Creek farm. Life had become a little more bearable. In the meantime, there had come up from Hodgenville, Kentucky, old neighbors of the Lincolns, Tom and Betsy Sparrow, to whom Tom Lincoln had announced on that February morning, "Nancy has got a boy baby!" The Sparrows, with their adopted son, Dennis Hanks, occu- pied the open pole-shed that the Lincolns had abandoned the year before. These kindly neighbors had followed the Lincolns to In- diana. They had come to settle on a farm of their own; but within the year both the Sparrows were stricken with the "milk sick" and died. A few weeks later, young Abe's and Sarah's mother devel- oped the same dread disease, first a white coating of the tongue and a high fever accompanied with violent retching and a burning sensation in the stomach. With a sickness that usually terminates fatally on the third day, there was little hope for the patient in a pioneer country where the nearest doctor was thirty-five miles away, as it was in the Lincoln country in south- ern Indiana in the year 1818. Lincoln's mother lingered for seven days. Now in her thirty- sixth year she rested peacefully on her pole bed fastened se- curely to one corner of the cabin, while her husband, an experi- enced cabinetmaker, fashioned her coffin. Dennis Hanks helped to plane the boards smooth while the nine-year-old son whit- f 42 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Oc *1* JU:mColrv ty _ — ^_ *43 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN tied with his jack-knife the pegs to hold the planks securely together. In this coffin Nancy Hanks was carried next day to the clearing nearby and was laid to rest beside Betsy and Tom Sparrow, her foster parents. In the years that followed it must have been a comfort to Lincoln to think of his mother sleeping peacefully by the side of these good and generous friends who had opened their door to her when other doors were closed and who had not only pro- vided a home for her until she was married to Lincoln's father, but had given her love and kindness as well. The weeks that followed the death of their mother were filled with heartaches and bitter grief for Abe Lincoln and his sister Sarah. The weeks stretched into months, and then their father left them for a return trip to Kentucky. He didn't ex- plain his errand to them ; he only said he would come back. Thomas Lincoln had returned to Kentucky seeking a wife and a mother for his children. He went straight to Elizabeth- town, and made a proposal of marriage to the widow Sarah Bush Johnston. They had known each other as children, and Tom lost no time in pressing his suit. Her only objection was that she had debts. These Thomas paid, and they were married on December 2, 1819. It was a pleasant surprise for Abe and his sister one morning to see a wagon and four horses drive up to their lonely cabin. When their father got out, he said simply, "Here's your new mammy!" Besides the new mother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, there were her three children by her first husband, and a wagon load of furniture and bedding. The corn husks on which young Abe had been sleeping were discarded, and that night he slept for the first time on a feather bed and rested his head on a soft feather pillow. '44 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN , , . ' ,. . Tke laitUe Gideon. Creek flap Hit CIiupcK,* G?pen<*er 'County, 'In&i&irxti, vglteJ? e the J Ity cutting across the fields it was only a mile from the Lincoln cabin to the church. On the church's minutes book, dated June J, 1823, is this record: "Received Brother Thomas Lincoln by letter" He afterwards served three years as trustee of the church. His contribution one year was twenty-four pounds of corn. 45 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN r A '% . 1r> ?: \4 U \ aJojicik -*r^v^foi*ci. Farm xi.e>c%T> (3&i%ki*yi*v«*ol«. iifWl *k "7 $7>oj£ -4o* # »r De P t Psx1b I i C "Wot* Ic «^ «$p rin<4i^l 4 , ^M, While working in Offut's General Store, Abe Lincoln had to sell liquor as well as other things. Douglas once attempted to use this against Lincoln in a campaign speech. Lincoln did not deny it or try to explain. He merely said, "While I was back of the bar Douglas was in front of it." 55 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ■ n^^ Tioi^ \yixer»e Lincoln h o &.** c£ «* <3L a£ iir«t€»^. Collection of TDep-f of p€*klirk*J', c^wirt^ ox /—--■ _^JI "//# knows more than any man in the United States. . . . Some day he will be President of the United States. He can out- run, outlift, outwrestle, and throw down any man in Sangamon County." Denton Offut's estimate of his new clerk, Abe Lincoln, *59 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN The young hopeful tied up his few belongings in a bundle and was off for New Salem, a straggling village on a bluff over- looking a bend in the Sangamon River. Lincoln was twenty-two when he arrived in New Salem with all his worldly possessions tied up in one big handkerchief. He was six feet four, strong, earnest and cheerful. He had a job at a salary of $12.00 per month, but the store in which he was to work as a clerk for Denton Offut had not yet been set up. As usual Offut failed to keep his commitment. It was Election Day when Lincoln put in his appearance in New Salem and before long he was hanging around the voting place. One of the clerks engaged to keep the voting register had failed to show up and Lincoln was asked if he could write. "Oh, I guess I can make a few rabbit tracks," was his re- sponse and he was engaged. Thus the new arrival came to know most of the voters in New Salem his first day in town. Of course there were not many voters, since there were only twelve families in the vil- lage. That was long before women were permitted to cast their ballots with the men. f6of FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN «£*Je *»?,** £*V~*4 Po^lxxx*.** t e>, JHke* *Pa>| Off?tf* Wits *»"*^t«»*M?. - Coll* c*i*»*» ~£ t^W* of Pstkllc W*«*0iL> , \ dStoj . ^.^j,., //*// and McNamar were both suitors of Ann Rutledge. McNamar won, but after they became engaged he kept Ann waiting until he could earn $12,000. This accomplished, he decided to make a trip East to visit his family before his marriage. He wrote to Ann only two or three times, making excuses. She finally wrote him a letter breaking their en- gagement. Ann never heard from him after that. i 61 i ***3 ■■ % ,. <&lKTtXXtL*\ tliTi TS^>X^«»T%'^^7^4^4$Alf "Fakli^ Vv^srJc^ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Trott-, fv pka^o^-rA^Ta &y Toy. H avrry £». Par** t , c*|arita&ftt?&i3< 77i£ /o^a/ schoolmaster, Mentor Graham, told Lincoln that a man living six miles from New Salem had a grammar. Lincoln walked the twelve miles to get the booh.. After he studied the lessons, he would hand the book to the other clerk in the store, Bill Green, who would ask Abe the questions. i 64 Lincoln Finds Himself in New Salem Lincoln had had some experience in extemporaneous speak- j ing. Once John Hanks persuaded him to get up and reply to a speech that a man had made against improving the Sagamo River. "Abe beat him to death," was John Hanks' report to his neighbors. New Salem had a debating society which Lincoln joined and took part in the debating. His first attempt must have made a good impression, for the president of the society, James Rut- ledge, complimented him highly and later advised Lincoln to read law and enter public life. Lincoln's work in the store and later as postmaster of New Salem left him plenty of spare time to continue his reading. He heard through the local schoolmaster, Mentor Graham, that a man living six miles in the country had a grammar. Lincoln walked the twelve miles to get the book. Then, as he studied it, he would turn the book over to Bill Green, the other clerk in the store, and have him ask the questions. In this way, this eager young student went to school to himself. In his second year in New Salem Lincoln was persuaded to become a candidate for the State Legislature. He didn't believe he could be elected to the office, but James Rutledge and others said, "It will bring you prominently before the people and in time will do you good." Lincoln set forth his views in a speech which he later circulated as a handbill. The closing paragraph to that appeal to the voters reveals the calibre of the man and shows that at twenty-three he had developed a sound philos- '65/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ophy for a man entering public life. It is heart-warming to read that appeal today. Especially when one keeps in mind that dur- ing the next thirty-three years of his life he never swerved from the course which he then charted for his career. "Every man 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 esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall suc- ceed 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 country ; 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." In April of that year the government of Illinois issued a call for volunteers to fight the Indians. Black Hawk was on the war- path and had crossed the Mississippi into Northern Illinois. Lincoln saw that the OfTut Store would soon be failing, and he would be out of a job. Also, he was running for office, and a war record, however brief, wouldn't hurt his chances at the election. Lincoln enlisted, and was immediately elected captain of the company, receiving twice as many votes as his opponent, Kirkpatrick, the miller, with whom Lincoln had had a little trouble over a matter of wages. The Black Hawk War was short-lived. Lincoln helped bury five men who had been killed and scalped by the Indians. That was the nearest he came to the gruesome business of war. In- stead of killing Indians, he actually saved the life of one. Returning to New Salem, he washed the mud of the Black / 67 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Hawk War from his boots and resumed his campaigning for the legislature, making speeches right up to the day of the elec- tion on August 6th. He was far from being the winner, standing seventh on the list of candidates ; but the voters of New Salem had given him 277 of their 300 ballots. This vote of confidence from the people who knew him personally, and his election as captain of his company in the Black Hawk War, did a lot to build up the self-confidence of this young man, which he sorely needed in his struggle for a successful career. • 68/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN > ,vw>»»>m - -!„, ; ; ;■ ■ :., ,:■„, ' . ■ ,:.. .. ■ ' :■„ . ' ." ■ ■"- Oja Kr^kp^rick Mill, to WKtc-k rki* L^? A Tin<". -& mi *».;r -x«t. , :— <..-.*. ^_i- Kirkpatrick owned a sawmill. There was some feeling between him and Lincoln over a matter of $2.00 for wages. They were rivals for the captaincy of their company in the Black Hawk War. The men in the company selected their leader by lining up behind the man of their choice. Twice as many were lined up behind Lincoln as stood back of his rival. /6gy -.^..^...^aB^j, v^c-ll r^iioin. <»w4 D «*•-» *n*-f last *"*rlr ,, < . Illinois. Z^ill^y &*x*«$• 3r«*.:r**. "K^l^o, *K«* ; tor. «?oim All****, ^jte*&*s*.i#- «f &*^bxmidW, e^a^f |« oUlfry? *>&<»* ■s> ^ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN JFfeoaaa. ^,G*il IV^i^l^ii^e Career VB^ "Tom may burn my body to ashes, and scatter them to the winds of heaven; you may drag my soul down to the regions of darkness and despair to be tormented for- ever; but you will never get me to support a measure which I believe to be wrong, al- though by doing so I may accomplish that which I believe to be right." Lincoln's re- sponse to a proposal that he vote for another measure in exchange for a block of votes to move the State Capital to Springfield. n3< FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN fcf»»*~. .4* twenty-five Lincoln was a member of the Illinois Legislature. His pay was $3.00 per day. He had borrowed $200.00, and he dressed up for the occasion. 74' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ■.Tl&ek** Old Hotel jLa" wixere JWuneolrK iJhirHe^ -while .^iopi tk« X» e^ i^t l As a lawmaker, Lincoln was what would be today called a Progressive. He stood for improved transportation, better schools and general education. His ambition, he told his friend Joshua Speed, was to be recognized as "the De Witt Clinton of Illinois." Clinton had been instrumental in building the Erie Canal. 75 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN •aroizr milej north ok ^-psrirvST field. "Li-tu rfSS&S Lincoln was a leader among the progres- sives in the Illinois Legislature known as "The Long Nine." At a banquet given him in Athens the toast was; "Abraham Lin&oln: one of Nature's noblemen." 1 j6* "It Can't Happen That a Sucker Like Me Can Have a Gal Like Her" ann rutledge was the auburn haired daughter of James £\^ Rutledge, the tavern keeper in New Salem and one of the leading lights of the village. The Rutledges came from Revo- lutionary stock. One of the early Rutledges was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, another was a governor, and there had been several judges in their family tree. James Rutledge was one of the first, if not the first, man on record to recognize the spark of genius in young Lincoln and he gave him encouragement when he was groping for a career. It is more than likely that he is entitled to a great deal of the credit for launching Lincoln on a career in the legal profession and in public life. Ann had two suitors before Lincoln arrived on the scene, Hill and McNamar, partners in one of the New Salem stores. McNamar won, but he kept Ann waiting until he could save $12,000. This he did during his first five years in New Salem. Then he decided to make a trip back East to visit his family before claiming his bride. After he left New Salem, Ann re- ceived only two or three letters with explanations. One that he was ill with a fever, another that his father had just died and he was waiting for the estate to be settled. Finally Ann wrote him breaking off the engagement. Letters were slow and uncer- tain in those days. Perhaps that is the reason she never heard from him after that. Ann Rutledge believed in Lincoln and took pride and satis- '77 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN faction in the attentions he paid her. Ann's feminine intuitions told her that her suitor would go far, that he had a future. That she cherished the hope of sharing it with him there is not the slightest doubt. Had Lincoln been free from debt, debts caused by the failure of the Lincoln and Berry Store, debts that he struggled until he was thirty-nine to pay off, Abe Lincoln and Ann Rutledge would probably have been married before her untimely death in 1835. Lincoln was now a member of the Illinois State Legislature. When he returned to New Salem in the spring of '35, Ann felt herself free to accept his attentions. They both made plans to go to college in the fall — Ann to the Jacksonville Female Col- lege and Lincoln to the Illinois College in the same city. The Rutledges were living on a farm now that they had given up the tavern. As Lincoln was riding back and forth to see Ann he must have been thrilled with pride and satisfac- tion with the prospects of having for his bride the girl he met in the tavern three years before when he remarked, "It can't happen that a sucker like me can have a gal like her." The crops in central Illinois were burning up in the summer of '35. The air seemed filled with malaria. In nearly every house there were victims of the fever. Lincoln himself had not escaped. August came. Now Ann was burning up with a fever. They sent for help but there was no help. Then they sent for Lincoln — the one she wanted most to see. He came, and they were alone for an hour. Two days later Ann passed away. The day of her funeral Lincoln was speechless with grief. His friends were concerned about him. Bowling and Nancy Green took him into their home. When the rains came and the storms raged outside their house, Lincoln looked out of the window into the night and moaned, "I can't bear to think of her out there alone." 78 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ^\m exs .Z. '79 tw«> fcta* 1 «,jr rxc>x»fri"i $ Ar»"« «*»,«l xk ,^wi» v#y«»a mto loir,? «o><^ n:*s. TKe r» II *>c -tiers, of CV*4 \v r c?>k<*e£s*x% £><** Lincoln Leaves New Salem Lincoln was leaving New Salem. He was headed for J Springfield, where he would put out his lawyer's shingle. He had $7.00 in his pocket and was leaving behind him a debt of $1000 and riding out of town on a borrowed horse. As a business man, he had been a dismal failure, during his six years in New Salem; while his rival, John McNamar, to whom his beloved Ann had first been betrothed, had made a small fortune. John was back from the East, driving harder bargains than ever. He now owned the Sand Ridge Farm and the widowed Mrs. Rutledge, who had lost her husband and daughter the same year, was being turned out because McNamar couldn't collect his rent from her. This was in March, 1837. Lincoln had been visiting his friends, Bowling and Nancy Green. He had spent much of his time since the death of Ann Rutledge with these good friends. Bowling Green had loaned him the horse he was riding on his twenty-mile trip to Springfield. While attending the last session of the legislature at Van- dalia, Lincoln's own horse had been stolen, and he had been forced to walk home while the other members of the "Long Nine" rode their horses. When he complained about being cold, one of his companions replied, "No wonder, there is so much of you on the ground!" The "Long Nine" was composed of a group of legislators who were instrumental in moving the capital from Vandalia to Springfield, and were so named be- cause they were all very tall men. *Qi* FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN On the way to New Salem Lincoln had stopped in Athens, where he was given a banquet. They all drank the toast, "Abra- ham Lincoln, one of Nature's noblemen!" In Athens he was a guest of his colleague, Robert L. Wilson, who has left us this estimate of the great man: "He seemed to be a born politician. We followed his lead ; but he followed nobody's lead. It may almost be said that he did our thinking for us. He inspired re- spect, although he was careless and negligent. We would ride while he would walk; but we recognized him as a master of logic. He was poverty itself; but independent. He seemed to glide along in life without any friction or effort." Springfield, that was soon to become the capital of the state, had at the time Lincoln began his law practice there a popula- tion of fifteen hundred. On Lincoln's arrival in Springfield, he went to the store of Joshua Speed to outfit himself with some necessary bedding. When he asked for $17.00 credit and nine months time to pay, Speed, who lived over his store, was so affected by Lincoln's melancholy voice and expression that he offered to share his own double bed with him. Lincoln took his few belongings upstairs to Speed's room, and when he came down he said, "Well, Speed, I'm moved!" Lincoln didn't need to worry about his meals ; his friend, Bill Butler, a fellow member of the "Long Nine," had assured him that he was welcome at his house to put his feet under his table at any time. At twenty-eight he was beginning his career as a lawyer, sleeping in a double bed with Speed, getting free meals with a political friend, and sharing an office upstairs with J. T. Stuart at No. 4 Hoffman Row. Besides an old wood stove, the office furnishings consisted of a few pieces that could best be described as kitchen furniture and some loose boards to hold their small collection of books. Stuart was busy getting himself elected to Congress, which meant that his law partner handled what legal business came 82/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN _ itxS o% c^prlbre 8.«^fag ^reeixVt »am.$, nor tli~^ j | of ISFevS ci^alexia, Wbtejre iixieofcu <#p«3tt mu^lw ^£ Bowling Green's funeral Lincoln was asked by the Masons to say a few words over the casket of his friend and companion of former years. He stood at the head of the coffin, spoke a few incoherent words, and then was so overcome with emotion that he could only motion to the pall-bearers to take their places. "8 3 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN to them. The firm's first case was settled out of court, but not until Lincoln had spent considerable time on it getting ready for trial. On the records we find that he spelled wagon with two "g's" and prairie was "prairy." Their second case was for a "widow woman" against a General James Adams who, it was alleged, was trying to swindle their client out of her property. Lincoln opened this case with a handbill which he had printed. Adams answered him with a six-column broadside in the newspaper, and so it continued. The case was aired in public and then tried in court, the firm of Stuart and Lincoln win- ning the case for the "widow woman." ? K»i*> Isj^.lOss iS®*3?Z*'W ;J^.., PV.3fe.iH „,;,„<, ,< ,.»w«ir ^.rn.^virt.^.^W.w.r.f.f.wnvn * 84 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ^jj&»m JLaITx tlS Line ol*&? Law* O ££i c ^©W, cSvyin&i^lA % ILL 77i£ county courtroom occupied the ground floor. Upstairs in one small room was the law office of Stuart and Lincoln, very meagerly furnished. '8 5 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ?*v$#L? JUirwc ©!»£*£ *Br*?*~I«fcW p^^jr^ He** £'S*&c&%n *,H *nA.«* 4 f *$b#> %tf#^Am£( of ^€\$hr« j %^lm» Oft. Jfca, 1&S£, - J Lincoln and Stuart met while serving in the Black Hawk War. Stuart was already a lawyer and a major, Lincoln was a captain, and aspiring to become a lawyer. %hey had long talks together in which the major en- couraged his captain to enter the legal pro- fession. • 86/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN -—• - ■■■ ; ■ / '■ — ;•'•■" — — ; " — •™-rr" — «™r — '-■ AJbT.at.h-a k i m *&im.?>&i$x 1w»rJ.«»4 i*.«*3*«» W*h U~ f o "Willi i&Tri. t^- sx * 1 <»i»« f^oaaa %, J^^>Ktm „*_. When Lincoln came to Springfield to form a law partnership with John T. Stuart, he was in debt, without money and with no immediate prospects of an income. His friend Butler invited Lincoln to take his meals with him and not to worry about his board bill. 87 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN • 88/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ^J»«*a^KS: : 1 O^ To&rt £o Lincoln: "He fulfilled the expec- tations of his friends, and disappointed the hopes of his enemies" Lincoln's response: "All our friends: they are too numerous to mention now individ- ually, while there is no one of them who is not too dear to be forgotten or neglected." tSgt SOlcl $&*yxn& Shr V****l" I^JiMUEV M£*&h*&^% $*&0* <--~* >~»V/ -^ ■ / >-v< -^v,* : ^, . "-4 woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me." — Lincoln. '96' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth." From Lincoln's letter to his law partner, John T. Stuart, after he had broken his engagement with Mary Todd. 97 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN herself to act as matchmaker for Mary Todd and Abe Lincoln, and to try to bring them together again. She was the wife of Simeon Francis, editor of the Sangamo Journal. Many parties were given in their home, and both Mary and Lincoln were invited to one of these gatherings without either of them know- ing that the other would be present. When they met in her parlor, their hostess said simply, "Be friends again." They both found that they had never ceased to be friends. They picked up their friendship where they had left off the year before, and soon it ripened into a courtship that was carried on secretly, mostly in the Francis home. At that first meeting in the Francis home, Mary had insisted that if they became engaged a second time there would be no long engagement. She would not give her catch time to think it over and slip away a second time. On the day of their marriage, Lincoln met Edwards on the street and broke the news to him. Edwards insisted that since Mary Todd was his ward the wedding should take place in his home, and it did — that same day — November 4th, 1842. FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN — ^- — 5 W , art 0\W: Oo&ri "//^ ^^5 fa//, gawky, rough-looking; his pantaloons didn't meet his shoes by six inches. But I became very much interested in him; he made a very sensible speech. He had nov- elty and peculiarity in presenting his ideas; he had individuality." Stephen T. Logans comment on hearing Lincoln speak for the first time. 99 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN '".'.- ■■■■■ "" ■ "■.■ " ■ ■ ■' ", ' >« ■ •• .'?» • ■' •• (ywiwmm /* 1 1 ?P- ^ % ■■'■? /"C* 1 «* Til 1- *i &£nco2rt«* live A fccrm jN^. 4yl&4*2. f 4iU .Au££. IS44^ Lincoln took his bride, the daughter of a Kentucky bank president, to live at the Globe Tavern. He paid $4.00 per week for their accommodations at the Tavern, " 1 100 / Lincoln Dons a Stovepipe Hat Before he left New Salem Lincoln had become interested in political affairs. But in New Salem he had merely got- ten his feet wet in politics. Now that he was settled in Spring- field, and was ten years older, he waded in knee-deep and found that he liked it ! Some of his friends said Lincoln was a born politician. Stuart, his first law partner, was in Congress. More and more, Lincoln was taking over the legal business of the firm. On one occasion, when he introduced himself to a client of Stuart's and explained that he had been sent to handle the case in Stuart's absence, the client, an Englishman, was so disgusted with his appearance that he dismissed his counsel and engaged another lawyer. Stuart was one of the best dressed men in town, and cut a handsome figure, while his partner was equally distinguished for being the poorest dressed man in Springfield. Lincoln had now entered into a partnership with Stephen T. Logan, with offices at the southwest corner of 6th and Adams. This was in the summer of 1841. His new law partner outdid Lincoln in the matter of dress, or rather, the lack of it. Logan never bothered about a necktie, wore cotton shirts and heavy shoes, and seemed never to have combed his frowzy hair. Lincoln, on the contrary, was beginning to pay some attention to his personal appearance. As a boy this backwoodsman from Kentucky wore a coonskin cap ; then, as a pilot on the Missis- sippi River, he put on a felt hat made in a Down East hat fac- i IOI 1 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN m i 102 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN tory. Now, as a prominent attorney and a rising politician in the capital of the state, he donned a stovepipe hat. Logan was one of the ablest lawyers in the state. In his office, and in handling his legal affairs, he was the very opposite of what a client might have expected from his unkempt appear- ance. He was thorough. In that respect the pendulum swung to the other extreme. Lincoln found his association with his new law partner most helpful. His ambition was to become as good a lawyer as Logan; but they couldn't get on together. After two years they dissolved their partnership, with keen regret on Lincoln's part that the break had to come. Young Herndon, who had been reading law in the office of Logan and Lincoln, and had only recently been admitted to the bar, got the shock of his young life when Lincoln out of a clear sky proposed to him that they form a partnership. "Mr. Lincoln, don't laugh at me!" was his startled response. William H. Herndon was nine years younger than his new law partner. He had, while clerking in the store, shared the room over Speed's Store with the proprietor and Lincoln. These three men had had almost daily contact for ten years. "Billy, I can trust you if you can trust me," Lincoln said, and the two men shook hands. Thus was formed Lincoln's third and last law partnership. This association continued unbroken until they were separated by Lincoln's call to Washington to lead the nation through the storm that already was visible on the horizon. 03 vj';- v ... :: :^-:. ...,,.;.;::,,:, ;«-.V. X\<-<£& i.".;:^::^^^:, $u>m?mK> ' ^ e H "** FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN * 105 Lincoln Campaigns for Henry Clay Iincoln was getting deeper and deeper into politics. He J became interested before he left New Salem and was elected to the State Legislature. He had gotten his feet wet. Then in Springfield as a member of the "Long Nine" he was in at least ankle-deep. Now he was wading in knee-deep. He had decided to go over into Indiana and make speeches for Henry Clay, who was running for President. It had been almost fifteen years since he left Indiana. This was his first visit. At Gentryville where he spoke, Josiah Crawford, in whose fields he had gathered corn as a boy, was in a front row of the audi- ence. Lincoln spoke extemporaneously and without notes, and when he finished the old farmer asked, "Where's your books, Abe?" He was not used to seeing him without a book. His return to the scenes of his childhood, which he described in a letter to a friend as being "as unpoetical as any spot of the earth," inspired him to write a poem. The first verse reads : "My childhood home I see again, And saddened with the view ; And still, as memory crowds my brain, There's pleasure in it too." Visiting the graves of his mother and sister and their old friends, the Sparrows, put Lincoln in a melancholy mood. All of the ten verses of his poem are in this mood, the last four lines ending : "I range the fields with pensive tread. And pace the hollow rooms, And feel (companion of the dead) I'm living in a tomb." i 107 1 „_ „„ ' ~ ~- i.. u^~>^-Xt^ ■' v! Y- IW ok Henry M "By way of getting the hang of the House, I made a little speech two or three days ago on a post office question of no general inter- est. I find speaking here and elsewhere about the same thing. I was about as badly scared, and no worse, as I am when I speak in court." From a letter to Herndon. 116 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN payment of "the usually traveled road." "The usually traveled road," the Tribune declared, "for a great many Members of the last Congress was an exceedingly crooked one, even for politicians." In his letters to Herndon, Lincoln reported that he found that in the National Capital most of the lawmakers were law- yers, and that was as it had been in the Illinois Legislature. And following his first speech on the floor he said, "I was about as badly scared, and no worse, as I am when I speak in court." Lincoln was not in sympathy with Polk's Administration. He felt that "the war with Mexico was unnecessarily and uncon- stitutionally commenced by the President" on territory outside of the United States. He demanded that the President tell the country where the first shots were fired — the exact spot. Lin- coln demanded a definite answer. "Let him attempt no evasion — no equivocation. And if, so answering, he can show that the soil was ours where the first blood of the war was shed — then I am with him." Continuing his attack on the President, he de- clared, "He knows not where he is. He is a bewildered, con- founded, and miserably perplexed man." Lincoln was striking home without knowing that in the White House daily the President was holding back two of his cabinet members, James Buchanan, Secretary of State from Pennsylvania, and Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, his Secre- tary of the Treasury, both of whom were pressing the President to take all of Mexico. Back home, Lincoln's popularity was waning. His friends could not understand his "spotty" resolutions in Congress as they were called, and his political enemies went so far as to denounce him as "a second Benedict Arnold." Lincoln served one term only in Congress. Stephen T. Logan, his former law partner, campaigned for his seat, but he was defeated by a Mexican War veteran Democrat. / i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN [ pan '''^feim^yl^^xii^i 1 ^^. Isfe eol ; Q|i€#Tt "U o i^l, L. . ^1- opt he *> &%. •v#«u? ■&. ^#*a.1**»*, ITr*.** Ciiy ^>«vi^l iirsb**£* , f 119 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN * 120 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN < * w$ M By New Tear's he [Lincoln] was recognized as the champion story-teller of the Capitol. His favorite seat was at the left of the open fireplace, tilted back in his chair, with his long legs reaching over to the chimney jamb. He never told the same story twice, but appeared to have an endless repertoire always ready. Newspaper account. i 121 1 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN £achary Taylor was sixty-four when he be- came President. He was accustomed to walk unaccompanied through the streets of the Capital or to ride his horse, "Old Whitey," that had carried him through the Mexican War. Gaslights were installed in the White House during Taylor's administration. His wife, un- happy at leaving their Louisiana plantation, spent most of her time in the White House knitting. i 122 i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN '.wK^r? Lin^ol** ^|»©&re c» xx «£ei»4;-fp *?**>?; f 126/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN he opened his mouth. He went right to work. He wore a black alpaca sack and he turned up the sleeves of this, and then the cuffs of his shirt. Next he loosened his necktie, and soon after that he took it off altogether. All the time he was gaining on his audience. He soon had it as by a spell. I never saw men more delighted. His style was the most familiar and offhand possible. His eye had lighted up and changed the whole expression of his countenance. He began to bubble out with humor. But the chief charm of his address lay in the homely way he made his points. There was no attempt at eloquence or finish of style. But, for plain pungency of humor, it would have been difficult to surpass his speech." This is the account of Lincoln's half- hour speech in Dedham as given by George H. Munroe who headed the committee that conducted the speaker to Dedham. Lincoln stopped speaking abruptly, explaining that he had to leave to keep his evening engagement in Cambridge. Munroe says, "The whole audience seemed to rise in protest. 'Go on! Finish it !' was heard on every hand. One gentleman arose and pledged to take his horse and carry him across country. But Lincoln was inexorable." When Lincoln spoke at Worcester, he was introduced by a distant kinsman and a former governor of Massachusetts, Levi Lincoln. Both of these Lincolns could trace their ancestry back to the immigrant Samuel Lincoln who had settled at Hingham over a hundred years before. In Tremont Temple, Boston, he shared the platform with the then Governor of New York, Wm. H. Seward, who was destined to become Secretary of State in his War Cabinet. The Atlas, a Whig newspaper, printed a good portion of Seward's speech but gave only a brief description of Lincoln's efforts, "powerful and convincing, and cheered to the echo." i 127 * FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN I ■**% • 128 y FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN 6b a. ^--^-rfrvV-rliffi^i / 129 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN t^.jV^jpc^^W^INIaJwfc, ^^ixe^^- Collie *i «** ' ofT Amw^c* A«- An^da^idi?. etc, c?ic-i y, W? #+ £«?;&? TA0 ex-governor of Massachusetts, Levi Lincoln, and Abraham Lincoln of Illinois were both descendants of Samuel Lincoln who settled in Hingham, Massachusetts. When they met in Worcester, Lincoln said, "I hope we both belong, as the Scotch say, to the same clan; but I know one thing, and that is, that we are both good Whigs." i 130 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN — -x-- — — .-~ ~^~ £01* the "Whx^J n> -tKe '' ; -| ( J> to o A 3*i fc f 3? %Py ' IvH:- 9 131 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN i 4 fl^as***^ m%%&&& £*&te*4pS*ft jfcjMtfP*'' #t ^WkfrM w- •&. fW^fcl &»WA< ; >*M);P After his tour of New England, Lincoln continued campaigning for the Whig ticket in Illinois, helping to elect Taylor President, Lincoln compared those who wanted to an- nex Mexico with the farmer who insisted, "I ain't greedy; I only want what 'jines' mine" f 132 1 Lincoln at Home It is safe to say that Mary Todd Lincoln never felt herself happily transplanted from Kentucky to her Illinois environ- ment. In the first place, she found it difficult to run a house with hired help. From her earliest youth she had been waited on by servants who were in bondage. She once remarked that in the event of her husband's death, "his spirit will never find me living outside the boundaries of a slave state." Mary did not enjoy an enviable reputation among the girls who worked for her. One of her maids, who made a record of two years in the Lincoln household, was induced to stay on only because the head of the house paid her a dollar a week extra without his wife's knowledge. Living with the man she had chosen for her husband, for one reason, because she thought some day he might be President, must have taxed her patience to the utmost. It was next to im- possible to make her husband conform to the accepted rules of conduct in a household where things were done properly. No one has recorded that Lincoln ever read a book on etiquette. He was unaccustomed to having people wait on him. He did things for himself. When the door bell rang, his natural impulse was to answer it — and in his shirt sleeves if he happened to have his coat off. To him it seemed an affectation to wait for the servant to do such a simple errand when he could as well go to the door himself instead of waiting for someone to announce the caller. Mary thought it improper for her husband to come ' 133' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN to the table with his coat off ; but in time she accepted this and ate with him in silence when he was deep in thought. He was in the habit, too, of stretching his six feet four inches on the carpet of the parlor floor when he was reading. That to Mary was undignified, and it irritated her. She had been through a finishing school where they emphasized the importance of good manners. And still this Kentucky aristocrat felt that she would have been happier, and would have loved her husband more, if she could have had more of his time instead of having him away six months of the year. Mary Todd was a dutiful wife. She made her own clothes, and she sewed for the children as well. She was economical and managed the household on a meagre income, complaining all the while that her husband charged his clients too little for his services ; otherwise, their income would be adequate. Some- times she skimped a bit in the kitchen so that she might have a ■little extra for some pretty clothes. Mary liked to be well dressed and she enjoyed social gatherings. When her husband was away she didn't sit by the fire ; she went to parties, and made contacts and cultivated acquaintances that were helpful to her husband's political future. Gilbert Harris, a young stu- dent reading law in Lincoln's office, was her escort on two occa- sions. "I found her a good dancer," he writes, and goes on to say, "She was bright, witty and accomplished. The sportive nickname she gave me was 'Mr. Mister.' " During the first ten years in their Springfield home, Mary Todd Lincoln bore her husband four children. The death of Eddie, while they were still living in Springfield, was a painful % ordeal for both parents, especially for the father whose emo- tions were so deeply stirred in the presence of death. As a little boy he had helped his father fasten together the coffin for his mother; and then there followed the death of his only sister. This time death was striking even closer to his heart. This was 'i34' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN , k •Hon IIP c^'*** Hw«- Jhoc. "Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected" Lincoln in a letter to Joshua Speed, ' 135 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN "Labor was prior to capital, but property is the fruit of labor; let no man, therefore, who is houseless, pull down the house of another, but let him labor diligently' to build one for himself, thus assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built" — Lincoln. 136 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN a A «*■ .v% c y A iVT (X-y- 1 9 , IS? £> c; fe'iqC'tff ritli Lincoln was in the habit of reading on his back, lying stretched out on the parlor floor. This irritated Mrs. Lincoln who thought it undignified in a man of his prominence. 137 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN |*0 W IW < It v? c o «l . Co iT «* ? f j » n oV CVrl W. <&* H *&«* fi* r, C I s* v *] *a* . A&#*^ "Sometimes it appeared as if Lincoln's soul was fresh from its Creator" — Herndon 140 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ■iCoctn+y Court "Ho vr*f& in. Zi-in^oln. , Lx..of..« -fie Kr, IlllTXO X ** , II e x>sa. Ike "^f^j ":., ril ■ill •%'* ' < ^ 11 fe 1 4. ■ r*» j r .1 £|£2 U>' , V*4' &'** H' ' 2 ^ ^ 1 SB $. 2*0 v) • te4 £ * £ ! *** O.^S ,i ,-^»*-^ & ~l £* & j£ «&< , £ ***> ;; v^Wft-'ffi^w FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN - Lxi n r o it* oti exx r m e i £ c- & d. "Many free countries have lost their liberty; and our's may lose hers; but if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I never deserted her. — Lincoln. i 150/ **/>*> % y ,v e H coul el „r£©p t eve,: tot* f u IK"* opt. v%?xf,fo. «§t "friers^! ^ i 4 Iyj ant. £* a k\ er V FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN When the attorneys gathered together in the various places where the court was in session, they would sometimes double up two in each bed, with four and five beds in the one room. More and more Lincoln would stay alone in his room, while the other members of the bar went out to parties. This gave him an opportunity to follow his habit of reading aloud. When they returned they would find him poring over a book, The Elements of Euclid, for instance, or sound asleep. The whole world was in travail; society was in ferment. America must lead humanity — show the way. Lincoln was get- ting ready to solve these problems and by his own process of reasoning. He was so constituted that he couldn't accept ready- made opinions. He was working in advance on the answer to these questions. Among his notes we find his answer to those who questioned the American way of life : "Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of the equal rights of man . . . ours began by affirming those rights. They said, 'some men are too ignorant and vicious to share in government. 5 'Possibly so,' said we, 'and by your system, you would always keep these ignorant and vicious.' We proposed to give all a chance ; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant wiser, and all better and happier together. We made the experiment, and the fruit is before us. Look at it, think of it. Look at it in its aggregate grandeur — extent of country and numbers of population, of ships and steamboats, and railroads." America, too, was facing a crisis. The question of slavery was an issue between the North and South that still had to be settled. To those who were advocating slavery and arguing that it was desirable Lincoln answered in one sentence, "Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it by being a slave himself." 152 ''■'■■ ^ " :'"' ' . .' / a, 111, j : —J .: " : ■ hn.~rx. &4Uff Cotzri <2jHi^.frt,"|^**i,/ ? ill. on* r^ /^v O XXCL . ...frOlA ©jri^JC j£#g£«arr Coani-y --tVsjEri ■£fo«^# ■ow— .-^ta -■,..««». „>^Li^aa^ .<^.w,.v:toiA»M* FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Most men who become great develop their resources under the pressure of responsibility. Lincoln was the rare exception who was "always the learner." Was Herndon right in saying that his wife was "a stimulant, kept him from lagging, con- stantly prodding him to keep up the struggle" ? Mary Todd had chosen one of the strangest of men for her husband, almost against his wishes. Believing from the very be- ginning that he would some day be President, she was still striv- ing to make her dream come true. Politics might be a side issue with Lincoln, but the Whig Administration in Washington still regarded him as their lead- ing man in Illinois. President Taylor wanted to make him gov- ernor of the Oregon Territory. This offer came to Lincoln when he was in the McLean County Court House in Blooming- ton, trying a case. Without a moment of indecision Lincoln said his acceptance depended on what Mrs. Lincoln had to say about it. When the matter was put up to her, her answer was, "No!" She had been willing to move to Washington when he sought — after his term in Congress — the appointment of Gen- eral Land Commissioner. That would have kept her husband at the hub of things. But to go pioneering out into the North- west? — Well, that was another matter! They would be away from the center of activity, and, besides, life in Springfield, even with its population of 4500, was primitive enough for this daughter of a Kentucky bank president. i55 /. , . The Stepson Gives Advice to the Son of His Stepmother Lincoln's stepbrother, John D. Johnston, was still living J with his mother on the Cole County farm that Thomas Lincoln left when he died in 1 85 1 . When Lincoln took leave of his family and moved on to New Salem, these two men, now grown to maturity, went their separate ways, Lincoln to become one of the most prominent men in the state ; the other, in southern Illinois, to remain as stationary as if hitched to a post. But now Johnston wanted to move on to Missouri and had written Lincoln that he would almost give his place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars. They had been boys together in Indiana, and had worked in the same fields, but Lincoln refused to advance the money; instead he gave him some good advice : "You are not lazy, and still you are an idler," Lincoln told him. "I doubt whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work in any one day. This habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit." Then Lincoln made Johnston this unique proposition. He offered to give him a dollar for every dollar that he earned. In making this offer Lincoln was aiming to accomplish two things : first, to break a bad habit, and second, to enable his step- brother to get the money he wanted. i57 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Later, when Lincoln heard that Johnston was trying to sell the farm to raise money and move to Missouri he sent him this letter: "Such a notion is utterly foolish. What can you do in Missouri better than here? Is the land any richer? Can you there, any more than here, raise corn and wheat and oats without work? Will anybody there, any more than here, do your work for you ? If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to work, you cannot get along anywhere. "Squirming and crawling about from place to place can do no good. You have raised no crop this year; and what you really want is to sell the land, get the money, and spend it. Part with the land you have, and my life upon it, you will never after own a spot big enough to bury you in. Half you will get for the land you will spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you will eat, drink, and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought. Now, I feel it my duty to have no hand in such a piece of foolery. I feel that it is so, even on your own account, and particularly on mother's account. "The eastern forty acres I intend to keep for mother while she lives ; if you will not cultivate it, it will rent for enough to support her — at least it will rent for something. Her dower in the other two forties she can let you have, and no thanks to me. I do not write in any unkindness. Your thousand pretenses for not getting along are all nonsense ; they deceive nobody but yourself. Go to work is the only cure for your case." In this letter to Johnston it is plain that Lincoln was solici- tous of his stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, and she was indeed proud of him. She was fond of saying, "His mind and mine, what little I had, seemed to run together." / 158/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN . "Tn£ £rn£ rw/^ in determining to embrace or reject anything is not whether it have any evil in it, but whether it have more of evil than of good. There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost everything is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance be- tween them is continually demanded." — Lincoln. 59 PAfek^Usi**^... ^*&^^ y „ _ <«»*««„ mr~>M* *» >«*****<«»^^ Coiie^ ox, «f ^^j^i^yTi. jv** tj *» fy ixi.i;ft*ia l mi^ P ju #j»-» &«fe *» jj* 3te*t$fc<£i *? FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN i 3L . Ciuivxcy fif «& « a^ e j Q -mis* e^f >: 111 » |*ij&* o l**w* / 162 / Lincoln and Douglas Clash at the State Fair in Springfield After he had won his seat, Lincoln wrote his friend, Speed : "Being elected to Congress . . . has not pleased me as much as I expected." However, when he returned to Springfield after his one term in Congress, it did chafe him at times to think of his Yankee rival, Stephen A. Douglas, as a prominent figure in Washington. There was this Vermont lawyer, four years younger than himself, holding conferences with the leading statesmen of the day. These thoughts must have come to Lincoln as he groomed "Old Buck" for another three months' trip around the circuit. These two young lawyers had struggled together in Springfield. At one time Lincoln borrowed a hundred dollars from Douglas for which he gave his note, and it was paid. They could hardly be called enemies though they seemed always to be on opposite sides of every question. These two rivals first met at a party in Springfield where the liquor flowed freely, and the short stocky "Little Giant," as he was called, cut capers on the top of a table. Lincoln, evidently, was not impressed, for he sized him up to some of the other guests as "the least man I have ever seen." The State Fair was in full swing in October, 1854, a boom year in Illinois. Douglas was about to deliver an address in the State House. Lincoln walked down the aisle with his antag- onist, and took a front seat with some friends. The "Little 163 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN 3"|*1 f 7 am not a temperance man, but I am temperate to this extent: I don't drink" —Lincoln. i 164 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Giant" had arrived the night before, had been met by a brass band, and had spoken briefly from the porch of the Chenery House. People had gathered from all over the state to hear the Senator give an account of his stewardship in the national Capital. Both friends and enemies had come to hear him. The air was charged with excitement. Kansas and Nebraska should be free to decide for themselves whether they would have slavery or exclude it from their territory. That, in a nutshell, was the position of the Illinois Senator. For three hours Doug- las held his audience, and the crowd was with him as he pro- claimed, "If the people of Kansas and Nebraska were able to govern themselves, they were able to govern a few miserable Negroes." John Quincy Adams, who served in Congress with Douglas, gives us a picture of Douglas as a public speaker. "In the midst of his roaring, to save himself from choking, he stript off and cast away his cravat, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and had the air of a half-naked pugilist." Twenty-four hours later Lincoln elbowed his way through the same crowd and stood on the same platform to reply to Douglas on the burning question of the day, the Missouri Com- promise. After a few half-apologetic preliminaries Lincoln traced the history of slavery in America; he gave his reasons for hating slavery as a "monstrous injustice." Lincoln argued that the whole issue hinged on the answer to the question, "Is the Negro a man?" "If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may as a matter of self-government do just what he pleases with him. But if the Negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruc- tion of self-government to say that he too shall not govern himself? When a white man governs himself, that is self- government; but when he governs himself and also governs 165 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN The old T&z&vd&W (oumfcy Cox*x \ Hoxt^ssS^Kiti^ili ., c ul b » "Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it by being a slave himself," — Lincoln 166/ TOw* TsionA, lWVj*jx^^y2^3?^li^ 111-, iArh^-r** jU«wf^tfSk *w#**r | . Li«,coln. often v/x^i* r?d . He C#<&^ a^ue^t Y,the E^th,l35&. Lincoln was not a money-maker. The year before he became President he wrote, "I could not raise ten thousand dollars if it would save me from the fate of John Brown." Judge David Davis, a millionaire land- owner, in whose court Lincoln practiced for twelve years, once gave him a stinging rebuke for charging such low fees: "Lincoln, you are impoverishing this bar by your picayune charges of fees and the lawyers have reason to complain of you" i 174/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN command, you could not do it. This government would be very weak indeed if a majority with a disciplined army and navy and a well-filled treasury could not preserve itself when at- tacked by an unarmed, undisciplined, unorganized minority." His appearance in Bloomington was reported in the Weekly Pantagraph : "Tuesday evening last week while the Democrats were listening to their speakers in front of the Pipe House, Mr. Lincoln had a crowded roomful at Major's Hall, who listened with intense interest to a most masterly speech, in which he tore the daytime speeches of the Bucks (Buchanan) at their great meeting into ribbons." Lincoln spoke at a Fourth of July meeting in Princeton at the home of Owen Lovejoy, who had defeated Lincoln's friend, Swett, for the congressional nomination. Owen was a brother of Elijah J. Lovejoy, the Abolitionist who was murdered at Alton. When Lincoln attempted to speak in Petersburg, which is just two miles from New Salem, he had to labor with the crowd a full half hour to gain their attention ; and when he finally won his audience he spoke for two hours. The Republicans of Illinois carried their state ticket, but the Democrats elected Buchanan President by a minority vote of four hundred thousand. Speaking at a banquet in Chicago a few weeks later, Lincoln rallied his followers and appealed particularly to the Free Soil Party men to join forces with the Republicans. Lincoln found that he couldn't stay out of politics. It was a big game, with national stakes for the winners. Aside from the moral issues involved, Lincoln found the political game a fasci- nating sport. His fame was spreading. The New York Times had printed in full one of his speeches in reply to Douglas. "Things look reasonably well," he wrote to a party worker. i75 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN In his early days Bloomington was one of Lincoln's stamping grounds. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner^ used to say, "If Mr. Lincoln is six feet four inches usually, at Bloomington he was seven feet." 176 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN W 0,^4-** liaJ ttUd CD, Lincoln Is Defeated for the Senate In Illinois Lincoln had the reputation of being the better lawyer in a good case but Douglas was considered the abler man in a bad cause. History has proved that Lincoln was on the right side of the question at issue between himself and Douglas and that may partly account for his triumph over the "Little Giant." Anyway, Lincoln's followers were jubilant when Douglas came to him after his Peoria speech and asked for a cessation of hostilities. One of his friends remarked, Lincoln "was certainly running Douglas into his hole and making him holler, 'Enough!'" Lincoln came home from Peoria as agreed and wrote out his speech for publication and then a few weeks later decided to run for the United States Senate. When the election came off he failed on the first ballot by only three votes of being elected. After that his votes dropped from forty-seven to fif- teen. Then he decided to throw his strength to a former Demo- crat who had bolted his party, Lyman Trumbull, who was elected. Lincoln was, of course, disappointed, particularly with the disloyalty of a supposed friend who had volunteered his sup- port, assuring Lincoln that he would walk a hundred miles to help elect him. The defeated candidate got consolation from the fact that he had saved the seat in the Senate for his side and that the Douglas man was defeated. "I regret my defeat moderately," Lincoln wrote to a friend. "On the whole, it is perhaps as well for our general cause that Trumbull is elected. The Nebraska men confess that they hate it worse than any- thing that could have happened. It is a great consolation to see them worse whipped than I am." i 179/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ; | i il e IS atrix rxxn. fS t*xi I Ow££ Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln's Dan* ville partner, had the seat of his trousers torn accidentally. Later on the same day he ap- peared in court with his trousers unmended. One of the lawyers began soliciting contribu- tions for Lamon so that he could go to the tailor shop. Lincoln wrote, "I can contribute nothing to the end in view." i 181 i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN irv.C o 111. Va-** a. i ,e d c 1 i e:n.T */\ L , ,., ...,»„> »«,, , .;„.„... . ■■»■■■■,,■- asJuSiw ■■ i -u mmm 1 182 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN - - , er r- O&U*^ Jp^Ji* O -r : o u .? ** «£ i v ;. & * <| ^ jl $?, -Clin loii v HI ,.UinCo'H% rme-sl "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." — Lincoln, in the Lincoln and Douglas Debate, at Clinton, Illinois, September 8, i8 5 8< y i86* The Lincoln-Douglas Debates The truce called at Peoria between Illinois' two great political antagonists at the request of the "Little Giant" proved to be only a temporary lull. These two rivals were bound to clash again. Two years had elapsed since Lincoln delivered his stirring speech in Peoria and Douglas had come to him and said, in effect, "If you'll quit, I will. Let's go home!" And Lincoln had agreed. But both men continued to build their political fences, and as they put up their fences they glared at each other. On June 17th, 1858, the Republican Convention was hold- ing forth in Springfield. Lincoln was nominated for United States Senator. Following his nomination he addressed the convention. It was a speech read from manuscript. He had already read it to some of his close advisers, who had warned him that it was too radical. One called it "a fool utterance," another said it was "ahead of its time." It is one of the most famous of Lincoln's earlier speeches. He himself said that if everything in his life had to be blotted out and he could save only one thing — "I should choose that speech and leave it to the world unerased." He didn't hesitate or lead up to what he wanted to say. He came at once to the point. He opened : "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it ; we are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, i 187 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN f&#w£i$ ia M^ x&f'&'f' W^iss/^wi^lll, ^f§*sr^ I^m.c-&k^* &m O "Lincoln had no genius for gesture and no desire to produce a sensation . . . he relied on no props, with a pride sufficient to protect his mind and a will sufficient to defend his body, he drank water when Douglas, with all his wit and rhetoric, could begin or end nothing without stimulants. . - . What thrilled the people who stood before Abra- ham Lincoln was the sight of a being, who, in all his actions and habits, resembled them- selves; gentle as he was strong, fearless as he was honest." Francis Grierson, after listening to the Lincoln and Douglas Debate at Alton. i 188/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly aug- mented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. C A house divided against itself can- not stand.' I believe this government cannot endure perma- nently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. "Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South." That was dragging the issue out into the open, and making it as simple and plain as an Aesop Fable. Any backwoods farmer could understand it. Douglas read Lincoln's speech while still in Washington and grasped its importance at once. He couldn't ignore it and he couldn't answer it; he could only distort its meaning and this he attempted to do repeatedly. When he reached Chicago on his way home, he proclaimed from the balcony of the Tremont House to a crowd gathered in the street : "Mr. Lincoln advo- cates boldly and clearly a war of sections, a war of the North against the South, of free states against the slave states, a war of extermination, — to be continued relentlessly until one or the other shall be subdued, and all the states shall either become free or become slave." Wherever and whenever Douglas made an important public appearance he would read from Lincoln's House Divided Speech, with special emphasis on that one garbled statement: "I believe that this government cannot endure permanently." Lincoln's response was dignified and forceful. He insisted that his statement meant exactly what it said : "I did not ex- /189 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN a 1 i O s J Jbo ff L^^ reverence for the laws become the political religion of the nation." — Lincoln. 9° u. " ' lw "°- rf «,:^ww •R. < vt*k«>. a^ri^igj . Mf ©oaooorsflx CWerhf Co«rl H^vV^^Mew^ Ul.-vjl«*8 Lincoln. FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN /194 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ©si Rwt 11!*, •*4r > «&i ' ', iL » tap a r*. C© lawvt «v > -da^^Nr fj © 1X w %xi* this lis*.* ko*aou£, bwali* ■ ■ '^ y ■lekrK 5%f C eU. r-o:s*il*f dp^"*^, ."tv^*.*** sr to;^*^w S FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1&, 16S8-, *k* . 1 Afr,$. Douglas traveled with her husband part of the time that he was debating with Lincoln. He had become personal, and Lin- coln felt that he had lowered the tone of their discussions. While at the Capitol House Lincoln remarked to a friend from Indiana, "I flatter myself that thus far my wife has not found it necessary to follow me around from place to place to keep me from getting drunk." i 202 1 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN The headlines in the Chicago Times gave the impression that Lincoln failed miserably, while the New York Evening Post, edited by William Cullen Bryant, gives this report : "In repose, 'Long Abe's 5 appearance is not comely. But stir him up and the fire of genius plays on every feature. His eye glows and sparkles. Every lineament, now so ill formed, grows brilliant and expressive, and you have before you a man of rare power and strong magnetic influence. He takes the people every time, and there is no getting away from his sturdy good sense . . . listening to him on Saturday, calmly and unprejudiced. I am convinced that he has no superior as a stump speaker. He is clear, concise, and logical; his language is eloquent, and at perfect command. He is altogether a more fluent speaker than Douglas, and in all the arts of debate fully his equal." Perhaps the most unprejudiced account of the first round in the contest was given by a woman from Seneca, who said she felt sorry for Lincoln when Douglas was speaking, and then felt so sorry for Douglas when Lincoln replied. About three weeks later the two met again at Clinton. Here Lincoln made one of his immortal utterances, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Their third debate was held in Freeport. Special trains brought crowds from all directions. Some came from Chicago on the new sleeping cars. The meeting was late in starting. A new system of shorthand writing had come into use, and the reporter was late in arriving. But this delay did not discourage the crowd, nor did the chill of a cold misty day dampen the spirits of the fifteen thousand people who had gathered to hear the "Tall Sucker and the Little Giant," as they were described by the Missouri Republican at their next meeting in Charleston on September 18th. In Charleston, Lincoln was back in Cole County where he / 203 1 : j ,w»<%h» FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ihe OJU \ in ' "WlSi** *»TJt4^T*f^TK*e<3L Off. 6,,l&£&, jsSp^^X^i tx Lincoln arrived at Knoxville the night be- fore he met Douglas at Galesburg. A crowd gathered around the hotel, while a brass band serenaded the distinguished guest. Lincoln, of course, came out to speak to the crowd. When he appeared, some one came up to the porch and held a lantern up close to his face. This gave the speaker his opening cue, "My friends, the less you see of me the better you will like me." '205/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN had helped his father build on Goose Nest Prairie a log cabin thirty years before. A high banner had been put up that stretched across the street showing the man they idolized now as a boy emigrant entering the town, an unknown teamster driving a team of six horses. The Charleston debate took place at the County Fair. Twelve thousand people heard Douglas denounce Lincoln for his Mexican War record while in Congress. And, what was more exciting, they saw Lincoln drag an ex-congressman by the collar to the front of the platform, and while the man shook and his teeth chattered he told the audience that Lincoln's voting record in support of the soldiers tallied exactly with that of Douglas. At Galesburg, when the two orators met on the campus of Knox College, for their next contest, 20,000 people turned out to hear them. Lincoln had arrived the day before in a heavy October storm, and again the audience braved three hours of inclement weather to witness the contest between "the Short- boy Senator," as Douglas was dubbed by a partisan Lincoln newspaper, and "the Tall Sucker," as Lincoln was called by Douglas partisans. Only two more rounds were left in this seven-round contest. The sixth took place six days later at Quincy, where 12,000 people turned out. After two days' rest they had their last meeting in a series of debates that are now famous in American history. This was at Alton, before a crowd of six thousand people. Throughout the discussions Douglas had maintained, "Let each state mind its own business and let its neighbors alone! If we will stand by that principle, then Mr. Lincoln will find that this great republic can exist forever divided into free and slave states." Lincoln saw clearly that this issue could not be evaded. To his mind it was "the eternal struggle between two 207 mm h'OSn^ £>£ few William*. i-iv< teh^t*** iAmfo, W-<*. 5&P {. ^W ^s?: ■,..::w , ,/ ■ :*.-;, -,.. ■■ ...- . _ •" £ *> 4 » *■ ■** ^if*.# "V^dM jb# : v* «*m. ea.^t # lad. ^4^ Galesburg, 20,000 turned out to hear Lincoln and Douglas. It was a cold October day with a raw northwest wind that tore down the special decorations put up for the occa- sion. But in spite of the weather the audience stayed on for three solid hours. There would have been 2,000 more in the gathering, but a special train of twenty-two cars from Peoria broke down and failed to arrive in time for the debate. '209 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ^ .__.$>_. ~.z'^. „ , a)irii--"iva£»*> bee. «£He:raaooTraL ot 0fii5^ i&§0, $nt%£ i^ a4j> 12^- O. //. Browning was a scholar and a Ken- tucky gentleman. He was a frequent guest in the Lincoln home. Mrs. Lincoln would have preferred him as a law partner for her hus- band instead of Herndon. Herndon was on her list of men whom she disliked. In his case, it was largely because of his background, or rather lack of it. Also, she thought he was too radical, and she considered him anti-Church. 213 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN * 214 / ^ ^ AltlJ^i**' i&yy&m+f&Zk., C&*' t ill-, W^% «>*>#• ' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Lincoln and Stanton first met in the Burnet Hotel in Cincinnati. Stanton later admitted that when he first sized up Lincoln, his asso- ciate counsel in the famous McCormick reaper patent case, he said, "If that giraffe appeared in the case I would throw up my brief and leave." Dan Voorhees of Indiana gave his friends a different impression of Lincoln: "His awk- wardness is all in his looks; in his movements he is quick, sure and graceful; even when he crosses his spiderlike legs or throws them over the arms of his chair, he does it with a nat- ural grace." ■f 216 / Lincoln Gets His First $500.00 Retainer-fee Cyrus h. mccormick was making his reaping machines and building up a big business in Chicago. Over in Rock- ford, Illinois, was a competitor by the name of Manny, infring- ing on his patents, McCormick thought, and turning out a com- peting machine. McCormick entered suit claiming $400,000 damages. Manny had retained three lawyers, George Harding, Edwin M. Stanton and Abraham Lincoln. The case was to be tried in Cincinnati before Judge McLean. Lincoln already had one important victory to his credit before this judge. He was expected to make one of his masterly pleas before the same court, and he went to Cincinnati fully prepared. When Stanton first laid eyes on his associate in the Burnett House in Cincinnati, his outburst was, "Where did that long- armed baboon come from?" Stanton never lived down this re- mark though he later became Secretary of War in Lincoln's Cabinet. When the time came to argue the case, Lincoln lost out com- pletely. In deference to Stanton, Lincoln suggested that he speak, and Stanton said, "I will ! " Lincoln sent the speech he had prepared to Harding, and, without even glancing at it, Harding consigned the manuscript to the waste basket. Back in Springfield when Lincoln divided his $2000.00 fee with his partner, he told Herndon that Stanton had handled him roughly. t 217 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN spa***- $wr 3 rv^is **I «l ' 2l8 i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Lincoln was now charging larger fees, but his income was still averaging less than $3000.00 a year. In Bloomington, Judge Davis gave him this reprimand, "Lincoln, you are impoverish- ing this bar by your picayune charges of fees." But Lincoln was adamant. His partner in Danville, Ward Hill Lamon, had charged a demented girl a fee of $250.00, and Lincoln made him return it. When Duff Armstrong, the son of Jack Armstrong, an old friend of New Salem days with whom he had wrestled on the village green, was being tried for murder, Lincoln dropped his other business and volunteered his services to the boy's mother. He had not forgotten the Armstrongs' kindnesses to him, and he told the mother that his services were free to her so long as he lived. A Chicago firm wrote to a Springfield banker asking him to get a lawyer to handle a suit involving a considerable sum. Lincoln charged a fee of $25.00, and Bunn, the banker, got this letter from his Chicago correspondent : "We asked you to get the best lawyer in Springfield, and it certainly looks as if you had secured one of the cheapest." There were cases where Lincoln, when convinced that his client was guilty, would turn to his associate and say, "You defend him; I can't. If I try to speak, the jury will see that I think he is guilty and convict him." A pension agent by the name of Wright had collected $400.00 from the Government for the widow of a Revolution- ary War veteran and had pocketed half of it. She told her story to Lincoln, who brought suit. In court Lincoln addressed the jury. His brief speech is given to us by Herndon : "She was not always thus. She was once a beautiful young woman. Her step was as elastic, her face as fair, and her voice as sweet as any that rang in the mountains of old Virginia. But now she is poor and defenseless. Out here on the prairies of Illinois, many hun- '219' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN • 220 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN dreds of miles from the scenes of her childhood, she appeals to us, who enjoy the privileges achieved for us by the patriots of the Revolution, for our sympathetic aid and manly protection. All I ask is, shall we befriend her?" After listening to Lincoln, the jury gave her the full amount of her pension. Lincoln paid her hotel bill and gave her a ticket back home, and there was, of course, no charge for his services. Dennis Hanks, who heard Tom Lincoln announce to his fos- ter parents on that February morning, "Nancy has a boy baby" and rushed up the road to the Lincoln cabin on Nolin's Creek for his first glimpse of Abe Lincoln, said in later years, "There's suthin' peculiarsome about him." The folks who came to know Lincoln as he traveled the circuit had formed that same opinion of the man. They never knew in advance just what he would say or do. Over in Logan County, three farmers, when they heard a new railroad was in prospect, bought up several sec- tions of land where they thought the county seat would be located. They had Lincoln draw up the papers incorporating the town site. When he asked them what name to give the town, they told him, "Lincoln." "You better not do that," he said, "for I never knew any- thing named Lincoln that amounted to much." f 221 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN "Deceit and falsehood, especially if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a fellow can have. 33 — Advice to George E. -Pickett as he was leaving to become a cadet at West Point, and who in later years led the famous charge for Lee at Gettysburg. f 222 / The November Election "^ Tou can't overturn a pyramid, but you can undermine X it; that's what I've been trying to do." In those words Lincoln summed up to David R. Locke his efforts in the sena- torial campaign as a group of Lincoln's admirers sat in his room at the hotel in Quincy discussing the forthcoming election. Lin- coln thought he would win the popular vote in the state ; and he did, by 4085 votes. He predicted that Douglas would be re-elected in the legislature, and so he was. After the other guests left, Lincoln and Locke talked on. Lincoln removed his boots. "I like to give my feet a chance to breathe," he ex- plained. Locke says Lincoln sat tilted back in a chair, his feet resting on another one, with coat and vest off, one suspender dropped from his shoulder, and collar and tie removed. "I never saw a more thoughtful face. I never saw a more digni- fied face. I never saw so sad a face." That was the impression Locke carried away from that interview. During the campaign, Lincoln met at Petersburg a corre- spondent for a New York paper, Henry Villard. They were at the station waiting for their train and it was raining. The two men climbed into an empty box car for shelter. It was dark, Lincoln was in a reminiscent mood and he found Villard an interesting companion. Petersburg, only two miles from New Salem, brought back to Lincoln's mind the days when he was a clerk there in a country store. He expressed surprise to find himself now running for the United States Senate. "Since then, of course, I have grown some." Lincoln talked on. "Now, to be 223 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Petersburg is only two miles from New Salem. Lincoln made the survey for the village which became a boom town and absorbed all of New Salem. A few years ago the State of Illinois made a state park of Abe Lincoln's early home town and removed the old New Salem houses back to their original sites. i 224 1 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN sure, I am convinced that I am good enough for it ; but in spite of all, I am saying to myself every day, 'It's too big a thing for you; you will never get it. 5 Mary insists, however, that I am going to be Senator, and President of the United States, too." And then Lincoln laughed. "Just think of such a sucker as me being President!" On January 5th the State Register sent a telegram to Sena- tor Douglas in Washington which read, "Glory to God and the Sucker Democracy. Douglas 54, Lincoln 41." Lincoln had said that because of the gerrymandered districts Douglas would win ; but still in the back of his mind there lingered the hope that some of the Buchanan Democrats might vote for him, for it was known that Douglas had lost caste with the Buchanan Administration at Washington. But Douglas had a majority on the first ballot. The defeated candidate was alone in his office except for one caller who came, not to console him but to deliver a message that was far from cheering. The message was from a fellow Republican that he had met on the street, who said he was tired of following a leader who was always defeated. The caller left. Lincoln closed his office and started for home. Mary would have an encouraging word for him. She still thought the man she married would some day be President. As he walked along the icy pavement his foot slipped, but he some- how managed not to fall. As he regained his balance, he said to himself, "A slip and not a fall." Being a bit superstitious he took it as a good omen, and he repeated again to himself, "A slip and not a fall !" '225/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN in<\oln oftert.' Wi^ -IPjp e^iil^t fe ©o;H M?W F*// z£;ai on# o/ */i£ original boosters of Lincoln for President. But more than that, he saw the possibilities in Lincoln's background. And he kept after him until he got the material he needed for a pro- motional campaign t& sell his candidate to the country at large. Among Lincoln's notes prepared for Fell we find, "There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond *readin', writin 3 , and cipherin 3 3 to the -rule of three. . . . There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three; but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure *f necessity. >T i 226 i Lincoln for President Mary todd Lincoln was not the only person who thought her husband could be President. There were others, scat- tered throughout the state, who held the same opinion. The original booster of "Lincoln for President" seems to have been Jesse W. Fell, a big real estate promoter with an office in Bloomington. One day when Lincoln was in Bloomington on some court business, Fell met him on the street and took him to the law office of his brother, K. N. Fell, in the Home Bank Building. Jesse had just returned from a trip East where he found men inquiring, "Who is this man Lincoln, of your state, now can- vassing in opposition to Douglas?" "I usually told them," Fell went on to say, "we had in Illinois two giants instead of one ; that Douglas was the little one and that you were the big one." Jesse Fell was a salesman, and he proceeded to give Lincoln a sales talk on his prospects for the presidency that only a man with his innate modesty could have resisted. "Oh, Fell, what's the use of talking of me for the presidency while we have such men as Seward and Chase? . . . Every- body knows them ; nobody, scarcely, outside of Illinois knows me." "Besides," Lincoln went on, "is it not, as a matter of jus- tice, due to such men, who have carried this movement forward to its present status, in spite of fearful personal opposition, per- sonal abuse, and hard names? I really think so." Lincoln in his response unwittingly convinced Fell that he was not mistaken in his original estimate of the great man. 227 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democ- racy. Whatever differs from this, tCLthe extent of the difference, is no democracy. 33 — Lincoln. 1 228 r FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN A <\ LL_ ...£>trive^ .a~«n& A/rj, Helm and Mrs. Lincoln were sisters. When the war opened the Helms were in Washington, and while at the White House Lincoln offered his brother-in-law an appoint- ment in the Union Army as a paymaster, but he declined because his sympathies were with the South. Helm became a brigadier general in the Confederate Army and was killed at Chickamauga. The President reported his death in a telegram to Mrs. Lincoln while she was staying at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York. 229 / . ..,. ,h".V./''." . . - ji .vi-Ai.*4&23 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Fell continued to press for an affirmative answer, and then, as Lincoln prepared to leave, he thanked Fell for the compli- ment paid him and remarked, "There is no such good luck in store for me as the Presidency of the United States; besides, there is nothing in my early history that would interest you or anybody else." Then, as he said good-night, he wrapped his shawl around his shoulders and walked slowly down the stairs and out onto the street. Invitations to speak were beginning to pour in from all parts of the country. From New York came an S.O.S. from Thurlow Weed, the political boss, for Lincoln to come at once to Albany. Boston wanted him to speak at their Jefferson Dinner. Kansas urged him to address their convention. He was wanted in Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and other places, but at first Lincoln declined these invitations. During the senatorial contest of the preceding year he had neglected his law business. "Last year," he explained, "I lost pretty nearly all." In a word, he was broke. At the same time, the country's editors began mentioning Lincoln for President. To one editor, who had written a second time urging Lincoln to announce his candidacy, he wrote, "I beg that you will not give it a further mention. Seriously, I do not think I am fit for the Presidency." While Lincoln was trying to regain his law practice big things were happening in the land. John Brown had attempted his raid at Harpers Ferry, and had been captured and tried and condemned to be hanged. Douglas was using this as politi- cal capital and trying to pin on Lincoln, because of his House Divided Speech, the responsibility for the John Brown insurrec- tion. December 2nd, the day that John Brown was hanged at Charles Town, West Virginia, Lincoln spoke in Troy, Kansas. Everywhere he appeared, Lincoln talked about freedom and an equal opportunity for all. His subject was the Declaration /231 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ^.t i *> ©y. i* it* c o Iqr*. . w &,*? 1>«» o W^ki* i*a- A. "&*i': : W > %^*>i|jit<&tk~ ;^H'43g^' "r^rViiriiiiiimiiiiiiffcMinMiiiTiMiiiimiiMtninii.Mm 232 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN of Independence. On one occasion he said : "This is a world of compensation, and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God, cannot long retain it." To his Kansas audience he declared : "Our principles, how- ever baffled or delayed, will finally triumph. I do not permit myself to doubt. Men will pass away — die, die politically and naturally ; but the principle will live, and live forever." Lincoln had come to regard himself and his kind as "a stumbling block to tyrants for all time to come." No power on earth could change his course. :wWW# JUixj-^-olm* :£»£$*#• f^jjw***$, ®*U&^ $:am*l.J['* %%&£i % ] ?'j '233' *io •*« 3 $g i Il#: £ $ w- : S*» & **? f P£ 1 1 «. 1 4^ ? ? A-"*! * % T"'i J 41 .™»s^iKwmra . .^5, £€" a 4K IdCa ft»oi>«!wtly -^I^.Q^ ofx I^XarrK lo and 11, N Y After Lincoln's Cooper Union speech, his manager, Charles C. Nott, was showing him the way to the Astor House. As they walked along Lincoln began limping and when Nott spoke about it Lincoln explained that he was wearing a new pair of boots, so they boarded a street car. 236/ The Cooper Union Speech Joseph medill of the Chicago Tribune decided at the psy- chological moment to throw the influence of his paper back of Lincoln for President. Senator Seward was greatly dis- turbed at the Tribune deserting him for the "prairie states- man," as he called Lincoln, and lost no time in blowing up Medill for it, as the Chicago publisher afterward related. Lincoln had accepted an invitation to speak in New York. It was to be a very important speech. He was going East to tell the country what was wrong with it. Lincoln had spent a lot of time getting ready for the occasion. On his way East he stopped in Chicago at the office of the Tribune and handed the manu- script of his address to Medill, asking him and his editor, Charles Ray, to look it over for suggestions. Lincoln arrived in New York expecting to deliver his speech in Plymouth Church where Henry Ward Beecher held forth, and discovered that he was billed to speak at Cooper Union. A big snow storm cut the attendance at the meeting to fifteen hundred. William Cullen Bryant, the poet, and editor of The New York Evening Post, introduced the speaker after David Dudley Field had escorted him to the platform. Bryant spoke briefly, and then said, "I have only, my friends, to pronounce the name of Abraham Lincoln of Illinois," and after the cheer- ing subsided he finished, "I have only to pronounce his name to secure your profoundest attention." Sitting among the reporters in front of the platform was one named Noah Brooks, who had heard Lincoln in Illinois and '237 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN R*oi>i!~r U**««k, jfrw ¥Wjfc tM^» - mthm®JL$m£ ®im> «#4# M^ gw~mk ^mm^A. s M&m'M*m pi»^ ri#.% l&£ 3£ ^i -t^-j IS* «XX. _* *W J& &$£ «"' X*i$v«* & lies* «*C O * jbc Ci*^" « .Mxtriv ^■tfr:^;-:...,:^ 244 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN "One sixth of the population of the United States are slaves .looked upon as property, as nothing but property. The cash value of these slaves, at a moderate estimate, is $2,000,- 000,000. This amount of property value has a vast influ- ence on the minds of its owners, very naturally. The same amount of property would have an equal influence upon us if owned in the North. . . . Public opinion is founded, to a great extent, on a property basis. . . . The love of property and a consciousness of right and wrong have conflicting places in our organization which often make a man's course seem crooked, his conduct seem a riddle." From Lincoln's speech delivered in Hartford. '245' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN On. Utxi © «. c3 f e *► e't While in New England Lincoln expressed his views freely on the subject of labor. He found strikes in Connecticut .and Mas- sachusetts among the shoeworkers. "Thank God" he said, "that we have a system of labor where there can be a strike!" 1 246 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Old r In. A &-tx t € omir, If £> Kl 4-* • 247* FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN &*ia«£*n»«»'**' PaUk'Lz'to SMem^T* 248 • FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN r ; -'s: J6l4ki4* , *> *><3l •'SSVjm**, 13* * v? \**Wlc .^ify, %«/^k^r # £a:m.r el »*. |^>**£v *» 4, , ..y "There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of today labors on his own account today, and will hire others to labor for him tomorrow." — Lincoln. '249 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 £/rc£z7 /i£ arrived in New York Lincoln was under the impression that he was to de- liver his Cooper Union speech in Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. This change" in plans made necessary some alterations in his manu- script. Returning to New Tork two weeks later from a speaking trip through New Eng- land and a visit to his son Robert Todd Lin- coln at Exeter, Lincoln went to Plymouth Church to hear Henry Ward Beecher. 250 The "Rail Candidate" Is Nominated for President The republican national convention met in Chicago on May 1 6th, i860. "The Queen City of the West" was one of the titles given to Chicago by an army of boosters whose sales- manship had by now pushed the city's population up to 110,000 people. To entertain the convention guests a hotel had been torn down and on its site a temporary structure called The Wigwam was erected to seat 10,000 people. "The Queen City" was hostess to 40,000 visitors, many of whom were on hand to root for the "dark horse" candidate. The Illinois State Convention had met the week before and instructed its delegation to vote solidly for their favorite son at the Chicago Convention, although seven of its members, in- cluding O. H. Browning of Quincy, preferred Seward. Lincoln was now an avowed candidate. He was a "dark horse" to be sure, but with fairly good chances of nosing ahead of Seward, who was waiting at his home in Auburn, New York, to be notified of his nomination on the first ballot. Browning's failure to swing into line for him was a disap- pointment to Lincoln, Browning with whom he had tried cases in court and who had many times been a guest in his Spring- field home. Lincoln's staunch supporters wanted to drop Browning and not send him as a delegate to the Chicago Con- vention, but in the handling of this matter Lincoln's splendid judgment prevailed against such astute politicians as Oglesby ' 25I i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN It ->^'\\ "I authorize no bargains and will be bound by none" was Lincoln's telegram to Jesse K. Dubois at the Chicago Republican National Convention. To this Judge David Davis of Illinois said to the other members of the committee, "Lin- coln ain't here, and don't know what we have to meet, so we will go ahead as if we hadn't heard from him, and he must ratify it." 252 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN and others. He was for sending Browning to the National Con- vention with instructions to vote solidly with the delegation and thus avoid the risk of making an enemy of an old friend. This man had been meeting disappointments all his life. He knew how to meet them without losing his cool, deliberate judgment. To offset Browning's deflection, there was a pleasant surprise in John Hanks' support. John was a life-long friend. They had worked in the fields together as boys. John was a Democrat. He had voted in the last election for Douglas. Into the Decatur Convention came John Hanks with two fence rails to the ends of which were attached banners reading, "Abraham Lincoln, the Rail Candidate for President in i860." A wave of enthusi- asm swept over the convention and "Honest Abe" was then and there christened with another affectionate nickname, "Rail Candidate," which became a popular slogan in the forthcom- ing campaign. Lincoln saw in this the evidence of a ground swell throughout the country rising in his support; and it was these men of the soil that he counted upon for his election if he won the nomination at Chicago. When it came time to place the candidate before the conven- tion, the Illinois delegation refrained from long-winded speeches. From Ohio came the voice of Delano who said simply, "I rise ... to put in nomination the man who can split rails and maul Democrats, Abraham Lincoln." The men who came to Chicago from the East with Seward's nomination in their pockets — so they thought — were a little too cocksure at the convention, while the Illinois delegates realized from the first that they would have to do some clever wire pull- ing to win and as a result were on their toes from the start. Thurlow Weed, the big political boss of New York, was Seward's manager. He was known as the champion political "wire puller" of the country. He was busy meeting the dele- gates from the various states, but was just a bit too smooth and 253 ' "kl >1 t* ft K?, 'C. 9 c0 J*^rl>'^fi| Vg fesl V/A ** * n> _d & fit 4, £ t i d-S c i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN oily to handle the Chicago situation to Seward's best advan- tage. One of the Kansas delegates afterwards gave his impres- sion of Weed. "As he stood at our table, so gracious, so assuring, so genial and friendly, with all our previous estimates of him dispelled, I was reminded of Byron's picture of his 'Corsair,' as c the mildest-mannered man that ever scuttled a ship or cut a throat!' " The Illinois delegation gave Seward's men the run of the convention at first, but on the third day when it came to voting for the rival candidates, the Illinois men packed the Chicago Wigwam with Lincoln rooters who succeeded in making the previous meetings seem more like a Sunday School Convention than the convention of a national political party. From Springfield Lincoln had wired, "I authorize no bar- gains and will be bound by none." But Davis said, "Lincoln ain't here and don't know what we have to meet, so we will go ahead as if we hadn't heard from him." And they did. The Illinois delegation had come to the convention with determina- tion in their eyes ; they were in a mood to promise the White House, if necessary, to Pennsylvania's favorite son to secure the State's vote but they got off with the promise of a Cabinet post for Simon Cameron. With Pennsylvania's support, Lincoln's and Seward's total votes on the second ballot were almost even, and on the third the "Dark Horse" was way out in front. Then Medill of the Chicago Tribune made another promise for his candidate. He turned to the leader of the Ohio dele- gates, "If you can throw the Ohio delegation to Lincoln, Chase can have anything he wants." Carter stuttered, "H-how d-d'you know?" "I wouldn't promise if I didn't," answered Medill. Then a few minutes later there came from the Chairman the announcement: "Abraham Lincoln of Illinois is selected as your candidate for President of the United States." 256/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Down in Springfield a telegram from Knapp was handed to Lincoln who was waiting in the office of the Journal for the report. It read, "Abe, we did it. Glory to God !" A few minutes later the new candidate was on his way home to carry the good news to Mary. As he left The Journal office, he remarked, "There is a little lady over yonder on Eighth Street who is deeply interested in this news. I will carry it to her." 257 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Lincoln met the Vice-President-elect Han- nibal Hamlin of Maine in Chicago at the Tremont House where they held' a joint re- ception. At his suggestion, Joshua Speed, his old friend, and Mrs. Speed, met the Lincolns in Chicago at the same time for a quiet visit. 258 The Presidential Campaign Few presidential candidates have been as quiet as Lin- coln was during the summer of 1 860. None has ever been more silent. He would sit on his front doorstep and chat quietly with his neighbors ; but when asked to talk for publication he was silent as a tomb. Two barefoot boys came on tiptoe for a glimpse of the great man. Lincoln shook hands and asked the names of his callers. One lad said, "Folks." "Well, that's wrong. Don't you see that you are only one and folks means more than one? Tell your father I say your name should be Folk." The second boy intro- duced himself as Knotts. "Well, if here isn't another mistake !" was Lincoln's friendly greeting. "Don't you see that you are only one and Knotts means more than one ? Tell your father I said your name should be Knott. Good-bye!" But one day in August fifty thousand people swarmed into Springfield, and the faithful stood at his door and begged for a speech. He dismissed them with a few words, and said, "Will you kindly let me be silent?" The country was alive with stump speakers. They had taken their candidate and out of him created an image of a super- man. The candidate himself couldn't open his mouth lest he mar that image, and so he was silent. The other side was busy coining epithets and hurling them at the Republican idol. There were plenty of muck-raking newspapers looking eagerly for stories to mar the legend being woven around "Honest Abe," "The Rail Candidate," "The 259 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN "I am slow to learn and slow to forget. My mind is like a piece of steel — very hard to scratch anything on it, and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it oul." — Lincoln. i 260 1 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Man of the People." He would "not unnecessarily put any weapon in their hands," he said, and so became the great Illinois Sphinx for the duration of the campaign. November was at hand. The election only a week away. Lincoln went to the State House to see his friend Newton Bate- man, State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Together they looked over the pollbook. It contained notations on how the citizens of Springfield would vote at the coming election. Lincoln was especially interested in knowing how the twenty- three ministers were going to vote. When he found that only three were for him, it made him feel badly. He turned to Bateman with tears in his eyes. "I know there is a God, and He hates slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know His hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me, I believe I am ready." The first reports came in early on Election Eve. Sangamon County was lost, but Lincoln had carried his home precinct. That was what happened at New Salem the first time he ran for office nearly thirty years before. From nine o'clock on, Lincoln waited by the ticker in the telegraph office. The first big news was from Pennsylvania. Simon Cameron wired, "Pennsylvania seventy thousand for you, New York safe." Across the street the Republican Woman's Club were serving a special supper. The new President-elect stopped in on his way home. A little later he opened the front door of his house and announced, "Mary, we're elected!" 261 f FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN oll^ci-iorv o€ "&\t. B -, .-,— ■:~^>, Zimri Enos was the son of one of Spring- field's early settlers. In the terrible winter of 1831, he went to the rescue of some of the families that were snowed in. With his two yoke of oxen he was able to carry firewood over roads closed by the deep snow to travel by horses. Lincoln gave J?imri a written opinion of government surveys when he was preparing a paper for a convention of surveyors. The gist of it was that government maps were some- times wrong. i 262 1 Lincoln Takes Leave of Springfield all through the campaign Douglas was busy making X~\. speeches predicting dire things for the country if Lin- coln were elected. On one occasion he said, "If the withdrawal of my name would tend to defeat Mr. Lincoln, I would this moment withdraw it." Jefferson Davis did his best to persuade Douglas to do just that in the hope that the Democrats of the South and North united could defeat Lincoln, but Douglas declined because he thought that under such circumstances too many of his followers would vote for Lincoln. The country did not quiet down after the election. It was more unsettled than before Lincoln was elected. The air was filled with threats of disunion, secession and assassination. Some were even fearful that the West might be lost for lack of communication. There was no transcontinental railroad and the telegraph lines extended only to Kearney, Nebraska. Be- yond that point there was only the Pony Express. As the weeks passed and the threats of assassination con- tinued Lincoln sent a personal representative to Washington to talk with the man at the head of the Army, General Win- field Scott. Lincoln wanted to know if he could count on the loyalty of the Mexican War hero, who was a Virginian by birth. "Insist on a personal interview. Look him in the face." Lincoln directed, "Note carefully what he says." "You may present my compliments to Mr. Lincoln . . . Say to him that, when once here, I shall consider myself responsible for his safety. If necessary I'll plant cannon at both ends of 263 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Lincoln spent the night in Senator Mar- shall's home in Charleston before going on the next day to say farewell to his stepmother, who lived eight miles in the country. One of his old friends who came to call that evening was A. P. Dunbar. Dunbar was uncertain about how to greet a man who would in a few weeks become President of The United States. But he was soon relieved of any anxiety. When he rapped on the door Lincoln himself opened it. "Lord A'mighty, Aleck, how glad I am to see you!" was Lincoln's greeting as he shook the hand of his old friend. t 264 1 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Pennsylvania Avenue and if any show their hands or venture to raise a finger, I'll blow them to hell." That was the message General Scott sent back to Springfield. Besides all this, Lincoln was pestered with office seekers, schemers, and cranks of every description. In dismissing one of them he said, "My advice is that you stick to your business." And when the man inquired, "What is my business?" Lincoln said, "I don't know, but whatever it is you had better stick to it." Those seeking places in the new administration were so per- sistent that he couldn't sleep at night. Once he remarked to his friend Whitney, "... I already wish someone else was here in my place." At the turn of the new year before leaving for his trip East Lincoln decided on a trip to Cole County to visit his step- mother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, who was now a widow, his father having died ten years before. He missed his train connection at Matoon and continued his journey to Charleston in the caboose of a freight train. This farewell with the lonely woman who had been a mother to him in his youth was tinged with sadness. They embraced each other and then talked of the things that were buried in the dim distant past. There was a last farewell kiss and the newly elected President went his way. Back in Springfield things were being made ready for the departure for Washington. The three boys were home and the packing was going on at the Chenery House where the family was living now that the house on Eighth Street had been leased. The President-elect himself was roping his trunks and attach- ing the labels bearing the address : A. Lincoln The White House Washington, D. C. 265/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ***:' I ; tiwvw <9$& C'ki &&>t *v*>£~cm , jl II ff ^4&£ n^y^r spoke a cross word to me in his life since we lived together." "His mind and mine, what little I had, seemed to run together. 33 — Lincoln's step- mother, Sarah Bush Lincoln. i 266 1 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN It was early morning, February nth, 1861. A light rain was falling, a cold rain, and there was chill in the air. At eight o'clock the train was scheduled to leave the Great Western Railway Station. About a thousand friends and neighbors came to say goodbye. As Lincoln made his way to the train, there were handclasps. Many could only touch him as he passed. Then as he stood on the platform and looked into their up- turned faces he braced himself for a farewell message. It was not a prepared speech. He felt he couldn't trust himself for that. But now that the time for departing had come he couldn't disappoint these friends who were here to wish him Godspeed and to see him off. So he took hold of himself and slowly remov- ing his hat, he said : "Friends, no one who has never been placed in a like position can understand my feelings at this hour nor the oppressive sad- ness I feel at this parting. For more than a quarter of a century I have lived among you, and during all that time I have re- ceived nothing but kindness at your hands. Here I have lived from my youth till now I am an old man. Here the most sacred trusts of earth were assumed ; here all my children were born ; and here one of them lies buried. To you, dear friends, I owe all that I have, all that I am. All the strange checkered past seems to crowd now upon my mind. Today I leave you ; I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon General Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him shall be with and aid me, I must fail. But if the same omniscient mind and the same Almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail ; I shall succeed. Let us all pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now. To Him I commend you all. Permit me to ask that with equal sincerity and faith you will all invoke His wisdom and guidance for me. With these few words I must leave you — for how long I know not. Friends, one and all, I must now bid you an affectionate farewell." i 267 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ^?.;.?;^-;>v*:ffe*-^^^^ f 268 • FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN e»ii* y I K.^> «wtesj*:, There were many tear-stained faces in the crowd at the station to see Lincoln off to Washington and some of his friends thought they saw tears on Lincoln's face. They may have only heard them in his voice, for others said, "He had a face with dry tears." i 269 f FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Li.-_^.-i.'. ;. rv Feb, &> ? • 114k, wi,en, ail £Lj i 27O f The Trip to Washington The train that carried Lincoln and his party from Spring- field arrived in Indianapolis at sunset the same day. He was received at the station by Governor Morton, the mayor, and other state and city officials, and was escorted to the Bates House while a salute of thirty-four guns was given in his honor. The streets were alive with friendly Hoosiers, and at the hotel 20,000 more were waiting in the evening twilight to give the President-elect a rousing welcome. Lincoln had determined not to make any formal speeches on his way to the National Capital. He would wait until he could speak with the full authority of his great office. But he did speak briefly and in- formally to these friendly people. "I will only say that to the salvation of the Union there needs but one thing — the hearts of a people like yours. ... If the union of these states and the liberties of this people shall be lost, it is but little to any one man of fifty-two years of age, but a great deal to the thirty millions of people who inhabit these United States and to their posterity. ... It is your business to rise up and preserve the Union and liberty for yourselves." In nearly every sentence he referred to the Union and its preservation. He was no longer talking about the evils of slavery. The one thing that was dis- turbing him was the threat to the Union. The one thought uppermost in his mind and closest to his heart was its preser- vation. After breakfast the next morning with the Governor in his mansion, the party was off for Cincinnati. Lincoln spent his 271 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN 272 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN iwft^i |Con«0"*2o*v-%f- V'H. ^,,^^ PLofo Co.., rx\*Liflwn.a.-po \ t „r 273' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN fifty-second birthday traveling through southern Indiana, ar- riving at his destination that day in the late afternoon. The visitor was "entirely overwhelmed by the magnificence of the reception." He expressed the hope that for centuries to come the people would continue to extend their good will to the constitutionally elected President. Then his thoughts turned to his countrymen on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, and he assured them : "We mean to treat you, as near as we possibly can, as Washington, Jefferson and Madison treated you . . . under the providence of God, who has never deserted us . . . we shall again be brothers." That night he received visitors in his suite at the Burnet House, and the next morning his special train carried him to Columbus. As the train moved toward the capital of the State, Lincoln carried in the back of his mind a thought that dis- turbed him. It was a secret worry that only one other man shared with him. Seward had written his chief that trouble was brewing in Washington. "A plot is forming to seize the Capital on or before March fourth. . . . You must not imagine that I am giving you suspicions and rumors. Believe me that I know what I write." Such a letter from Washington, coming from the man he had selected to be Secretary of State in his Cabinet, filled his mind with anxious thoughts that second Wednesday in February when the Congress was due to meet and officially count the votes. "If the two Houses refuse to meet at all, or meet without a quorum of each, where shall we be?" That was the question he asked Seward in reply to his letter of warning. That night the President-elect made a brief address to the members of the State Legislature in Columbus. It was not a prepared speech, and his closing remarks brought nof only severe criticism from his opponents, but abuse as well. "I have not maintained silence from any want of real anxiety. It is a good thing that there is no more than anxiety, for there is '274 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN i ^ ~ " , m. - _ -, --...,-»,;■- 275 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN At Columbus a great crowd of people jammed the rotunda of the Capitol to shake the hand of the President-elect. At first he greeted with his right hand only, then with right and left. Finally, when exhausted, he mounted the staircase and looked down upon the crowd as it swept past him. 1 276 1 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN nothing going wrong. It is a consoling circumstance that when we look out there is nothing that really hurts anybody." Six states had already withdrawn from the Union. Others were on the verge of leaving, and for the man who was on his way to Washington to take over the authority of government to say, "there is nothing going wrong," gave his enemies fresh am- munition, and they used it to bombard him as he continued his journey to the Capital of the Nation. The men who were de- nouncing Lincoln in editorials and speeches did not yet know the man as he was known to Stephen A. Douglas, who had found Lincoln to be "the hardest fellow to handle I have encountered yet." The next overnight stop was in Pittsburgh where the party arrived in a pouring rain. At the Monongahela House where Lincoln stopped, the crowd begged for a speech. He merely expressed his surprise that the multitudes came to see him. This he accepted as evidence that the people were for the preserva- tion of the Union, and the next day he said, "There is no crisis but an artificial one." The special train next headed for Cleveland. There Lincoln again asserted the crisis "is altogether artificial" and added, "Let it alone, and it will go down itself." At Westfield, New York, the scene was enlivened by a little girl who had written to Lincoln inquiring about his family. He had answered her letter and remembered her name. From the rear platform of his car he said, "I have a correspondent in this place, and if she is present I should like to see her." No one responded, and when he was asked who it was he told her name, Grace Beddell. As the little girl was carried forward, Lincoln told the crowd, "She wrote me that she thought I would be better looking if I wore whiskers." She was lifted up to him, and as he kissed her he said, "You see, I let these whiskers grow for you, Grace." 277 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN 278 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN WtJLA^H Jrio ***** «*j Cl^^^Lewr**!, 01 I ^oll^eti *5,i& - ■„ ■,.,, - 0.33. oi e^S^^^iUA^-^^iiiSa^^^.^2^^^^..^ ^79 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN I Atom* ^r X0.ilX«3a* *l r, i j ~i:\. #' d *w x. *: /£ tt;^ Saturday when Lincoln's party reached Buffalo en route to Washington. It had been a strenuous week for the President-elect. He was tired and hoarse from speech- making and constant talking. The Lincolns went to church on Sunday with ex-President Fillmore and dined with him. The rest of the week-end they were in seclusion at the American Hotel and resting; that is } resting as much as they could with two lively boys in their party who were having a gay time of it. The hotel pro- prietor's son and Tad and Willie Lincoln had the run of the hotel. One thing they did for their amusement was to get up a game of leapfrog in which the father of the two Lincoln boys joined. i 280 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN isMammm i 281 • FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN The next day the Lincoln party was in Buffalo. It being Sun- day, Lincoln rested at the American Hotel and went to church with ex-President Fillmore. The journey continued eastward through Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and on to Albany. While Lincoln was visiting the capital of the Empire State, Jefferson Davis was being inaugurated President of the Confederate States of America at Montgomery, Alabama. Lincoln was weary, and he begged to be excused from making a speech. "When the time comes I shall speak, as well as I am able, for the good of the present and future of this country, for the good both of the North and the South . . ." Walt Whitman has left us a vivid word picture of Lincoln's arrival in his carriage in front of the Astor House in New York. "A tall figure step'd out, paus'd leisurely on the sidewalk, look'd up at the granite walls and looming architecture of the grand old hotel — then, after a relieving stretch of arms and legs, turn'd round for over a minute to slowly and good-humoredly scan the vast and silent crowds — He look'd with curiosity upon that immense sea of faces, and the sea of faces return' d the look with similar curiosity." New York did not greet Lincoln with spontaneous enthusi- asm. It was not like the reception they had given the Prince of Wales only a few weeks before. The crowds came out of curios- ity, and the millionaires were already disappointed that the President-elect had not done something or, at least, said some- thing to restore the unsettled condition of the country. A former Whig congressman, now a New York millionaire merchant, gave Lincoln a breakfast in his Fifth Avenue man- sion. One of the millionaire guests took the pains to tell the guest of honor that he wouldn't be likely to meet so many mil- lionaires at any other gathering. "Oh, indeed, is that so?" he responded. "Well, that's quite right. I'm a millionaire myself. I got a minority of a million in the votes last November." 282 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN The day Lincoln arrived at Albany, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated President of the Confederacy. There were only six states in the southern Confederacy on February 18th, but it seemed certain that other states would follow their lead. The mind of the incoming President was filled with fore- boding as these troubled reports were flashed to him from Montgomery, Alabama. His remarks to the members of the state legislature reveal his state of mind as he was about to take over his great burden: "It is true that, while I hold myself, without mock modesty, the humblest of all indi- viduals that have ever been elevated to the presidency, I have a more difficult task to perform than any one of them." i 283 i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN In his brief speech at the Astor House the President-elect told his audience that he had been silent since the election, but not, he assured them "from any party craftiness or from any indifference to the anxieties that pervade the minds of men in this country . . ." He was waiting, he told the people of New York, until he could speak officially, and then he would take a position from which he would not deviate. "I shall then take the ground that I shall think right for the North, the South, the West, and the whole country." While in New York Lincoln was received at the City Hall by the handsome mayor of the city, Fernando Wood, an out- spoken advocate of secession, who wanted the City of New York to withdraw from the United States and become a Free City. His brother owned the New York Daily News and had already come out for the southern Confederacy. Lincoln faced the mayor and the aldermen as the Mayor said, "To you, we look for a restoration of friendly relations between the states, only to be accomplished by peaceful and conciliatory means. . . ." To this Lincoln responded briefly, "I understand that the ship is made for the carrying and preservation of the cargo. This Union shall never be abandoned, unless the possibility of its existence shall cease to exist without the necessity of throw- ing passengers and cargo overboard. So long, then, as it is pos- sible that the prosperity and liberties of this people can be pre- served within this Union, it shall be my purpose at all times to preserve it." Lincoln and his party were ferried across the Hudson River to Jersey City and continued their journey to Philadelphia, stopping en route at Trenton. At sunrise the following jday, February 22nd, he was scheduled to raise a flag over Inde- pendence Hall. He arrived on the scene under the impression that the flag-raising ceremony would not require any remarks from him, but in spite of a sleepless night he spoke as one in- i 284 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN noon o£ W®'h%*%x^%«*f \. ■vt% '285/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN tiHr H*dl, HVw YW3fc my,-*?!**?** Li»^al*w *»** *K« 286 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN :"## : % .JU arte alia. «fpoiCe 4c tja^ a^exi <^4 e • e4 x o -sv. *£ i *u* I xx h\% * • 287 f FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN m UjJm : ^MSmW^? : ' v •» ■Will s ny4- xc €><»L{ v r tic; -£--, .;•• ■ .. ■...',:■ , . * / 288 y FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN spired. "I am rilled with deep emotion at finding myself stand- ing in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle, from which sprang the institutions under which we live." Then he spoke of the risks incurred by these early patriots in declaring their independence from the Mother Country, no doubt recalling Franklin's re- mark made here at the signing of the Declaration: "We must all hang together or we will surely hang separately." Four score and four years had passed since that eventful day; now he too was entering upon a course where danger lurked at every turn in the road. Only the day before he had been warned of the plot to assassinate him before he reached Washington. Seward had sent his son from Washington to "find Mr. Lincoln no matter where he is," and give him warning. Allan Pinker- ton, the detective, had uncovered the plot, and had boarded the special train to report, "We have come to know, Mr. Lin- coln, and beyond the shadow of a doubt, there exists a plot to assassinate you. The attempt will be made on your way through Baltimore, day after tomorrow. I am here to help in outwitting the assassins." These disturbing thoughts were in Lincoln's mind as he went on to explain that the Declaration of Independence meant lib- erty for all mankind. "If this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it." It was difficult to overcome the reluctance of the President- elect to change his plans. "What would the Nation think of its President stealing into its Capital like a thief in the night?" It took the combined resources of all those entrusted with his safety to finally bring him to agree that if no delegation came to Harrisburg from Baltimore to meet him he would do as advised. It was Washington's Birthday. Lincoln was dining at the / 289 i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Lincoln had been in the parlor of the hotel shaking hands for an hour or more when he was called to Judd's room to talk with Allan Pinkerton, the detective, on a very urgent mat- ter. Pinkerton had uncovered a plot in Balti- more to assassinate Lincoln whenjie arrived in that city. Pinkerton had met and talked with the leader of the men who were plotting against Lincoln, but Lincoln was at first in- credulous. He thought Pinkerton was unduly alarmed about the threats of "a half-crazed foreigner." Lincoln asked in amazement, "But why — why do they want to kill me?" i 29O i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN In Lancaster the President-elect was in the home town of Buchanan, the man he was going to Washington to relieve of the au- thority of government. He spoke only briefly to the citizens there: "I think the more a man speaks in these days, the less he is understood. As Solomon says, there is a time for all things, and I think the present is a time for silence." 291 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ^y^y ,,,,,,,,, , .. . - — , •■'■■ : Lincoln lost his temper at Harrisburg for the first and only time on the trip.to Wash- ington, according to Lamon. He had entrusted a small handbag containing his Inaugural Address to his son Robert, and he in turn had given it to a waiter, he thought. A careful search was made through the hotel baggage room, and finally the satchel containing the precious document was found. i 292 1 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Jones House in Harrisburg, when he was called from the table. He went to his room, changed to a business suit and hurried off to catch a regular train to Philadelphia where he was met by Detective Pinkerton and the superintendent of the railroad. Together they boarded a New York-Washington train. The President-elect, traveling like a private citizen, occupied a berth in a sleeping car as the train passed through Baltimore about three o'clock in the night. All was well. Early the next morning Lincoln was having breakfast with Senator Seward at Willard's Hotel. When the special train that was supposed to carry the Presi- dent-elect arrived in Baltimore as scheduled, 10,000 people were at the station. Twice they gave three cheers and then three groans. The cheers were for the Southern Confederacy and Jeff Davis ; the groans were for the Rail-Splitter. Lincoln consented to the change in his plans because at the time he "thought it wise to run no risk, where no risk was necessary." Nevertheless, he "soon learned to regret the mid- night ride to which he had yielded under protest." He felt that he had consented "to degrade himself at the very moment in all his life when he should have exhibited the utmost dignity and composure." '293/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ppppffisp^^^^v^,, ^, mmmmtif^ ***Ml J»i>' ymirtjr ^H^^y^- FrWaifc.^ 1,^,1661, tip 0*1 l»KY*3Xt^r - of * T^*** : ** %^^%jm*«*%*« *A*«8l Xwv**jr 44.* i<***el its. 41m» ^V^^i^tC wi*fcu WWpS. Hill 2L*a*a*©*»«^ l^^#l?^,dt ^fW„ ••• w< Lincoln decided to stay on at Willard's Hotel until he moved into the White House, instead of taking a private house as originally planned. This he did at Thurlow Weed's in- sistence, who argued, "He is now public prop- erty and ought to be where he can be reached until he is inaugurated/' In this Lincoln con- curred. 295 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN 296 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN f*~* -~- r-» ,— 1 i-;-^^ 1 1 1 1' 5 I j I 4S&* 1 ~i ! I j '■ ■ *"^w E ^JilllHI I mm 2i^^*^^ I Wtk wBBL .:,;';:■.,: -■;■/■" V - "" -^ ■■^ - : ^^,-.:^ V--V ... '■'■-'•" ■ ■ ' : ■■' ' ' ' t'V^iU.^ V W -4" .V ' . ii ? V I? 5 ^ \ LiiT • '•: ' ; :.'0-.,. .^ti^*'2>..al^ «L ^v* &ir»***ws» , v B' $ % 10 6*1 **^ ^^ _ „;_^^,_ _^._^^V_.„_ -~ ^ J 297 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN p;«?^?®«ss!^<38^s«s^sr«®»»?!?^^»^ "•""""^ ;■■•'-•— —5 ,«? St & t£ $)&+ Unit: a>&«J*i Ski *»*$. 298 Lincoln Becomes President It was a typical March day, that fourth of March, 1861. The day began with a warm sun that lured the excited visitors to the streets and the Capitol grounds without their winter wraps. Then, when everyone had made himself com- fortable, and was waiting on the street for the Inaugural Parade, or at the Capitol for the ceremonies, the temperature dropped suddenly, the sky turned bleak, and a March wind chilled the air. The noon hour has passed. President Buchanan drives to Willard's Hotel, and enters the doorway. Presently he re- appears with the President-elect on his arm. They enter the open carriage for the drive to the Capitol. There is no excite- ment along the way. There is some hand clapping — mostly by the twenty-five thousand northern visitors — but many are silent in this southern city. Ten thousand people are waiting at the East portico for the event of the day. When Lincoln appears in a new silk hat, carrying a gold-headed ebony cane, Senator Douglas, his old friend and political rival, outreaches young Henry Watterson and takes the silk hat and holds it. As Douglas stands shivering in the cold, someone throws a heavy shawl over his shoulders. Senator Baker of Oregon rises to introduce the man who is about to break his long silence. "Fellow citizens, I introduce to you Abraham Lincoln, the President-elect of the United States." Then for half an hour Lincoln reads his inaugural address. There is some applause, then Chief Justice Taney 299 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN -"•"T-~"™"*m'M^ Following his inauguration Lincoln was driven to the Executive Mansion by the re- tiring President and, as was the custom, in- troduced to the White House staff. When he had done this, and as he was taking his leave, Buchanan turned to his successor and said, "If you are as happy, my dear sir, on enter- ing this house as I am in leaving it and re- turning home, you are the happiest man in this country" f 300 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN raises in his hand, trembling with infirmity and emotion, an open Bible. With his left hand resting on the Book, he raises his right hand, and the sixteenth President of the United States takes the oath of office : "I do solemnly swear that I will faith- fully execute the office of President of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." In the Executive Mansion a little later the outgoing Presi- dent introduces the new President to the White House staff, and gives his parting message to his successor: "If you are as happy, my dear sir, on entering this house as I am in leaving it and returning home, you are happiest man in this country." That night at eleven o'clock as the Marine Band played "Hail to the Chief" the new President and the Mayor of the city led the Grand March at the Inaugural Ball. Following them was Mrs. Lincoln in a blue gown, wearing a blue feather in her hair, and leaning on the arm of Senator Stephen A. Douglas. Mary Todd Lincoln was fond of dancing. That night as she danced with Senator Douglas her feet touched the floor lightly. Twenty years before when these two men were back in Springfield, still unknown, she might have chosen the man with whom she was now dancing for her husband but her choice had fallen on the man who had this day become President of the United States. Her dream had come true. /301 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN " •■: -• - " • ••'••-.-. f 302 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN •far -# ***•*>** »it4 *** .** £ «> •*? Ch.*cr h* J W-ii K *•>, XJ. e?. £?? , »*#-o«l, <& •»?*» m^L***** o? For-* <5^/pate>r% ^nt^ slxtr, eutxcl *?i*ii**l Toy Pa-e^ial^xrS Lin- 305 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN oath of office ; but he could thus postpone the conflict that was brewing between the North and South. His second choice was to send provisions to the garrison so that Major Anderson could hold out indefinitely while both sides continued to discuss the issues involved, and perhaps find a peaceful solution. The third alternative was to attempt to reinforce Sumter. That would mean war immediately, and that Lincoln wanted only as a very last resort. He grappled with this problem for several days without com- ing to a definite conclusion. Then he called his Cabinet to help him decide the matter. When they assembled on March gth, the President put this question before them : "Assuming it to be possible to now provision Fort Sumter, under all the circum- stances, is it wise to attempt it?" He gave them a week to de- liberate on the question. When the Cabinet reassembled a week later, only one, Montgomery Blair of Maryland, gave an af- firmative answer. After the Cabinet meeting the President was inclined to favor the evacuation of Sumter, and was about to send such an order to Major Anderson. When his Postmaster General (Blair) got word of this he wrote out his resignation; but before sending it to his Chief he sent his father to the White House to talk to President Lincoln. Following this interview, Lincoln decided "that an attempt should be made to convey supplies to Major Anderson and reinforce Sumter." This is the version given by Gideon Wells, Secretary of the Navy, who further says that the President so advised each member of the Cabinet individually as he met them. The relief expedition finally got off and was headed down the Atlantic Coast; but before it reached Charleston Harbor Fort Sumter had been fired upon. In fact, the bombardment continued all through the day of April 1 2th, and into the night. The firing was continuous for thirty-three hours. More than three thousand shot and shell were rained upon the fort, but f 306 f FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN the only man lost was killed by the explosion of one of their own guns. Two days after the firing began Major Anderson surren- dered. He marched his troops out with colors flying, and one of the relief ships carried the garrison back to New York. Major Anderson and his small garrison' from Fort Sumter were given a wild reception in New York. They arrived at a time when waves of patriotic fervor were sweeping over the city in response to the President's call for volunteers. Fifty thou- sand people attended a mass meeting in Union Square, shout- ing for the Union. There were speeches, parades and best of all more enlistments than was required to fill the city's quota. 307 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN •acta. '*3x* fc '"Wlaii*^- «H«»f#,. ''Coll <*- ** i a o x%w ©'? - ISfV-^A? To X" IrC jpzxlo 1 i c £a x To :r» <= 17' W<¥^1 "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history; we of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation." — From President Lincoln's Message to Congress, December i, 1862. 1 308 1 Lincoln Calls for Volunteers As he sailed away from Sumter on April 14th, Major An- derson looked back and saw the Stars and Bars, the new Confederate flag, flying over the Fort. The flag which he had hauled down was safely in his possession. It was torn and burnt, but it would be his burial shroud, he said, and go with him into his grave. That same day there was a meeting of the Cabinet in Wash- ington. Visitors swarmed into the White House. Congressmen, Senators and prominent citizens came to assure the President of their support. One of the most important conferences of the day was with Senator Douglas. He was closeted with the Presi- dent for two hours. These two men had been political rivals for twenty years, but their friendship was still unbroken. Douglas read President Lincoln's proclamation, to be issued the follow- ing day, and gave it his wholehearted approval ; but he advised the President to call for 200,000 volunteers instead of only 75,000. The next day Douglas gave a statement to the press which left no doubt in the minds of any of his followers that he would support the Administration without reservation in its fight to save the Union. A few weeks later Douglas spoke to a Chicago audience that packed the Wigwam where Lincoln was nominated the year before. To this vast audience Douglas declared : "Before God it is the duty of every American citizen to rally around the flag of his country." That was his last appearance in public. He 309 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN W Lai of <£ f cV of cSieA e "Will i eosx _£1 c5 e v? &.** £t , ,iiaco!ihu ^la-eel itx. F^hif-uz^yr.-i'dSl *,:">- 11 *<**!««&- of Tike Public* jLiW-ao^y, Wft.An^fo^^.C a,^,i-- 310 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN went home that night tired and worn, a sick man. A few days later the "Little Giant" passed away as he was nearing the end of his "fiery forties." Lincoln undoubtedly lost a valuable ally in the death of his lifelong adversary. President Lincoln's call for troops was met by a general "up- rising of the people." Out in Iowa Governor Samuel J. Kirk- wood was at first in doubt about being able to meet the Secre- tary of War's request to raise a whole regiment of men. A few days later ten Iowa regiments were clamoring for arms, and Governor Kirkwood was wiring Washington, "For God's sake send us arms ! We have the men." In New York crowds gathered outside the offices of The Daily News and would not be satisfied until this pro-southern newspaper hung out the Stars and Stripes. The New York mil- lionaires who had entertained Lincoln at breakfast only a few weeks before were now pledging him their support. The President's next problem was to find a general to organ- ize and lead the Union Army. The Mexican war hero, General Scott, was too old and in ill health. He must find a younger man. With unerring judgment his first choice fell on the man who in time proved to be the greatest military genius of the war, Robert E. Lee. Lee was known to be against slavery ; he was for the Union and did not believe Virginia had a constitutional right to se- cede, nor did he think there was "sufficient cause for revolu- tion." But his loyalty to his native state was above his loyalty to the Federal Government and, right or wrong, he would go with Virginia. Lee declined President Lincoln's offer, gave up his beautiful estate at Arlington overlooking Washington, and left for Richmond to join the Confederacy. The weeks that followed were filled with anxious moments for the President. The Federal Government was totally unpre- pared for war. The regular Army, wholly inadequate in this 3ii FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Home o& cT«wiTaa.oTw PCh^; Chase resigned as Secretary of the Treasury on June 30, 1864. This was his fourth resigna- tion. This time the "President accepted it, add- ing these cordial words to his letter to Chase: "Of all I have said in commendation of your ability and fidelity I have nothing to unsay; and yet you and I have reached a point of mutual embarrassment in our official relations which it seems cannot be overcome or longer sustained consistently with the public service" Chase thought he had been "too earnest, too anti-slavery, and too radical" to please the President, and he made this entry in his diary. • 312/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN emergency, had under Buchanan's Administration been scat- tered throughout the country. The Capital was utterly unpro- tected. Someone asked General Scott how large a force would be required to take Fort Washington. His response was, "I think, sir, that Fort Washington could be taken now with a bottle of whiskey!" By that he meant that the one man in charge of the fort could not be depended upon to stay sober. The new Confederate Government set up at Montgomery, Alabama, was boasting that their flag would be raised over the dome of the Capitol in Washington by May first. To the Presi- dent this did not appear to be a difficult feat. It was known that Virginia troops were building batteries on the Potomac four miles below Mt. Vernon, also that Virginia troops were being assembled on both sides of the river. Who was there to stop even a small force of southern troops marching across the Long Bridge that spanned the Potomac, taking possession of the Capital, and carrying off the President and his Cabinet? Within a few days after the fall of Fort Sumter, Virginia sent a force to attack Harpers Ferry where the Government arsenal was protected by forty-five Union soldiers. When it was learned that the Virginia troops were coming, several million dollars 5 worth of guns and munitions were destroyed, and the fort was given up without firing a shot. At Norfolk, Virginia, the Commander in charge of the Navy Yard, panic-stricken, ordered the destruction of $30,000,000 of Government property. While volunteers were rallying everywhere in the North in defense of the Union, none had arrived in Washington. A few soldiers slept on their guns in the Capitol, but everyone was free to go and come without hindrance. Villard, who saw the President several times during these anxious days, reported that "he fairly groaned at the inexpli- cable delay of help." 3i3 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN rr ^T/ f ->- :* *~* .^r*— 314 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ok "Wkf 1A 77i£ telegraph office in the War Department was not only a source of news; it was a place of refuge for the President. "I come here to escape my persecutors,' he told A. B. Chandler, one of the operators in whose room he spent many hours reading telegrams as they came off the wires. Here he read the reports of the disaster at Bull Run, of the seven days' fighting, and of the engagement between the "Monitor" and the "Merrimac." Here he got the first reports from Burnside and Hooker at Fredericksburg and Chancellor sville , and of Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania end- ing at Gettysburg. And here, between messages, were written parts of the Emancipation Proclamation." FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN "/ ^Afl// never be old enough to speak with- out embarrassment when I have -nothing to talk about." — Lincoln. 316/ Bull Run The volunteers who responded to President Lincoln's call for troops in April had enlisted for only three months. In July these men would be free to return to their homes. The month of June had come and was all but past, and still the Army of the Potomac had done no fighting. What was the matter with the generals who were supposed to win the war in three months ? The public was getting impatient. Something must be done at once. On June 29th the President called a special Cabinet meet- ing. General McDowell appeared in person to present to the Cabinet his plans for attacking General Beauregard's army of 2 1 ,000 Confederates at Manassas. General Scott advised wait- ing until his raw troops were better trained, and his present force of 30,000 expanded. Under these improved conditions he felt the Union Army could strike a crushing blow. More than one-third of the United States Army officers had resigned, including 288 West Point men, to cast their lot with the southern forces. General Scott was one of the few officers left in the Union Army who was an experienced fighter. His advice was swept aside by the strong currents of optimism that blew over the Capital. Incredible as it now seems the general public in Washington looked upon this first clash between the North and the South as a sort of holiday. As the time and place of battle were public knowledge, an eager crowd of spectators packed their picnic baskets and drove twenty miles into the '3*7 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN a ~wne:r & H Lincoln was a frequent visitor at the hospitals. He was able to put aside his own worries when he entered a hospital. His presence was enough to bring cheer to the wounded sol- diers. When he was in Frederick, Maryland, after the battle of Antietam, he came to a house where there were some wounded Confederates. He couldn't pass by without stop- ping. These unfortunate men were "enemies threugh uncon- trollable circumstances/' he said. In his heart there was "malice toward none; charity for all" He asked permission to enter the house and offered to shake hands with the wounded men if there were no objections. Lincoln went to the bedside of those who couldn't come to him. "Beholders wept at the interview; most of the Confederates, even, were moved to tears," was the report of an eyewitness. /318/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN country to watch from a high point of view the conflict in the valley below them. On Sunday, July 21st, the Battle of Bull Run opened as scheduled. Rumors of a great victory began to circulate in the corridors of Willard's Hotel. General Scott was reported as saying that the next week end would be spent in Richmond. At the White House Lincoln's secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, were compiling reports of a victory when Seward arrived, in great distress, inquiring for the President, who was taking a drive. Seward brought bad news. The Union Army had been defeated. General McDowell was calling for reinforcements and for General Scott to save the Capital. Lincoln was up all of that night listening to reports of the disaster. At three o'clock in the afternoon McDowell thought he had won a victory. Then General Johnston arrived with re- inforcements from the Shenandoah Valley, and turned Confed- erate defeat into victory. General Scott took full responsibility for the defeat at Bull Run. "I deserve removal," he said openly, "because I did not stand up, when the Army was not in a condition for fighting, and resist to the last." In passing it should be noted that, on the Confederate side, every one of the nine commanding officers had seen active serv- ice. On the Union side only one of the three division com- manders, and only three of the nine brigadier-generals, had been under fire before. At first some of Lincoln's appointments of brigadier-generals were made, as he explained, "to keep them from fighting against the war with their mouths." Others were given com- missions because they could raise troops. Had the President's first choice accepted the command of the Union forces the his- tory of the Civil War might have been told in a few brief chap- ters. Who can say? As it was, Robert E. Lee had gone with the *3i9 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN When Lincoln occupied the White House the public grounds around the unfinished Washington Monument were cow pastures. At one time there were as many as ten thou- sand cattle penned in there. /320 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Confederacy and Lincoln's long search for a competent mili- tary leader had just begun. The Army of the Potomac was growing daily. George B. McClellan was appointed General in Chief. He had given up a $10,000 a year job as a railroad president and had been given command of 18,000 troops in West Virginia, and had shown some promise of leadership. He was a West Point man, having entered the academy before he was sixteen. At thirty he was one of three men sent to Europe by Jefferson Davis, when Sec- retary of War, to observe military tactics abroad, and he had seen war in the Crimea. Furthermore, he had distinguished himself in Mexico, having had two horses shot from under him in one engagement. McClellan's appointment met with popu- lar approval. In his saddle he had the bearing of a great mili- tary leader. Unfortunately "Little Mac" appears to have made that discovery himself, for it seems that each time he looked at himself in the mirror, he sat down and dashed off a letter to his wife telling her what a great man he was. "Who would have thought, when we were married, that I should so soon be called upon to save my country?" In another letter to his wife he wrote, "I was obliged to attend a meeting of the Cabinet at eight p.m. and was bored and annoyed. There are some of the greatest geese in the Cabinet I have ever seen." His conduct toward the President capped the climax. One evening in November the President went with Seward to call on McClellan at his house. McClellan was away attending a social function. Lincoln decided to await the General's return. John Hay, who accompanied the two distinguished callers, recorded the experience in his diary. "We went in and after we had waited about an hour, McC. came in, and without paying any particular attention to the porter who told him the President was waiting to see him, went upstairs, passing the door of the room where the President and Secretary of State were seated. 321 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 322 f FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN They waited about half an hour, and sent once more a servant to tell the General they were there; and the answer coolly came that the General had gone to bed." President Lincoln, with inexhaustible patience, did not ap- pear to be annoyed at McClellan's conduct, and said, when someone spoke to him about this deliberate snub, "I will hold McClellan's horse if he will only bring us success." 323 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Z&&&. I ? / i-i M%$j & x ix* l?^w^ iai^d ^<&Tt > IS>. C t -v£ £.xuzi xxxii -e* av a s an :f *irfj?u flsr## Xaimc olu. 3. eTa *>3>1tet, I 329 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Lincoln's patience had reached the breaking point. He decided to take personal charge of the Army in the field. Acting upon that im- pulse he took Secretaries Stanton and Chase down the Potomac to Fortress Monroe. The President and Stanton were both seasick when they landed the next morning. That evening Lincoln went aboard the "Minnesota 33 for a conference with Commodore Goldsborough, and ordered him to attack the Confederate batteries at SewelVs Point the next day. The (e Merrimac 33 came out, took one look at the "Monitor 33 and turned back. A second attack was made. Again the "Merrimac 33 came out, saw the "Monitor 33 and turned back. The President next ordered General Wood to take Norfolk, but the Confederates had already destroyed their supplies and gone on to destroy the Navy Yard at Portsmouth. Lincoln became so exas- perated with his generals that he threw his hat on the floor. '33° y "McClellan Has Got the Slows" utf you do not want to use the Army, I'd like to borrow X it," Lincoln kept prodding his "pick and shovel" general until finally McClellan promised to make a peninsular attack on Richmond. On February 13th he said to Chase, "In ten days I shall be in Richmond." The ten days passed, as previous months had passed, and* still the Army of the Potomac con- tinued its "masterly inactivity." The President introduced George Bancroft, the historian, to McClellan, and after the interview Lincoln said, "McClellan is a great engineer, but he has a special talent for a stationary engine." And Bancroft wrote his wife, "Of all silent, uncom- municative, reserved men, whom I have ever met, the General stands first among the first." After nine months McClellan was advancing against Rich- mond. This was in April 1862. By now, Robert E. Lee had suc- ceeded the Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston who had been seriously wounded. For seven days the fighting continued. Lee had to throw in the last of his reserves to hold back the Union forces. He had lost 20,000 men against McClellan's 1 6,000. McClellan had won a victory, but Lee bluffed him out of it. When McClellan's order to fall back came, Philip Kear- ney, New Jersey's fighting general who had lost an arm in Mexico, entered a solemn protest. "We ought to follow up and take Richmond," he said. This Union officer was so stunned by McClellan's failure to press forward that he declared, "Such an order can only be prompted by cowardice or treason." The 33 1 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN "— — - I -k ^s * | , ^#**'ifiii^pi'is>«*; ©£ C'plTytxas.l&i^ 0i^£©^ie^l 'ct^^i^jsr, l«/A/laJ0i ^332 * FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN H otto.«» "%*/£ Plf e ■«> i el e Tvt I*i*xlWti ox *m> ls*..biic ,tfcr Ky- O ••• I 340 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Burnside took all the blame for the failure at Fredericks- burg. He wanted to resign and retire to private life, but the President refused to accept his resignation, with the statement, "I do not yet see how I could profit by changing the command of the Army of the Potomac." He still supported Burnside and gave this statement to the press for publication: "Had Burn- side had the same chances of success that McClellan wantonly cast away, today he would be hailed as the saviour of his coun- try." Burnside's command of the Army of the Potomac, however, was short-lived. The prestige of the President, which was at that moment at low tide with the Army, was not sufficient to restore Burnside in the esteem of the men under his command. When he rode before them they did not cheer as they had for McClellan. They hooted and booed, and part of their dis- approval was intended for the President for having given them such a leader. On January 25, 1863, Hooker took over Burnside's com- mand. Hooker himself had not sought the appointment but, like many of his fellow officers, had indulged in free and out- spoken criticism of his predecessor. He had even gone so far as to speak disparagingly of the President, referring to the gov- ernment at Washington as "imbecile" and saying, "a dictator is needed and the sooner the better." When these reports reached Burnside, he decided to go at once to Washington and have the President approve his order for the dismissal of these insubordinate officers, including Hooker. When someone intimated that Hooker might in his absence head a mutiny in the Army, Burnside declared, "I will swing him before sundown if he attempted such a thing." Before breakfast the next morning, Burnside had his inter- view at the White House. His report struck the President "like a clap of thunder." By ten o'clock the same morning Burnside, 34i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN after breakfasting at Willard's, was on his way back to the Army. The following day he was relieved of his command and Hooker was placed at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln was not entirely happy with his appointment of Hooker. "He can fight, I think that is pretty well established," Nicolay had heard Lincoln say, "but whether he can 'keep tavern 5 for a large army is not so sure." Ward Hill Lamon, one of Lincoln's trusted Illinois friends, had heard reports about the appointment of a dictator and was disturbed. He spoke to the President about it. Lincoln laughed at him as he said, "You are the most panicky person I ever knew; you can see more dangers to me than all the other friends I have. You are all the time exercised about somebody taking my life, — murdering me ; and now you have discovered a new danger ; now you think the people of this great govern- ment are likely to turn me out of office. I do not fear this from the people any more than I fear assassination from an indi- vidual. Now, to show you my appreciation of what my French friends would call a coup d'etat, let me read you a letter I have written to General Hooker." It was written the day after Hooker's appointment. Lincoln's former Danville law partner listened to a private reading of the letter that today ranks as a letter beside the famous Gettysburg Address delivered ten months later. General : I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course, I have done this upon what appear to me to be suffi- cient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which of course I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in which you are right. You have confidence in your- 342 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN r~y®?> **M tWlistmlfe, ^^^l*^^%^m^ flUC; •';^l*#r« k E^i^CCtl^*; V-SOaK'**.*!' W®m 'L*>M&wW : * *J. r~ During the campaign of '64, the charge was made that while Lincoln paid the soldiers in greenbacks he drew his salary in gold. F. E. Spinner, Treasurer of the United States, made an investigation and reported, "Instead of drawing his money he has been in the habit of leaving it for a long time without interest. In one case all his salary so remained for eleven months. 3 ' When Lincoln was told that his loss in interest was more than $4,000, he asked, "Who gains my loss?" When told that the United States benefited by it, he replied, "Then as it goes for the good of the country, let it remain. " 343 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN self, which is a valuable if not an indispensable quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm ; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambi- tion and thwarted him as much as you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dic- tator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain suc- cesses can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I have much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticizing their commander and with- holding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it; and now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories. Yours very truly, Abraham Lincoln. Hooker also read his letter privately to a friend, a newspaper confidant, while he was still carrying it in his inside pocket. It was to Noah Brooks that he read it, the same Noah Brooks who had gone out to Illinois to hear Lincoln; Noah Brooks who 344 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Wl > ,JW> < !**~V> < ^!> I Alex:«^3.4*k J«fer*a y VOS**tP*S •* m 'i<*£|& *35&* FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN vania landscape and the warmth of a summer day when sud- denly he saw in the distance the smoke of battle. Evidently Meade had overtaken him. "If the enemy is there, we must attack him," was Lee's order to Longstreet, who had now suc- ceeded to Stonewall Jackson's place. To this Longstreet was opposed. "If he is there, it will be because he is anxious that we should attack him — a good reason in my judgment for not doing so." But Lee's order prevailed, and he drove at Meade's left wing and kept it up all of the first day. The next day he tackled Meade's right wing and tore at it all day. At the end of the second day Meade reported to Lincoln that the enemy had been "repulsed at all points." The third and last day's righting at Gettysburg Lee sent Pickett on his desperate charge at Meade's center. In an open field up a slope for nearly a mile Pickett led his 15,000 men to charge the Union center on Cemetery Ridge. Pickett's "Game Cock Brigade" reached the crest of the ridge and for a time it was a hand to hand conflict with bayonets. Pickett's men had done more than men could do, but it was not enough. The most terrible charge in history had spent itself. Now the torn fragments of this gallant army must fall back down the death-strewn slope over the silent bodies of their comrades, back, back to face their commander. "It was all my fault, boys, all my fault. Now help me to do what I can to save what is left," was Lee's pathetic admission of defeat. Meade came up pale and worn from three days and nights without sleep and when told the enemy had been thrown back, half groaned, "Thank God!" Meade had lost 23,000 men but the Confederates had lost 28,000. A grand total of 51,000 American brothers killed and wounded in the three days' conflict ! The stars came out that summer night and spread their radiance upon a field of carnage terrible to behold. Not in a 359 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN f«* » v •-...-• Ht s^B.'tfl ItrnffiPBrr ^m» S^ ^^»^s3fc^^B ^MgytJjR*! £ ^jgjP^JMffljg* TTO l^^fl HP] p^^gjji, • w . f j "^^2[ Ik&Jj L^^i3wt™J|. . v ' if ^m A%# : i**# |Uten^4»laHk '«3U»li.ifr **r *fS, $mL* * '*. A J&» *> ****** ■ : 'Colt*? cl* 033, 0fc I*-?4ac<>liv^S#,was»^*^Al O^^.^sf ^ lN# ? ^^POjC^'s' '.';......_ ; ::.. .::.^:.. :...:: :::M^:^M - 360/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN thousand years had the peaceful Pleiades looked down upon a battlefield where so many men lay dead and dying. Pickett, stunned and crushed by bitter defeat, halted for a moment as he left the field to pencil a hurried note to the girl waiting for him in Richmond, "Your soldier lives and mourns, and but for you he would rather, a million times rather, be back there with his dead to sleep for all time in an unknown grave." In Washington the President was, as usual in time of battle, by the ticker in the telegraph office of the War Department. He read Meade's order thanking the Army for a glorious victory. "An enemy superior in numbers and flushed with pride of a successful invasion, attempted to overcome and destroy this Army. Utterly baffled and defeated, he has now with- drawn from the contest. . . . The Commanding General looks to the Army for greater efforts to drive from our soil every vestige of the presence of the invader." When the President read "drive from our soil," he exclaimed, "My God ! Is that all?" Was Meade like all the other generals who had com- manded the Army of the Potomac, afflicted with the West Point complex about the superiority of the South? Would his generals never learn that, "the whole country is our soil?" Lee's next move was to get his army out of Pennsylvania. He immediately ordered a retreat and his troops turned back towards Virginia. When Lee reached the Potomac he found the river swollen from the heavy rain that came on the night of July 4th. He had to wait until the stream was fordable. Were the Powers directing the destiny of the young Republic willing that the war should end after Gettysburg? Lincoln must have thought so — that Lee was being detained until Meade could overtake him a second time. The President kept urging, "Do not let the enemy escape!" On July 1 2th, Meade promised to attack the next day, "un- less something intervenes to prevent it." Lincoln, waiting impa- ir 361 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN tiently in the telegraph office, said to Chandler, "They will be ready to fight a magnificent battle when there is no enemy there to fight." While in this mood the President wrote Meade a letter : "My dear General, "I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in con- nection with our other late successes, have ended the war. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am immeasurably distressed because of it." This letter was never sent and as he reflected upon what Meade had accomplished for the country he was less critical for he later remarked to Chase, "Why should we censure a man who has done so much for his country because he did not do a little more?" While not lacking in appreciation of what Meade had done, Lincoln continued to feel that the war should have been brought to a close after Gettysburg. "Our Army held the war in the hollow of their hand and they would not close it." And again, in discussing Gettysburg with Hay, he said, "We had gone through all the labor of tilling and planting an enormous crop, and when it was ripe we did not harvest it." / 362 i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN %&£'<*<& -io %YX* arfi 1^ ' • 77&£ President asked the Secretary of War to arrange for a special train to Gettysburg to leave Washington early in the morning on the igth. His son Tad, was ill, and he wished on that account to make a hurried trip to the cemetery and back. Finding this would be "a mere breathless running of the gauntlet" the plans were changed. The train left at noon on the iyth, arriving at Gettysburg at sundown the same day. "363/ Lincoln's Gettysburg Address Following the battle of Gettysburg, where General Meade turned back the rising tide of the Confederacy, the citizens of that town organized a committee to arrange for the dedication of a new National Cemetery. A portion of the battle- field was to be set apart as the final resting place for the men who there gave their lives that this nation might live. A formal dedication of the cemetery was to take place on November 19th, 1863. The date originally set for the cere- monies was October 23rd, but Edward Everett who had been invited to deliver the address of the day pleaded for more time in which to prepare for the occasion, and his request was granted. Everett was a great orator. He had delivered his lecture on George Washington more than a hundred times to raise a fund of $58,000 with which to purchase the Mt. Vernon estate and set it apart as a sacred American landmark for all time. He had been Governor of Massachusetts, Ambassador to Great Britain, and was an ex-President of Harvard. He was the foremost orator of his time as well as a foremost citizen. All arrangements had been made for the dedication cere- monies. Formal invitations had been issued to prominent citizens in all parts of the country. Printed notices had been distributed to the general public. One of these handbills reached President Lincoln. When he saw it he wrote the committee at Gettysburg that he would attend the ceremonies with some members of his Cabinet. This threw the committee into a mild panic. There 364 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN : Tk.. #&..,, 15. e 2sr- •> r - «? \ * 1 J"~ ' firs "77*0 on/y soa'a/ occasion on which I ever had the honor to be in the President's (Lin- coln's) company, namely, the commemora- tion of Gettysburg, he sat at a table at the house of my friend, David Wills, Esq., by the side of several distinguished persons, ladies and gentlemen, foreigners and Americans. . . . In gentlemanly appearance, manners, and conversation he was the peer of any man at the table." Edward Everett at a dinner given in the Revere House, Boston* FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN !• 'aAtf.'TVLf / 366 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN - - ,.. IISP^* yam - tK&>f ' ttsi*^ r*>^ oil* fey nk people f ¥oj* 4 Ike p<*opI#^ f 367/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN was no reasonable excuse for having failed in the first place to invite the President of the United States. An invitation was of course dispatched at once, to which the committee added that the President would be expected to make a few remarks. Stanton, Secretary of War, and Wells, Secretary of the Navy, asked to be excused on the grounds that they were too busy. Only Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, and a few lesser lights, accompanied the President to Gettysburg, where they arrived in a private car on the evening of November 1 8th. The President was a guest in the home of Judge Wills, where he finished writing his immortal address probably late that night. On the nineteenth the President rode in the parade to the cemetery. The ceremonies were long drawn out. The audience had listened for two solid hours to the orator of the day. When Lincoln arose to speak, following Everett, there was little warmth in his reception. And, when he finished, his audience did not linger to cheer him. Lincoln himself felt that his remarks were a failure. If he read the papers next day he found nothing to reassure him, for the editors were inclined to belittle Lincoln's efforts in con- trasting his few remarks with the great speech delivered by Everett. However, Everett himself was not lacking in appre- ciation, for the next day he wrote the President, "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes." But the public paid very little attention to Lincoln's now famous Gettysburg Address until it appeared later as a full page advertisement in a Washington newspaper. • 368 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN i.i*+t Hcyr^, cj «t$y+? out' 4 > P#/m<&..> awsd. fcv % jkrpjj- *-»^L v~; "77i£ invitation was not settled upon and sent to Mr. Lincoln until the second of November, more than six weeks after Mr. Everett had been invited to speak, and but little more than two weeks before the exercises were held." Clark E. Carr, Illinois, Member of the Gettysburg Board of Commissioners. '3 6 9' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ■'.'.'..: Wvf jR%ifv$*w C© **►<*** in -y^h^-^m I^^^-ii#3$l Lsmt&uh& muM kdj > r- li^cr When the special train carrying President Lincoln and his party to Gettysburg stopped at one of the stations en route, someone lifted a little girl up to the window so that she could hand some roses to the President. As he accepted them he kissed her and said, "You are a little rosebud yourself." 37° Lincoln's Fighting General Arrives Grant had a hard time getting into the Army. At the beginning of hostilities he offered his services promptly to General Scott, with whom he had served in Mexico, but his letter was ignored. After waiting a few weeks he appealed to the governor of Illinois, who gave him a regiment. Grant determined when he entered the service not to ask for favors, and he never did. His recognition came through sheer merit, and he had no bed of roses. At the outset he was unfortunate in issuing an order barring all Jews from military service under him. Lincoln promptly set aside this offensive order, but Grant was never forgiven. There was constant pressure to remove him from the Army. At one time the pressure was so great that Lincoln said, "I think Grant has hardly a friend left, except myself." Grant first attracted the President's attention in Kentucky. Lincoln was impressed with the way he took over in Paducah, and after Ft. Donelson, when he won the nickname "Uncondi- tional Surrender" Grant, Lincoln felt that he was a man he could "tie to." Then came the Vicksburg campaign which the President considered "one of the most brilliant in the world." Following this there was Chickamauga for which Grant was given a great deal of the credit. His brilliant victories in the West made him the man of the hour, while the President, because his generals in the East failed to give him victories, was losing favor. Grant was being mentioned for the Presidency. This he completely ignored at first. The New York Herald was a persistent sponsor of Grant for President. Finally he gave a statement to the press: "I aspire only to one political office. 37 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN When this war is over, I mean to run for Mayor of Galena (that being his home town in Illinois) , and if elected, I intend to have the sidewalk fixed up between my house and the depot." Mrs. Grant was interviewed at about the same time by a New York Herald reporter. Among other things, she said, "I have no doubt Mr. Grant will succeed, for he is a very obstinate man." Lincoln knew that at last he had found his "fighting gen- eral," but he was a bit disturbed about the talk of Grant for the Presidency. "No man knows, when that Presidential grub gets to gnawing at him, just how deep it will get until he has tried it." That is what Lincoln said to a friend of Grant's who showed the President a letter from the General in which he said it would be impossible for him to think of the Presidency as long as there was a possibility of retaining Mr. Lincoln in the office. That letter brought great relief. Lincoln was fearful that the press and the public clamor for their new idol might spoil his fighting general before he would have an opportunity to test him out in the East where his services were so desperately needed. On February 26, 1864, Congress passed a bill reviving the rank of Lieutenant General of the Armies of the United States. Grant was out in Tennessee when he received notice of his appointment. He immediately wrote Sherman that his success was due to his subordinates, and particularly to him and McPherson. "I feel all the gratitude this letter can express, giving it the most flattering construction." This was character- istic of the man who was too modest to personally send the report of his great victory at Vicksburg to Washington. Instead he gave it to Admiral Porter who sent it to the Navy Depart- ment, much to the chagrin of Stanton, who felt that the War Department should have been the first to spread this good news. 372/ I Purpose to Fight It Out on This Line if It Takes All Summer Grant arrived in Washington on March 8th. He went first to Willard's Hotel wearing a slightly tarnished uni- form of a major general. A reporter described the new Lieu- tenant General as having "a slightly seedy look, as if he was out of office and on half pay, nothing to do but hang around." Evidently that was the way the room clerk at the hotel sized up the guest, for he said that the only thing he had for him was a top-floor room. There was no protest. After two years on the Western battle front, any room at Willard's would be luxury. But when the clerk looked at the register and saw the name U. S. Grant, he nearly fell over himself reassigning his distin- guished guest to the finest suite in the hotel. A few minutes later when Grant's identity became known in the dining-room there was a great commotion among the guests. There was another wild demonstration later in the eve- ning when he went to call on the President. Noah Brooks said, "It was the only real mob I ever saw in the White House. For once at least the President of the United States was not the chief figure in the picture. The little scared-looking man who stood on a crimson-covered sofa was the idol of the hour." The next day the President in a brief ceremony formally installed his new fighting general, and told him that he wanted him to take Richmond. This Grant said he would do if given the men, and Lincoln gladly gave him this assurance. 373 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Grant did not linger in Washington. He finished what he had to do and prepared to leave the city. On the day of his departure he went to call on the President, who told Grant that Mrs. Lincoln was giving him a dinner party that evening and that he couldn't leave before the next day. Grant insisted that his business was urgent, and the President's pleading was un- availing. Lincoln's fighting general felt that he couldn't and he wouldn't spare the time to be the guest of honor even at a dinner party given by Mary Todd Lincoln. Grant immediately clamped the lid down on reports to the press from headquarters. The reporters complained about not being able to get the news for their papers. When they went to the President he would tell them to ask General Grant and when they said Grant won't tell us, Lincoln said, "Neither will he tell me." Lincoln, however, did know the grand strategy on which Grant was organizing the Union forces — that there was to be a giant nut-cracker formed between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the West. In the East, Grant and Meade would pound Lee, and keep pounding him so persistently that he could not send reinforcements to Johnston in Georgia ; and simultaneously Sherman and Thomas in the West would drive against Johnston, and keep driving steadily so that he could not send help to Lee in Virginia. All the armies were set to begin action on the same day, May 2nd, 1864. Later the date was advanced to May 5th, at Sherman's request. At midnight May 4th, Grant disappeared into the wilder- ness of Spotsylvania. With his army of 120,000 men he van- ished so completely that Lincoln told a congressman, ".Grant has gone to the wilderness, crawled in, drawn up the ladder, and pulled the hole in after him." Lincoln had been disap- pointed so many times with Grant's predecessors that he couldn't feel that no news from Grant was good news. The 374 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN President could try to reassure himself with the knowledge that his fighting general had two men to Lee's one, but still these thoughts in the absence of reports from the front did not bring sleep to the man in the White House. All day Thursday (May 5th), and through the night and the following day until mid- night, the President was by the ticker in the telegraph room most of the time, waiting. Then Friday morning the telegraph operator picked up a four-word message from Union Mills, Virginia: "Everything pushing along favorably." It was sent by a cub news reporter. While Stanton was threatening to have the reporter arrested as a spy if he didn't send a detailed report, the President was arranging to bring the boy on a spe- cial locomotive to Washington. At two o'clock Saturday morn- ing Lincoln got a firsthand report from Grant. "If you do see the President," Grant had told the reporter, "see him alone and tell him that General Grant says there will be no turning back." Part of the time Grant's men were fighting over the same ground that Hooker had fought on the year before. During the first forty-eight hours the Union losses were 14,000 men in killed, wounded and missing. Grant didn't know what Lee's losses were, but they were probably no less than his own and Lee could ill afford such devastation in his comparatively small army. But the fighting had only started. It was to go on for ten days. When Grant counted his total losses they were 26,815 killed or wounded and 4,183 missing. Lincoln now was talking about "our commanders following up their victories." He was "especially grateful to know that Grant has not been jostled in his purpose." And then on May 9th he talked to Hay, who entered this statement of the Presi- dent's in his diary: "How near we have been to this thing before and failed. I believe if any other general had been at the head of that army it would have now been on this side of 375 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN the Rapidan. It is the dogged pertinacity of Grant that wins." Congressman Washburn, from Grant's home town in Illinois, went down to Army Headquarters to visit Lincoln's fighting general. The heaviest fighting was over at Spotsylvania Court House, and he was leaving for Washington. This was on May 13th. He asked Grant if he didn't want to send some word back to Washington. "None, I think," said Grant, "except that we are fighting away here." Washburn suggested that he "send just a scratch of the pen" to Stanton. Acting on that suggestion Grant wrote a note which he didn't trouble to read before handing it to Washburn. It was a brief message ending with his famous statement : "I pur- pose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." '376 The National Union Party Renominates Lincoln One of Meade's staff officers, Colonel Lyman, studied Grant's face when he first met the new Lieutenant Gen- eral at Meade's headquarters. "He habitually wears an expres- sion as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall and was about to do it." That pen portrait was certainly a true likeness of Grant at Cold Harbor. He drove head on at Lee, losing 3,000 men in twenty- two minutes. And before he let up on the assault at Cold Harbor, he more than doubled these losses, while Lee lost only about one man to Grant's five. While Grant was busy burying his dead and moving secretly across the James River to strike at Petersburg, the convention of the National Union Party was meeting in Baltimore. That was the new name adopted by the Administration to unite all Union men in a campaign for Lincoln, regardless of former party affiliations. The President was re-nominated on the first ballot with no apparent effort on his part or that of his friends. Those who had worked tooth and nail at Chicago four years before were disappointed with Lincoln's indifference during the pre-con- vention days. David Davis, now an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, wrote to a trusted political friend, "Mr. Lincoln annoys me more than I can express, by his persistence in letting things take their course without effort or organization." 377 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN | foll^^ion, o£ Lanrql-^ jTldL^'jcao-riaJ Umv-^vv-i-ip-y j y 37 8y FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Lincoln trusted the common people and was utterly unafraid of his opposition. His enemies had become so vitriolic in their denunciation of him that their own statements were enough to impeach their judgment. The Chicago Times and other papers reprinted an editorial in the New York Herald, inspired by a mass meeting held in Cooper Union shortly before the Balti- more Convention. It referred to the meeting as "a gathering of ghouls, vultures, hyenas, and other feeders upon carrion" under the auspices of the "Great Ghoul at Washington." The big surprise of the convention was the naming of a southerner, Governor Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, for second place on the ticket. Johnson was a war Democrat who had "never wavered or faltered" in his support of the Union. His selection for the Vice-Presidency thoroughly nationalized the Republican Party and gave the new party a rail-splitter and a tailor to head the ticket. Not quite seven weeks had elapsed since Grant launched his Richmond campaign. He had lost about as many men in those seven terrible weeks as Lee had in his whole Army when the fighting started in the Spotsylvania wilderness. Lee's losses hadn't been so heavy, but he felt them no less than Grant did his. His army had taken a lot of punishment, and the Confed- erates were asking themselves when would this fighting let up. One of Lincoln's problems at this time was to keep the coun- try from feeling too sanguine about the war being over in just a few more weeks of fighting with Grant at the head of the Army. The President felt it would take a year and possibly longer for Grant to finish the job he had been commissioned to do. But how could he give this impression to the country with- out saying so? He spoke to his friend Noah Brooks. "I wish, when you write or speak to the people, you would do all you can to correct the impression that the war in Virginia will end right off and victoriously." 379 ^ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN On June 21st, the President arrived at Grant's headquarters on the James River. It was his first visit to the Army of the Potomac since Grant had taken over. In reviewing the Army, Lincoln did not overlook the colored troops. General Porter described the scene which was both amusing and pathetic. As he rode among the troops, the President gave "the appearance of a farmer riding into town in his Sunday clothes." The black men swarmed around him singing, weeping and cheering. They hailed Lincoln as "Liberator," "Chain-Breaker," "The Giver of Freedom." As General Porter described the scene, "The President rode with bared head, the tears had started to his eyes and his voice was broken." While he was inspecting some of the positions that had been taken from the enemy and fortified, Lincoln remarked, "When Grant once gets possession of a place, he holds on to it as if he had inherited it." The President returned to Washington after an absence of three days and four nights and reported his arrival at the White House in a telegram to Mrs. Lincoln who was in Boston. He had found Grant a man of few words. The ones he treasured most from this visit was the assurance : "I am as far from Rich- mond now as I ever shall be. I shall take the place ; but as the rebel papers say, it may be a long summer's day." 381/ FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN -t^t L,\ S\ zsudt , Vjv, , l-.o<# -aA 1A" . -ft ^4/^r *A a Fe r e-v^t \v itr cf >%# During the night of April 2nd, Lee ordered his troops out of Petersburg. Grant, watching his adversary and fully determined to head off Lee's attempt to join Johnston in North Carolina, was waiting at his headquarters in Petersburg ready to leave when Lincoln came up from City Point. "Do you know, General," was the President's greeting, "that I have had a sneaking idea for some days that you would do something like this." '39i ' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN assure the President, "For every three men of our dead, five of theirs; for every three of our cattle dead, five of theirs." And yet Grant was not overconfident. He was uneasy and watchful, fearful lest Lee break through his lines in an attempt to join Johnston in North Carolina. Grant might pick up a newspaper, crushing it in his hands, and say, "I have got them like that," but still he was worried. As he afterwards admitted, those days were "the most anxious" of all. "I was afraid every morning I would awaken from my sleep to hear that Lee had gone, and that nothing was left but a picket line . . . and the war might be prolonged another year." Grant had already bagged two Confederate Armies and still was uneasy about Lee getting away. Imagine, then, the Presi- dent's state of mind, knowing that three times already former commanders of the Army of the Potomac had let Lee escape certain destruction. Lincoln went to the train on March 29th to see Grant leave City Point for what they all hoped would be the last engage- ment of the war. "It was plain that the weight of responsibility was oppressing him." This is according to Horace Porter, who was there and saw the President shake hands with Grant and the officers of his staff, then stand by their car until the train left. They all lifted their hats to him and he returned their salute, and with deep emotion he lifted his voice, "Good-bye, gentlemen, God bless you all! Remember, your success is my success." Six days later, the President marched up a dusty street in Richmond for two miles to the center of the city with an escort of only twelve sailors. The President of the United States enter- ing the Confederate Capitol would not fail to impress the country but he would avoid a triumphal entrance, even at grave risk to himself. On April 8th the River Queen steamed up for the return trip '392 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN ■ ■' i tie Vv.ru. #1- When Lincoln entered the White House of Confederacy his party found a Negro servant left in charge with instructions from Mrs. Jefferson Davis to have the house in order for the Yankees when they came. A bottle of rare old whiskey was found and passed around, but the President refused, saying, "I wonder if I could have a glass of water? 33 '393 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN to Washington. A military band came aboard just before sail- ing. The President asked them to play "Dixie," saying, "That tune is now Federal property." As the President sailed down the James River out onto the Atlantic and up the Potomac to Washington, Grant was racing westward with Lee towards Appomattox. Lee's Army was only a remnant. Grant had him outnumbered by 100,000 troops or more. And besides, hunger was one of Grant's strong allies. Lee's men and his horses were eating the same rations. The only difference was that the soldiers' corn was parched. Lee had expected to find provisions for his men at Amelia Court House; but none were there. Hungry, weak and footsore, many without shoes, Lee's faithful staggered on. They would follow their matchless leader anywhere into hopeless battle there and then with the odds five to one against them, or they would flee to the mountains and fight as guerrillas. Lee had only to say the word. "There is nothing left for me to do but to go and see General Grant," Lee said to one of his staff officers, "and I would rather die a thousand deaths." Looking out over the field Lee continued as if talking to him- self, "How easily could I be rid of this, and be at rest ! I have only to ride along the line and all will be over." For a brief moment he was tempted. "But it is our duty to live." Lee sent a note to Grant asking for an interview and terms for the surrender of his army. That afternoon, on Palm Sunday, April 9th, 1865, the two generals with their respective staffs met at the McLean House, and after a few pleasantries it was agreed that "the officers and men surrendered to be paroled and disqualified from taking up arms again until properly exchanged, and all arms, ammunition and supplies to be deliv- ered up as captured property." Everything to be surrendered except the horses — the men would need those for their spring plowing. '394 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN JKhr*** 4iu&i p-At*iw eoxufttxxMp'iik *m#»- criiy./i »,-.. „„>...., , „,, . .»■■..,,.,,».. ^...mu^m, — L. : L-: „ « atrL^oB - ~ ...t 395 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1 lv<* toJk-v .tXC oltX llx iYi<*r XELO *?* -*M U 2DJE ^ erw^3-"t ^ On one of Lincoln's first visits to Ford's Theatre his presence created a mild disturb- ance. He had gone with Mrs. Lincoln to hear a concert and was no sooner seated in his box when some one in the center of the house shouted, "He hasn't any business here! That's all he cares for his poor soldiers!" The orches- tra began playing patriotic airs, and some soldiers in the theatre located the disturber and put him out. The President himself paid no attention to the incident. '39 6/ <( He Now Belongs to the Ages" Grant and lee met in the McLean Country House as two friendly neighbors might have met to close a little matter of business between themselves on terms that were mutually satisfactory. Grant was forty-two, Lee fifty-eight. The younger man pro- posed terms that were immediately acceptable, the older man saying, "It . . . will do much toward conciliating our people." At nine o'clock that evening the President read Grant's tele- gram, "General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Vir- ginia this afternoon on terms proposed by myself." The war was over — and without that terrible last battle that both Lincoln and Grant had dreaded and both had wanted above all things to avoid. As he re-read Grant's telegram the great heart of Lincoln went out on that Palm Sunday evening to the people of the stricken South whom he had never ceased to call "our country- men." The good news which Grant sent from Appomattox swept the country. In Washington crowds gathered outside the White House calling for the President. He begged to be excused from making a speech. He would do that at a later time. He saw there was a band outside and he asked them to play "Dixie." As one crowd dispersed a fresh one gathered, but the President was firm. "Everything I say, you know, goes into print." He told them if they came back the next evening he would be pre- pared to say something. And while the North was celebrating, Lee, sad and sick at 397 dl,' I It* U-^ c£*i*<£ C^o sydrla. '*c> e^tfLj Xp*i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN i 1 .&* £&.ix%. <~ o 1-n. R> ox i?x K>3*' cUj" HMh. * aJ r * it*. . j ^etstl: :w<&>«* ^L.o-4 S&w*n.l 14, 1*046 a*""""**" 399' FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN \tX«ii&e.aixi di^a April 15 t 1£>C$. i 400 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN heart, was astride Traveller, riding back to Richmond, his en- tire army disbanded and free, straggling homeward. The war was over, but the President's countenance did not show it. Mrs. Lincoln spoke of the solemn expression he was wearing of late and of his lack of spirit. Perhaps he realized that with the war ended he was only laying down one burden to take up another equally heavy. And it may have been that his recent premonitory dream had taken possession of him and, like Banquo's ghost, would not down. He had kept this to him- self for a while, and then one evening he started talking to Mrs. Lincoln and one or two guests in the White House about how much there is in the Bible about dreams. "There are, I think, some sixteen chapters in the Old Testament and four or five in the New in which dreams are mentioned. . . ." "Why, you look dreadfully solemn!" Mrs. Lincoln inter- rupted. "Do you believe in dreams?" "I can't say that I do," the President continued, "but I had one the other night which has haunted me ever since." Then he told how following his dream he opened the Bible and it was at the chapter in Genesis that gives the account of Jacob's won- derful dream. He opened it again at random, and continued to do so, and each time he found the story of a dream or a vision. "You frighten me!" exclaimed Mrs. Lincoln. "What is the matter?" When he saw how disturbed his wife had become he said, "I am afraid that I have done wrong to mention the subject at all." But Mrs. Lincoln insisted that he tell his dream and the President told how a few nights before he had retired late and fallen asleep at once. "I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a deathlike stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the / 401 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. ... It was light in all the rooms ; every object was familiar to me ; but where were all the people who were grieving? ... I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered." There, according to Lamon who related this experience, the dreamer saw a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments resting on a cata- falque. When he inquired of one of the soldiers standing guard, "Who is dead in the White House?" he was told that it was the President and that he had been killed by an assassin. "Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which awoke me from my dream." "That is horrid!" said Mrs. Lincoln, "I wish you had not told it." "Well, it is only a dream, Mary. Let us say no more about it, and try to forget it." A few evenings later, Mrs. Lincoln was giving a theatre party with a Mr. Rathbone and his fiancee, Miss Clara Harris, as her guests. The party of four left the White House in the President's carriage and drove to Ford's Theatre on ioth Street to see Laura Keene. She was appearing in a mediocre play called "Our American Cousin," which the President was not at all eager to see but it had been announced that he would attend and he would not disappoint the audience. When Mrs. Lincoln's party reached the theatre about nine o'clock, the White House guard sent to protect the President was at the door, but it so happened that of the four White House policemen detailed to look after the President the one irresponsible man of the force was on duty this fateful night. The Presidential party was carefully ushered to their box but the man whose duty it was to stand guard at the entrance and protect the President with his life if necessary was not inclined that evening to let his responsibilities interfere with his own pleasure. An hour later when the intruder, John Wilkes Booth, i 402 i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN with murder in his heart, stole quietly into the President's box, the guard was at the bar downstairs. Suddenly a shot is fired and a man leaps out of the Presi- dent's box to the stage. There are cries, "Stop that man!" but no one stops him. He is gone, riding swiftly through the night in an attempt to escape from the dreadful fate that awaits him. At first the audience is bewildered. Is the act in the Presi- dent's box a part of the play? Then there is an agonizing cry, "He has shot the President !" The Great Man is carried across the street to a boarding house and laid diagonally on a bed of corn husks. If he could have spoken he would have told the doctors not to mind the bed, that he had slept on corn husks before. How can the man live with a bullet lodged in his brain? The current of life runs strong in his powerful frame. "Live! You must live!" Mrs. Lincoln cries. "Bring Tad — he will speak to Tad — he loves him so!" Doctors hover over the bed through the night. Stanton comes and takes charge. He is the Secretary of War. He gives orders. He sends Mrs. Lincoln out of the room. He sends for Grant. Dawn breaks. Now it is full daylight. The death-struggle has set in. The end has come. The doctor counts the last heart beat at twenty-two minutes and ten seconds past seven o'clock on Saturday morning, April 15th, 1865. Stanton is weeping bitterly. Then in a moment he speaks — placing the immortal Lincoln on his pedestal in history : "He now belongs to the Ages." 403 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN i t'i.** bier* I^^Li^, . •Si* graj horses were attached to the hearse that carried Lincoln's body from the White House to the Capitol. Regimental bands played the dead march as 4.0,000 mourners followed the remains of the martyred Presi- dent through the streets crowded with on- lookers. i 404 / Lincoln's Funeral Lincoln was given a funeral that far surpassed any honors | ever heaped upon any American that had gone before. Hundreds of thousands took part in it while millions of grief- stricken spectators stood by in silent tribute. His body was carried back to his home in Springfield over the same route traveled by the President-elect on his journey to the nation's Capital four years before. In Baltimore where 10,000 people had come to the station to boo the Rail-splitter President on his way to Washington, the whole city was now in mourning. The New York that had looked with idle curiosity upon the incoming President was now in tears. His body was carried through the streets of New York in a magnificent funeral car drawn by sixteen black horses. All along the 1700 mile route muffled drums were beating and church bells tolling, while countless thousands of spectators waited night and day to pay a moment's silent tribute as the funeral train passed along carrying their fallen leader. At the end of twelve days the procession reached its destina- tion, and his friends and neighbors in Springfield carried the great Lincoln to Oakridge Cemetery and placed his body in a temporary burial vault. Lincoln was not a member of any church but he was consid- ered a deeply religious man by those who knew him. To Lincoln the supernatural was too vast — too far beyond the grasp of mortal mind — to be hedged in with man made creeds and church made dogmas. His innermost thoughts on 405 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN On Friday morning, April 21st, President Lincoln's body was carried to the Baltimore and Ohio Railway Station. There in the pres- ence of President Johnson, General Grant, Cabinet Members and other distinguished government officials, it was placed in a special car. Another casket containing the remains of his son Willie, who died three years before, was placed in the funeral car and father and son made the long journey back to Spring- field together. t 406 / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN At Harrisburg 30,000 people came in the night and early morning through a pouring rain to pay tribute to the late President. As the train passed through Lancaster, a former President sat quietly in a carriage at the edge of the great crowd. It was James Buchanan. 407 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN religion are best revealed in his own written statement that was never intended for publication. "The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party; and yet the human instrumentalities working just as they do, are the best adaptations to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true; that God wills this contest and wills that it shall not end yet. By His mere great power on the minds of the contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds." At the funeral services in the White House, sixty clergymen were present. The Sunday before was Easter and in churches everywhere the sermons were about the martyred President. Henry Ward Beecher, outstanding among the ministers of the day said, "No monument will ever equal the universal, spontaneous, and sublime sorrow that in a moment swept down lines and parties, and covered up animosities, and in an hour brought a divided people into unity of grief and indivisible fellowship of anguish. . . . Dead, he speaks to men who now willingly hear what before they refused to listen to. Now his simple and weighty words will be gathered like those of Wash- ington, and your children, and your children's children shall be taught to ponder the simplicity and deep wisdom of utterances which, in their time, passed, in party heat, as idle words. Men will receive a new impulse of patriotism for his sake and will guard with zeal the whole country which he loved so well. I charge you on the altar of his memory to be ever faithful to the country for which he has perished." 408 i FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN J^i^i e .April S Eaa <3 ? 16 6 iC^* 409 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN l%%& &. ^4 committee of one hundred prominent citizens met the funeral train on ite arrival in Chicago. Nearly 100,000 people had come into the city for the sad homecoming of their illustrious friend and • neighbor. Here were thousands who knew Lincoln in the days when he was climbing from obscurity to fame, many who had heard him laugh at the pro- posal of "Lincoln for President." 1 4IO / FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN >C*i© ^ »^m***» £:$#>. -■-a. ■ ..73 411 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN One month after the Fall of Richmond Lin- coln was brought to Springfield to lie in state in the hall where he made his memorable House Divided Speech — "The true starting- point" according to Senator Sumner, in the controversy that led to the war. 412 FOLLOWING ABRAHAM LINCOLN Coll** cti»**-