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 by Larry Lawrence 
 
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LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
S6 
 
 JheJOife of 
 
 HONEST ABE 
 
 DONE UP BROWN IN 
 
 JAZZI STORY 
 
 bu 
 
 J^arrifjLi 
 
 (twrence 
 
 II 
 
 Tublished by 
 The Milwaukee Journal 
 
 Public Service Bureau 
 
Copyright, 1929 
 The Journal Company 
 
L4 3Z 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO EVERY LISTENER 
 
 WHO TUNED IN ON 
 
 JAZZISTORY 
 
 AND TO YOU, 
 
 WHOEVER YOU ARE. 
 
 IF YOU'LL READ 
 
 THIS HERE NOW BOOK 
 
Howdy* friends* Howdy! 
 
 Elevate the puppies, get easy 
 and put your peepers on this. 
 
 Books have prefaces. It's no fault of mine, but this is 
 going to be a book and so it's going to have a preface. You 
 can take it or leave it, just as you like. Most prefaces get 
 left. But this here one is going to be abbreviated. It's com- 
 ing in short pants so you might as well get a load of it. 
 
 I love Lincoln. Who doesn't? Maybe a couple of old 
 Reb beavers, but not many. 
 
 My dad's folks lived in Logan county, 111. Abe was 
 their lawyer. As a kid, I heard a lotta yarns about him. But 
 I didn't know anything much worth knowing about the 
 beloved rail manufacturer (by hand) until I started giving 
 "The Book of Abraham" in Jazzistory. Then I found out. 
 
 Carl Sandburg contributed a flock of info in his books. 
 Ida Tarbell came across, too. (Neither one of 'em knew it 
 of course). And about 40 other writers got a going over 
 before I got Booth plugged by Boston Corbett in a burn- 
 ing barn. 
 
 The following pages are made up principally from the 
 notes I used in burning my tonsils over The Milwaukee 
 Journal station, WTMJ. I started doing "Abe" Sept. 24, 
 1928 and jazzistory lectures on him kept right on until April 
 22, 1929. Daily except Sunday, central standard time. 
 
 Some of the loud-speaker audience started asking for 
 Abe's life in book form. Well, here it is. The language is 
 nobody's business. But the facts — ah, the facts. You can lay 
 your shirt on them. They're straight goods, and like Powder 
 river, a mile wide and an inch deep. 
 
 Dip in. 
 
 LARRY LAWRENCE, 
 
 "Professor of Jazzistory" 
 
Larry Lawrence 
 
 "Professor of Jazzistory" 
 
 at The Milwaukee Journal Station WTMJ 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/lifeofhonestabedOOIawr 
 
FIRST DOWN 
 
 We have a go at ancestors 
 
 BE LINCOLN was born. 
 
 That's one thing he had in common with all 
 the other great men of history. He was born and he 
 had ancestors — plenty good ancestors, too. 
 
 Some wet smack historians have tried to make 
 out that Abe's folks were scum, worthless bums, but 
 that's the old applesauce. 
 
 They were pioneers, with maybe a little dirt be- 
 hind their ears, and they lived a rugged life, a life 
 without all the modern inconveniences, a life with- 
 out much book l'arnin', but they were the salt of the 
 earth and that's no kid willie either. 
 
 Abe Lincoln's granddad was Abraham Lincoln. 
 He was a captain in the Revolutionary army. He was 
 man of property, tilling 210 acres of good fertile dirt 
 in Virginia — land that he had snagged by inherit- 
 ance from John Lincoln, his father. John had stuck 
 the first plow into this virgin land in the Shenan- 
 doah valley, land the maroon skins had owned and 
 roamed. 
 
 Amos Lincoln, another kinsman of our hero, 
 Abe, was one of the gents who had dressed like In- 
 dians and boarded the British boat in Boston harbor 
 to stage that little shindig which has gone down in 
 history by the name of the Boston Tea Party. And 
 Amos later was a captain of artillery in the Revolu- 
 tionary army. 
 
 Page 1 
 
So you see these babies of the Lincoln line who 
 were ahead of Abe were mixed up with the history 
 of our country in important ways, as men of ability 
 and leadership. 
 
 In the War of Independence Abe's granddad 
 did most of his fighting against the Cherokee In- 
 dians who were helping the British scarlet jackets. 
 When the argument was settled, Abraham listened 
 to his friend, Daniel Boone, tell about the fertility of 
 the Kentucky lands. He listened with his ears 
 cocked while Daniel drawled out pictures of the 
 Blue Grass country, and in the year 1782 Abraham 
 and his wife and their five kids, sold their farm of 
 210 acres, got on hayburners and started riding 
 from Virginia to Kentucky. 
 
 Abraham was pretty well educated. He could 
 write a plain hand and he could cipher — and that 
 was pretty good in those Colonial days. His wife, 
 Bathsheba, one of the Herrings (she was no fish, 
 but her family name was Herring) could write, too. 
 She was well informed, a good conscientious wife 
 and home maker. The deed, passing their land on 
 the purchaser, is still in the files of Rockingham 
 county, Vermont, and Abraham Lincoln's signature 
 and the signature of his wife are plain upon it. 
 
 They had five springers, off springers, three 
 sons and two daughters. The sons were Mordacai, 
 Josiah and Thomas. The daughters were Mary and 
 Nancy. Bathsheba was carrying Tom in her arms 
 when the procession headed out of the known coun- 
 try, riding toward the setting sun and the new un- 
 known country over the wilderness road. They were 
 going where land was 40 cents an acre and wild 
 Page 2 
 
turkeys and deer and fox and mink were to be had 
 for the price of the ball and powder. 
 
 They rode all day and got their shut-eye in a 
 tourist camp at night — but they built the camp. 
 Abraham kept his optics peeled as they jazzed on. 
 His shooting iron was lying across his saddle and 
 his dukes were free to throw that rifle to his 
 shoulder should an Indian pop out on them and 
 act nasty. 
 
 The Indians had signed a treaty but it didn't 
 mean much and many a white man and his family 
 had been bumped off on the trail. 
 
 Abraham had a keen sight and maybe luck 
 helped him for he reached Kentucky safely with 
 his whole family and he found a beautiful valley 
 along the Green river. There he settled, putting a 
 legal plaster on 2,000 acres of land. 
 
 He had been there three years, and was work- 
 ing in the fields that he had cleared and raised two 
 good crops on, when there was the sharp crack of 
 a rifle. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, granddaddy of the boy who 
 saved the Union, toppled and fell dead. An Indian 
 grunted a grunt of satisfaction and ankled away. 
 Tom Lincoln, father of Abraham Lincoln, was 
 about six years old then. He missed the dad he had 
 loved. The other boys were not big enough to farm 
 those 2,000 acres alone. Their mother was not able 
 to carry on without a husband and so the family 
 was busted. Tom went to live with an Uncle Issac 
 in Tennessee. As he grew up he learned the trade of 
 cabinet maker. He was never wealthy. The 2,000 
 acres were lost to the family. Tom was not especial- 
 ly ambitious, but he was a thinker, and he was a 
 
 Page 3 
 
good workman. He bought a horse when he was 20 
 and paid taxes on it, too. He came to Hardin coun- 
 ty, Kentucky — laid down the jack for a farm. He 
 paid his taxes, too, for it is so written in county 
 records. He was not entirely uncouth; not so you 
 could notice it, because he bought a pair of silk 
 suspenders for a buck and a half when most of the 
 men were keeping their breeches up with home- 
 made ones. He was tall and tough, weighed 185 
 pounds and he was not a lazy lout as has been writ- 
 ten of him many times — but he was an independent 
 cuss. He preferred to sit alone and think his 
 thoughts instead of seeking society. 
 
 He drank a little squirrel liquor as he sat in his 
 log shack on his own small farm in Hardin county, 
 a youthful bachelor, but he wasn't a lush. He didn't 
 inhale the wildcat sweat like some did. The Bap- 
 tists were the strong religious folk of the county 
 and they were divided about 50-50 between those 
 who believed in owning slaves and those who didn't 
 and again they split on the whiskey issue, some of 
 them drinking plenty of corn juice and others re- 
 maining pretty sober. Tom, when he was with peo- 
 ple, chose those who didn't hit the home made gig- 
 gle soup so heavy, and those who were against 
 slavery. Not that slavery was an issue, but it was 
 something to chew the rag about. 
 
 Page 4 
 
SECOND INNING 
 
 Take a look at Pa and 
 
 AKE a look at Pa and Ma Lincoln. 
 
 Tom Lincoln was not long on gab. He was lone- 
 some and as he sat before the open fire in his log 
 cabin he got to telling himself that what he needed 
 most was a capable ball-and-chain to wrestle the 
 dishes and do the honors on the pork bosom and 
 beans. 
 
 Wherefore he started visiting at the home of 
 Christopher Bush, a hard working farmer who was 
 raising good crops and a big family of sons and 
 daughters. 
 
 Tom kinda cottoned to one of the janes, Sarah 
 Bush, and he slipped her many a slow smile. But 
 Sarah had her eyes on a bird named Daniel Johnson 
 and Daniel was loco about her, too. This is the first 
 love affair in the life of the young bachelor, Tom 
 Lincoln. Sarah liked Tom, it seemed, but she liked 
 Dan better and Tom soon saw that he was an also 
 ran. He spent many evenings alone in his cabin, 
 before the fireplace thinking about Sarah, and final- 
 ly he decided that his heart was not broken after all 
 and he laughed to himself. Having come to the con- 
 clusion that it was just one of those things, one of 
 those first love affairs, he snapped out of it and got 
 to taking an interest in life again. 
 
 Then Tom started giving Nancy Hanks the eye. 
 She was sometimes called Nancy Sparrow as she 
 
 Page 5 
 
was the adopted daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth 
 Sparrow. 
 
 Nancy was a wistful baby — and a looker. Tom 
 was hard hit. History has not made it exactly clear 
 whether Tom knew all about Nancy or not at the 
 time he started courting her by walking eight miles 
 to see her. But here is the real dope. 
 
 She was the daughter of Lucy Hanks. Lucy 
 was the daughter of a Virginia farmer and Lucy 
 was a beautiful girl, a gay joyous spirit, a romantic 
 girl who loved to have a hot time and to dream of 
 some swell, elegant gentleman loving her and mak- 
 ing her his glorified frau. 
 
 She had met a "gentleman" back in Virginia. 
 Now a gentleman then meant something very spe- 
 cific in those days. A "gentleman" was one of the 
 aristocracy. Lucy fell for this bird who has re- 
 mained nameless in history. The "gentleman," per- 
 mit me to sneak a sneer in the use of the word, 
 courted Lucy, and professed love for her. She cer- 
 tainly was in love with him. They were to be mar- 
 ried ; he begged her to marry him. They kept many 
 clandestine trysts in the beautiful valley in which 
 Lucy lived on a farm with her strict, religious father. 
 
 The gentleman was soft spoken and a sheik of 
 the time. He swept the farmer's girl off her feet 
 with his John Gilberting. 
 
 The time came when she told him they must 
 be married at once and then the "gentleman" 
 showed that his feet were all clay — yes, and that 
 his heart was stone, and his soul black, that he was 
 no more a true gentleman than one of his worst 
 black slaves. He laughed at Lucy and said he would 
 not marry her. 
 Page 6 
 
She kept her secret for a time, but at last told 
 her mother. Her father learned it. He stormed 
 and raved and threatened to throw her out of his 
 home. She was a bad woman and her father, strict 
 and merciless, wanted to drive her out of his house. 
 
 Still Lucy would not tell the name of the "gen- 
 tleman," but it was guessed pretty easily for she had 
 been seen with one of the so-called aristocracy sev- 
 eral times at their trysts. She did not want to prose- 
 cute the "gentleman." She wanted to forget him. 
 She was a game girl, a girl with courage — ready to 
 face the world as best she could without bringing 
 disgrace on anyone else. 
 
 Her mother cared for her. The baby was born 
 and Lucy Hanks gave it the name Nancy Hanks. 
 She would not disgrace the father by using his 
 name nor would she disgrace the child either. The 
 baby she loved with a great love. And there were 
 folks going away from Virginia then — out to the 
 vast country of the blue grass region and Lucy said, 
 "I'll go away, too, and give my baby a chance in a 
 region where she will not be pointed at with a 
 finger of scorn." So when she was just 19 years old 
 Lucy Hanks bought a horse and started riding that 
 wilderness trail through the Cumberland gap into 
 Kentucky. She carried her baby in her arms as she 
 started that perilous journey on horseback to Ken- 
 tucky. 
 
 Lucy finally put on the double harness with a 
 man she loved, Henry Sparrow, by name and 
 they had nine children, all of whom she cared for 
 tenderly and taught to read and write. Nancy had 
 been taken into the home of Thomas Sparrow, 
 who had married Elizabeth Hanks, Lucy's sister. 
 
 Page 7 
 
It was a double sort of family arrangement. The 
 Sparrow brothers married the Hanks sisters. Eliza- 
 beth had come out to Kentucky, too, shortly after 
 Lucy made the trip. 
 
 Nancy grew up in the Sparrow family, keeping 
 the name Hanks, her mother's name. Tom probably 
 knew of the so-called blot on the escutcheon, but 
 he was a thinker and ready to love and respect a 
 girl for what she was. Nancy was a girl well worth 
 loving. Why, she could read ! Tom wasn't so good 
 at the reading himself. He had seen her reading in 
 the Bible at camp meetings. Thomas came as often 
 to the Sparrow household as he could and talked 
 quietly with Nancy — who seemed to be living way 
 out yonder — hoping for great things to come. She 
 was a believer in the Bible, in eternity — in the veri- 
 ties of life. And Tom finally said: "Nancy, I've 
 been looking at you and liking you for quite a spell, 
 and I aim to marry you if you can see it that away." 
 
 Nancy answered: "Tom, I like you. I respect 
 you. Yes, Tom, I'll marry you." Can you imagine 
 this sort of a courtship? These pioneers of the hills 
 of Kentucky didn't wear their heart out on their 
 sleeves and for the most part they were a silent peo- 
 ple, not putting fire and feeling in their romantic 
 passages. Tom then went to the court house in 
 Springfield in Washington county, Kentucky and 
 he filed a bond which read — "There is a marriage 
 shortly intended between Thomas Lincoln and 
 Nancy Hanks." The wedding took place June 10, 
 1806 and was pulled off according to the rules of 
 the Methodist Episcopal church. Tom was 28; 
 Nancy was 23. 
 Page 8 
 
THIRD QUARTER 
 
 Meet Abe, the Babe 
 
 FTER the ceremony they threw a big party. And 
 did they put on the groceries? You tell 'em, and 
 how! Bear meat, venison and wild birds with plenty 
 of giggle soup to wet the whistles. 
 
 When the shindig was over Tom tossed Nancy 
 onto the oats consumer and he stepped it over the 
 red clay boulevard, through the tall timber to 
 Elizabethtown where Tom had his hangout. 
 
 Tommie tore into labor that summer, making 
 cabinets, coffins and jambs. He not only made 
 jambs, he got into a few. One jamb concerned a saw 
 mill that Tom erected for a geezer named Geohegan. 
 This pinch-jitney didn't come through with the jack 
 for the labor and Tom had to sue him for it. He won 
 the suit, too, and then Geohegan tried to pull a fast 
 one on Tom by starting a suit, saying that the tim- 
 bers hadn't been cut true. Well, Tom made a chump 
 outta Geohegan and showed him up. So Tom's 
 stock went up. Folks were saying that he had all 
 his buttons and that he was honest and straight, 
 which was no applesauce either. 
 
 About a year after the wedding a baby girl 
 took a stork ride to the Lincoln log shack. They 
 named her Sarah. 
 
 Then they moved. Tom built a new cabin, 
 packed the dirt down for a classy floor and cut a 
 window to be ritzy. The year was 1809. A good 
 
 Page 9 
 
year for this here old U. S. A., just between us girls, 
 for that's the year when the big stork event took 
 place. 
 
 On the morning of February 12, Tom was doing 
 a two-step out in front of the cabin. Granny Peggy 
 Walters was doing her stuff inside the log abode. 
 And it's dollars to crullers that Tom was saying, "I 
 hope it's a boy." Granny was the accepted pediatri- 
 cian, genealogist and first assistant to the long- 
 legged bird for the entire country side. Well, Gran- 
 ny swatted him where you swat newborns and the 
 infant let out a plaintive wail. The first wail of 
 America's greatest man. 
 
 That same morning Tom tossed an extra bear 
 skin blanket over Nancy, and hiked two miles to the 
 cabin of the Sparrows. Dennis Hanks, the nine- 
 year-old boy adopted by the Sparrows, met Tom at 
 the door and Tom said, "Nancy's got a baby boy." 
 Dennis tore his breeches to take a peek at the mira- 
 cle but when he lamped him he said, "Oh, he looks 
 just like a dried up berry. Say, whatcha going to 
 name him?" And Nancy answered "Abraham, after 
 his granddad." 
 
 Later Dennis asked "Kin I hold him, Nancy?" 
 and the mother said, "Yes, but be keerful, Dennis, 
 fur you air the fust boy he's ever seen," and after a 
 minute or two in the dukes of the nine-year-old, the 
 first boy Abraham ever saw, Abraham let out a lusty 
 yelp. Dennis turned to his aunt and said, "You take 
 him. He'll never come to much."* 
 
 *I swiped the quoted words from Carl Sandburg who did a lotta digging to 
 get 'em right. Buy his Abraham Lincoln, printed by Harcourt, Brace & Company, to 
 get the whole works on the Emancipator. It's a darb. The ad is absolutely free, 
 Carl. See you in a poem some time. LARRY. 
 
 Page 10 
 
Dennis was off his base there. His boyish pro- 
 phecy went haywire. It turned out that this wailing 
 youngster who had uttered his first plaintive cry on 
 the morning of Feb. 12, 1809, in a bed of green poles, 
 stuffed with corn husks and bear skins, was going 
 to amount to quite a much — and the world was go- 
 ing to call him great — he was going to be cursed 
 and despised and assassinated — and glorified and 
 enshrined. 
 
 We'll skip five frames now and come to a morn- 
 ing when Abe was awakened by a rifle shot. There 
 was nothing unusual in this because Tom might 
 step outside the cabin door and slug the meat on 
 the hoof most any time. But Abe heard the shot 
 and jumped up, ran to the door and hollered "Pappy, 
 what you kill?" Abe was five years old. His old 
 man answered, "Son, I didn't kill nuthing — I just 
 was out here celebratin," "What's celebratin, 
 pappy?" "Why its shooting off a rifle or suthing 
 like that. This is the Fourth of July. It's Indepen- 
 dence day." "What's Independence day?" 
 
 You know how kids can ask questions. Well, 
 young Abe was a prize question asker and he spent 
 his life asking questions — learning things. So Tom 
 sat down with the kid on his knee and tried to tell 
 him about July 4, Independence day. It was 38 
 years since that piece of paper, the Declaration of 
 Independence, had been signed. The word "inde- 
 pendent" bothered the boy. He wanted to get it 
 straight in his think-tank. He puzzled over it as he 
 played about the cabin. 
 
 When Abe was seven he walked four miles to 
 school and four miles back. It was a log school and 
 
 Page 11 
 
there were no windows but there were plenty of 
 cracks for ventilation. 
 
 It was a blab school. That's the open face type. 
 Two times two equals ABCD, etc. 
 
 And Abe was working plenty, too, as chore boy, 
 running errands and helping his ma and pa. 
 
 There was a young pill roller in the vicinity 
 then, Christopher Columbus Graham, who was 
 studying the birds and the snakes and the rocks and 
 the trees. He often came to the Lincoln house to 
 get a snack and sometimes would stay to hit the 
 hay. He always got Abe's bunk and the kid had to 
 play the floor for his shut-eye but it was jake with 
 Abe because the doc knew so much and Abe could 
 tune in on the talk and ask a lot of question, too. 
 The doctor didn't mind answering them, therefore, 
 Abe liked the doctor and the doctor told about a 
 fellow who was keeping a store at Elizabethtown, 
 not so far away. This storekeeper was planning to 
 write some books about the birds of the region. His 
 name was John James Audubon. (Do you build bird 
 houses, too?) 
 
 In the year 1816 Tom Lincoln was appointed 
 road surveyor on the drag from Louisville, Ken- 
 tucky to Nashville, Tennessee. The fact that Tom 
 Lincoln got the job is another bit of testimony that 
 he was not the shiftless, lazy no-account that some 
 historians have tried to make him out. 
 
 Page 12 
 
FOURTH FRAME 
 
 From Kaimtucky to Indiatitiy 
 
 ALK was cheap in those days. It can still be had 
 at bargain rates. Just turn the dials. And folks 
 were spilling a line about a new territory where you 
 could grab a farm for practically nothing down and 
 not much more a week. Rich dirt where you could 
 plant a nail and raise a crowbar, they were saying. 
 This land was in Indianny and in this virgin terri- 
 tory it was against the law to hold "niggers." Tom 
 was against slavery and in Kaintucky it was getting 
 so a guy was just poor white trash if he didn't own 
 some eight-balls to do the heavy chores. Abe was 
 seven while this talk was being tossed about and he 
 tuned in on it. It sounded like a good bet to him, 
 probably because it offered adventure, travel. 
 
 In the fall of the year 1816, Tom began cutting 
 down trees and building a raft to float his goods 
 down the creek into the Ohio river and so across 
 into Indianny. 
 
 Tom passed the word that he wanted to dicker 
 his farm off and at last a buyer appeared. He didn't 
 have much dough but he had 400 gallons of whiskey, 
 four barrels. Tom traded his farm for the squirrel 
 juice and 20 bucks cash. Whiskey was a kind of cash 
 in those days. Imagine 400 gallons of liquor now 
 and what it would be worth. 
 
 Well, Tom shoved off and flung back, "Goodby, 
 I reckon we'll winter up in Indianny, if I can find 
 
 a good parcel." 
 
 Page 13 
 
Tough luck got him quick. Imagine Tom's em- 
 barrassment when he hit a snag in the creek after 
 floating many miles away from his home. 
 
 Just imagine his embarrassment when the raft 
 tipped and all the whiskey and his tools and chairs 
 and all took a drip into the chilly drink. And there 
 was Tom, all alone, with his commodities down at 
 the bottom of the creek. But he fished most of them 
 out, including three barrels of his whiskey. 
 
 Tom landed his raft at Thompson's Ferry and 
 he met a man named Posey who said he would store 
 his things for him while he went out and found his 
 homestead. Tom started walking, carrying nothing 
 but his trusty ax. It was a battleax, but not such a 
 one as the day time knights of old chopped their 
 enemies down with. It was an ax to fight the 
 wilderness. At last Tom found what he thought he 
 wanted for a homesite and he notched the trees to 
 mark his claim, cut the brush from a portion of it 
 and piled the brush as the homesteading regulations 
 called for. Then Tom walked back to his Knob 
 Creek farm — and said, "Nancy, we're all set — Got a 
 fine piece of land in Indianny." And so they moved 
 to Indiana. 
 
 They all pitched in and started building a pole 
 shed, their first house on Pigeon creek. The shed 
 was open on one side and a big fire was kept burn- 
 ing, day and night. In the corners of the shed they 
 piled dried leaves for beds. 
 
 When the shed was completed Tom started 
 cutting big trees for a real home, a one room log 
 cabin. Abe and Nancy and Sarah used the hatchets 
 to chop the twigs from the logs and clean them as 
 Page 14 
 
Tom felled the trees and cut the trunks to the 
 proper length. 
 
 But it takes a long time for one man, with the 
 help of only a woman and two children, to build a 
 log cabin and it was not even well on its ways to be- 
 ing a home that winter. They slept in the shed — 
 which was just a little better than sleeping out of 
 doors and it was a cold winter in Indiana, too. 
 
 Only a mile from the shed was a salt lick and 
 deer came there often. Tom shot the deer and they 
 lived on venison, wild turkey, coon and rabbits. 
 
 When Abe was just eight, he was sitting alone 
 in the shed one day when he saw a flock of wild 
 turkeys strut into the front yard. He got his dad's 
 muzzle loading gat and leaning it against a log, 
 young Abe knocked over a wild turkey. It hurt him 
 to see the majestic bird take the count and that's the 
 last thing Abe ever shot and killed. 
 
 His dad thought Abe ought to be learning to 
 shoot straight and be ready to provide the deer 
 steaks in case something happened to him, but Abe 
 didn't care to do the shooting and his dad didn't 
 press the issue. 
 
 The next year the cabin was completed. It was 
 on the square, 18 by 18 feet, with a stick chimney 
 plastered with clay on the outside. There was no 
 window. The floor was sacked down dirt. 
 
 But it had an attic and a hole cut in the floor so 
 Abe could climb a ladder and get into his room. 
 
 School was nine miles away but Sarah and Abe 
 were started to school, a walk of 18 miles a day, for 
 a girl and a little boy. Tom said to Abe, "I want you 
 to have a real eddication — You air going to larn 
 readin', writin' and ciphering." 
 
 Page 15 
 
FIFTH ROUND 
 
 "The Grim Reaper" 
 
 T WAS no picnic in this here wilderness, but it 
 seemed pretty good to the Lincolns, so, after they 
 had got going, Tom and Betsy Sparrow flew in one 
 cool fall day. They had their adopted son Dennis 
 Hanks with 'em. They had come to stake a claim 
 and stick around. 
 
 But before a year had passed both Tom and 
 Betsy were attacked by a disease that they called 
 in the wilderness the milk sick. The real name of the 
 disease is not known to this day. Nancy Lincoln 
 cared for Betsy and Tom, doing all she could to save 
 their lives, but it was no use. They died and were 
 buried together on a hill on the Lincoln homestead, 
 and Nancy took the disease from them. Her tongue 
 became coated with white, her feet and hands grew 
 cold. Abe wrapped bear skins about his mother's 
 legs and helped to move her close to the fireplace. 
 
 Nancy realized that she was dying — Nancy, the 
 mother Abe loved with a devotion seldom seen in 
 children. Yes, Nancy knew she was dying and Abe 
 and Sarah realized, too, that death was taking their 
 mother, their protector, their friend. 
 
 Nancy motioned with her hands for her children 
 to come to her. She ran her bony fingers through 
 the dark sandy hair of her son, and she seemed to be 
 saying, "Abe, you must be good to your sister and 
 to your dad." 
 Page 16 
 
Nancy looked so tired. Abe stood there beside 
 her, holding her hand, and then she smiled, the 
 weary look passed from her haggard face and she 
 slept, the sleep from which no one awakens. Nancy 
 Hanks Lincoln, the woman who had borne and 
 mothered the greatest man this country has ever 
 known, passed on, never to know on this earth, that 
 the son who came to her in the log cabin of the wil- 
 derness would one day free millions of slaves; never 
 to know that her son would die a martyr, yet live 
 forever, just as she, too, will live forever in history 
 as the mother of that backwoods railsplitter — the 
 man of destiny. 
 
 So Abe stood there beside her — saw her face 
 take on the look of an angel, and whispered "Mam- 
 my, Mammy." And then he knew. The little boy, 
 10 years old, knew — his mammy was no more — he 
 moved to the corner and wept. His daddy was weep- 
 ing, too, and so was Sarah. But one must not weep 
 too long in the wilderness for there is work to be 
 done. Tom Lincoln went silently out and got a log, 
 and Dennis Hanks, who had just lost his adopted 
 father and mother, helped whipsaw this log into 
 planks, plane the planks smooth and fashion them 
 into a coffin to take the last mortal remains of Nan- 
 cy Hanks Lincoln. 
 
 Nancy Hanks was just 36 years when the wil- 
 derness claimed her. 
 
 It was lonesome for Abe and Sarah now with 
 their mother gone, and their father was silent a 
 great deal of the time — he saw that the children 
 were silent — he knew they missed their mother — 
 that they should have a mother. 
 
 Page 17 
 
SIXTH RUBBER 
 
 Toni puts over a fast one 
 
 LONESOME year dragged down into history. A 
 tough year for Sarah and Abe, but they stuck by 
 each other and so it passed. Then their old man, he 
 was a comfort to them, waltzed into the shack one 
 day and said, "Kids, your pappy is walking out on 
 you for a while. Take care of things — I'll be back." 
 
 Tom had been thinking of that old girl of his, 
 Sarah Bush, the baby who had taken the double har- 
 ness with Johnson and given Tom the heartaches 
 for a time. He knew her husband had cashed in his 
 checks and so he doped it out that it would be square 
 to speak his piece. And what a piece it was! He 
 was rehearsing it all over the trails as he stepped off 
 the miles. Finally he hit Elizabethtown, Kentucky, 
 did a two-step up to Sarah's shanty and opened up. 
 
 "Hello, Miss Johnson," Tom said. "I have no 
 wife — you have no husband. I came a-purpose to 
 marry you. I knowed you from a gal and you 
 knowed me from a boy. I've no time to lose; and if 
 you're willing, let it be done straight off." 
 
 "I got debts," was her comeback. 
 
 And Tom said, "Gimme a list — I'll pay them." 
 They were just piking as we think of debts now in 
 these days of dollar down and try to catch me when 
 the radio, the automobile, the piano and the victrola 
 may all be just so many debts. 
 
 But Tom laid the dough on the line. There 
 Page 18 
 
was a license issued and they did the plunge into 
 matrimony December 2, 1819. 
 
 Sarah and Abe in the cabin with Dennis, the 
 boy of 19, as head of the household, spent some 
 weeks waiting, and then one a. m. a wagon drawn 
 by four horses appeared in the clearing. They were 
 breathless with excitement, and when they lamped 
 their dad sitting on the seat, their excitement burst 
 into a fever for there were four others in that wagon, 
 a woman and three children. 
 
 The wagon creaked to a stop. Sarah and Abe 
 were a little shy at the strangers, but Tom hopped 
 off and he put his hands on Abe's shoulders and 
 Sarah got under his wings and Tom said, "Children, 
 here's your new mammy." 
 
 In this manner did Sarah Bush Johnson Linc- 
 oln, Abraham's new mammy, come into his life, and 
 they were friends from that moment on. Sarah had 
 a great deal to do with the shaping of the life of Abe 
 Lincoln. Never in history has a step-mother been 
 more kind, more loving and more loved. 
 
 The children got acquainted. There was John, 
 Sarah and Matilda, three playfellows for the Linc- 
 oln kids. There were feather beds and a slick wood 
 bureau and a clothes chest and skillets and forks 
 and spoons — Sarah's things. Abe touched the slick 
 things, polished walnut, and admired them. It was 
 the first time he had seen such swell fixings, the 
 first time he had ever seen any but home-made furni- 
 ture, cut from the logs of the wilderness. That very 
 night Abe sunk his bony frame into a feather bed 
 for Sarah tossed the corn husks out of his bunk and 
 said, "Big boy, you're going to have it soft. You've 
 got a new mamma to love you now." 
 
 Page 19 
 
SEVENTH MOVE 
 
 Did that kid grow? Did he ever? 
 
 BE sunk into the feathers and tore off a flock of 
 shut-eye. It did him good. The next morning he 
 smacked his new mammy on the cheek, a cheeky 
 osculation, and then he started to grow out of his 
 breeches. From then on he startled his old man by 
 sprouting like corn in a hot sun. When he was 17 
 he stood six feet four inches in his stocking feet if 
 he had owned sox. But mostly he hoofed it on the 
 hide and his pups were tougher than whet leather. 
 And strong ! Horseradish was weak beside that 
 kid. On Gentry's agricultural estate, only a mashie 
 pitch from Abe's joint, a general merchandise em- 
 porium was started and it became the nucleus of a 
 tank town and the village loafers did their waiting 
 there. Here Abe was recognized as the strongest 
 geezer of the lot, but he didn't do any loafing. He 
 could split more rails than any ax manhandler in 
 the neighborhood. And when it came to lifting hen 
 houses and corn cribs he was the best bet in the 
 county. 
 
 Abe didn't know his own strength. One night 
 he found a gent freezing to death in a puddle. The 
 rest of the boys gave the blotto lush a horse laugh 
 and went on. Abe hoisted him to his shoulders, 
 he was a big guy, and toted him to a cabin, built a 
 fire and left him to sleep it off. The bird later pub- 
 licly thanked Abe for saving his life. 
 Page 20 
 
The lanky kid heard that a lawyer was to turn 
 on the oratory in a town 17 miles away — and he 
 walked into that burg, heard the speech and hoofed 
 it back the same night. It didn't trouble him to take 
 a little hike like that in one day. 
 
 In spare moments Abe was reading, puzzling 
 out books. He was kidded a little bit for his atten- 
 tion to books. Once Josiah Crawford loaned him a 
 volume and Abe kept it in his bed in the attic. Rain 
 washed through the roof and soaked the book. Abe 
 went to Josiah and said, "Rain has spoiled your 
 book and I haven't got money to pay for it, but I'll 
 work it out for you." And Josiah said, "Well, you 
 can pull fodder for me in that field there. 
 
 So Abe pulled fodder, stripping the blades from 
 the cornstalks and he pulled for two days until 
 there wasn't a blade left on a stalk in the field. 
 
 His old man thought Abe was the gangliest, 
 awkwardest feller that ever stepped over a ten rail 
 snake fence. And his step-ma said she didn't mind 
 him bringing dirt into the house on his dogs because 
 she could scrub the floor, but she wanted him to 
 keep his dome clean because if he didn't, he would 
 be dirtying the white washed rafters. 
 
 This gave Abe a belt and a dandy idea for a 
 joke. He got some barefooted boys to wade in a 
 creek and get their feet muddy. Then he watched 
 his chance, took the boys to the cabin, and, one by 
 one, lifted them up to put feet prints on the rafters 
 as if the boys had walked upside down. 
 
 Then he waited for his step-ma to come in and 
 when she saw it she laughed and chortled, but told 
 Abe he ought to be spanked. Abe said, "Mammy, I 
 just wanted to git you to laugh — I'll clean it all up." 
 
 Page 21 
 
And he cleaned the rafters and whitewashed them 
 again. 
 
 Abe was already getting a reputation for tell- 
 ing the truth. They had not yet started to call him 
 "Honest Abe" — but everyone knew that he could 
 be trusted and what he said wasn't perhaps. His 
 step-mother often boasted, "Abe ain't spoke a cross 
 word to me since we lived together and he ain't told 
 one lie, never one lie." 
 
 Abe was working like a grown man, doing his 
 stuff well but he was having fun, too, reading every 
 book he could get his dukes on and playing pranks 
 now and then. It was a tough life, but all he knew, 
 and he was happy. Then another blow hit him. His 
 sister had been married for about a year when she 
 passed on into the beyond. Abe had loved that sis 
 as a pal. 
 
 Page 22 
 
EIGHTH LEAP 
 
 Abe pinched — learns about law 
 
 BE had given every book he could grab off a thor- 
 ough going over by the time he was 18. No printed 
 matter within 50 miles of the Lincoln shanty had 
 escaped his peepers, but he hadn't come to any con- 
 clusions about a career. He probably figured he 
 would go on trying to scratch the earth for a living, 
 then he got into a jamb. Old lady justice stuck her 
 head up and he learned about law from her. It was 
 revelation to the kid; probably gave him the notion 
 that he could go pretty good in there. 
 
 Here's the low down: 
 
 A steamboat plied up and down the Ohio river 
 and Abe had got next to the idea that some jack 
 could be made. He had built a raft for his own use 
 to haul things to the boat to peddle. One day a 
 couple of bimboes, men he had never seen, asked to 
 be put aboard the boat. Abe said, "Get on, 
 I'll pole you out," and he took them to the 
 crate. Each had tossed him a four-bit piece. 
 He caught one but was not expecting so 
 much wealth as a second fifty-cent piece and he 
 was not ready when it was tossed to him. He 
 muffed it and the fortune slid into the muddy water, 
 never to be recovered. The fact that one could get 
 so much money for so little work set Abe to think- 
 ing. One whole buck had been given him. Of course 
 he only had a half of it, but it was important dough 
 
 Page 23 
 
to him, even a half of it. The most he had ever 
 earned before was 31 cents and it had taken him a 
 whole day, from sun up to sun down, at the disagree- 
 able job of skinning pigs to get that much jackaloo; 
 so he figured that here was an easier and a better 
 way of garnering in the dobies. Thereafter Abe was 
 waiting at the river on his own raft every time the 
 steamboat was due. He had taken a number of per- 
 sons in his water-going taxi to the big boat and 
 been given quarters and half dollars and reckoned 
 that he was doing fine. 
 
 Then one day he was out there on his raft and 
 he saw a couple of young punks on the other side of 
 the river waving to him to come over. When he got 
 across and stepped off his raft the boys grabbed him 
 and said, "We're going to duck you in the river and 
 larn you a lesson." Swell chance they had. 
 
 Abe was all tough sinews and bone, and he 
 straightened up and said he reckoned they wouldn't 
 care to try anything like that, either one of 'em or 
 both of 'em. And then they figgered maybe it 
 wouldn't be dignified and they squawked out their 
 grievance to young Abe Lincoln. The boys were 
 John and Lin Dill, and they operated a ferry across 
 the river at the point where Abe had launched his 
 log ship. They said he was cutting in on their trade 
 and operating a ferry contrary to the laws of Ken- 
 tucky. 
 
 "How do you get that way?" Abe asked. "You 
 can't pull that stuff on me, but I'm ready to do 
 what's right soon as I find out what's right." 
 
 "Tell it to the judge," the brothers said, and 
 Abe came back, "Show me the judge." So they all 
 hiked into the burg and the ferry pushers swore out 
 Page 24 
 
a warrant while Abe waited. Then he was served, 
 legally pinched, so to speak. The trial started at 
 once. Abe had no sex appeal, but hadn't been 
 dropped from any ox carts either. He got the hang 
 of the charge at once and then he opened up. He 
 was his own attorney and his own witness. Squire 
 John Dill was the magistrate. 
 
 From the law cited it seemed to Abe that he 
 had to cross the creek before he had violated any 
 code, so he said, "Squire, I reckon I'd have to tote 
 a guy clean across the river and set him down on 
 the Kentucky side to be busting that there law — so 
 I'm not guilty." 
 
 The judge said, "Let's hear the complaining 
 witnesses." They both testified that Lincoln had 
 taken passengers to the steamboat. Abe questioned 
 them, "Did I ever take any across to Kentucky?" 
 They had to admit that he hadn't as far as they 
 knew, and the squire said, "Not guilty." Then Abe 
 sat down with the squire for a long talk and he 
 found out that it was a good idea to know the law, 
 no matter what your business, and when he parted 
 with the squire they shook hands and every day 
 that was law day saw Abe poling his boat across the 
 river to hear the cases before the justice of the 
 peace. Abe was learning law and life. 
 
 Page 25 
 
NINTH INNING 
 
 Abe rides the "Daddy of Waters" 
 
 BE, the square shooter, was getting the breaks. His 
 reputation didn't do him a bit of harm. Jimmy Gen- 
 try, the plute with the biggest acreage in the Pigeon 
 Creek district, had been keeping his peepers on Abe. 
 He saw that he had intestinal fortitude and never 
 tried to get away with a lie, not even a pallid one, 
 so Jimmy called Abe in one winter day and said, 
 "Big boy, how would you like to take a trip?" 
 
 "Where, how and when?" Abe asked. 
 
 "Down the big muddy drink," Jimmy answered. 
 "Down the daddy of waters. The Mississippi river." 
 
 "Fine," Abe said. "What's the play?" 
 
 So Jimmy explained. "I want you to build a big 
 raft, float all my extra produce down to New Or- 
 leans. Sell some on the way if you can. But the raft 
 has to be plenty big. Come spring, I'll have hun- 
 dreds of pounds of sow bosom, beans, spuds and 
 corn to peddle. That's the way to get the best mar- 
 ket. You'll be the boss of the trip." 
 
 Taking a ride in an open boat down the Mis- 
 sissippi was no picnic in those days. There was ad- 
 venture, danger in it. 
 
 The river was swarming with rats. Not only 
 the big four legged variety but the bigger two 
 legged rodents who would steal and cheat and rob. 
 These rats were called "half horse and half alliga- 
 tor." The pirates of the big drink were a tough 
 Page 26 
 
crew. Abe armed himself with a bludgeon from a 
 crab apple tree, saying he would crab the act any 
 of those tough babies tried to pull on him. Besides 
 the dangers from men there were the sand bars and 
 whirls and devious currents in the river. 
 
 Jimmy Gentry sent his son and heir, Allen, 
 along but he told Abe that he was boss of the boat 
 and Allen was to obey him. Allen was as old as Abe. 
 They started out on a trip that furnished Abe with 
 a lot of education. Travel is broadening, 'tis said. 
 Certainly Abe broadened out under it and saw 
 things he had never seen before. 
 
 Abe and Allen had to fight the current with 
 their sweeps to keep the flat boat from heading into 
 shore and wrecking itself or getting stuck on the 
 banks. They floated about four to six miles an hour, 
 depending on the current and the difficulty of keep- 
 ing the unwieldy boat off shore. They passed the 
 cave-in-rock on the Illinois shore, with its big sign, 
 "Wilson's Liquor Vault and House of Entertain- 
 ment." A joint in a cave 20 feet square, a road house, 
 or you might say, a river house. Entertainment here 
 was sometimes pretty rough, a place where many 
 farmers who had tried the game of sending their 
 goods down the river and stopped to get a bit of 
 entertainment and had failed to return. There was a 
 room above the cave room, in which the skeletons 
 of 60 men were found a few years later. The Wil- 
 son's had a good thing of their river house. When 
 a river man, rich with a load of groceries stopped, he 
 stopped for a long time, as a rule, and was marked 
 down years later as missing. It was a long trip, you 
 know, and they wouldn't be missed for six months 
 at least. 
 
 Page 27 
 
But Abe and Allen said, "I reckon we don't need 
 any more entertainment than we are getting caring 
 for this boat," and they passed the place in safety. 
 Ullyses, passing the cave of the winds and the 
 islands of the sirens was in no greater danger than 
 these two young birds on a flat boat laden with 
 wealth. 
 
 The days passed. They finally got as far south 
 as Baton Rouge and tied up at a plantation platform. 
 They dropped off to sleep, tired from the long 
 labor of the day. About midnight a noise startled 
 Abe and he grabbed the crab apple bludgeon. As he 
 arose he saw two negroes leaping at him with 
 knives in their hands. He swung the club and 
 knocked them both for a long rest. Allen came to at 
 the sound of the crab apple on human meat. There 
 were five negroes there. Seven had boarded the flat 
 boat to loot the cargo and kill the crew. But Abe 
 calmly set out cracking black boys off with his shil- 
 lalah. One got in with a knife and jabbed at his head 
 but Abe dodged. The knife just slashed his fore- 
 head, over his right eye. Blood spurted but Abe was 
 too busy touching off the Senegambians to be both- 
 ered at the time. The blacks took to their shiny 
 heels and ran to shore. Abe and Allen followed, and 
 chased them into the woods. But the blacks were 
 too fast and they lost them in the woods. Abe and 
 Allen came back, untied the boat and shoved off. 
 Abe put a bandana over his eye, and wore the scar 
 the rest of his life. 
 
 Page 28 
 
I 
 
 TENTH LOOP AND STILL LOOPING 
 
 Take a bite out o' that 
 
 T WON'T be long now," Abe cracked to Allen. He 
 could tell. The traffic was bothering him. And I 
 don't mean the heavy river, either, because he could 
 use the swipes on that old flat bottom boat and beat 
 the congested river traffic. But the slave traffic 
 was the thing that was getting his celebrated an- 
 gora. And the slave traffic was apparent because 
 of the heavy river traffic. 
 
 Flat bottom and steam scows, loaded to the 
 river line with pigs, pumpkins and people (black 
 people) told him that they were cramping down on 
 the big metropolis, New Orleans. 
 
 But even his excitement, which was bound to 
 hit a kid, couldn't take his mind off the sights he 
 was seeing and couldn't give his mind any peace. 
 In fact, he wanted to give a piece of his mind to the 
 big black and chocolate traders he saw with bull- 
 snakes in their fat hands, herding their stock in 
 trade on the flat boats. 
 
 It was here, slipping into the delta region, that 
 Abe got his first low down on the slave trade. It 
 was here, no doubt, that the hatred of that trade 
 took a real solid form in his bosom. He saw blacks 
 handled like cattle, driven like cattle in droves. He 
 saw them chained to the decks. He heard the 
 screams of mothers as their pickaninnies were 
 snatched from their lacteal fountains. His eyes 
 
 Page 29 
 
flashed. His old ticker pounded and he cursed man's 
 inhumanity to man. 
 
 Abe gritted his molars and said, "If I ever get 
 a shot at that business I'll crack it like a peanut 
 shell." Gosh, how he longed to leap over the side of 
 his scow and plant five in the face of one of the 
 birds with a fancy vest and a foul mouth who was 
 peddling a slave girl to a vicious buyer. Can't you 
 picture this kid, this soft hearted kid who wouldn't 
 shoot a bird for food or fun, looking on at the most 
 terrific traffic that ever smeared a blot on our coun- 
 try? Can't you picture him, sitting there, keeping 
 his coop, for he was powerless, but shaking his fist 
 just the same, and saying, "Take a bite out o' that !" 
 
 They landed in the mob, bartered off their gro- 
 ceries, and took a turn around the big town. There 
 they visited slave markets. Saw men and women 
 sold at auction. They visited slave stables. They 
 saw humans sold for prices ranging from 100 bucks 
 for a scrawny field nigger to a grand for a plain and 
 fancy hemstitching girl. The things Abe saw he 
 never forgot. They were to stick in his skull until 
 that day he knew the blacks were all free and that 
 there was no chance of that filthy serpent, slavery, 
 passing out any more apples in our country, the land 
 of the free and the home of the none too cowardly. 
 
 The pair stuck around the town for three days, 
 their eyes hanging out like banjoes and their ears 
 cocked at the strange lingo they were tuning in on. 
 They heard much talk about how to tame a bad 
 black, how to use the rawhide; and then they 
 hopped a river going steamer and hit out for the 
 north, their jeans packed with dough. 
 Page 30 
 
ELEVEN, IT'S A NATURAL 
 
 Into the sucker state 
 
 T HAD been a big year for Abraham, this year of 
 1828. The 19-year-old giant had got in plenty of 
 travel. He had bisected the U. S. riding the Daddy 
 of Waters to the gulf and back. Travel is broaden- 
 ing, they say. It certainly spread out Abe. That 
 year he got his mits on a law book, his first one, and 
 he did beaucoup skull practice with it. The news- 
 papers were packed with politics. Old Hickory 
 Jack of New Orleans, who gave General Packing- 
 ham Yankee beans, was getting the most ink. Jack- 
 son, the democratic bozo, was putting a crimp in the 
 aristocracy line of big shots in the government. 
 Abe read every line he could find. 
 
 Abe heard of Johnny Appleseed, the tramp 
 preacher, who gave the west its wine-saps and ap- 
 plesauce by gathering seeds in Pennsylvania and 
 carrying them west, planting them and telling the 
 farmers to grab off all the shoots they could use, 
 saying, "Start orchards in this wilderness." They 
 did, too. Johnny was a character worth a volume 
 himself. He wasn't afraid of anything on this little 
 old footstool. He never had a dime and didn't want 
 one. For his morning coat he wore a gunnysack 
 and his evening clothes and dress suits were made 
 of the same fancy material. He was a bird who knew 
 his Golden Rule and he didn't clip any inches off 
 it either. 
 
 Page 31 
 
In the fall of 1829 Abe was busy felling trees to 
 build a big shack on his dad's land. He cut and 
 trimmed the trees to the proper log lengths and 
 then his dad said, "Abe, I reckon we might as well 
 cut out this labor. I think I'll move out of this God 
 forsaken country. I've been hearing great things 
 about Illinois. Fve been hearing that you kin raise 
 twice as much corn to the acre as you get in this 
 place." 
 
 That was the line he had pulled 14 years be- 
 fore, when they lived in Kentucky, and then they 
 moved to Indiana. 
 
 Tom had bought 80 acres of land at 2 bucks an 
 acre, had built a log cabin, and had lived and that 
 is about all. But Abe had grown to manhood. 
 
 Now they were going to move; so Tom sold his 
 80 acres for $125, less than he had paid for it before 
 he had cleared it and made it into productive soil. 
 
 Abe started looking for trees big enough to 
 make wagon wheels, and hickory tough enough to 
 make axels and poles for an ox-cart. Young Abe 
 found them, too, and he and his dad built their own 
 wagon. (Body by Abraham.) It was put together 
 with pegs and made entirely of wood except for the 
 steel rims on the wheels that the blacksmith at Gen- 
 tryville made. 
 
 In September, 1829, Tom and Nancy went back 
 to Elizabethtown, Ky., and sold the town lots she 
 had inherited from her first husband for $123. So 
 the Lincoln family had almost $250 in cash, wealth, 
 great wealth, to show for the years of struggle 
 against the wilderness toil in the woods; and they 
 were getting all set to take it on the lam out of 
 Indiana. 
 Page 32 
 
They were movers — they came from a long line 
 of movers and moving was in their blood. 
 
 Abe got to telling around about a family he 
 knew that moved so often that the chickens could 
 tell when it was moving time and they would come 
 up to the old lady, lie down on their backs and stick 
 their feet up to be tied for the next wagon trip. 
 
 Abe was beginning to tell funny stories and 
 have a reputation for a wit. 
 
 They didn't start the actual drive until Febru- 
 ary, 1830, four days after Abe had reached his ma- 
 jority. He was a man grown, 21 years old; he could 
 vote; he could do as he pleased. So Abe thought 
 it would be a smart idea to make a little jack on the 
 side. Before they started he laid in a stock of pins 
 and needles, buttons and tinware, planning to ped- 
 dle them at every farmhouse he found on the way 
 to Illinois. We don't know exactly how much 
 dough, if any, he made on this venture into high 
 finance, but he told many times afterward of one of 
 his experiences in the pin racket, so it gave him a 
 good yarn at any rate. But that's another story. 
 
 They were headed for the Sangamon river — a 
 word which the Indians say means plenty groceries, 
 and what they were looking for, as usual, was eats 
 in abundance. It was just about all a family could 
 get from the wilderness, you know, groceries and 
 skins for breeches. 
 
 They forded the Wabash river, the state line of 
 Illinois. A dog was behind one morning as they 
 crossed a stream. Ice was in the water. The dog 
 whined. Abe took off his boots, rolled up his buck- 
 skin jeans and waded across that creek, got the dog, 
 and they were both happy. 
 
 Page 33 
 
AN EVEN DOZEN 
 
 "Let's be friends" 
 
 BE goaded the tough beef on the hoof and the oxen 
 plodded on, burning up the boulevards at two miles 
 an hour. They hit Decatur, 111. and gave everybody 
 a big laugh. But Abe grinned back at the laughers 
 and said, "How do you git to John Hanks' joint?" 
 and they told him. 
 
 John had been planning on their arrival for a 
 year and had logs all cut for a home for Tom Linc- 
 oln and his family. Tom, Abe and John threw the 
 logs into position and in almost no time they had 
 their home ready. They were ready to settle down 
 for the winter and wait for spring to get in a crop. 
 
 They had no sooner settled down than it 
 snowed. None of this flurry stuff, but plenty precipi- 
 tation in beautiful white crystals. The Lincolns saw 
 nothing beautiful in it, you can bet, for it meant a 
 long, cold, hard winter, with tough sledding to get 
 enough groceries to fill the nose bag. 
 
 That was the year of the big snow. Cattle and 
 horses died in droves. Wolves slid over the crusts 
 on the deep snow and had soft picking in the cattle 
 pens. Many people froze to death. The settlers 
 who lived through that winter called themselves 
 snow birds. 
 
 All of the Lincoln family pulled through, there- 
 by winning the title of snow birds, but they had suf- 
 fered enough in that place to which they had come, 
 Page 34 
 
expecting paradise, and so they moved again, 100 
 miles south, hoping, I suppose, that the winters 
 would be more mild. 
 
 Again they used ox-teams. The next stop was 
 in Goose Nest Prairie in the southern part of Coles 
 county near the Cumberland line. In Cumberland 
 county was a boy named Dan Needham. Dan wasn't 
 what you'd call a weakling. He stood six feet four 
 in his bare dogs and was the recognized champion 
 wrestler of Cumberland county, and all other coun- 
 ties in the vicinity. When the men of the district 
 put their optics on this new rawboned baby from 
 Indiana they decided to have some sport. Abe was 
 six feet four also, you know. They started paging 
 Danny. First one and then another farmer who had 
 seen Abe, looked up Daniel and said, "Dan, there 
 is a new guy over in Coles county as can toss you 
 for a fall so fast you'll never know what downed 
 you." 
 
 "Tie that out in the pasture," Danny said. 
 "There ain't airy man or boy in these parts as kin 
 take a flop out o' me. Why, I'll throw him three out 
 o' four times, anywhere." 
 
 The hicks were ribbing a battle. They took 
 the word to Abe that Danny said he could throw 
 him three out of four times, and Abe didn't dispute 
 it. He wasn't looking for any wrestling matches. 
 But eventually they met, face to face, at a house 
 raising. Tom Lincoln was there with his son, and 
 the men gathered around and said, "Now, Dan, 
 here's your meat. You think you can throw this 
 boy. Let's see you try it." Each of the youths drew 
 back, bashful like; then Tom said to Abe, "Rassle 
 him, son, rassle him." Abe still held off, but the 
 
 Page 35 
 
crowd was having a good time; it was a vaudeville 
 show to them, and they kept urging the boys 
 forward. 
 
 At last they consented to stage a match, three 
 out of four falls. They came together and Dan went 
 down. Dan got up and the crowd hollered, "First 
 fall for Abe." They came together again and Dan 
 went down like a ton of brick, Abe on top of him, and 
 the crowd shouted, "Second fall for Abe." The 
 third time they came at each other Abe got his hold 
 and over went the illustrious Daniel, flat on his well 
 known back. This time the crowd cheered, "Three 
 falls for Abe." Dan got up and wanted to try it 
 again, and again Abe pinned him down as fast as 
 greased lightning. 
 
 When the boys got up, Dan was fighting mad. 
 
 "You tricked me, but I can knock your block 
 off," he shouted, and squared away getting set to 
 put a haymaker across, but Abe didn't even put up 
 his dukes. He simply started salving Dan. "Don't 
 go and show off," Abe said, "I wouldn't want to hurt 
 you for the world. I just happened to get you every 
 time. Let's be friends." Dan still had his fists dou- 
 bled up, ready to get in a fast one, but Abe didn't 
 raise his hands or his voice; he just drawled out a 
 line of chin music that made Dan see he wasn't a 
 bad feller. So Dan, instead of letting drive with his 
 right, opened the fist and stuck it out to Abe, say- 
 ing, "Well, I'll be damned." There was a mouthful 
 in that greeting. Abe liked it, and the boys were 
 friends from then on. 
 
 Page 36 
 
THIRTEENTH, AND NOT UNLUCKY 
 
 He rides the river again 
 
 BE had met a pioneer racketeer named Denton Offut 
 during the winter. Dent could throw his voice with 
 conviction. He was long on promises and short on 
 delivery. Dent had promised that he would have a 
 flat boat all loaded with goods to go to New Or- 
 leans early in the spring. He told Abe and John 
 Hanks and a herring tearer named John Johnson, 
 to meet him at the Sangamon river branch near the 
 village of Springfield, early in the spring and be all 
 set to take a long float down the Mississippi. This 
 was Abe's dish since he had made that long trip 
 once before. He was hot for the job. 
 
 The three men were at the river branch at the 
 appointed time but there was no flat boat and no 
 Denton Offut. They waited around for a day and 
 then they hoofed it into Springfield and started 
 looking for Denton. They found him, all blotto in 
 the Buckhorn tavern. Dent was out, saturated with 
 squirrel juice, but Abe sobered him up and reminded 
 him of his promise. 
 
 "By gosh, that's right," Denton said. "Now I 
 plumb forgot that, but it's still a go. I'll sail for that 
 notion after all. You boys go onto the government 
 timber land, cut yourselves some gunwales and I'll 
 go to the saw mill and get the rest of the lumber. 
 Abe named himself chief cook and bottle washer 
 
 Page 37 
 
and they got together a camp outfit and went into 
 the woods to do their stuff. 
 
 A sleight-of-hand performer came along and 
 asked for a hat, saying he wanted to take some eggs 
 out of it. Abe offered his kelly, a battered old affair 
 that had seen better days, and drawled, "I hesitate 
 to offer you this sky-piece, not so much out of re- 
 spect for the hat as for the eggs." And he got a hand 
 from the show man. 
 
 It took the boys 30 days to build the boat and 
 get it loaded. While they were working in the 
 woods near the Sangamon river, two men tried to 
 shoot down the swollen flood in a canoe. The canoe 
 did a turtle act and the men were dumped into the 
 ice cold drink. 
 
 Abe saw it. The men grabbed an overhanging 
 tree, a tree surrounded by swirling, treacherous 
 waters. 
 
 Abe yelled, "Hang on, boys, I'll get you." Roll- 
 ing a log to the water's edge, he tied a rope to it, 
 tied the other end of the rope to a tree; then grab- 
 bing a pole, straddled the log and pushed himself 
 out to the freezing men. "Now drop," he said, and 
 he got them both aboard the log and worked back to 
 shore, just as calm as could be. The men went about 
 after that telling how Abe Lincoln had saved their 
 lives. 
 
 A man once before had told, time and again, 
 about how Lincoln had saved his life. Abe was just 
 a big, rawboned human, with a heart in his bosom, 
 leather in his soul and a flock of gray matter in his 
 big head. Calm, thoughtful and cool headed. A bird 
 who could take a look at a situation and tell what 
 to do. 
 Page 38 
 
When they reached New Orleans they had to 
 walk a mile, not to get a camel, but to get to the 
 docks. They walked this over other flat boats that 
 crowded the river. Shipping was growing. The 
 west, the great Mississippi valley, was beginning 
 to send large cargoes to New Orleans and the slave 
 trade was booming, even greater than it had been 
 when Abe saw the cargo of blacks and gave slave 
 markets the once over before. 
 
 There were ads everywhere telling of negro 
 sales and showing what a brisk traffic there was in 
 human souls. One trader gave notice in handbills, 
 "I will at all times pay the highest cash price for 
 negroes of every description, and will also attend to 
 the sale of negroes on commission, having a jail and 
 yard fitted expressly for boarding them." 
 
 And another nigger peddler announced, "I have 
 on hand 45 likely niggers, good cooks, a fiddler, a 
 carriage driver, a fine seamstress and a likely lot of 
 field men and women. Will sell all at a small profit 
 as I want to go to Virginia for another large lot for 
 the fall trade." One bird advertised, "Likely wo- 
 man, 25, with three small children." Just like ad- 
 vertising a mare with colts. 
 
 Everywhere there were advertisements of run- 
 away negroes. Most of these were for faded blacks. 
 One ad said, "$100 reward for the return of a bright 
 mulatto man slave, named Sam, light sandy hair, 
 blue eyes, ruddy complexion, is so white as very 
 easily to pass for a free white man." 
 
 It burned Abe up. His hatred for slavery got 
 hotter and hotter. 
 
 Page 39 
 
ft 
 
 yll 
 
 14 STROKES AND STILL IN THE TRAP 
 
 Goodby, Pa; goodby, Ma 
 
 BE had peddled the pork and done it well. He 
 worked his way back to New Salem by stoking the 
 boilers on a steamer, and when he reported his suc- 
 cess to Dent, this big hearted bozo said, "Abe, you 
 win the hand painted bath tub. In a few weeks I'm 
 going to open the biggest durned department store 
 this burg ever heard about. Run along home now, 
 but come back in four weeks, for I want you to be 
 my chief executive in the mercantile and grocery 
 business." 
 
 Abe trotted home. 
 
 Came a day. They will come. And on this day 
 Abe was going out into the big world and knock it 
 dizzy on his own. He was severing the well known 
 home ties to go to New Salem and work for Denton 
 Offut, big bologny artist. Saying goodby to the old 
 man wasn't so tough, but it was hard to take leave 
 of the beloved step-mother. They fell into a clinch 
 and Abe laid his cheek next to that of the woman 
 he loved as if she were his parent and consanguinity. 
 A tear was dropped and Abe was off. 
 
 When he hit the village he was all pepped up. 
 Here was life, big time stuff. New Salem was the 
 coming metropolis. It was as big as Chicago was 
 then. It was on a river and it had its boomers. Dent 
 himself said he was going to build it into a great 
 city and Abe was going to have a hand in the build- 
 Page 40 
 
ing. He was going to start peddling prunes and 
 prams in the store, and who knows, maybe be a 
 great merchant. 
 
 But there were greater things in store for this 
 gangling youth of 22 who hit the village in 1831 than 
 even he dreamed. Ankling down the main drag, Abe 
 discovered that it was election day. At the ballot 
 booth he stopped and rubbered in and out walked a 
 bozo with a question in his eyes. 
 
 "Say, big boy, can you write ?" 
 
 Now Abe had been the chief scribbler for his 
 county in Indiana. He was the letter writer for all 
 the countryside. Abe had worked hard, by himself, 
 and he knew his Alpha Beta Gamma but he was no 
 wise guy, no smart cracker who was proud of his 
 extraordinary ability. Instead of stringing the guy 
 with a line about being a penman from way back, 
 Abe answered simply, "Oh, I reckon I can make a 
 few rabbit tracks." This was enough. Writers were 
 few and far between. The gent grabbed him and 
 said, "Inside, boy, and do your stuff." 
 
 Abe went inside and grabbed the goose quill. 
 It was all the same to him. Goose quill, ax or flat 
 boat. He could navigate. And on this, his first day 
 in New Salem, he met every voter of the place. 
 That's what I call getting away to a start. Voting 
 was a matter of throwing the voice then. The 
 Australian ballot wasn't. 
 
 The day's labor over, a little extra jack in the 
 jeans, and Abe went to see Dent. "Where's the big 
 store?" he asked. 
 
 And again the bunk shooter was shy on de- 
 livery. There was no store and no stock for it. But 
 Abe speared a job just the same. A job taking a 
 
 Page 41 
 

 pill roller down the river to Beardstown, 111. The 
 doc was beating it for Texas and he needed a navi- 
 gator to get him to the big river. Abe did it. He 
 said he sailed the crate out over the prairies a couple 
 of times before he hit straight, but he made the 
 grade and returned. 
 
 Dent bought a lot for 10 smackers, some lumber 
 and a couple of nails, and said, "Abe, there's your 
 store. Put it up." Not to be kidded, Abe proceeded 
 to put it up. The goods arrived and the lanky mer- 
 chant started stocking the shelves. The store was 
 small but the stock was varied. Butter, bonnets, 
 whiskey, wool, shoes, sugar, gloves, gimcracks, cof- 
 fee, calico. 
 
 Bill Green was made first assistant manager 
 and credit man. Bill was 18 and the son of the local 
 squire. He was supposed to know who could pay 
 his bills and who couldn't, and why. This boy, Bill, 
 was a big booster for Abraham. He went around 
 telling the pop-eyed world that Abe Lincoln knew 
 his oats better than anybody else on the old apple. 
 He said, "He's the best all around, catch-as-catch- 
 can wrestler, book reader, prune peddler or story 
 teller in these parts, and I wouldn't be surprised if 
 he gets to be president of the United States." That's 
 what you call inspiring confidence and I don't 
 mean perhaps. 
 
 Word got about that the new sugar seller was 
 a bearcat and the Clary Grove gang got snooty over 
 it. They had a bird in their outfit who was supposed 
 to have the world cheated at wrestling. 
 
 Bill Clary, who ran a giggle-soup emporium 
 next to Dent's store, bet Dent 10 bucks that Abe 
 Page 42 
 
couldn't throw this Clary wonder. His name was 
 Jack Armstrong. 
 
 The talkies were not bothering people then and 
 any event that looked sporting drew like a magnet. 
 Men came from 50 miles around to see the match. 
 Bets ran high. Money, marbles and chalk were laid 
 on the line. 
 
 Jack was a tough mug. He was short and 
 powerful as the celebrated bull. Abe held him off 
 for a while, wore him down 'till Jack got sore as 
 one of Job's pet boils. Jack then fouled Abe by 
 stamping on his right dog. This was too much for 
 our even tempered hero. He reached out, picked up 
 Mr. Armstrong by the neck, shook him like a dog 
 shakes a rat, then threw him in the dust so hard a 
 couple of Chinamen got jolted. And he threw him 
 flat on the back, too. 
 
 As the big champ from Clary's Grove lay there, 
 a busted hero, his gang moved in on Abe with 
 menace in their eyes, knives in their dukes and 
 curses in their teeth. They were going to clean the 
 guy who had made a bum out of their hero. Abe 
 slipped back to the wall and faced them. He was 
 going to take them on, all at once, and he didn't 
 ask for quarter. 
 
 They were moving in. It looked bad for him, 
 
 but Jack Armstrong had come to, in the meantime, 
 
 shook himself in the dust and got to his feet. He 
 
 saw the play and breaking through the crowd he 
 
 came up to Abe and grabbed his mit, shaking it. 
 
 Then he called out, "Lay off, you rabbits. This here 
 
 guy tossed me fair and he's the squarest, best bird 
 
 that ever hit this community." 
 
 Page 43 
 
15*2; 15-4 AND A PAIR IS SIX 
 
 Abe cops the title "Honest" 
 
 ONEY was tough to get in those days. (It doesn't 
 roll up hill yet.) But the dough we get today is real 
 jack and easy to spend. In those rare old days, not 
 to say ripe, money might be whiskey, tobacco, shin- 
 plasters or wildcat cash. The wildcat marker^ 
 weren't so good. A story is told about a steamboat 
 captain who needed a load of wood. He pulled up 
 at a dock and shouted to the hay-shaker loafing 
 there, "I want about 40 cords of wood." 
 
 "What kind of dough you got?" the big stove 
 wood man shouted back. 
 
 "Wildcat," came the answer. 
 
 "Fine," said Mr. wood dealer. "I'll trade you 
 even. A cord of wood for a cord of money." That's 
 how they respected the wildcat kopecs. 
 
 So you can see folks didn't want to get a trim- 
 ming on a deal. And Abe wasn't a boy to give any- 
 one a short change act, either. 
 
 One A. M. a dame came into the Offut store and 
 laid hard sugar on the line for some calico. After 
 she had taken her goods, her change and her de- 
 parture, Abe got to checking up and he discovered 
 that she had paid six cents too much. Abe took the 
 dough, and when the store closed at night he walked 
 six miles out to her home and said, "Mam, you paid 
 too much money this morning. It was six cents too 
 much. I've brought the money back." 
 Page 44 
 
She took the mazuma, thanked Abe, and he 
 turned around and hiked six miles back to town. 
 Twelve miles on the hoof to return six cents. Can 
 you tie it? Is it any wonder that he got the name of 
 Honest Abe? It was just naturally contrary to his 
 constitution to cheat in any matter, and he was not 
 one to stall around waiting to right a wrong. He 
 didn't want to carry those six cents for a week or so 
 until that same woman should come to town again. 
 
 Abe was not only milliner, he was also bar- 
 tender. He sold whiskey in the store, by the jug or 
 by the drink, and so loafers sometimes hung around 
 the joint. But they didn't get away with any rough 
 stuff. Some women customers were in the store 
 one day, and a loafer who had too much chatter re- 
 freshments under his rawhide belt started making 
 wise cracks. Abe gave him the high sign to shut 
 his trap, but the loafer pulled another wise crevice 
 that was none too clean. "Keep your face closed, 
 will you?" Abe asked in none too pleasant tones, 
 and then the local wiseacre tried to get funny with 
 our Abraham. Abe turned to his women customers 
 and said, "Pardon me for a moment, will you, 
 please? This person is becoming distasteful. We'll 
 eliminate him." And he picked the gentleman up by 
 the seat of the pantaloons and carried him outside 
 the store, laid him down and, grabbing a handful of 
 smart weeds, proceeded to rub the weeds into his 
 face. "Now you are smart — and how!" Abe said, and 
 calmly returned to duty. 
 
 Such a bird was Abe Lincoln. 
 And here he is again in a slightly different 
 light, 
 
 A local gambler and trickster got into the Green 
 
 Page 45 
 
kid for a small flock of jack on some phoney bet. 
 Abe didn't like to see his bunk mate hooked by a 
 slick racket, so he told Bill to bet that tin-horn that 
 he (Abe) could lift a barrel of whiskey and take a 
 drink out of the bunghole. 
 
 Now a barrel of whiskey weighs something. 
 When the tin-horn came back to the store, young 
 Bill said, "Say, bozo, you like to bet so well, I'll give 
 you a little wager. I'll bet you the best beaver sky- 
 piece in this joint, against one just as good, that Abe 
 Lincoln can lift a barrel of whiskey and take a snort 
 out of it and set it down again." 
 
 "You're full of ballon juice," the gambler said. 
 "There's no bird living can lift a barrel and take a 
 drink out of it." 
 
 "Well, that's what makes a horse race — a differ- 
 ence of opinion," Bill said. "But if you are sure, why 
 don't you lay your jack on the line?" 
 
 The gambler asked Abe, "Can you do that?" 
 And Abe answered, "Well, I never tried it, but I 
 figure I might be able to do it." 
 
 "You're as dumb as Dora herself," the gambler 
 opined. "I'll lay the bet." 
 
 Abe then rolled a barrel full of whiskey out in 
 the middle of the floor, squatted down and rolled 
 it up his knees. Still squatting, he rolled that bar- 
 rel until the bunghole was in the right position, then 
 he pulled the stopper, bent over, took a mouthful of 
 whiskey, put the barrel back on the floor and stood 
 up. Then he spat out the corn juice and said, "I 
 guess you lose, tin-horn." That's the only record of 
 Abe ever getting a mouthful of whiskey. 
 
 Page 46 
 
SIXTEEN-SWEET SIXTEEN AND- 
 
 Kid Kupid scores a knockout 
 
 KINNING a cheat was Oke for a little fun, but 
 Abraham didn't indulge in much of that kind of 
 stuff. He was too busy reaching out for knowledge. 
 He wanted education and he wanted it with a long- 
 ing that made him go get it. He was a man, treated 
 and respected as a full fledged male, but he wanted 
 to be hep to history, good in grammar, mighty in 
 mathematics ; so he continued to read and strive for 
 education. 
 
 Mentor Graham, local school master, told Abe 
 where he could snag a grammar and Abe hiked six 
 miles to borrow the book. Then he ate it up, word 
 for word. He burned pine shavings in a horse- 
 shoer's establishment at night studying it. And 
 while he passed out the groceries he was getting a 
 load of geography. Tea from China, calico from 
 Massachusetts, coffee from Brazil, etcetera. 
 
 When he was digging into the studies, he was 
 distracted at times by the picture of a face that ever 
 swam in his mental optics. A beautiful face. A face 
 that would have made the pageant of pulchritude 
 hands down. And sometimes as he dropped the text 
 book for a moment to contemplate the beauty, he 
 would talk to himself. (Love will do it.) He would 
 say, "Gosh, it can't be possible that a sucker like 
 me can have a girl like her." He was trying to kid 
 himself that he wasn't in love. 
 
 Page 47 
 
It was no use. Abe was in love and he knew it. 
 It hurt him, for he was conscious of his own humble 
 beginning, conscious of the fact that he came from 
 the poor Kentucky Linkerns, who had found it 
 pretty tough going to read or write. 
 
 Abe was not one to kid himself or glorify him- 
 self. Try as he did to get an education, to learn to 
 know more than anyone else in New Salem about 
 the subjects of grammar and reading and writing, 
 still he did not think himself worthy of the ritz 
 number, the girl with corn silk hair, deep blue eyes 
 and fair pink cheeks, whose image he could not erase 
 from his medulla oblongata for one minute. 
 
 A debating society had been formed in New 
 Salem with the educated people of the district as 
 members. The society was for folks who wanted to 
 advance themselves, and that was Abe's dish. He 
 certainly did want to advance himself. It had been 
 his fondest wish from early boyhood. 
 
 Wherefore, Abe, the store-keeper — ladies' bon- 
 nets and clowning water — joined. In the course of 
 human events it became necessary for him to burn 
 the tonsils. 
 
 He opened his address with an apology, but as 
 he warmed to the subject, marshalling facts and pre- 
 senting squads east about as a general would pre- 
 sent his troops in perfect formation, he got hot and 
 impressive. 
 
 His self consciousness departed. His tongue 
 got loose and so did his hands. They came out of 
 the pockets and waved about in loose gestures. Now 
 and then Abe would illustrate a fact with a flash of 
 wit or a pointed yarn that would give the house a 
 laugh. 
 Page 48 
 
Yes, Abe was going good, and the whole society 
 listened with respect to the lanky youth. But, as Abe 
 came to close, he broke down and said, meekly, that 
 he hoped his argument would stand on its legs and 
 command respect. 
 
 There was applause, but he didn't know whether 
 he had scored a hit or whether the company was 
 simply being polite to him. 
 
 But the next day it came to his ears that James 
 Rutledge, president of the society, had said, "There 
 is more than just wit and fun in the head of Abe 
 Lincoln. ,, And this had given him a thrill that 
 nothing else could give him, because the vision of 
 femininity he was worshiping from the side lines 
 was the daughter of this James Rutledge. She was 
 Ann Rutledge, then 18, and undoubtedly the most 
 beautiful belle in the whole community. 
 
 Rutledge ran the town tavern. We would not 
 think of this as an especially exalted position, but 
 Rutledge was educated and the most looked up to 
 man in the vicinity. He came from the famous Vir- 
 ginia Rutledges. One of his ancestors had signed 
 the Declaration of Independence, and he was a man 
 of means and pride. 
 
 Abe had seen that beautiful girl standing on 
 the bank when he had worked the flat boat over the 
 dam, when he had made his first hit for wit and 
 calm action in this tiny city of New Salem. He had 
 seen her there and the image had remained with 
 him, but Abe had never tried to talk to her. Instead 
 he kept saying to himself, "It can't be that such a 
 sucker as me can have such a girl as her." 
 
 There you have seen the start of one of the sad- 
 Page 49 
 
dest love affairs in the history of our national 
 figures. 
 
 Now Abe took a slight tumble to himself. He 
 went to the tavern every once in a while and found 
 that he could sit beside the beautiful Ann; and al- 
 though his heart was hammering like a trip ham- 
 mer, and the blood seemed to make his temples 
 feverish, still he could pull a line about the weather 
 and get by with it. Thank God for the weather. 
 
 At nights Abe would whisper, "Ann Rutledge" 
 — like a prayer the words were — "Ann Rutledge." 
 
 The Cameron dames where he boarded — there 
 were 11 of them — teased him about his skinny legs 
 and gangling arms. He was always ready to admit 
 "I ain't much to look at," but he was cherishing a 
 love in his heart that he was much too bashful to 
 expose to the eye of the world, or even to the object 
 of his love. Yep, it gave him great pleasure to hear 
 that the father of this vision, this angel, had said 
 that he had something besides wit and fun in his 
 dome. 
 
 Page 50 
 
SEVENTEENTH BALLOT 
 
 Abe takes whirl at politics and war 
 
 ENTON OFFUT was hitting the unsurpassed Ken- 
 tucky rye with remarkable regularity, keeping an 
 edge on all the time, neglecting business and letting 
 his emporium get run down at the heels. The words 
 were passed that Dent was "petering out!"* 
 
 And he was slipping no end. He was always 
 sailing under a full cargo of his own limb-to-limb 
 liquor, and Abe saw that he was going to be out of 
 a job pretty soon if he didn't spear something else. 
 It was the winter of 1832 and New Salem was due 
 for a representative up at the state house. Abe said 
 to himself, "Why not? I can read and Jimmy Rut- 
 ledge figures I am not all wet. He came to me and 
 slipped me the idea of tossing this old kelly into the 
 ring." Guess I'll run for this here now legislature 
 job." 
 
 So Abe ran. 
 
 He doped out his own platform and stood on it 
 and for a youth of 23 it was an admirable platform. 
 The major plank was one nearest the heart of this 
 bimboo who had spent his life so far "learning." 
 
 He had had actually only a few days in school, 
 but he had been schooling himself all the time, 
 
 •Some one may possibly have noticed that I have employed a slang phrase or 
 two in hashing this volume together. But that "petering out" phrase is a ripe, old 
 one that was culled from the documents of the time, one they actually used then. 
 Slang isn't new. It isn't even fresh most of the time. The users may be, but the 
 gaga of today comes from the googoo of yesterday. 
 
 Page 51 
 
reading everything that he could find worth read- 
 ing, studying continually. 
 
 Abe, they said, could pump a man dry on any 
 subject and he was always pumping. So Abe was 
 most interested in education and here is one of the 
 planks the 23 year rawboned baby put into his poli- 
 tical platform. 
 
 "Upon the subject of education, not presuming 
 to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can 
 only say that I view it as the most important sub- 
 ject which we, as a people, can be engaged in. 
 
 "For my part, I desire to see the time when 
 education — and by its means morality, sobriety, en- 
 terprise, and industry — shall become more general 
 than at present." 
 
 Abe made one startling pronouncement con- 
 cerning his campaign. He said, "If the good people 
 in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the back- 
 ground, I have been too familiar with disappoint- 
 ments to be very much chagrined." 
 
 While the campaign was getting under way a 
 menace hit the west. The copper kids, sometimes 
 called Indians, got out their compacts and put on a 
 generous supply of war paint. (Save the surface 
 and you save all). The governor of Illinois sent out 
 the call for volunteers to go out and take a poke at 
 Mr. Blackhawk, and Abe dropped his campaigning 
 to become a springer, i. e. to spring to arms. 
 
 The Sac Indians had owned Illinois, planted 
 their corn there for centuries and every fall had 
 pulled their ceremonials, thanking the Great Spirit 
 with prayers and many songs for the harvest. They 
 had fought for this fertile dirt against all comers, 
 and all tribes, and held it, and now they had been 
 Page 52 
 
boosted out of their favorite spot. They had been 
 given a kick in the buckskin breeches and the bum's 
 rush out of their land. Of course they had signed 
 papers, selling Illinois to the government, but their 
 ancestors were buried here and they wanted it back. 
 
 Blackhawk had been chief for 40 years and his 
 blanket bore the imprint of a blood-red hand, show- 
 ing that he was no piker in the game of war. It 
 showed that he had killed and scalped an enemy 
 before he had reached the age of 15. 
 
 Now he heard the call of the Great Spirit, Man- 
 ee-doo, telling him to cross the Mississippi and go 
 grab off the lands of his people ; go kill and scalp. 
 That was his plan and he meant to stick to it. The 
 Fox and Winnebagoes, the Sioux, the Kickapoo 
 and other tribes had sent word that they would back 
 him up in his little job of smearing the whites. 
 
 When the recruiting sergeant hit town Abe 
 was there with his hand in the air; so was Jack 
 Armstrong of the Clary Grove boys, and all the boys 
 from the grove and others. Among the others there 
 was a saw mill man named Kirkpatrick, a leading 
 citizen and plenty influential. 
 
 Kirkpatrick wanted to be captain of this new 
 outfit. Kirk had once cheated Abe out of two bucks 
 and Abe remembered it, but said nothing, of course. 
 Kirk had hired Abe to move a flock of logs and had 
 agreed on a price; then when Abe said he wanted a 
 cant hook, too, Kirk had said that he was sorry, he 
 was just fresh out of cant hooks. Now, it is much 
 easier to move a log with a cant hook than without. 
 In fact, you can't hook a log without a cant hook. 
 But Kirk said, "Well, I'll give you $2.00 extra for 
 doing the work without one." Abe had taken the 
 
 Page 53 
 
job under this agreement, and worked and sweated 
 and tugged hard to make that extra two smackers. 
 But when the work was all done Kirk had failed to 
 fork over with the extra pay. Abe had asked for it 
 and Kirk had given him the run-around. Abe had 
 taken this rotten deal and said nothing, but when 
 Kirk started campaigning among the rookies to 
 have himself set up as captain of the outfit, Abe 
 secretly hoped that he would flunk out. 
 
 When at last they were all lined up and Jack 
 Armstrong said, "Now, let's pick a captain," Abe 
 was tense with excitement. He had not figured that 
 he was in the running. He was not thinking of him- 
 self as an officer. Many things he had studied but 
 he had never studied the C. D. R., or the army regu- 
 lations. But Jack Armstrong said, "I nominate Abe 
 Lincoln to be our captain," and some other buck 
 said, "I nominate Kirkpatrick to be captain." They 
 decided that this was enough and closed the 
 nominations. 
 
 They voted by a very direct method. Abe stood 
 on one side and Kirkpatrick on the other. All who 
 wanted Abe for C. O. were to step to his side, and 
 all who wanted Kirk were to shag their hips over to 
 his side. 
 
 There was a general break to Abe's side and 
 when beaks were tallied, he had two for one over 
 Kirk. You can be mighty certain that Abe got a big 
 kick out of that vote of confidence, that he who 
 didn't have a dime cash, no property, nothing but 
 his own gaunt frame and his own self-tutored brain, 
 was picked to be a captain in the war. 
 
 Page 54 
 
EIGHTEENTH SPASM 
 
 Cap* Lincoln in a technical brig 
 
 HE war was a kind of a flop. It didn't gross big and 
 therefore it had a short run. But it lasted long 
 enough for Abe to get a slant on men in war; for 
 him to get a good look into their hearts and it had 
 a heavy influence on President Lincoln during those 
 terrible years that were to come. 
 
 His men were tough cookies, hard to manage, 
 hard to discipline and it took a man like Abe, with 
 leather in his make-up, to get away with it. But 
 the regular army shave-tails and maple-leafs didn't 
 savvy this at first. The pointers called his company 
 a set of hard men. Not a one of the gang knew 
 "squads east" from "right front into line." Abe 
 didn't either, but he started in to learn. 
 
 His first army command was met with the an- 
 swer, "Aw, go to hell." Abe didn't figure it was 
 time to go yet and he let them know that he was 
 going to be obeyed if he had to trim every dogface 
 in the company. 
 
 Abe was drilling his company one day before 
 he had got the commands down pat. It was march- 
 ing in a column of platoons straight at a fence. 
 There was an open gate and Abe wanted to march 
 the men through but he couldn't think of the com- 
 mand that would create a column of twos so they 
 could hit the hole. The company kept on going 
 straight at the fence and Abe kept worrying what 
 
 Page 55 
 
he should do. He couldn't think of the command, 
 but he got an idea. Resourceful, Abe was. He called* 
 Company-halt." Then he ordered, "This company 
 is dismissed for one minute. When it falls in, it 
 will line up on the other side of the fence." "Smart 
 soldiering," the rookies called it. 
 
 While in camp an old Indian rambled into the 
 clearing one day. The men rushed at him. They 
 were out to kill Indians and here was an Indian to 
 kill, but Abe leaped to the side of the ancient abor- 
 igine, showed his men that the copper hide was 
 carrying a military pass and said, "Men, this must 
 not be done; he must not be shot by us." 
 
 One of the men called Abe a coward. Lincoln's 
 eyes blazed at the charge. He had been called other 
 things but never coward before and he said, "If any 
 man here believes that, let him test it." 
 
 And then there was a cry. "Cap, you're bigger 
 and heavier than any of us." And Lincoln shouted 
 back— "You can guard against that— choose your 
 weapons." And they all cooled off, knowing that 
 Abe was no coward and respecting him because he 
 was not to be kidded, because he was of their own 
 kind, hard— and not one to let his silver bars keep 
 him from mixing it with any one of them. 
 
 And they had reason to respect him for a com- 
 manding officer, too. If men love their officers it 
 is because these officers love them and will go to 
 the front for 'em. Abe went to the front for his 
 buckoos whenever there was occasion. The regu- 
 lars were getting regular chow. But when mess call 
 sounded for Abe's company and other volunteer out- 
 fits, many times it was just too bad. It didn't mean 
 a thing, because there was no mess. Abe went to 
 Page 56 
 
the head of the brigade and said, "My men want 
 their groceries and they are as entitled to them as the 
 regulars." 
 
 Oh, man, do the bucks like to see their com- 
 manding officer speak his pieces to officers from an- 
 other company? I'll say they do. Abe's command 
 got good grub and proper treatment from then on. 
 
 Now we have told you of several wrestling 
 matches in which Abe had it all his own way. Most 
 of his opponents were push-overs for Abe. His boys 
 thought he was the greatest wrestler in the world, 
 including the Scandinavian countries. So the Clary 
 Grove boys, who had seen Abe throw their own Jack 
 Armstrong, issued a general challenge. They said, 
 "Our cap can throw any guy in this man's army." 
 This boast reached the ears of one Gargantuan gen- 
 tleman named Thompson. Thompson had friends. 
 They came over to Abe's company and said, "We'll 
 bet you anything you got that Thompson can take a 
 fall out of your captain." 
 
 Abe agreed to wrestle him and Thompson 
 threw Abe like he was tossing a sack of flour to the 
 ground. They then started on the second fall and 
 Abe had grown leary. He was working hard to save 
 the boys' bets. They had laid all their cash, their 
 jack knives and blankets on Abe. 
 
 Thompson struggled and Abe heaved and grap- 
 pled for a hold, but Thompson was bigger than Abe 
 and stronger and a better wrestler. Thompson had 
 Abe going. Abe managed to hang on and they went 
 down together. Thompson men claimed the fall and 
 the match, but the Clary Grovers thought it was a 
 dog-fall, and not a winner. It looked like a free for 
 all fight, Abe's men against Thompson's backers, 
 
 Page 57 
 
but Abe called out, "Boys, hold everything. If this 
 man didn't throw me fair, he could. Pay your bets. 
 You lost." They paid without a whimper because 
 Abe said to pay, but they still said Abe was the 
 strongest man in the army and could throw any- 
 body in it. 
 
 Abe and his company engaged in only one fight 
 with the Indians. Then the redskins pulled a little 
 frameup to their own liking and nipped off five 
 scouts. They pinched scalp locks from the five and 
 rode away in the night. The bodies were found the 
 next day and Abe read the funeral service over his 
 men. 
 
 But the war didn't last long. The whites had 
 learned that ambush game pretty well and they had 
 also learned a way to corrupt the Indians. Mr. 
 Blackhawk didn't know it, but Sioux and Winnebago 
 scouts had given him the double cross. They led 
 his Sacs into a sack, and the white men pulled the 
 strings. They put Mr. Blackhawk and his army" 
 into the bag and then they waltzed the old gentle- 
 man down to Washington where he was ushered in 
 before Old Hickory Jackson, the great white chief. 
 Both of these chiefs were nearing the 70 mark. Both 
 had killed many men; and the red chief looked 
 straight into Jackson's eye and said, "I am a man 
 and you are another. 
 
 "I took up the hatchet to avenge injuries which 
 could no longer be borne. Had I borne them longer, 
 my people would have said 'Blackhawk is a squaw; 
 he is too old to be chief — he is no Sac' This caused 
 me to raise the war whoopee. I say no more; all is 
 known to you." 
 
 And that was the end of the unpleasantness. 
 Page 58 
 
NINETEEN NOTCHES 
 
 9 Trimmed at the poles; Blackstone 
 
 ft 
 
 BE'S company was mustered out, but the war was 
 not officially off the books so Abe up and enlisted 
 as a buck. It takes some inside fortitude to join up 
 as a buck after being a captain, but Abe did such. 
 When they said of the war, "That's all there is, 
 there isn't any more," Abraham found himself in 
 Whitewater, Wisconsin. Someone had pinched his 
 hayburner so he had to hoof it back to Illinois. 
 
 While in the army he got chummy with a Maj. 
 Stuart, a Springfield barrister and this officer gave 
 him some hot tips on the legal business. The kid 
 kept thinking, "If I could ever get as high as a law- 
 yer in this pop-eyed world I wouldn't mind speak- 
 ing out to Ann." He carried her picture through the 
 war in his heart. 
 
 Once back in his adopted burg of New Salem, 
 he remembered he had launched into a battle for a 
 job of statute manufacturer. He started a personal 
 campaign, and it wasn't from the platform of a pri- 
 vate train, either. More often it was from the south 
 end of a wagon pointed north. 
 
 As a sample, take the speech he pulled from an 
 auctioneer's cart. After the pig peddler had finished 
 his harrangue, Abe took over the flat bed that the 
 spieler had used as a platform. He raised a bony 
 hand and started, "I reckon you all know who I am. 
 I am humble Abe Lincoln." A good start, but he got 
 
 Page 59 
 
no farther. One of his friends was getting a raw 
 deal. Abe hesitated. The fight went on. His friend 
 was getting a whaling from a gang. Abe didn't 
 apologize. He simply stepped down off the wagon, 
 shouldered his way into the crowd, grabbed the 
 bimbo who had started the fight by the seat of his 
 pantaloons and the scruff of his neck and tossed 
 him ten feet for a flop. 
 
 Without making an unnecessary gesture, Abe 
 stepped back to his platform and went on where he 
 had left off. "I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have 
 been solicited by many friends to become a candi- 
 date for the legislature. My politics are short and 
 sweet like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of 
 a national bank; I am in favor of the internal im- 
 provements system and a high protective tariff. 
 These are my sentiments and political principles. If 
 elected, I shall be thankful ; if not, it will be all the 
 
 same." 
 
 Abe made no bones about his position although 
 he knew he was taking the unpopular side. At that 
 time in Illinois politics, almost everyone was for 
 Hickory Jack, and here was Abe, lining up with 
 Jackson's opponents. 
 
 Abe had a way of getting next to the folks that 
 was effective — he would go to a farmer's field, see- 
 ing him pitch hay, Abe would grab a fork and work 
 for an hour without saying a word except, "Howdy." 
 When the hay was pitched Abe would say, "I am 
 running for the legislature. I hope you'll vote for 
 me. If you don't, no hard feelings." And away he 
 would go. 
 
 A judge, Stephen T. Logan (You'll hear more 
 about Logan) got a load of one of Abe's speeches 
 
 Page 60 
 
and said, "He was tall, gawky — rough looking. His 
 pantaloons didn't meet his shoes by six inches. But 
 he made a sensible speech. He had novelty and a 
 peculiarity in presenting his ideas; he had individu- 
 ality." That's it, that's the word. Lincoln had indi- 
 viduality. 
 
 Abe took a bad trimming. But in New Salem 
 therje were 300 votes cast and Abe got 277 of them. 
 Where he was known, he was liked and admired. 
 
 The defeat left Abe without a job. Denton 
 Offut's store had hit the rocks with a dull thud. Abe 
 had his choice of two outs. The local blacksmith 
 wanted to teach him his trade. It was a chance to 
 make a good living. Or Lincoln could go into busi- 
 ness. The stores in the town were failing for one 
 reason or another — there were five of them and 
 none doing very well — but everyone liked Abe and 
 offered to finance him in the proposition of starting 
 a store. 
 
 So Abe and William F. Barry, son of the Pres- 
 byterian sky pilot, purchased a store, called it "Bar- 
 ry and Lincoln" and started into business. 
 
 The store racket was not so hot. There was 
 plenty of time to read, and while this didn't make 
 any impression on the cash register, it put more 
 knowledge into Abraham's coop. 
 
 One day, while Abe was waiting for trade, not 
 on it, a mover stopped and said, "Hey, can you use 
 a barrel?" 
 
 "A barrel of what?" Abe asked. 
 
 "Barrell of nothing," the mover said. Abe saw 
 that he was hard up and probably needed a couple 
 of dimes pretty bad so he said, "I'll give you, four 
 bits for it." The mover was happy to get that much 
 
 Page 61 
 
dough. And Abe had a barrel on his hands. A worth- 
 less barrel, he thought. But give a little heed. It 
 was one of the best investments Abe ever made in 
 his life. It was a turning point. 
 
 Later that day Abe sat contemplating his pur- 
 chase, probably saying to himself, "Oh, well, the 
 poor geek needed the jack. I shouldn't begrudge it." 
 Then he got ambitious and started cleaning the 
 thing out, thinking he might wish it off onto some- 
 body for part of the cost. And while he was digging 
 in the trash inside that barrel he came on a book. 
 
 Any book would hold up Abe until he had taken 
 a good look at it. It was a book by a bird named 
 Blackstone. 
 
 "Blackstone" — hot pups! This was just what 
 Abe had been looking for. Maj. Stuart had told him 
 that all students of law should get a mess of Black- 
 stone and here he had it right in his mitt. 
 
 "Blackstone's Commentaries of English Law." 
 
 The barrel was a gold mine. He had cast a hunk 
 of punk on the waters and it had come back all but- 
 tered and loaded with jam. From then on Abe was 
 busy absorbing the commentaries. Abe Lincoln 
 was studying law. 
 
 Page 62 
 
TWO SCORE, THAT'S 20 
 
 Merchant, postmaster, surveyor 
 
 ARRY and Lincoln, potatoes and pump handles, not 
 incorporated, was sliding into the red so fast that 
 it looked like curtains for the business. Bill Barry 
 was lapping up the corn juice so consistently that 
 he was a washout as far as help was concerned. 
 
 Abe had signed some notes for others and they 
 had taken it on the lam leaving him grasping the 
 bag firmly between the forefinger and the thumb. 
 Debts bothered him. The name, "Honest Abe," had 
 stuck, but some of the creditors were pressing. 
 
 During this troublesome period of his young 
 life he got a break. He was appointed postmaster. 
 No Democrat wanted to read the postcards so Abe, 
 the Whig, speared it. It gave him a chance to read 
 all the newspapers and he liked this feature. He 
 combined the postmaster job with the business of 
 running the store. In the tall and uncut this com- 
 bination is still working effectively. 
 
 Besides reading all the papers, Blackstone, and 
 the old grammar, he was delving into one of the 
 biggest busts of history, the bust of the Roman em- 
 pire, as told by the late lamented Mr. Gibbons. 
 Compared with the crackup of his own business, 
 this was more than colossal, and he probably got a 
 kick out of the history. My dear old dad used to say 
 that you didn't know anything about history if you 
 were not on familiar terms with Gibbons and his 
 
 Page 63 
 
"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." 
 
 Finally Abe's business went kaflooey, just like 
 that. 
 
 Abe was left with nothing but debts and 
 friends. Thank heaven for friends. He had friends 
 he didn't even suspect. One of these gentlemen 
 was John Calhoun, a Jackson Democrat. Calhoun 
 sent word to Abe that he would like to appoint him 
 surveyor for Sangamon county, so Abe walked 20 
 miles to Springfield and said, "John, I sure would 
 admire to get that job. I'm broke and have debts 
 and need the dough, but I want to settle things 
 first. I can't take the job if it means I got to change 
 my views or politics. And I want it clear that I can 
 speak out on any subject just as I feel." 
 
 Imagine! Abe was only 24, needed a job, but 
 he was not going to have his freedom of mind 
 blocked for anybody or anything. And John said, 
 "Why sure, Abe, I ain't putting any bridles on your 
 tongue. Speak out as much as you like." 
 
 Did you ever try to learn how to survey in 10 
 easy lessons? Well, they are not easy lessons. Get 
 a picture of yourself learning it out of a book with- 
 out any practical person to aid; without anyone to 
 tell you about the instruments. 
 
 Abe took the book to Mentor Graham, the 
 school master, and Mentor was glad to help him 
 puzzle out the theorems, the calculus, the logar- 
 ithms. Imagine, doping out that mess of mathe- 
 matics if you had never gone beyond plain ciphering 
 in school. But Abe worked on it, all day and all 
 night. He worked for weeks, getting thinner and 
 thinner and more run down at the heels. Friends 
 got worried and begged, "Abe, lay off of that book 
 Page 64 
 
stuff or you'll be filling a seven foot hole in the 
 ground." 
 
 But Abe said, "I got to learn surveying" and he 
 learned it. There's one for the book; which recalls 
 that Mr. G. Washington also did some surveying 
 before he became known as the daddy of this here 
 now country. 
 
 It took Abe six weeks to master that book and 
 then he started out buying his instruments on the 
 dollar down plan. The pay was four bucks a day 
 when he worked and he only worked now and then 
 when there was surveying to do. Things were get- 
 ting no better fast. It looked black for Abe. Those 
 debts were giving him the heebie jeebies, but he got 
 back his strength in the open. Abe owed $1,100 and 
 he got to figuring that four smackers a day wasn't 
 going to get this all paid back soon. 
 
 The Trent Brothers, who had purchased Abe's 
 wreck of a store, had paid with notes, and after a 
 few weeks they got hot boots and streaked it out 
 of the country. Abe was still holding the sack as 
 you can see, and it was getting his well known 
 mountain goat. 
 
 Had he been yellow, or lacking in leather, he 
 could have taken it on the lam himself. It was the 
 popular thing to do when in bad. But this boy, 
 Abraham, was not made this way. He was one to 
 stand and face the music. This is one of the traits 
 that shows up throughout his whole life. This trait 
 alone made him great. 
 
 To go out and play with the plumb lines and 
 transits Abe had to have a hayburner. He was pay- 
 ing on the charger and only had ten bucks more to 
 go when a tough creditor slapped a suit on him to 
 
 Page 65 
 
collect those bucks. They took the horse and the 
 instruments, too, after getting a judgment, and 
 these were to be sold at public auction to meet the 
 $10.00 debt and court costs. 
 
 Abe was sick at heart at losing his means of 
 livelihood and his faithful old buckskin. It seemed 
 he just couldn't laugh it off. He gritted his molars 
 and grinned at times, but his troubles just wouldn't 
 take the air. 
 
 The day of the auction came and one James 
 Short, a Sand Ridge farmer, was in there bidding 
 on the nag and tools. Jimmie kept on bidding until 
 the price got to $125.00 and they were knocked down 
 to him for that. Jimmie mounted the animal, 
 grabbed the instruments and rode into New Salem. 
 There he found Abe, disconsolate, blue as indigo. 
 
 Abe looked up from the woodpile on which he 
 was sitting and saw Jimmie there astride his horse. 
 He saw Jimmy with his case of instruments and Abe 
 nodded, "Howdy, Jimmie, ,, and Jimmie said, "Morn- 
 ing, Abe — I just bought this old oats-consumer and 
 these funny sticks and peep holes and brought 'em 
 in to you. You need 'em, Abe, and I don't." 
 
 Well, you could have bowled Abe off that wood- 
 pile with a goose quill. Here was a guy with a heart, 
 plenty heart and no fooling. Abe was so happy at 
 this display of friendship, so happy to have his nag 
 back and to have his tools, that he couldn't speak 
 for an instant. He swallowed hard, choking back 
 the happy tears and then drawled — "Uncle Jimmy, 
 I'll do as much for you some day." And he did, but 
 that's another story. 
 Page 66 
 
TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER 
 
 A broken heart 
 
 EING young, in love and in debt at the same time is 
 no picnic. That is the fix Abe was in. He managed 
 to get out to the Rutledge tavern every now and 
 then and sit in on some of the song fests. He man- 
 aged to talk about the dry spell and the "it ain't the 
 heat, it's the humidity" with the girl he loved, but 
 that is as far as he got. His worship must have been 
 reflected in his optics, now and then, but Ann wasn't 
 a forward jane. She couldn't tell Abe to snap out 
 of it and speak his piece. She wasn't that kind of a 
 girl and so while Abe was keeping his heart bleed- 
 ing and his trap shut a fast worker stepped in and 
 copped his girl. 
 
 Abe knew some things about this bird, too, but 
 he wasn't one to get out the hammer for a rival, so 
 he let this McNeil waltz away with the girl — almost. 
 Abe probably figured that he was doing right be- 
 cause McNeil was a go-getter. He had made a bar- 
 rel of money and he wasn't blowing it either. All he 
 made went right down in the sock. 
 
 When Abe had reached the age of 25 another 
 election for state legislature came up and this time 
 he took the stump and cleaned up. In 1834, it was, 
 and he went to Vandalia, the state capital. He was 
 still in debt and had to go in deeper to get a pair of 
 Sunday pants for the job. Sitting at his own desk in 
 the state house, Abe's mind kept going back to New 
 
 Page 67 
 
Salem and the girl he left behind. He couldn't get 
 her out of his memory. He knew that this McNeil 
 person, who probably had some phoney streak 
 somewhere, had beat it out of town, telling Ann he 
 would return soon and they would be married. Abe 
 kept hearing from New Salem that McNeil had not 
 yet showed up. He began to worry for Ann. He 
 feared her heart would be broken. 
 
 Abe came back from Vandalia in 1835. McNeil 
 was still among the missing, and Ann Rutledge wel- 
 comed Abe with pleasure. Shortly after his return 
 Ann wrote to McNeil, telling him that he could take 
 a flying trip to Santa, as far as she was concerned; 
 that she wanted back that promise she had given. 
 
 McNeil didn't even bother to answer her letter 
 and Ann was happy. She had been loving Abe all 
 these years, loving and admiring him and hoping 
 that he would pop the well known question — but he 
 hadn't done it. 
 
 At last she told him slyly about McNeil failing 
 to write to her. Abe clenched his fists. He wanted 
 to go find that trifler and take a poke at him, but 
 instead he held Ann's hand and peace began to come 
 to his troubled heart. It dawned upon him that Ann 
 was free now and he was beginning to get on in the 
 world. A real live member of the state congress was 
 something, even if he did have debts. 
 
 Abe sat holding Ann's hand and then shyly, he 
 said, "Ann, can I comfort you?" 
 
 And Ann said, gaily — "Oh, Abe, I am glad he 
 didn't come back. I guess I never did love him for 
 I am so glad — glad, he didn't come back." 
 
 Now it would take a dumb omelet not to get the 
 meaning of these words and Abe said, "Ann, I love 
 Page 68 
 
you. I guess maybe you know that. I have loved 
 you since I can remember, since that day, years ago 
 when I saw you standing on the bank while I tried 
 to get that stubborn flat boat over the mill, re- 
 member?" 
 
 "Do I remember — I can never forget it. I 
 thought, 'There is a fellow who can do things' — I 
 liked you that day, too, even if we didn't speak." 
 
 It wasn't long until Ann was nestling happily 
 in Abe's long, bony arms, and she felt that they 
 were arms of protection. She knew that Honest Abe 
 was no trifler; that he was steadfast as the well 
 known boulder at Gibraltar. So they planned. Abe 
 was 26 then. Ann was 22, and was going to the 
 Jacksonville Female Academy in the fall. Abe said, 
 "Ann, I'll go to the Illinois College at Jacksonville, 
 too, and then we will be near each other during the 
 whole term." Abe would have to duck his classes at 
 the college to run down to Vandalia for the sessions 
 of the legislature, but he knew he could do that and 
 make up the work. 
 
 From April until August Abe was deliriously 
 happy and so was Ann. Late in August chills and 
 fever came to New Salem. Lincoln had been down 
 and up and down and up, shaking like a drummer 
 shaking for the drinks — his teeth chattering, and 
 he had consumed great quantities of quinine and 
 calomel. Then Ann Rutledge took the fever. She 
 lay burning up with the disease, and at times she 
 was out of her head. She kept calling continually 
 for Abe. Never once did she mention McNeil in her 
 delirium. Abe sat beside her bed, holding her hot 
 little hand in his big, bony one. Ann didn't seem 
 to rally. Abe just sat and prayed silently. His heart 
 
 Page 69 
 
seemed to draw into a knot and to ache all the time, 
 he was so helpless. There was nothing he could do 
 to relieve the suffering of this girl he loved better 
 than life. For two days he did not leave her bed- 
 side. As he sat there, watching her sink, hearing 
 her whisper, "Abe — Abe" his soul was crying. 
 Everything seemed so futile, so worthless. 
 
 While Abe held her hand, she passed on. There 
 was a funeral. Abe was dazed, but he bore up until 
 after the funeral. Then he went away and tried to 
 forget. But there was no use. He was a broken man. 
 His heart had left him. A week after the funeral Bill 
 Green found Abe rambling in the woods, praying 
 aloud and mumbling sentences that Bill could not 
 make out. Bill watched him and then got others to 
 take turns watching him, afraid that he would die 
 alone in the woods, walking and talking. 
 
 Dr. Allen begged Abe to stay indoors and rest 
 and at last he had to rest, he was exhausted. His 
 grief had broken his great physical strength as well 
 as his heart. He stayed at the home of Bowling 
 Green, and Nancy Green kept him busy with little 
 tasks, hoping to ease his mind. He held the yarn 
 for her while she knitted, but he was silent. No long- 
 er did he tell funny stories, or crack jokes. In the 
 evenings it was useless to talk to him for he would 
 simply sit and stare into the open fire. 
 
 Slowly, as the weeks passed, the old time order 
 of self control returned to Abe, but it was said that 
 he was never himself again. The hurt of the sorrow 
 burned in his heart and showed in his eyes. He was 
 a changed man and he kept the mystery of that 
 change to himself, never seeking sympathy, never 
 talking about his sorrow. 
 Page 70 
 
TWENTY-SECOND EPISODE 
 
 A girl and a pig 
 
 EMPUS FUGIT. You can't stop it. Joshua tried, 
 but the dizzy old apple has kept right on whirling. 
 And time heals in one way or another. Time and 
 work. As time passed, Abe got back into work. He 
 was elected again to the state legislature. He was 
 the big shot of the "Long Nine," a bunch of boys 
 all over six feet tall with plenty meat on their bones 
 and gray matter in their domes. 
 
 They were for internal improvements and Abe 
 was their leader. They said, "He follows no geezer. 
 We all follow him." They put over a $12,000,000 im- 
 provement plan. Abe wanted Illinois to be the 
 greatest state on the frontier. They moved the capi- 
 tal from Vandalia to Springfield. Abe grew in power 
 but he lost none of his lowly, humble kindness. A 
 thousand yarns could be spun about this period — 
 how he stuck a pin in a big gas bag named Allen; 
 how he took the snooty legislators down a couple 
 of pegs; how he swayed the house with his simple 
 eloquence. On one matter Abe risked his popularity 
 while making the race for the job. He came out 
 flatfooted for woman suffrage. 
 
 And this was way back in 1836. It was a bomb 
 shell to stick in a platform and the pineapple might 
 have blasted him right out of politics. But it didn't. 
 It shows how forward looking was this lanky youth. 
 He said, "I'm for giving all whites who pay taxes 
 
 Page 71 
 
and bear arms the right to cast a ballot and this goes 
 for the women, too." 
 
 Abe was lonely despite his great labors in the 
 pastures of politics, and so eventually he got to 
 stepping out a little with a baby named Mary 
 Owens. 
 
 Mary had come to New Salem to visit her sister, 
 Mrs. Bennett Able, and Mrs. Able was doing all she 
 was able to make a match. She figured that Abra- 
 ham was scheduled to take a long ride upward. She 
 was betting on his stock, because she knew him as 
 the New Salem folks knew him and had an insight 
 into his sterling worth. He looked like a good bet 
 to her and she wanted to get her sister hooked up 
 with a smart egg like Abe. Mary had just come out 
 of a girl's finishing school and she wore a flock of 
 rags that startled the natives. They said, "My, I 
 never saw such trimmings on a gal before." Mary 
 was a hot flapper of the time, but Abe was no sheik. 
 
 One night he arrived all spattered with mud. 
 He explained that he had been busy rescuing a pig. 
 He said, "Here I was all fixed up in my best Sunday- 
 go-to-meeting rags and I was riding along and there 
 was that poor little porker squealing his heart out, 
 stuck in the mud. I rode right on and I said — 'I can't 
 get all messed up just because a poor little pork chop 
 on the hoof is all mired down in the mud,' and so I 
 rode on, and that pig kept on squealing and I heard 
 him squeal, 'There now, my last hope is gone.' What 
 could I do? I had to ride back and pull that little 
 bacon out of the mud. That's all there was to it." 
 
 Mary listened to this with her nose slightly 
 elevated, as if Abe had been wrong to take notice 
 of a pig. 
 Page 72 
 
They were going to a party at Uncle Billy 
 Green's one night. To get there they had to ford a 
 creek. The young folks were mounted on hayburn- 
 ers and all the young men very carefully rode along- 
 side of their girl friends. But Abraham was think- 
 ing of something else and he rode on ahead of Mary. 
 It burned her up. She couldn't stand that ungallant 
 treatment and when she got him off to one side she 
 laid him out plenty. 
 
 "I suppose you didn't care whether my neck 
 was broken or not," she said. Abe was equal to the 
 occasion. He came back, "Why, Mary, I knew you 
 were smart enough to make that little ford yourself. 
 I know a smart girl when I see one." This stumped 
 her for a minute. She fell for that old string of 
 bologny, but after a second she recovered from the 
 compliment and lit into Abraham again — "You can 
 stop to rescue a pig, but you can't take any trouble 
 
 over me." 
 
 Abe laughed that off, too. He was a bearcat at 
 laughing off criticism. Mary went back to Ken- 
 tucky. They had no understanding. Abe couldn't 
 forget Ann Rutledge. 
 
 Mary didn't know whether she wanted to set 
 her cap for this bird or not. He had never mentioned 
 marriage, but she figured she could turn her sex ap- 
 peal loose on him and grab him off if she wanted 
 him and she kept studying the question. 
 
 Page 73 
 
WHO CAN REMEMBER 23 SKIDOO? 
 
 Hanging out the shingle 
 
 BE had not neglected his jurisprudence. He was still 
 plugging at Mr. Blackstone and the big questions of 
 the day were being slowly turned over in that think- 
 tank of his. 
 
 An anti-slavery society had been formed in 
 Philly. This society had come out cold for abolition, 
 with a program of organizing societies in every burg 
 in the country until they had the issue whipped. 
 
 In some Southern states it was against the law 
 to open your yap against slavery, showing how the 
 curse not only enslaved the blacks, but the whites 
 who wanted to think and talk freedom. Any person 
 who was found guilty of an agitation against slavery 
 could be taken to a necktie party. Now there was a 
 swell law for you, in this country founded that we 
 might have freedom, wasn't it? 
 
 There were 3,000,000 negroes being worked 
 as mules in the South and the tax boys valued these 
 human chattels at $1,000,000,000 in very round 
 figures. 
 
 Yes, that slavery question, which had been in 
 Abe's mind ever since the time as a boy of 18 he had 
 gone down the Mississippi on a flatboat and seen 
 the slave markets, was getting hot again and Abe 
 was forming opinions of what he would do if he had 
 the chance. He did not yet picture himself as in 
 power to do anything, but he knew what he would 
 Page 74 
 
like to do. He was studying all the time on the 
 question. 
 
 A white woman opened a school for negro 
 children in Connecticut and was sent to jail for it. 
 The South didn't want its human property to learn 
 anything but field work or sewing, or cooking. Cer- 
 tainly nothing that would make them think, make 
 them realize that they were more than the mules 
 that plowed the cotton fields. 
 
 The folks in the North were not united against 
 slavery by any means. In Concord, N. H. they 
 wrecked a school where black children were permit- 
 ted to learn to read and write. 
 
 Nor were all the people of the South fighting 
 for slavery. James G. Birney, born and bred in old 
 Kentucky, a plantation owner, had freed all of his 
 slaves and moved to Cincinnati, where he was print- 
 ing a paper against slavery. The postmasters of the 
 South slapped a ban on his rag. He wrote: "There 
 will be no cessation of conflict until slavery shall be 
 exterminated or liberty destroyed. Liberty and 
 slavery cannot live in juxtaposition." 
 
 The slave ships were still bringing in fresh 
 loads of blacks. 
 
 Lincoln was preparing to pass the bar. He had 
 studied alone. He had been a state lawmaker and 
 now he was going to practice law. 
 
 Abe was 28 when he got by the bar and was 
 certified to the supreme court as a geezer with a 
 good moral character. He was all set, except for 
 the fact that he didn't have a dime, didn't have an 
 office and didn't have a practice. He decided that 
 he ought to open up in a big way in a big town and 
 Springfield now had it all over New Salem. Spring- 
 Page 75 
 
field was also the headquarters for the state; so to 
 Springfield Abe journeyed astride his nag. 
 
 Pulling up in front of the store of an old pal of 
 his, Joshua Speed, Abe slung one bony leg over the 
 frame and came shuffling in. There was Speed, 
 wrapping up prunes. 
 
 "Howdy, Josh," Abe said. "I came in to see if I 
 could put you on the cuff for some bed clothes. How 
 much for a bunk full?" 
 
 Speed squinted and began to tally. "Why, Abe, 
 a mattress and blankets would come to about 17 
 smacks." At the mere mention of so huge a sum of 
 spondulicks Abe's face fell a mile. Since there were 
 no plastic surgeons in the near vicinity it stayed 
 fallen for a time. Here was a bad break to begin 
 with. Poor Abe. He shook his head sadly and said, 
 "Speed, cheap as it is, I haven't got the dough. But, 
 Speed, if you'll cuff it 'til Xmas and I make good as 
 a barrister I'll pony up then. If I fail in that, I will 
 probably never pay you at all." 
 
 Think of that. The man who was to become 
 the savior of the country, the freer of the slaves, the 
 greatest all around national hero since Washington, 
 couldn't pay 17 bucks for bedding that he might 
 start living in Springfield to start practicing law. 
 
 But Speed had a better idea than that of slip- 
 ping Abe a little credit. Speed said, "Abe, I've got 
 a big double bunk upstairs over the store and if you 
 are willing you can share that bed with me." 
 
 "Willing, Speed! Well, I hope to tell you, big 
 boy, I'm willing. I've got to spend the nights some- 
 where and I surely would like to spend them with a 
 friend like you." 
 
 Turning around he dashed out of the joint, 
 Page 76 
 
grabbed his saddle bags, ran up the stairs over the 
 store, then came down and said, "Well, Speed, I've 
 moved." 
 
 Of course Abe had to eat, too. There is a dis- 
 gusting habit that it is pretty general. Abe looked 
 up Bill Butler, one of the "long nine, ,, and said, 
 "Bill, I'll need board — I've got no cash, but I hope to 
 make enough out of my law practice to pay you." 
 
 And Bill said, "Forget it, Abraham. When Fve 
 got beans or bacon, squab or turkey, its yours and 
 you're welcome. You can stick your legs under my 
 table whenever I've got a table and if I catch you 
 worrying about a board bill I'll clip you down to my 
 own size and sock you one in the beak." 
 
 Abe was all set then to feed the orifice in his 
 face and to tear off plenty of slumber, but he had 
 to have an office and start getting some clients. J. 
 T. Stuart had a law office. He knew Abe and knew 
 that Abraham knew his commentaries as well as his 
 endives. So that was fixed. Now let's size up that 
 metropolis of Springfield in the year 1837. She had 
 1,500 inhabitants and was the trading center for the 
 whole of Sangamon county, as it still is, more or 
 less. There were 18,000 people in the county. 
 
 The farm ladies in 1837 were taking to wearing 
 shoes. Why, the place was getting positively effete. 
 
 The sidewalks were plain Illinois dust on dry 
 days and gumbo on wet. Droves of hogs on the hoof 
 were driven right into the main drag. Oxen pulled 
 the trucks. The town was on the square. (Literal 
 translation) Hoofman Row where Abe had his con- 
 joint office with Stuart was in this row and the 
 county court room was on a lower floor of the same 
 rickety building. 
 
 Page 77 
 
CHAPTER TWO DOZEN 
 
 Abe cuts a shyster down 
 
 TUART, Abe's partner in the law game, was run- 
 ning for congress against Stephen A. Douglas, and 
 so Abe got a break right away and a swell oppor- 
 tunity to handle some cases (court cases — he had 
 quit handling the other kind). Abe always had had 
 a way with him, an appeal to catch the public at- 
 tention. It was an unconscious quality, but potent 
 as limburger. In one of the first cases he handled 
 this came to his aid and made a name for him that 
 was plenty good as advertising. He couldn't have 
 done better if he had had a press agent. And did 
 he ever throw the hooks into a shyster in this case? 
 
 Take a reading and you'll see. 
 
 A widow woman (I love that redundancy) came 
 moping into the office one day. She planked herself 
 on the bunk where Stuart slept when he was at 
 home and with tears in her eyes she opened up. 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln, I want you to come to the front 
 for me." Sobs. "I'm in one terrible pickle. When my 
 old man died he left me 10 acres of land. I haven't 
 got another thing in this cruel world. When I came 
 into town to peddle this acreage I found that a feller 
 named Adams claimed the land was hissen. He said 
 that my old man deeded it over to him for a law 
 case." 
 
 That was putting it gently. The facts are 
 that her husband had been gypped out of the land by 
 Gen. James Adams, a lawyer, who had been his 
 Page 78 
 
mouth-piece on a little murder charge. Adams had 
 failed to save the defendant who had hung from a 
 rope until thoroughly defunct. 
 
 The records convinced Abe that Gen. Adams 
 had stung the old girl all right by falsifying the 
 dope sheets. Now Abe wanted public opinion on the 
 side of the widow so he wrote up the case and had 
 it published on a single sheet and scattered to the 
 winds and the folks. This sheet tore into Adams 
 plenty and made him look pretty bad in there. 
 
 Adams flew off the celebrated handle and came 
 back at Abe in a six-column news story, calling Abe 
 a number of unpleasant things. Abe didn't need that 
 much to tear the peeling off Adams. He answered 
 in one column in which he pulled the line, "His affi- 
 davits are as false as hell." 
 
 Adams burned up like a celluloid collar on a 
 fireman at this and used six more columns. The 
 town was having a swell time over the wrangle and 
 both boys were copping the spot. Once again Abra- 
 ham answered in a single column and his hottest 
 shot in this was, "If he is not a lawyer, he is a liar, 
 for he proclaimed himself a lawyer and got a man 
 hanged by depending on him." As a final tweek at 
 the Adam's ear he said, "I'll see you in — court." 
 
 Naturally Abe won the case, got the 10 acres 
 back for the grateful widow and gathered more ink 
 on the story. All the publicity wasn't good, for some 
 folks began to say that he was a hound for the sen? 
 sational and a grand-stand player. But most of the 
 folks said, "There is a smart bimbo who'll come 
 right out with the truth and protect poor folks from 
 the shysters." 
 
 Politics was in the air and of course Abe was in 
 
 Page 79 
 
there for the Whigs, wowing the crowds that turned 
 out to get a load of his wit and wisdom. 
 
 One pompous old cock took a neat trimming 
 one day. He was Col. Dick Taylor, a Democrat and 
 in a verbal classic with Abe, Taylor charged that the 
 Whigs were full of applesauce, that they went 
 around pleading for the plain people while they 
 themselves were dolled up in the finest of clothes. 
 The colonel was going great guns and warming up 
 his sarcasm until it dripped. Abe let him go for a 
 time, then stepped up beside him, reached down and 
 opened a coat button, pulling the coat wide open. 
 There was the colonel exposed in all his finery. 
 The ruffles of a silk shirt flew out so that everyone 
 could see them, a colored vest showed, and a huge, 
 gold watch chain, heavy with gold seals was ex- 
 posed. The audience roared. Then Abe got up and 
 said, "While Col. Dick Taylor was making these 
 charges against the Whigs, riding in fine carriages, 
 wearing ruffled silk shirts, kid gloves, massive gold 
 chains with large gold seals and flourishing a heavy 
 gold headed cane, I was a poor boy, hired on a flat 
 boat at eight dollars a month, and had only one pair 
 of breeches to my back, and they were buckskin. 
 Now if you know the nature of buckskin when wet 
 and dried by the sun, it will shrink ; and my breeches 
 kept shrinking until they left several inches of my 
 leg bare between the tops of my socks and the lower 
 part of my breeches; and whilst I was growing taller 
 they became shorter, and so much tighter that they 
 left a blue streak around my legs that you can see 
 to this day. If you call this aristocracy, I plead 
 guilty to the charge." 
 
 Page 80 
 
THE QUARTER CENTURY-25 
 
 Get acquainted with Mary Todd 
 
 BE was getting on in years. He was sitting pretty in 
 the law business, and making a reputation as a keen 
 politician and an honest one. The ache in his heart 
 over the loss of Ann was easing off some as that 
 panacea, Time, did its therapeutic stuff. Abe was 
 getting sick of being a bachelor, but he was no drug 
 store vaquero and when it came to necking he yvas a 
 flop. It looked to him like he was scheduled to play 
 a solitary game through life and then it happened. 
 Ninian Edwards, one of Abe's closest political 
 pals, an aristocrat of the old line, had a blowout and 
 Abraham came and saw and fell like a ton of brick. 
 What he saw was the belle of the ball, Mary Todd, 
 Ninian's sister-in-law. Was she a knockout? And 
 how! 
 
 Mary Todd, famous in history, seems to have 
 been given a raw deal. Until I digested Sandburg's 
 description she was nothing but hard boiled Mary 
 to me. But Mary was more than that. She had a lot 
 of things and class was one of them. Let's get ac- 
 quainted with the fair frail. 
 
 She had accomplishments and looks; she spoke 
 the French language like a native of Paris (Maybe 
 Paris, 111., but at any rate the parlez vous flowed off 
 her tongue) and she could tickle the ivories. She 
 had attended all the aristocratic schools of Ken- 
 tucky. 
 
 Page 81 
 
Her skin was soft and satiny, like the soap ads. 
 Her hair was brown and wavy, and her eyes — Oh! 
 baby, them orbs! They had snap in them — fire, life. 
 She was an aristocrat and knew it and she wanted 
 others to know it, but she was not stuck up — exact- 
 ly. Her grandfathers had fought with George Wash- 
 ington in the War of the Revolution. Her dad had 
 been a captain in the War of 1812, had served in both 
 houses of the legislature of Kentucky, and was the 
 president and owner of a big bank in Kentucky. 
 
 Mary had wit, and a tongue, sharper than a 
 two edged safety razor blade. But there was no safe- 
 ty in it. When she wanted to be cutting she was 
 cutting. And when it came to sporting the glad 
 rags she was in a class all by herself. She wore more 
 petticoats than any girl of the state, and in those 
 days that was class. Now, of course, it is the other 
 way around, the barer, the classier. 
 
 Mary had come to Springfield, Illinois to live 
 with her sister. 
 
 Mary deliberately set out to get Abe. She knew 
 her man flesh as she knew the horse flesh of Ken- 
 tucky and she saw a big man in Abe, a bird who was 
 going to take a long, long ride down in history. 
 
 Mary's mother had died and her dad had taken 
 another wife. Mary couldn't hit it off with the step- 
 parent and so she finally told her to go cook a radish 
 and then beat it for Illinois to live with the big sis, 
 Mrs. Edwards. As she was leaving the old home 
 town, some of her girl friends asked, "Why on earth 
 go out to that God-forsaken Illinois?" and Mary 
 came back on her come backer, "To marry a bird 
 who will be president of the United States." 
 
 This may have been pure, unadulterated sum- 
 Page 82 
 
mer sausage, just a boast. But it came true. She 
 deliberately set out to get some one she believed 
 would have a chance of being president of the United 
 States. Even her brother-in-law, Edwards, who was 
 a politician and knew Lincoln, didn't suspect that 
 she was showing good judgment. He said, "Abe is 
 a fine man, honest, true, a square shooter and a 
 smart bird, but he came from different stock. He is 
 not the man for you." And Mary said, "Be your age, 
 big boy. I know my vegetables, and I know my 
 heart — you can't hand me the banana oil," or words 
 to that effect. 
 
 She was ambitious to be in the big swim in so- 
 ciety and politics, but not so hot after wealth. 
 
 This is demonstrated in a measure by a crack 
 she made to a young girl who had married one of 
 these old daddies with flocks of jack. The bride was 
 sitting around the Edwards' fireside one evening. 
 (Her meal ticket was not present). 
 
 Mary asked, "Why did you marry such a dried- 
 up husband, such a withered old buck?" and the 
 bride said, "He has lots of horses and gold." Mary 
 burst out, "Is that true? I would rather marry a good 
 man, a man with a mind, with bright prospects for 
 fame and power, than to marry all the horses, gold 
 and bones in the world." 
 
 Mary was thinking of Abraham Lincoln when 
 she pulled that one, although they had never done 
 much more than pass a few remarks about the poor, 
 old weather up to then. 
 
 Page 83 
 
CHAPTER 26 
 
 The ball and chain rattle 
 
 SMART flapper was this girl, Mary, or Molly, as 
 Abe came to call her. They asked her shortly after 
 she hit Springfield and was seen stepping off the 
 minuets with Abraham one night and Steve Doug- 
 las the next, which of the pair she was going to 
 rope, throw and brand, and Molly said, "The one 
 who has the best chance of becoming president." 
 They gave her the jolly old donkey giggle, because 
 no one then thought either Abe or Steve had any 
 more chance of being president of the United States 
 than the well known celluloid cat. 
 
 Molly had made up her mind at last which one 
 she wanted for a running mate. She had looked at 
 the gawky lawyer who could snap a mean joke or 
 pass a neat compliment to a man, but who couldn't 
 lay the lovely la de da for the dames worth a dime 
 and she had said, "This apple knocker is a genius, a 
 great man, destined to become president of these 
 here now United States." And no sooner had she 
 made this decision in her head than her heart 
 echoed, "Atta, baby, you're using the coop now." 
 Then she knew it was just a matter of time until he 
 popped. 
 
 Mary knew how to get attention. She was com- 
 pelling and she knew she could make Abe lose his 
 head and his heart, and she did. Just about the first 
 of November, 1840, Mary got Abe's mind in such a 
 Page 84 
 
whirl that he said, "Mary— I adore you." That was 
 about as flowery as Abe ever got in a love affair, 
 but Mary knew what to do next. She laid her head 
 on his shoulder and it was all over but the shouting. 
 However, there was a lot of shouting. 
 
 They were engaged. That was the first step 
 and Molly's heart sung and Abe was punch drunk 
 himself. But even so, he couldn't spend all his time 
 mooning. He was busy. He had a law practice 
 that took him all over the circuit and he had his 
 political fences to keep mended. 
 
 Mary was no girl to sit on her hands and be 
 sorry that she wasn't being the life of some party 
 or other just because Abe couldn't make it. Not 
 Molly. She would up and cop off another escort. 
 Abe didn't kick at this, but it made Mary sore to 
 have a perfectly good man hooked with a promise 
 and not have him on hand to shake the hoofs when- 
 ever a party was being thrown. So she bawled him 
 out one night — "You neglect me — you don't love 
 me," she said, and Abe said, "Honey, I've got to 
 earn a living. I have to be in court when my cases 
 are called. I can't spend all my life being a ballroom 
 beau." And Mary said, "No, you don't love me," and 
 Abe yapped back, "Well, maybe you're right. Maybe 
 I don't," and then Mary said, "Take your old ring 
 and throw it in the Sangamon river — I'm through 
 with you." 
 
 "That suits me, kid," Abe said, and the engage- 
 ment was off. But the next day Mary sent word that 
 she was just applesaucing — and the engagement 
 was on. Then she pulled the same act again and Abe 
 said, "It's off, Mary, it's off." But this time Abe got 
 soft hearted and rallied around the Edwards' shanty, 
 
 Page 85 
 
the biggest mansion in Springfield, and said, "For- 
 give me, sweetheart. My temper got a little the best 
 of me," and it was on again. It was off again and on 
 again, gone again, Finnegan for several months, 
 and Abe started asking himself "Do I love her — do 
 I? Is it fair to marry a girl you don't love — ? Is it 
 fair to leave her when we are so close to the altar? 
 
 Abe was torn between two emotions. At last he 
 wrote a long letter to tell Mary that he didn't love 
 her and simply couldn't play her a dirty, mean trick 
 and marry her. It was a masterpiece of its kind, 
 but he didn't have the heart to send it without some 
 bolstering up. He was still living with Speed and 
 he went to his old pal and broke down as he poured 
 out his heart to him. 
 
 "Speed," he sobbed, "I can't go through with it," 
 and then he pulled out the epistle and showed it. 
 
 "You saphead," Speed said. "That letter stuff 
 is the bunk. If you don't love her, be a man. Go to 
 her and tell her and then stick to it. But don't be 
 an umpchay and send a letter like that." 
 
 Abe took his friend's advice and went to Mary. 
 
 "I can't marry you, Mary," he said. "I can't. I 
 don't love you enough, but I love you too much to 
 wish myself on you." 
 
 "You don't know what you're talking about," 
 Mary said. "You are kidding yourself. You're crazy," 
 and then she went into the baby act and boo-hooed 
 all over the joint. Abe never could stand tears. He 
 stayed two hours to comfort her and when he 
 waltzed out of the house the wedding was on again 
 and the fatal date had been set for Jan. 1, 1841. 
 
 Page 86 
 
THE COUNT IS 27 
 
 A, W. O. L. from the altar 
 
 I 
 
 HE big day got in on scheduled time. It was New 
 Year's day of 1841 and the Edwards' mansion was 
 smelling to high heaven of orange blossoms. It was 
 one mass of decorations. This was the day that 
 Abraham and Molly were due to get the double 
 harness snapped on. The kitchen of the shack was 
 bursting with high class edibles. There was frost 
 on the wedding cake and this was due to get all over 
 the party before the day was done. 
 
 The minister arrived. Guests arrived two by 
 two, like the animals in the ark. More guests ar- 
 rived. The bride put in her appearance, all dolled 
 up in a white lace veil seven yards long. Everyone 
 arrived — everyone — but Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The bride stood on first one foot and then the 
 other. The parson kept a calm that came near mak- 
 ing him bust wide open. An hour passed, two hours 
 passed and they were all waiting for Abe to show up, 
 but Abe didn't show up. He was A. W. O. L. 
 
 The guests were polite. They said nothing and 
 tried to act as if they had just happened to drop in. 
 
 And while all this anxious moment stuff was 
 being enacted where was our hero, Abraham? Yes, 
 where was he? Held by the bad, bold kidnaper? 
 Held by a jealous rival? Oh, no. Abe was right 
 there in Springfield sitting in on the opening day 
 of the legislature. 
 
 Page 87 
 
And had our boy friend forgotten his own wed- 
 ding? Don't be silly. He had not. He had just 
 naturally gone off the reservation. Why had Abe 
 gone haywire on the double shuffle act? If you want 
 my own 10 cents worth, I think that Abe got to see- 
 ing the picture of Ann Rutledge that he always car- 
 ried locked in his heart and the vision opened the 
 old wound. Whatever it was in his mind, Abe didn't 
 rally 'round to get the ankle iron on that New Year's 
 day of 1841. He probably would have been better off 
 if he had, because his altar duck began to worry the 
 gizzard out of him before the day was over. And it 
 worried him and galled him and wore him down for 
 days to come. 
 
 He felt like a thief, a burglar, a cheat. He felt 
 like he had put over a mean act on a good girl. The 
 worry began to get him. He lost most of the meat 
 off his bony frame. During this uncomfortable 
 period of his existence he wrote to his law partner 
 and said, "I am the most miserable man living. If 
 what I feel were equally distributed to the whole 
 human race, there would not be one cheerful face on 
 the earth." 
 
 Abe's heart ache got so bad he came near cash- 
 ing in his chips, but old Doc Henry pulled him 
 through with a little home made psychology. When 
 his old pal, Speed, sold his store and moved back 
 to Kentucky to be with his folks, Abe went along to 
 see if he could forget Molly and what he had done. 
 Speed's ma, a sweet, kind old lady, talked with Abe 
 a lot, got his whole story from him and helped him. 
 She gave him a Bible and told him to do some extra 
 reading in that. A Bible was not a strange book to 
 Abe by any means. He could quote much of it by 
 Page 88 
 
heart, even then. But coming in as a relief from his 
 bosom pains it seemed to make a new and different 
 impression on him. He allowed later that it was a 
 good cure for the blues, could one but take it accord- 
 ing to the truth. 
 
 Abe came back to Springfield in June, just six 
 months after he had gone A. W. O. L. He came back 
 because a pair of his clients were in a bad jam. They 
 were charged with murder and Abe didn't believe 
 that these boys he knew and liked had done the job. 
 
 Coming back, he put his whole heart and soul 
 into saving the pair and that is just what he needed, 
 some hard work. The labor, it seemed, was curing 
 his own broken heart. 
 
 Feeling was running an altitude record in 
 Springfield. Everyone was gabbing about the mur- 
 der and it was freely noised about that this pair was 
 certain to swing. Abe said nothing, but kept plug- 
 ging away on the case. 
 
 The day of the trial came. The court house was 
 packed. A breathless mob was waiting for the pro- 
 ceedings. And in walked Abe. Now get a cargo of 
 this — in walked Abe and with him the corpus de- 
 lecti, only he wasn't delecti and wasn't a corpus. 
 The man, who was supposed to have been murdered, 
 walked right into that court room. He wasn't even 
 a little dead. 
 
 It was a riot. Abe had gone out and found the 
 man who was supposed to have been bumped off by 
 his clients. Of course the clients were discharged 
 with apologies and Abe had a big, long laugh for 
 himself, the first in many moons. 
 
 Page 89 
 
THIS MAKES 28 
 
 Reconciliation and a duel 
 
 OW in those days there was a dame who loved to 
 stick her proboscis into other people's business and 
 if there is anything in the world she liked it was to 
 play with matches. The breed has not entirely died 
 out, it is said. But this was an especially fine old 
 girl even if she did have those prying habits. Her 
 name was Mrs. Simeon Francis and her sustenance 
 provider ran the local sheet called the Sangamon 
 Journal. 
 
 Mrs. Francis liked to have the young folks rally 
 around her and lap up the tea and, of course, she 
 knew both Molly and Abe very well. Who didn't? 
 She began to scheme and frame and at last doped 
 out a plan to her liking. She would invite Abe and 
 Molly on the same evening, then slip out on them, 
 and let nature take its course. 
 
 Both parties fell for the trap. Abe was sitting 
 with Mrs. Francis when in trips Molly. He gave her 
 a look and she returned it. She wouldn't even keep 
 a look of his. Mrs. Francis was probably getting a 
 big belt out of the affair. When they were both safe- 
 ly in the room, the old dame said, "Pardon me a mo- 
 ment, my dear, I must see a man about a dog," and 
 with these tactful words away she moved under 
 full sail. 
 
 What a position to put a couple of bosom 
 enemies in. Abe said nothing. Molly said the same 
 Page 90 
 
thing. It was getting pretty embarrassing. Time 
 sped on like a lame tortoise and then Mrs. Francis 
 popped in and said, "Abe, Molly, I want you young 
 folks to be friends again. There is no sense in this 
 going around like you hated each other and acting 
 like it. You don't at all," and Abe said, "Why cer- 
 tainly I do not hate Molly — but I reckon she has no 
 cause to feel very kindly toward me." 
 
 Molly rose to the occassion and said, "Mr. Line* 
 oln, I bear no grudges," and there they were, friends 
 again. 
 
 Mrs. Francis beat it again and there probably 
 was a clinch. 
 
 But Molly didn't tell her sister that she had 
 seen Abe and made it up with him and Abe didn't 
 tell a soul, either, that he had seen Molly. When 
 they met on the street, they were very formal and so 
 no one suspected for some weeks that they were 
 sorta going together again. But they met often in 
 the parlor of Mrs. Francis and she was having the 
 time of her life. 
 
 Naturally, such a secret couldn't be kept. Mrs. 
 Edwards was sniffing around, suspecting a mouse 
 some place because Molly was stepping out nights 
 without cracking about her destination. A sister 
 can stand a thing like this just so long and then she 
 has to chisel. She gave Molly the third degree until 
 Molly broke down and confessed that she was meet- 
 ing Abe right often at the Francis home. "But, sis," 
 she said, "For the love of Mike don't spring this on 
 the town. Men are too slippery and I don't want to 
 be a laughing stock again." 
 
 Julia Jayne, one of Molly's playmates, soon got 
 wised up and now and then she came to the rendez- 
 
 Page 91 
 
vous. These girls were both smart crackers and 
 they wanted to pull some clever crevices on a dude 
 named Jimmy Shields. He was a slick shiek, and 
 they didn't care for the cut of his jib, so these babies 
 wrote a sparkling piece and read it to Abe. It got a 
 big hand from Abe, too, because he felt the same 
 way about this Jimmy guy who was state auditor 
 or something like that. 
 
 The piece was printed in the Journal and Jimmy 
 burned up. The girls giggled their heads off about 
 the affair, but Jimmy was not one to stand kidding 
 easily. Other articles appeared and he demanded 
 satisfaction. He couldn't find out who had put him 
 in the grease like this, but Francis said that Abe 
 Lincoln would take all responsibility. 
 
 Jimmy challenged Abe to a duel and Abe said, 
 "Sure, Broadswords at 10 feet, across a plank." Jim- 
 my wasn't bigger than a bar of soap after a hard 
 day's washing. They duly repaired to an island on 
 the Missouri side, near Alton, Illinois, as Illinois 
 was getting civilized and had a law against these 
 little pre-arranged murder parties. 
 
 The duel was to be on a sandbar. When they 
 got out of the rowboats, Lincoln drew his broad- 
 sword from its scabbard and ran his finger along 
 the edge as a barber feels a razor. Lincoln never 
 batted an eye. But his seconds said later that there 
 was a gleam in his optics which made them know he 
 was dying to laugh and tell a funny story. It struck 
 him as so funny. Shields was short and couldn't 
 come anywhere near reaching across the plank with 
 a broadsword. Abe stood up and clipped a twig off 
 the topmost branch of a tree. Shields couldn't have 
 reached the branch with a step ladder. Abe was just 
 
 Page 92 
 
showing Shields how foolish he would look in the 
 duel, and I guess Shields began to see, because he 
 got his seconds in a conference. They talked and 
 talked and then Lincoln's seconds went into a hud- 
 dle and finally the seconds from both sides began to 
 confab together. It was a whole hour while this was 
 going on and Abe sat on a log and fondled the long 
 broadsword all the time, keeping a very sober face. 
 At last the seconds broke out of the huddle and 
 some came to Abe and some went to Shields. Shields 
 announced that if Abraham would apologize he 
 would call off the duel as his honor would be cleared. 
 So Abe said, "Sure, Shields, I'll issue a public 
 apology. I'll tell the world that I had no intention 
 of injuring your personal or private character or 
 standing as a gentleman or a man." Shields said this 
 would be jake with him. 
 
 They all piled into the rowboats again and 
 pulled for the Illinois shore. They put a blood red 
 shirt on a log and laid it in the bottom of the boat — 
 and the crowd that had gathered to see the outcome 
 saw the log and thought it was a dead man. But 
 when they got to the shore they raised the log and 
 everybody broke out in loud laughs. Abe and Shields 
 walked arm in arm away from the rowboat while 
 the crowd stood and laughed and cheered. 
 
 Abe told Bill Herndon that he never intended 
 to hit Shields. "Why, it would have been murder," 
 he said. "I could have split him from crown to toes." 
 
 Page 93 
 
TWENTY-NINTH ATTACK 
 
 A high hat office 
 
 OLLY was like a member of the Northwest mounted. 
 She was out to get her man and get him while the 
 getting was good. She had been given the air once 
 and she had no intentions of taking on another load 
 of ozone. She said, "Let's go, big boy, let's go." 
 
 Abe was like Barkis, willing. So Abe met Ed- 
 wards one morning and said, "Howdy, Ninian! I'm 
 marrying Molly today." 
 
 "What the . . . what are you giving me?" Nini- 
 an said. "Why there's nothing done — why, boy, you 
 could knock me down with a Mack truck. I'm flab- 
 bergasted. But you can't put that over. My old lady 
 would toss a conniption fit if you pulled one of these 
 kiss me quick affairs. She wants to throw the dog 
 when Molly steps off." 
 
 "Can't help that, Ninian," Abe said. "Today's 
 the day. No more of this postponement stuff." 
 
 Ninion hotfooted it to his home and called his 
 frau, "Molly's getting the knot tied today. What'll 
 we do?" The wife threw the expected fit, but she 
 came out of it in a second and started policing the 
 shanty and making arrangements. Another sister 
 dashed in and said, "I'll bake the cake," and while 
 all this was going on, Abe stepped into Chatterton's 
 (wedding rings and fine watches) and said, "Chat, 
 get down one of the best gold eternal hooks you've 
 got." Chatterton helped Abe pick the ring and then 
 Page 94 
 
he engraved it by hand, saying, "Love is Eternal." 
 A sky pilot was summoned and before the day, 
 Nov. 4, 1842, had ended, Molly and Abe were fixed 
 up "until death do part." It was a quiet affair, but 
 very effective. 
 
 Molly was a smart girl, and she had faith in 
 Abraham. She honestly felt that he was growing to 
 be a giant in politics, growing daily to be ready for 
 the big job when the job was ready for him. She was 
 right as a rabbit, too, and no doubt this faith and her 
 untiring urging on helped Abe to get there. 
 
 Not that he wouldn't have arrived in spite of all 
 odds, anyhow, but Molly was no drawback. She 
 razzed him at times, made life unpleasant, but I 
 guess Abe liked it fairly well. 
 
 The years skipped by — years full of more learn- 
 ing for Abe, more growing in mastery of all situa- 
 tions. We'll slide over those years swiftly. Logan, 
 Abe's partner, was a crummy looking guy, but exact 
 as a needle point in preparing cases and Abe learned 
 exactness from him. 
 
 Molly panned Abe about his appearance fre- 
 quently. Did a wife ever fail to do this? But she got 
 Abe to taking a little more interest in his duds. He 
 got to following the fashions of the time. Not too 
 closely, of course, but in a manner of speaking. He 
 wore a high silk hat, a stovepipe, nearly a foot high 
 with a brim about an inch wide. This was the cat's 
 for lawyers of the period. This old hat was his 
 office half the time. Many a time he would meet a 
 client on the street and say, "Wait 'til I open my 
 office." Then he would take the four gallon can off 
 his domb, reach inside and pull out the papers. He 
 carried everything but livestock in this hat. 
 
 Page 95 
 
The clients Abe had saved from swinging didn't 
 kick in with a fee. Abe sued and got $100 for saving 
 a pair of lives. What was it Clarence Darrow got a 
 few years ago for saving the necks of a couple of 
 educated morons? Around a million, I believe. 
 
 Martin Van Buren came into Illinois and Abe 
 and some of the boys from Springfield went down to 
 see him. Abe and Martin were the whole show. 
 They took turns telling yarns and keeping the gang 
 in spasms. 
 
 Abe told the story of the leather lunged sky 
 pilot from Kentucky, Abraham Bale. Bale was in 
 Sangamon county doing some first class baptising, 
 walking the converts out into the Sangamon river 
 and ducking them as part of the ceremony. 
 
 It was a true story and Abe liked to tell it. 
 There was an old hill billy in the county whose wife 
 had gone to the revival and got religion. When her 
 turn came to be baptised and the preacher was lead- 
 ing her out into the waters, her husband shouted out 
 — "Hold on, there, Bale — Hold on, Bale. Don't you 
 drown her. I wouldn't take the best cow and calf 
 in the whole state for her." 
 
 Lincoln could rise to heights of oratory, pound- 
 ing home logic and facts with furious vigor, or he 
 could lapse into the homely, crude language of his 
 period, of the pioneers, and be equally effective. Abe 
 knew when to use the powerful language of the 
 pioneer and the more polished tongue of the scholar. 
 Politics was an absorbing study for him. 
 
 Page 96 
 
"30" BUT NOT THE END 
 
 A new partner 
 
 BE and Molly moved into a rooming house until they 
 could pick out a shanty of their own. After some 
 months they found the "little gray home in the 
 west" that they could afford to buy. It was covered 
 with ivy vines and mortgages, but they were happy 
 about it just the same. The shanty was at Eighth 
 and Jackson sts. and was almost entirely surrounded 
 by corn fields. There was a cow barn at the rear and 
 Abe bought a milch animal and took the milk away 
 from her himself. He often sat on a three-legged 
 stool and made the milk zip into the tin pail while 
 he wore his plug hat and thought of national issues. 
 
 About this time Abe and Logan bust their part- 
 nership. Logan wanted to go to congress, and Abe 
 wanted to go to congress, so they decided to split 
 and fight it out on a friendly basis. Abe hated to 
 leave this firm, but he was getting too big to be in 
 with another big man in the political field, so they 
 shook hands and called it quits. 
 
 Abe needed a partner and he picked one who 
 turned out to be more than a partner, a boy who also 
 became a worshiper and a biographer. Here is the 
 way the picking took place : He met Billy Herndon 
 on the street one day. Without any preliminaries, 
 Abe opened up, "Howdy, Billy. How would you like 
 to hook up with me in the legal business ?" 
 
 "Don't kid me, Mr. Lincoln," Billy answered. 
 
 Page 97 
 
"That's no way to treat a fellow who has always 
 been your friend." 
 
 "Billy, I'm not applesaucing. I'm asking you 
 straight, how would you like to be my law partner?" 
 and Bill said, "Gosh almighty, Mr. Lincoln, I cer- 
 tainly would be tickled pink to be associated with 
 you." 
 
 Billy was nine years younger than Abe, but Abe 
 knew him and knew that he was honest as the well- 
 known day is long, and he also knew what Billy's 
 sentiments were on the slavery question and other 
 questions of national importance. 
 
 Billy had studied law with Lincoln and Logan 
 and had been admitted to the bar. While reading 
 law books, Billy had clerked in Speed's store and 
 slept in the same room with Speed and Abe up over 
 the emporium. So Abe knew the lad and all his 
 sentiments. He knew that he was filled with high 
 ideals. Billy had not expected such a swell break 
 as to be asked in the firm and couldn't believe his 
 senses. He said, "Don't laugh at me ..." and Abe 
 said, "Billy, I can trust you if you can trust me" and 
 it was a bargain. Billy's dad was for slavery, but 
 Billy was against it. 
 
 Billy never quite got over his awe for Abraham 
 and his great brain and innate goodness. He always 
 called him "Mr. Lincoln," never saying "boss," 
 "chief" or "Abe." 
 
 Now, Abe had a wife and a new partner, and 
 about a year later, he also had a great joy visited 
 on him. The long legged bird that stands for the 
 deluxe delivery service swooped down and left a 
 male child. Molly and Abe hung the moniker, Rob- 
 Page 98 
 
ert, on the kid and promptly forgot it to call him 
 Bob. 
 
 Abe was just as chesty as most dads are, but 
 he didn't let his sense of humor desert him over it. 
 
 Just to keep a slant at the work Abe was doing 
 and not to lose sight of the fact that he was making 
 the little world in which he moved realize that he 
 was a right guy, we'll slip in one story here. 
 
 The plain people of Sangamon county believed 
 in Abe, had faith in his judgment and a certainty of 
 his fairness. Two farmers owned adjoining strips 
 of land, but were continually in dispute concerning 
 the dividing line. They came near using shotguns 
 over it, but at last they got together and said, "Let's 
 let Abe Lincoln decide this." 
 
 They came to Abe and drew up a paper agree- 
 ing to abide by his decision. Each put up $500 to be 
 forfeit if he should object to Abe's decision. 
 
 Instead of starting a law suit they relied on 
 Abe's judgment. He asked for evidence and testi- 
 mony in the case; examined the deeds; got the sur- 
 veyors' reports; went into the whole case, acting 
 exactly as a judge, and at last came to a decision, 
 and the man who lost the strip of land agreed that 
 Abe's decision must have been right. Abe didn't 
 charge a red cent for his work. The farmers were 
 happy and a lawsuit in which Abe might have 
 profited in fees never went to court. That's the kind 
 of a bird Abe Lincoln was. Is it any wonder that 
 folks knew he was a square shooter? 
 
 Three years after Bob had arrived at the Linc- 
 oln home another boy showed up in his birthday 
 clothes. The second son was named Edward Baker. 
 
 Page 99 
 
DIVISION 31 
 
 Beats a preacher for congress 
 
 OUR years in double harness, four years of hard 
 work and progress, and Abe felt ripe for the con- 
 gress of the United States. He ran on the Whig 
 ticket in Democratic Illinois. His opponent was 
 Peter Cartwright, an old fashion circuit rider and 
 Evangelist. A red hot Billy Sunday sort of a guy. 
 One who believed in burning hades and could make 
 you smell the sulphur when he got up and snorted. 
 There was mud slinging and plenty of it. Abe 
 was charged with being an atheist and Molly was 
 charged with being a high toned Episcopalian. 
 Bringing religion into a political campaign didn't 
 start with Al Smith. 
 
 Abe campaigned all over his district until he 
 felt certain he had Peter lashed to the post. One 
 night Abe thought he would slip into a religious 
 meeting where Pete was throwing his voice. The 
 old exhorter got his lamps on Abe as soon as he was 
 inside the hall and he decided to take a fall out of 
 the lanky one. He promptly sang out, "All who 
 desire to lead a new life and go to heaven will 
 stand." A lot of folks stood. Then he called out, 
 "All who do not wish to go to hell will stand." 
 
 Everybody got up but Abe. 
 
 Pete fixed his eye on Abe and intoned, "I ob- 
 serve that all of you, save one, indicated that you 
 did not desire to go to hell. The sole exception is 
 Page 100 
 
Mr. Lincoln. May I inquire of you, Mr. Lincoln, 
 where you are going?" 
 
 There was a hush. All eyes turned on Abe. He 
 unraveled his frame and slowly got up on his hind 
 legs and looked Mr. Preacher-politician right square 
 in the lamps and said, "I came here as a respectful 
 listener. I did not know that I was to be singled out 
 by Brother Cartwright. I did not feel called upon to 
 answer as the rest did. Brother Cartwright asked 
 me directly where I am going. I desire to answer 
 with equal directness : / am going to congress." 
 
 It was a riot. The meeting exploded. He had 
 bowled Peter right over. And Abe knew where he 
 was going, no fooling. He was elected to congress. 
 Abe was 37 years old when this honor came to him. 
 He had longed for it for years, but after it came he 
 didn't feel elated as he had expected. 
 
 More than a year was to elapse before Abe 
 would take his seat. 
 
 These were rip snorting times in the U. S. A. 
 We were at war with Mexico over the Texas boun- 
 dary. Jimmie Polk was president and Jimmie had 
 vetoed a bill calling for vast internal improvements, 
 dredging of rivers and fixing of harbors. A large 
 part of the nation was plenty peeved at Jimmie for 
 pulling this. The states were growing and the need 
 for transportation that could beat an ox team was 
 apparent. Abe had been for internal improvement 
 since the time as a kid he had his flat boat stuck on 
 a dam in the Sangamon river. Abe was sent as a 
 delegate from Springfield to the convention in Chi- 
 cago which was called to protest against the veto. 
 
 Chicago was then a city of 16,000, already it was 
 pulling away from Springfield, growing faster and 
 
 Page 101 
 
getting set to be the second largest city in the 
 United States. But think of it, just 82 years ago it 
 had only 16,000 population. Now, suburbs and all, 
 it beats 3,000,000. 
 
 The convention opened July 5 and was the larg- 
 est gathering of people in a convention ever seen in 
 the United States up to that time, 20,000 delegates. 
 Every state then in the Union had delegates. The 
 meetings were held under a great tent in the public 
 square. Hotels couldn't begin to care for the dele- 
 gates. Boat loads had come by the lake and they 
 held the boats there and slept on board. 
 
 At last the time came for Lincoln to go to 
 Washington. He took Molly and their two sons 
 with him. Bob was then six. They went to St. Louis 
 on the Mississippi, then up the Ohio to Pittsburgh, 
 then on to Washington by rail. Abe and his family 
 went to the boarding house of Mrs. Spriggs, one of 
 a row of boarding houses where the national library 
 now stands. Washington had a population of 30,000 
 whites, 8,000 free blacks and 2,000 slaves. It looked 
 like a bum village, spread all over the map. Pig pens 
 and cow barns were in almost every back yard and 
 roosters crowed right in front of the capitol. Pigs 
 ran wild in the streets and anyone who disturbed 
 them was liable to a fine because they were the only 
 white wings the capitol had. 
 
 Washington was the center of a domestic slave 
 trade and gangs of chained negroes were frequently 
 clanked down the main stem. Slave livery stables 
 where blacks were collected, fed and bedded down 
 had made dough for their owners for 50 years within 
 view of the capitol windows. 
 Page 102 
 
THE TALLY IS 32 
 
 In the big time, and OUT 
 
 i 
 
 *ONGRESS wasn't so hot. It wasn't much tougher to 
 * get up and say your piece in Washington than it was 
 in the state house, Abe discovered, and he shot off 
 his face when he had anything to say that he 
 thought was worth saying. He gave Jimmy Polk, 
 the president, a rough going over in connection with 
 the Mexican war. So rough was Abe, in fact, that he 
 got in bad at home and this hurt him, but he would 
 not budge from his convictions. 
 
 Another bird was with him in condemning the 
 stand the U. S. took in that war as unjust. This bird 
 was a skinny, little runt from Georgia, but a swell 
 fellow and a just one, Alex Stevens. Abe and Alex 
 put their dombs together to figure a way of captur- 
 ing the job of president of the United States for a 
 Whig. This was getting in on the big time. Abe was 
 taking his first move as a president maker. They 
 decided the bird to run was old Zach Taylor, hero 
 of the Mexican war. A hero who had been given a 
 bum shake by the administration, but had come 
 through just the same. 
 
 Part of the plan was stumping the east for Zach 
 and Abe did part of the stumping. He was at home 
 on a stump and the people of the east went nuts 
 over his homely lingo. The tour of the east started 
 giving Abe national recognition as a smart cracker 
 and a keen thinker. 
 
 Page 103 
 
After stumping the east, he came back to his 
 home state and helped put this in the bag for Zach. 
 Old Rough and Ready Taylor won the election 
 hands down. Abe didn't run for congress again, but 
 his old law partner took a shot at it and got mussed 
 up by the Democrats. 
 
 Abe asked the president for an appointment as 
 commissioner of lands, a job that paid three grand 
 per annum, but Taylor slipped this job to another. 
 Abe thought it was an unkind break, but as a matter 
 of fact, it was probably the luckiest thing that ever 
 happened to Abe or the country. The job might have 
 stuck him back on a shelf and left him out of the big 
 stuff that was to come. 
 
 Old Rough and Ready Taylor didn't last long 
 as president. Too many years in the wilderness, 
 fighting Indians and Mexicans got him at last, fie 
 consumed too many cherries one day and drank too 
 much milk. His constitution rebelled and he got the 
 hunch that he was slipping into eternity. He said, 
 "In two days I'll be dead. Oh, well, I have en- 
 deavored to do my duty. " The death of Zachary 
 Taylor was also the demise of the Whig party. 
 
 Abe decided that he was all caught up on poli- 
 tics. He put a coat of paint on his little house in 
 Springfield and said, "I'll be sticking around here, 
 tending to my law practice from now on. No more 
 national agonies for mine. " He started winning law 
 suits and going over big again, but Molly was not 
 satisfied. She had said she was going to marry a 
 man who would be president of the United States, 
 she didn't mean maybe. Every now and then she 
 would say, "Abe, you are not getting there very 
 fast. I want a husband whose name is written in the 
 Page 104 
 
sky as a great man." And Abe would say, "Now, 
 Molly, I think I'll just do what is right and be satis- 
 fied with what comes of it." Molly would give him 
 the razzberries for that notion, too, not that she 
 wanted him to do anything shady, but she wanted 
 him to go leaping upward. She was still ambitious, 
 but she was also a good housekeeper and things 
 were neat and clean in this little white house. There 
 were houses all around now; the cornfield had given 
 way to a subdivision. 
 
 And then the leading Whigs of Washington 
 wanted Abe to take a job as governor of the territory 
 of Oregon. Abe thought it would be a good job, a 
 good chance, but he asked Molly — "How about it, 
 honey? Shall I go out there and be governor?" 
 Molly said, "Not so as you can tell it. Nothing do- 
 ing on that, big boy. Do you think I want to be 
 thousands of miles away from civilization?" 
 
 So Abe didn't take this job, either, and that was 
 probably lucky, too. For five years he stuck to law 
 and let politics slide. He never worked so hard in 
 the law before — or after — for that matter. 
 
 Page 10S 
 
SECTION 33 
 
 "Thy rod and thy staff comfort inne" 
 
 T WAS during this time that another sorrow came 
 to Abe. His second son, Edward, lay in his arms 
 and died. Abe had talked to the boy; talked and 
 talked and prayed, but the boy had moved on into 
 the big beyond and Abe was powerless. This help- 
 lessness seemed to envelope him and crush him 
 down. He loved that baby so much, and yet he 
 couldn't do a thing to save him. His love was of no 
 avail. He sat, his head bowed in his hands, trying 
 to pierce the mystery of life and death and couldn't 
 do it. Was the solution in the church? Could real 
 comfort come from religion? 
 
 Abe did not believe in the divinity of Jesus 
 Christ and yet he did believe in God and he believed 
 in the great goodness of Jesus. While sunk in, 
 misery, the Rev. James Smith tried to help him. 
 This parson was a smart man. He didn't try to 
 change Abe or he didn't butt in on his sorrow, but 
 he said the right things now and then and it helped. 
 
 This brings us up to a look at Abe's faith. To 
 get the real low down on a man or woman, you've 
 got to understand how he feels about things, all 
 things. They said that Abe was a scoffer, an atheist, 
 but this is not true. He didn't belong to any church 
 or put much stock in any denomination, but now he 
 rented a pew in Smith's church, the Presbyterian 
 
 Page 106 
 
Molly joined the church, but Abe contented himself 
 by attending often. He would not join. 
 
 However, Abe read the Bible almost daily and 
 knew many chapters by heart. He loved the beauty 
 of the psalms and when his father was ill Abe wrote, 
 "Tell him to call upon and confide in our Great and 
 Merciful Maker, who will not turn away from him in 
 his extremity." An athiest couldn't write that and 
 feel it as Abe did, could he? 
 
 Abe was called upon to go to the home of a wo- 
 man who was dying. He was to draw her will and 
 the woman said, "Mr. Lincoln, read to me from the 
 Bible." 
 
 Some folks scurried around to find a Bible, but 
 Lincoln did not wait for it to be brought. He began 
 at once, quoting from the psalms. "Though I walk 
 through the valley of the shadow of death, I will 
 fear no evil, for Thou art with me ; Thy rod and Thy 
 staff, they comfort me." 
 
 And again he repeated from the New Testa- 
 ment, "Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in 
 God, believe also in me," and "In My Father's house 
 are many mansions ; if it were not so, I would have 
 told you. I go to prepare a place for you." 
 
 Page 107 
 
WE NUMBER THIS ONE 34 
 
 Papa love mania? 
 
 HE Lincoln bungalow on Eighth st. was not entirely 
 shy on kids. In the winter of 1850 William Wallace 
 yelped out a greeting to the anxious Abraham, and 
 in the spring of 'S3 Thomas took his bow to the 
 world. Thomas was promptly dubbed Tad. So there 
 were three living sons to be a joy to the old man 
 and what I mean they were a joy to him. He always 
 had been cuckoo on kids, kittens and little pigs, and 
 he almost worshiped these youngsters of his. 
 
 As old, indefatiguable tempus fugited, Abe and 
 Molly found that each had some habits that were 
 not only goat getters, but were tough to break. They 
 got on each others nerves to beat the box cars, to 
 be disgustingly frank about the matter. 
 
 Abe was as absent-minded as the college pro- 
 fessor of comic fame. That's what Molly thought 
 and it got her cork. We, who can give him the once 
 over from afar and realize how great was his mind 
 and how sincere his heart, can dope it out that Abe 
 was thinking of problems or law cases — and that 
 his mind was centered on things of vast importance 
 — but to Molly, when he got to thinking, during a 
 meal — it was just plain absent-mindedness and she 
 let him know how she felt, too. 
 
 Abe loved Molly, and Molly loved Abe, but you 
 know how it is. Things did grate and this absent- 
 minded habit made Molly as sore as a wet hen. And 
 Page 108 
 
if Abe wanted to read and study, he was just as apt 
 to flop his frame down on the parlor floor and 
 stretch out as he had done on the ground floor of 
 the log cabins in Kentucky, Indiany, and Illinois as 
 not. This also riled Molly and she would say, "For 
 heavens sake, Abe, get up and be polite." 
 
 Abe would answer, "All right, Molly, ol' kid, 
 soon as I get this idea worked out," and he would 
 forget he had promised to get up and keep on study- 
 ing right on the floor. And when it was time for the 
 groceries to be put on the table, Abe would slip into 
 his chair in his shirt sleeves. This gave Molly the 
 willies. You know, Mollie had ambitions, social and 
 every other kind. She wanted Abe to be a dresser 
 and a neat, meticulous man. But Abe was too busy 
 in the coop to give much thought and time to the 
 social amnities. 
 
 When the front door bell rang Abe would go 
 and open it and say, "Howdy, Mrs. Jones, Howdy. 
 Come on in." This also got Molly's Angora, for she 
 had a servant and she wanted the servant to open 
 the door and announce the guests. But this looked 
 like put on, sham, throwing the dog to Abe and 
 that's one thing he never did. 
 
 Sham was anathema to him. One day a couple 
 of swells from the society pages of Springfield 
 popped in to pull a formal. Abe beat the hired hand 
 to the door and invited the dames in. "I'll go find 
 Molly for you," he said. He discovered Molly in 
 the act of changing her duds. She wanted to be all 
 slicked up for these swells. Abe came back and said, 
 "Molly'll be down as soon as she gets her trotting 
 harness on," and Molly got to the head of the stairs 
 in time to hear it. Wow ! Abe caught plenty on that 
 
 Page 109 
 
one. Molly was no painted saint herself and she 
 sometimes got Abe plenty sore. But you have to 
 hand it to him, he didn't razz her like she razzed 
 him. Molly could hit high C when she got sore, and 
 she frequently did, especially at the strawberry 
 merchants. 
 
 She would wrangle with them and raise her 
 voice and tell what she thought of them as robbers 
 and gangsters, and Abe would catch her at it, shout- 
 ing at the top of her voice and calling the berry 
 seller a so-and-so. Abe would say in his severest 
 way, but real low, "Mary, Mary, I'll 'tend to this," 
 and then he would pay the 15 cents a quart for 
 strawberries and let it go at that. 
 
 And for all of Abe's reputation for honesty — 
 for all he was called Honest Abe, he had to kid his 
 wife now and then to get her permission to lay out 
 some jackaloo for this or that. 
 
 One day, young Hank Haynie came to Abe's 
 office and said, "Abe, the volunteer fire department 
 wants to buy a new hose cart. How much will you 
 kick in for the cause?" and Abe said, "Boys, when I 
 go home to supper, Mrs. Lincoln is always in a good 
 mood then, I'll say to her over the toast, 'There is a 
 subscription paper being handed 'round to raise 
 money to buy a new hose cart. The committee 
 called on me this afternoon and I told them to wait 
 until I consulted my home partner. Don't you think 
 I had better subscribe $50?' Then she will look up 
 and exclaim, 'Will you never learn? You are always 
 too liberal, too generous. Fifty dollars! No, indeed! 
 We can't afford it. Twenty-five's quite reasonable 
 enough.' " 
 Page 110 
 
Then Abe chuckled. "Bless her dear soul, she'll 
 never find out how I got the better of her, and if she 
 does, she'll forgive me. Come around tomorrow, 
 boys and get your $25." And that's just what hap- 
 pened—Abe put one over on the ball and chain that 
 time. 
 
 The society bugs of Springfield sometimes 
 said, "It was too bad that that aristocratic Mary 
 Todd should have married Abraham. Why, like as 
 not, he would use his own knife in the butter, instead 
 of the pearl-handled butter knife Mrs. Lincoln al- 
 ways has on the table." But Abe loved Molly de- 
 spite her loud mouth and her nagging and was al- 
 ways considerate of her. He knew she was scared 
 as a rabbit when it stormed and so when he would 
 see black clouds gathering on the horizon he would 
 quit his work and beat it for home to hold Molly's 
 hand and say, "There, there, old girl. It'll pass. Just 
 a little shower. Nothing to get scared about," and 
 then Molly would snuggle up in his arms and be 
 happy that she had a big, raw-boned, fearless hus- 
 band even if he did use his own knife in the butter 
 sometimes. 
 
 Abe respected Molly's judgment in many 
 things, too. Billy Herndon, Abe's law partner, said, 
 "Mrs. Lincoln is an excellent judge of human nature, 
 a better reader of men's motives than her husband, 
 and quick to detect those who had designs upon him 
 and sought to use them. She was a stimulant to Mr. 
 Lincoln. She nagged him and kept prodding him 
 continually to keep up the struggle. She wanted to 
 be in society and she kept urging him to win the 
 world's approval." 
 
 Page HI 
 
THIRTY-FIFTH ACT 
 
 And "Tom Shows" still play it 
 
 HE good, old U. S. A. was in a terrible fret over 
 slavery, and over the white "slaves" in the mills of 
 the east. The west was growing, transportation was 
 beginning to transport, but things in general were 
 in a mess. And then a book was published. Just a 
 novel, but oh ! what a kick there was in it. 
 
 There was no book of the month club to put it 
 over. It didn't need such a club. Besides it wasn't a 
 book of the month. It was book of the age and it 
 burned itself into the hearts of millions of people. 
 
 Abe read it. Everybody read it, that is, every- 
 body who could read in that year of 1852. It was 
 written by a frail, little woman who wielded a mean 
 pen — Harriet Beecher Stowe. The title — "Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly." It had a 
 powerful influence on the country, a country ripe for 
 such a panning as slavery got from Harriet, the 
 skinny, little wife who was raising a flock of kids 
 and nursing a sick husband who was a Bible shark 
 and a language prof. 
 
 Millions read her book and wept and billions 
 have bawled over it since. Tom shows still play it 
 to S. R. O. houses in the tall and uncut, and a super 
 fillum was done of it not so long ago. 
 
 Talk about best sellers! This was a complete 
 sell-out. Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, great 
 lights, wrote to her and praised her. It was trans- 
 Page 112 
 
lated into French, Italian, German, Danish, Swed- 
 ish, Russian, Armenian, Persian, Japanese and 
 Chinese. Yes, folks were talking about it. They were 
 talking about nothing else much and they were say- 
 ing of slavery, "terrible — horrible." Public opinion 
 was getting in there to romp on slavery. 
 
 The U. S. was in a jam, sure enough, but she 
 was a paradise compared to Europe, who was having 
 one upheaval after two. The poor folks of the 
 world were getting next to themselves. They had 
 been suckers for the ruling classes too long. They 
 were beginning to say, "Get off my neck." The 
 French revolution was revoluting. Heads were be- 
 ing tossed about like medicine balls, only tfrey 
 dripped more as the red corpuscles spurted. Jolly 
 times, indeed. 
 
 And in America millions of virgin acres were 
 crying out for plows to scratch their backs. The 
 under dogs of Europe heard that wail of the soil, 
 stuck their possessions in red handkerchiefs and 
 started for this country that was known as the land 
 of the free, even if we did have millions of slaves. 
 
 In 10 years, between 1850 and 1860, they flocked 
 in. There were 23,000,000 souls including the blacks 
 when this migration started. Nearly 3,000,000 
 Europeans steeraged in during the decade. The 
 U. S. was growing in power, too. She became one of 
 the powers of the world. 
 
 Henry Clay, it is said, taking his last ride from 
 Washington to Kentucky, stepped out of the stage 
 coach and laid his ear on the ground. The driver 
 said, "What's eating you, Henry? What you doing 
 down there with your ear to the ground?" and Henry 
 said, "I am listening to the tred of unnumbered 
 
 Page 113 
 
thousands of feet that are to come this way west- 
 ward." He knew. This great flood of humans passed 
 in review before Abe's optics and he was gauging 
 it, getting the dope. The Germans took Illinois and 
 Abe went to a night class to study German. 
 
 All these immigrants who had almost bartered 
 their souls to get enough dough to take the trip 
 across the big drink wanted land, land, land. What 
 was the government to do? Give this land away? 
 That became the question. In 20 years the U. S. A. 
 turned loose 269,500,000 acres of land, giving most 
 of it away. It gave one railroad 2,500,000 acres. Yet, 
 there was no homestead law. The people started the 
 cry, "Vote yourself a farm." 
 
 These years marked the passing of the feudal 
 landlord racket. These years marked the dawn of 
 freedom for white men. Not that they snatched real 
 freedom at once, but America, where the land was 
 fertile and where almost anyone who would get out 
 and do the chores, could get land, be his own boss; 
 dodge a feudal lord who was ready to put his heel 
 on his heart. That fact did much to smash oppres- 
 sion all over the cock-eyed world. With freedom 
 like this for whites, how could slavery for blacks go 
 on? Well, it didn't. 
 
 Speed was coming, too. The "lightning wires" 
 became facts. Telegraphy became a reality. Abe 
 met a telegraph operator in Peoria and said, "Bud- 
 dy, slip us the low down on this lightning communi- 
 cation." The dot-dasher showed Abe the Morse 
 alphabet. 
 
 Page 114 
 
^1 
 
 CHAPTER THREE DOZEN 
 
 The little squirt called "Giant" 
 
 TEVE DOUGLAS during these years has bust out 
 of his local breeches and grown into national clothes 
 covered with fame, power and importance. Steve 
 has become the big shot of the Democratic party, 
 the political genius of the time and, of course, the 
 hero of his home state, Illinois. He came nearer be- 
 ing able to fill the boots of the mighty men who have 
 passed — Clay, Calhoun and Webster — than any 
 other gazabo in the country. 
 
 He was a runt physically, stood only five feet 
 two inches in his hose, but he had a great head with 
 a shock of hair like the elder La Follette of recent 
 years. He was the most daring political force since 
 Andy Jackson kicked the bucket, and Andy was his 
 hero. Douglas was known as a "whole hog Jackson" 
 man. He was only 41 this year of which I speak, 
 this year when he came back to Illinois from con- 
 gress to make an address at the state fair in Spring- 
 field. This year when Abe answered Douglas and 
 the debates got started; the debates that showed the 
 pop-eyed universe that Abe Lincoln was a great, 
 sound thinker and an able, fearless statesman. 
 
 Douglas was the mouthpiece for young America 
 — so he said, at any rate — and he panned what he 
 called "old fogyism" at every opportunity. He had 
 the grand manner, the sweeping of his head and 
 the clinching of mits that makes an orator. He was 
 
 Page 115 
 
not humble like Abe. Doug had played daddy to the 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill, a bill that had brought all the 
 old hate in the country to the boiling point again, a 
 bill that was giving the slave drivers another break. 
 And he was down in Illinois to defend this bill and 
 put it over. He was as hot as a volcano in his talk 
 and he made 'em like it. 
 
 Abe answered Douglas, the bird they were call- 
 ing the "Little Giant" and when Abe answered 'em 
 they stayed answered. For three hours Abe talked, 
 earnestly, seriously, with logic and common horse 
 sense. 
 
 "Nearly 80 years ago we began by declaring 
 that all men are created equal; but now from that 
 beginning we have run down to the other declara- 
 tion that for some men to enslave others is a sacred 
 right of self government. These principles cannot 
 stand together. They are as opposite as God and 
 Mammon. Whoever holds to the one must despise 
 the other." So spoke Abraham in his final burst of 
 logic. 
 
 There were cheers, not so loud or so long as 
 those that tickled the vanity of the little squirt, 
 Doug, but quieter, more sincere applause. Two 
 bozos, one a scholar, the other an illiterate hay- 
 shaker, commented on this talk of Abe's. They 
 show what an impression he made. The scholar 
 said, "His manner was impassioned and he seemed 
 transfigured; his listeners felt that he believed 
 every word he said, and that like Martin Luther, he 
 would go to the stake rather than abate one jot or 
 tittle of it." 
 
 Praise — and, it's hard to get more praise than 
 that — but now hear how the sodbuster put it, "I 
 Page 116 
 
ain't keen fur them great orators. I want to hear 
 jist a plain, common feller like the rest of us, thet 
 I kin foller an' know where he's driving. Abe Link- 
 ern fills the bill." 
 
 When Abe made a talk he made it so beauti- 
 fully, so scholarly, that a scholar felt it was almpst 
 inspired, and yet he made it so simply, so clearly, so 
 understandable, with so little flourish and hooey 
 that the least educated bird in the audience could 
 follow and understand and feel the power and 
 strength of the argument. That was in a large 
 measure Lincoln's genius. It was partly what made 
 him the savior of the country when he was needed. 
 
 Doug came to Abe and begged him to lay off. 
 "I'm down here to do some high class spouting," he 
 said. "But, boy, you gave me more jabs than a mil- 
 lion New Jersey mosquitoes. I'll can the chatter if 
 you will." Abe said, "O. K. with me, Steve. I didn't 
 want to do any talking, but if you are going to lay 
 that bum idea out down here, I'm going to knock it 
 into an ash can." Folks began to say that Abe had 
 driven the "Giant" into a hole. 
 
 An election was about to break out and folks 
 around Springfield wanted Abe to run. He wouldn't. 
 He was through with politics, at least he thought 
 he was. They begged him and he said, "Nothing 
 stirring," but while he was away on a law case they 
 elected him anyhow. He resigned. Later he wanted 
 to be senator but he tossed his chances away in order 
 to make sure a Dougles Demmy wouldn't get it and 
 thereby add one more slave vote to the U. S. senate. 
 
 Page 117 
 
NOW COMES 37 
 
 The lost speech 
 
 OLKS, get a load of this. It's all about the lost 
 speech, the speech that gave Abe a running start for 
 the prexy job, the speech that launched him smack 
 dab into the toughest job any bird in the United 
 States ever handled, bar none. 
 
 In the year 1856 in the Missouri-Kansas mess 
 200 men, women and children were shot, stabbed or 
 burned to death in fighting between free and slave 
 state settlers and the guerillas that came in from 
 Missouri to hog tie the freedom gents. Homes, 
 crops, hotels, printing plants had been burned by 
 the guerillas. The slave birds were going to drive 
 every man who held for freedom right out of the 
 territory. They meant to see to it that these terri- 
 tories should be safe for slavery. 
 
 In May of 1856 the first Illinois state conven- 
 tion to organize the Republican party was called. It 
 met in Bloomington. The Republican party had 
 been launched some months before in Wisconsin, 
 at a little meeting hall in Ripon. Some white men 
 with souls in their bodies and brains in their domes 
 had got together and said, "We have to have a new 
 party to fight this slavery, to oppose the Demo- 
 crats." The Whig party was all haywire. So Whigs 
 and What Nots, Know Nothings and some Demo- 
 crats who were against slavery, all kinds of men had 
 rallied under the new party head. Just before that 
 
 Page 118 
 
first Illinois convention got under way, a gang of 
 thugs who were all for slavery rode into the town of 
 Lawrence, Kansas, shooting as they rode and they 
 burned the Free State, a hotel, and wrecked two 
 printing plants. Lawrence, Kansas, had been set- 
 tled by men and women from New England who had 
 gone out there expressly to get families that be- 
 lieved in freedom into the new territory. That's the 
 kind of stuff that was goin' on when the Republican 
 convention met in Bloomington. 
 
 No one knew what was coming out of that con- 
 vention. Abe Lincoln went down to see. He knew 
 we needed a new party, but he was a little afraid the 
 radicals, the wild eyed reds, would cop the party and 
 cause terrible trouble. As Abe and Henry C. Whit- 
 ney walked to the Chicago and Alton depot to see 
 who would be climbing off the steam cars to attend 
 the convention, Abe said to Whitney, "I guess I'll 
 stop in this jewelry store and get me a pair of cheat- 
 ers. You know, Henry, I am 47 years old now and I 
 guess I kinda need specks." 
 
 The convention met in a hall over Humphrey's 
 cheap store. It adopted a platform and razzed the 
 tar out of the Democratic administration — saying 
 that congress had the power to stop the extension 
 of slavery and should use that power. The conven- 
 tion nominated Col. Bill H. Bissel, who, as a member 
 of congress, had clashed with Jeff Davis and when 
 challenged to a duel had chosen muskets loaded 
 with ball and buckshot. In other words, a guy with 
 plenty of guts. 
 
 After getting this off the chest they started the 
 speeches, forecasting the life and work of the new 
 party. Several orators broke out and then the cry, 
 
 Page 119 
 
"Abe Lincoln, Abe Lincoln, Abe Lincoln," sounded. 
 Abe stood up in answer to the shouts; then there 
 were more yells, "Take the platform, take the plat- 
 form." Abe walked slowly up the aisle and mounted 
 the platform. He was formulating his speech as he 
 walked. He started quietly, "We are in trying 
 times. Unless popular opinion makes itself felt very 
 strongly, and a change is made in our present 
 course, blood will flow on account of Nebraska and 
 Kansas. Brothers' hands will be raised against 
 brother." They all knew this. But Abe, he was just 
 opening up. "We must not be led by excitement and 
 passion to do that which our sober judgments would 
 not approve in cooler moments." So far the report- 
 ers got down what Abe had to say. 
 
 Then Abe said, "We are collected here from all 
 manner of different elements, yet we are agreed that 
 slavery must be kept out of Kansas. We are in a fair 
 way to see this land of boasted freedom converted 
 into a land of slavery in fact." 
 
 Joe Medill of the Chicago Trib and all the rest 
 of the reporters were getting more than interested. 
 Lincoln's manner was so earnest, so convincing, so 
 entrancing that the reporters let their pencils fall 
 from their hands. When this happened you may be 
 sure that something red hot and almost divine is 
 being pulled. It takes real, inspired talking to keep 
 a reporter from jotting down notes, to keep a re- 
 porter from sneering, scoffing and saying, 
 "Bologny, big boy, bologny, applesauce." Report- 
 ers as a class are not awed by greatness or fame or 
 any such thing. They know how fleeting is fame. 
 They want to report what a man says, so you can 
 Page 120 
 
be assured that what Lincoln was saying was hitting 
 the hearts as well as the minds of these people. 
 
 Medill admitted that he quit because he wanted 
 to listen. He didn't want to miss a word by trying 
 to keep up with his notes. And every other reporter 
 present did the same thing. Bill Herndon, Abe's 
 partner, who usually made notes of impromptu 
 speeches forgot to write down a thing. The listen- 
 ers moved up closer. They packed in tight about 
 the platform not to miss a word. Only jots of what 
 was said at that convention have come to us. After 
 it was over, Whitney spent hours making notes, try- 
 ing to remember, trying to reconstruct the speech. 
 
 "As sure as God reigns and school children 
 read, that black foul lie (slavery) can never be con- 
 secrated into God's hallowed truth." There is one 
 line that was saved. And the end of the speech was 
 reconstructed: We will say to the Southern Dis- 
 unionists, 'We won't go out of the Union and you 
 shan't.'" 
 
 The hall came near cracking under the strain 
 of the applause that marked Abe's triumph, The 
 delegates jumped up and down and split their lungs 
 crying acclaim. They tossed their bonnets into the 
 air. Abe was the boy they had been looking for. He 
 was the Voice of the convention, he was IT. 
 
 They wanted Abe to try and write it out, this 
 greatest speech that had been made since Pat Hen- 
 ry. But Abe said, "No." 
 
 Why? Because it was packed with dynamite. 
 
 It was loaded with passion. It could have been 
 
 turned into a torch then and set the country on fire. 
 
 He didn't want to start a fire. 
 
 Page 121 
 
Abe was ripe then for greatness, but he didn't 
 stop growing. Several years work in big law cases 
 followed. Interesting cases. Cases involving mil- 
 lions. The McCormick reaper case, the railroad 
 case, the steam boat case. And Abe was making 
 money, but a smear of the lawyers of the country 
 were razzing him for being Santa Claus. He took 
 too many cases for almost nothing. Cases for poor 
 people. He was more interested in justice than he 
 was in jack. Abe saved the son of hjs old friend, 
 Aunt Hannah Duff, from a necktie party in one of 
 the cleverest stunts ever pulled in a court room. Abe 
 literally laughed one case off. That's where we get 
 that gag line, "laugh that off." No fooling, he got 
 everybody including the judge laughing so hard 
 they simply couldn't stick Abe's client. He got to 
 know the very heart beat of humanity, the passions 
 of killers, the kindness of the kind and the rotten 
 meanness of the others. 
 
 Page 122 
 
WHAM! GOES NO. 38 
 
 The "House Divided" speech 
 
 HE "Baby Party" was going to stick up Abe for the 
 job of U. S. senator from Illinois. He knew it and he 
 decided to write himself a speech. Usually Abe just 
 got on his hind legs and talked his talks. His dome 
 was so full of gray matter all packed with facts and 
 figures and his heart was so loaded with justice and 
 the idea of what was right that he didn't need to 
 slap his dope on paper. But here was one he meant 
 to have cold. He wrote it and showed it to Billy 
 Herndon. Billy said, "Abe, pull that speech and it 
 will make you president." 
 
 Abe showed it to others. They said, "You big 
 chump. That speech will land you square into the 
 refuse dump. It's ahead of its time. It's like a razor 
 to cut your own throat." But Abe only answered, 
 "It's my sentiments and I'll stick." They nominated 
 him and he read his speech. 
 
 "A house divided against itself cannot stand. 
 I believe this government cannot endure permanent- 
 ly 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." 
 
 There is the meat of the speech and the meat of 
 Abe's life from then on. His business from that mo- 
 ment forward was to see that the house did not fall, 
 that the Union did not dissolve. And he saw to it, 
 
 Page 123 
 
and he also saw to it that slavery was stepped on 
 and eradicated from this land. There was other 
 T. N. T. in that speech, too. Abe practically charged 
 the president and a flock of others with conspiracy 
 in the slamming through the Dred Scott decision. 
 The newspapers, especially the Democratic papers, 
 went wild, calling Lincoln nasty names. Steve 
 Douglas, the biggest pig in the puddle down at 
 Washington, read that speech and read it over and 
 over again. He said, "That lanky Abe is going to 
 toss the monkey wrench into my machinery sure as 
 shooting if I don't get in there and bust up his show 
 for him. I've got to get into Illinois." 
 
 And so Douglas came to Illinois and in every 
 campaign speech he made he tried to give the lie to 
 that "House Divided" talk. He tried to show that 
 everything was hotsi totsi in the present arrange- 
 ment and that the slavery issue was of no great im- 
 portance. It was tough going, but Douglas was a 
 talker from Hades and when he turned his music on, 
 the whole nation listened. He was a tin god on 
 wheels in those days and he was due to remain such 
 a tin personage for two years more. 
 
 The year '58 was a horrible year financially. A 
 soup kitchen year. In '57 the banks went kaflooey, 
 stocks did a nose dive, property values fell in tail 
 spins. Panic gripped the dinner pail carriers. More 
 than 40,000 men were walking the streets of New 
 York looking for jobs or a chance to snatch a hunk 
 of bread. Many of these thousands paraded with 
 banners which read — "We Want Work" or "Hunger 
 is a Sharp Thorn." 
 
 Soap box spielers were telling the hungry boys 
 Page 124 
 
to make a raid on the subtreasury vaults in which 
 there were some 20,000,000 smackers in gold. 
 
 Squads of dough boys and devil dogs were 
 guarding the dough piles from these restless and 
 hungry birds. 
 
 In Chicago there were 20,000 men without work. 
 
 The Southern gentlemen were thumbing their 
 noses at the North and saying, "See! Look at us 
 down here. All our black boys get their hog and 
 hominy regular. Field laborers don't have to form 
 bread lines." They were trying to put over that old 
 hooey, that slaves were better off than the white 
 workmen of the North just because Mr. Slave got 
 enough corn pone to fill his belly. 
 
 And while these white working men were 
 writhing under the tough hiding a panic can slip to 
 a guy who hasn't got the old sheckles salted away, 
 they were smuggling at least 10,000 new slaves into 
 the country every year, fresh captured black boys 
 and girls from the wilds of Africa. It was a sweet 
 picture, I don't think! 
 
 Page 125 
 
THIS CHAPTER IS NO. 39 
 
 The gong sounds 
 
 OUG was fighting tooth, nail and adenoid to hold 
 his job to be the leader of America. Abe was fight- 
 ing just as hard to keep him out, for, in Doug's vic- 
 tory, Abe saw chaos, and the prolongation of 
 slavery. Let's leap a lot of hurdles and get the boys 
 ripping into each other in the battle of the age, the 
 Lincoln-Douglas debates, perhaps the most cele- 
 brated chatter fights of history. 
 
 The first round was pulled in the public square 
 at Ottawa and 12,000 persons were there to catch it. 
 Shorthand had just been born, the telegraph was 
 new, and fast printing presses had recently been 
 added to the inventions of the time. 
 
 The news rags were in a sweat to get every 
 word of that battle of the mental giants and the 
 whole country was hot to read about it. The old 
 hay maker shot his blistering rays down on the as- 
 sembled multitude that stood in the unshaded 
 square to get an ear full this afternoon of August 
 21, of the year 1858, and the multitude took the pun- 
 ishment for three long hours and howled for more. 
 Abe led with the charge that Doug's work on the 
 Missouri Compromise repeal opened the way for 
 the advance of slavery and then slamming over an- 
 other fast one to the jaw he said, "Slavery is rip- 
 ping the country wide open." Doug was punch 
 drunk, but he came back with the charge that Abe 
 Page 126 
 
was full of barb wire, that he was fomenting war 
 and tickling Mars under the chin. Doug tried to 
 make the world believe that he, the runt with the 
 big brain, was the only hope the country had for 
 peace and prosperity. 
 
 When the first of this series was over, the 
 Democrats hoisted Doug to their shoulders and car- 
 ried him off the field and the Republicans pulled 
 the same undignified exit for Abe. 
 
 All the newspapers carried long stories about 
 the battle. This debate and the six that followed 
 it made Lincoln a national figure. He had been only 
 a country lawyer and politician, known only in 
 Illinois — but the debates, the press, shorthand and 
 the telegraph made him a great national figure over 
 night. 
 
 But Abe got more ink calling him naughty 
 names than he got in praise. Let's take a look at 
 some of the reports of that speech. Let's see what 
 dumbbells some of the reporters were. 
 
 The reporter for the Philadelphia Press was not 
 very strong for Lincoln and he let his prejudice 
 throw sand in his eyes. He let his feelings turn him 
 sour and he ground out a story that makes him look 
 pretty bad today. He said, "Lincoln — poor fellow! 
 He was writhing in the powerful grasp of an intel- 
 lectual giant. His speech amounted to nothing. It 
 was made up with such expressions as 'I think it is 
 so; I maybe mistaken; I guess it was done, etc., etc.' 
 There were no straightforward assertions and logi- 
 cal conclusions such as fall from the lips of Doug- 
 las. He spent over half of his hour reading from 
 some old speech that he had previously made on 
 abolitionism. As he continued reading, there were 
 
 Page 127 
 
numerous voices exclaiming, "What book is that 
 you are reading from" 
 
 This dim wit of a reporter didn't know that he 
 was reading from that "House Divided" speech that 
 Lincoln pulled when he accepted the nomination for 
 candidate for senator. He didn't know that it was 
 to become one of the most famous speeches in his- 
 tory, that it was to be quoted millions of times; he 
 didn't know that Abe was reading from a master- 
 piece. But such is prejudice. This addlepate re- 
 porter ended up his yarn saying, "Lincoln is the 
 worst used up man in the United States. He has six 
 appointments to meet Judge Douglas yet. I don't 
 believe he will fill them all." 
 
 Oh, oh, did that feature hound have to eat his 
 words? Did he ever prove that he was a first class 
 ass? I'll tell the world he did. Abe filled those en- 
 gagements and he talked Douglas into a trap that 
 whipped Doug for the presidency, peeled him off 
 like a dirty shirt. 
 
 The Chicago Times, that defunct sheet that 
 smelled as if it were already dead, in reporting that 
 debate, tried to make it appear that Abe took a ter- 
 rible licking from the lashing tongue of the "Little 
 Giant." It's headlines recorded, "Lincoln's Heart 
 Fails Him"; "Lincoln Fails All Over"; "Douglas 
 Skins the Living Dog"; "The Lion Frightens the 
 Canine." 
 
 Papers are fairer now than they were in those 
 days. Papers, no matter what their political faith 
 or feelings, now try to give the exact and correct 
 news always. What they say in their editorials, 
 that's something else again. They take sides and 
 
 Page 128 
 
say what they like, almost. But in those days they 
 stuck such things in the news columns. 
 
 Lincoln did not fail at all that day. Lincoln 
 made a tremendous hit with the people, but the 
 Times tried to kid the world and make it look like 
 Abe was a flop. 
 
 Now, a paper would tell the reaction of the 
 people honestly, no matter how the paper felt about 
 it. At Jeast the paper would try to do it accurately. 
 
 But we can't end this on the sour notes. Here 
 is a little touch of what a reporter who was trying 
 to be fair said. The reporter for the New York Eve- 
 ning Post wrote, "In repose, I must confess that 
 Long Abe's appearance is not comely. But stir him 
 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 of strong 
 magnetic influence. He takes the people every 
 time, and there is no getting away from his sturdy 
 good sense, his unaffected sincerity and the unceas- 
 ing play of his good humor which accompanies his 
 close logic and smooths the way to conviction. Lis- 
 tening to him on Saturday, calmly and unprejudiced, 
 I was convinced that he has no superior as a stump 
 speaker. He is clear, concise and logical ; his langu- 
 age is eloquent and at perfect command. He is alto- 
 gether a more fluent speaker than Douglas, and in 
 all the arts of debate fully his equal/* 
 
 Can you figure how two reporters could get 
 such widely different stories from the same set of 
 circumstances, from the same speech? 
 
 Page 129 
 
CHAPTER TWO SCORE 
 
 Abe ruins the "Runt" 
 
 N THIS corner, ladies and gentlemen, we have long 
 boy Abe; in this corner, Doug, the half pint giant. 
 The arena is at Freeport, Illinois and 15,000 people 
 had ringside standing room. The whole mob stuck 
 it out despite the cold and rain. 
 
 They were packed so close about the platform 
 that the speakers had to fight their way through. 
 When Abe got the stand, he yanked off his duster 
 and said, "Hold this while I stone Stephen." It got 
 a laugh. Naturally. Abe was always good for a 
 laugh. That is one of the things that burned the 
 Democrats up. Abe, serious as he was, could al- 
 ways get a laugh to get the people in a receptive 
 mood for his oratorical obligatto. Abe was looking 
 further ahead than the rest of the politicians. He 
 had his neck way out and his eyes had their long dis- 
 tance focus on. He meant to whip Doug for the 
 senate at the coming election if he could, but he 
 meant to pulverize him so that he couldn't grab off 
 the big job no matter what the outcome of the sena- 
 torial race might be. Abe decided to deliver a blow 
 to the solar plexis by asking Doug to answer one 
 question. This question was, "Can the people of a 
 United States territory, in any lawful way, against 
 the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude 
 slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a 
 state constitution? 
 Page 130 
 
Abe's political advisers had said, "Abe, don't 
 be a fool. You're tossing your chances to be elected 
 senator into the garbage can with that question." 
 Abe had said to them, "Now, boys, get in on this. 
 I am gunning for bigger game." 
 
 "What's that bologny mean?" they asked him. 
 
 "Blow the cobwebs out of your brain, they're 
 collecting dust," Abe said. "If Douglas answers that 
 question, 'Yes,' and he has to do it to keep his votes 
 here in Illinois, he is going to rip his pants with the 
 whole South. He'll never be president if he says 
 they can exclude slavery from a territory, and he 
 knows darned well that they can't under the law he 
 railroaded through. Playing to the South he got it 
 fixed so they can't exclude slavery legally from a 
 territory, and he knows it, but the law is ambiguous 
 and he'll find a way to straddle it, and he'll say they 
 can. All right. That'll give him a break here in 
 Illinois, but it will break him absolutely in the South, 
 and there you are, boys. With the South and North 
 Democrats busted up, it'll mean three parties in the 
 field and it will mean that the Republican candidate 
 for president, the candidate who will be absolutely 
 opposed to the extension of slavery, can go in, hands 
 down. Does that clear your noodles for you? The 
 battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this." 
 
 Abe hadn't pictured himself as the candidate 
 for president, either. He was knocking Doug out 
 then at the risk of shattering his own chinaware 
 forever. This is evident from his talks later when 
 he said, "I never figured I was fit for the presi- 
 dency." Humble Abe, Honest Abe was taking the 
 chance of losing out in this race because he thought 
 it was the best thing for the country. Because he 
 
 Page 131 
 
honestly believed what he said, because he honestly 
 wanted to see slavery put on the skids and slid into 
 oblivion. 
 
 But these advisers still said, "Abe, you're mak- 
 ing a fool of yourself. Doug will answer as you say 
 and with this added to his already large following 
 it will mean that he'll knock you for a loop in this 
 senate race." 
 
 "Let him knock," Abe said, "I'm going to 
 spring that one on him, and you mark my words, it'll 
 do what I tell you." 
 
 That boy, Abe, was the smartest politician then 
 playing politics or pinochle. Just exactly what he 
 doped out came true. 
 
 Dong, that's the bell. 
 
 Doug took the floor and asked Abe a series of 
 questions. Abe answered them and made a hit with 
 his comebacks. Then Abe led off with this ques- 
 tion we have just given the double O. Doug start- 
 ed squirming and dodging. He smelled the rodent. 
 He began to see that he was just about due to kiss 
 the canvas if he answered that question. Either way 
 he got himself in a political jam. But Doug was 
 out for the senate job and he knew he had to hold 
 Illinois or he was a goner for sure. "So," said he to 
 himself, said he, "I'll have to say 'yes/ or bite the 
 dust here and now." It brought the sweat out on 
 his brow. The sweat was boiling some of the booze 
 out, too. But after ducking and dodging and trying 
 to make a few holes for an out he said, "Yes, terri- 
 tories can exclude slavery." 
 
 Oh! Oh! That did it. He rubbed his nose in 
 the resin, then and there. When the news got to the 
 South, the whole solid flock of Cotton States said, 
 Page 132 
 
"You're out, boy, you're out. Here we've been kinda 
 favoring you for president with the understanding 
 that you were really for slavery and for its exten- 
 sion, but no more." Southern planters had ruined 
 their soil by cultivating nothing but cotton. They 
 didn't want to spread the potash, etc., to bring it 
 back. They wanted these western territories to be 
 opened up as slave land so they could grab off mil- 
 lions of acres of cheap dirt, drag their niggers with 
 'em and start planting on a big scale again. 
 
 Now Doug was trying to face both ways, be 
 against slavery in the north and for it in the south. 
 It took some facing. 
 
 That second debate put Doug on the bum. He 
 saw that he was up against a bruiser who could take 
 punishment and still come up grinning ; he saw that 
 Abe was a glutton for work and that his voice was 
 getting stronger. 
 
 Imagine talking outdoors to a mob of 20,000 
 people without radio amplifiers to help. It was a 
 task that put a strain on the sturdiest of tonsils, but 
 Abe could do it. He could throw his voice like a 
 cowboy throws a heifer. Doug, with all his heavy 
 lung power, was not equal to the chore after the 
 first two debates. 
 
 Abe was getting in the punches where they hurt 
 and was tiring the "Little Giant" right down. Abe 
 was a giant killer if ever there was such a character. 
 
 Doug got nasty in his talks finally and said that 
 Lincoln had to be carried off the platform at Otta- 
 wa. He repeated this several times, the same as 
 accusing Abe of being soused, full of giggle soup, 
 and Abe never swallowed a slug of happy juice in his 
 
 Page 133 
 
life, while, as a matter of course, Doug got three 
 sheets in the freeze frequently. 
 
 Lincoln didn't care for that crack so much. He 
 answered it by saying, "I don't want to quarrel with 
 Steve. I don't want to call him a liar. But when I 
 come square up to him, I don't know what else to 
 call him." And Abe got in a nasty dig of his own 
 after being harrassed by Doug's dirty allusions. He 
 said, "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." It was 
 fairly well known that Mrs. Douglas had been forced 
 to do just that. 
 
 When Douglas tried to make Lincoln's anti- 
 slavery stand look like a stand for equality of the 
 races, charging that Lincoln would probably like a 
 black mamma, Lincoln laughed that off by saying, 
 "Doug uses a spacious and fantastic arrangement of 
 words by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to 
 be a chestnut-horse." 
 
 At Galesburg 20,000 people stood in a freezing, 
 cold rain and heard the debate that lasted for more 
 than three hours. 
 
 The night before, in a jam that came out to 
 welcome him, a man held a lantern up to Abe's face, 
 and Abe laughed and said, "My friend, the less you 
 see of me the more you'll like me." Abe didn't kid 
 himself that he was a handsome sheik. He knew 
 he had a lantern jaw and a long, lined face, but it 
 didn't bother him. There was nothing of the drug 
 store cowperson in him. Doug slicked himself up 
 and took great pride in his black, wavy hair and in 
 his neat pantaloons. Abe took his pride in being 
 right. 
 Page 134 
 
\ 
 
 THIS ADDS UP TO 41 
 
 The country calls for Abe 
 
 BE knew his artichokes. He knew he was whipped 
 for the senate, but he felt pretty sure he had 
 splashed Doug for the presidency in 1860. He was 
 right as a rabbit. The trimming Abe took hurt him a 
 littlf . He was down in the mouth for a moment, but 
 in leaving his office after getting the dope on his 
 whipping, he slipped, came near crashing on the 
 sidewalk. But he was agile and he saved himself. 
 "Just a slip and not a fall," he said, and the idea 
 cheered him. He could take that both ways. 
 
 Abe was glad he had been in the battle. It had 
 taken every dime he had to make the race, but he 
 didn't give a rap about that. His practice was wait- 
 ing for him. He wrote, "Another explosion will 
 come soon. Doug managed to be supported as the 
 best instrument to break down slavery and also as 
 the best instrument to uphold slavery. No ingenu- 
 ity can keep this deception up a great while." 
 
 Nope, Abe wasn't broken hearted, even though 
 he figured it meant that he was through with poli- 
 tics. "Though I now sink out of view and shall be 
 forgotten, I believe I have made some marks which 
 will tell for the cause of civil liberty long after I am 
 gone." 
 
 "Though I now sink out of view." 
 
 Ah, Abe, that's applesauce. You're just coming 
 
 Page 135 
 
into national view as the biggest personality in the 
 country, yes, in the world. 
 
 "And shall be forgotten." 
 
 Horseradish, Abe, horseradish. You'll never be 
 forgotten. 
 
 And Abe wrote, "I shall fight in the ranks at the 
 next election." But he was wrong here. It was not 
 in the ranks, but as the general that he next fought. 
 
 The truth that Abe had hammered into the 
 country during his debates had inflamed the whole 
 population one way or another. Abe's name was on 
 every tongue. They were saying, "I wonder what 
 kind of a bozo he is?" The world wanted to know 
 more about Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 One evening as he was leaving the court house 
 in Bloomington, Illinois a gent by the name of Jesse 
 Fell fell in alongside of him and said, "Abe, put on 
 the brakes. I want to have a little gab fest with 
 you." Abe looked down and recognized this short 
 feller as the wealthy Fell who was a realtor and a 
 railroad tie magnate. Fell owned thousands of acres 
 of Illinois land and he was a strong Republican and 
 booster for Abe. Fell made his dough buying and 
 selling sections of terra firma and also peddling ties 
 to the baby railroads. 
 
 "Skate along with me up to my brother's office," 
 Jesse said, and when they got there, Jesse sprung it 
 on Abe like this, "Listen, big boy, I've been seeing 
 America first — I've just come back from a trip to the 
 east. I was in New England and Pennsylvania and 
 all over. And, Abe, you can split my logs if I didn't 
 find that they are all talking about you. They are 
 all saying, 'That long sucker out there knows his 
 onions and his bunions.' And, Abe, they all asked 
 Page 136 
 
me, 'Who is this talking fool who made Douglas 
 look like a dirty deuce in a greasy pack?' Well, boy, 
 I told 'em. 
 
 "Well, Abe, seeing as how they are thinking 
 about you, I says to myself, 'There is the guy for 
 president of these United States/ That's what I 
 said and then I doped it out this way. What we 
 need is publicity. We want to tell these folks who 
 are asking these questions who you are, Abe. As 
 well as I know you, Abe, I know nothing about your 
 early life, your education, your people. That's the 
 stuff they want to know. 
 
 "Now, I've got a friend in Pennsylvania, a 
 judge, and he wants a good, bang up story of your 
 youth, your early experiences, your family and all 
 that sort of stuff. I've told him I'll slip him the dope 
 and he'll write a story for his paper and for all the 
 papers in the east. It is a swell chance to get some 
 free press agent work done and it'll mean that you 
 become the next president of the United States. 
 Now, Abe, hand me the low down on yourself?" 
 
 You would think that that line of chatter would 
 have puffed Abe up and that he would have leaped 
 at the opportunity, wouldn't you? But not Abe. He 
 said, "Oh, Fell, what's the use of talking of me for 
 the presidency while we have such men as Seward 
 and Chase who are so intimately hooked up with the 
 Republican party. Everybody knows them. No one 
 knows me but some folks here in Illinois. Besides 
 it is a matter of justice due to these men who have 
 carried the party to the place it now holds in the 
 east. They are entitled to a shot at the presidency. 
 I really think so." 
 
 "Don't be an eggnog," Fell said. "Why, big 
 
 Page 137 
 
boy, Seward and Chase haven't got a Chinaman's 
 chance. I'll tell you why. They are in bad with the 
 world for being too radical. They are not liked gen- 
 erally because they have said such revolutionary 
 things, while you have said nothing but sane and 
 sensible common horse sense things. You've got it 
 on 'em like a blanket if you'll listen to me. 
 
 "What the Republican party wants in 1860 is a 
 man of popular origin, of acknowledged ability, 
 committed against slavery, and boy, if you don't fill 
 the bill I'll eat my undershirt." 
 
 "Tie it out in the pasture, Fell," Abe said. Well, 
 maybe not just that way, but that's what he meant. 
 
 "I'm telling you, Abe, you are passing up a swell 
 bet," Fell said. "I know my home state of Pennsyl- 
 vania will go for you. They won't sail for Cameron 
 (Pa. R.), but boy, they'll go for you like a ton of 
 brick hitting the skids. 
 
 "Come on, now, wise me up on your babyhood 
 and all that sort of thing." 
 
 Then Abe said, "Fell, I'm flattered. There's no 
 use kidding about it. I admit that I am ambitious, 
 I would like to be president, but it's not in the book. 
 No one else in this world thinks I am presidential 
 lumber except maybe you and Billy Herndon and 
 my wife. She has been getting me elected president 
 now for many years, but you know what that stuff 
 is. No one is interested in my humble, early life, so 
 we'll just forget it, Fell, old friend, just forget it." 
 
 And Abe got up and threw the heavy knitted 
 shawl about his shoulders and walked out. But Fell 
 came tagging at his heels and said, "You haven't 
 heard the last of that, Abe. We'll talk about it some 
 more." 
 Page 138 
 
Abe couldn't help but hear the calls now. Many 
 of the Republican papers of the country were cry- 
 ing for Abe to toss his kelly into the ring. Republi- 
 can clubs were howling for Abe to come and talk to 
 them. He got invited from all over the country, but 
 Abe couldn't attend. If fish were selling for 10 
 cents a whale he couldn't have bought a herring. 
 He was that broke and he had to stick at his prac- 
 tice to get some groceries in the pantry. 
 
 To the editors who kept saying, "We're root- 
 ing for you for president," Abe wrote, "Keep this 
 talk out of the papers. Seriously, I do not think I 
 am fit for the presidency." 
 
 And that wasn't sauce from the baldwin either. 
 Abe wasn't after the job, much as Molly wanted him 
 to be president. Not yet he wasn't, but as the music 
 of the independent Republicans got stronger and 
 stronger and demand for Abe got hotter and hotter, 
 I guess he started thinking, "Well, why not?" And 
 they got hotter, too. Long John Wentworth of the 
 Chicago Democrat which was a Republican paper 
 said, "Abe, what you need is somebody to run you." 
 Lincoln laughed and said, "Johnnie, only events can 
 make a president." 
 
 Abe didn't know those events had already gone 
 into a huddle and decided to hand him the ball. And 
 while this agitation was seething and the slavery 
 question was rapidly pushing us into a national 
 merry-go-round for a dizzy ride with death, Lincoln 
 reached the age of half a century. 
 
 I guess Abe was saying to himself every time 
 he pulled a bright crack that got a lot of guffaws, 
 "Be your age, Abe; be your age." 
 
 Page 139 
 
THE SCORE IS NOW 42 
 
 The "Rail Splitter" candidate 
 
 HOSE events that Abe cracked about were busy 
 making it imperative that Abe give a listen to the 
 call. John Brown's body lies a moaning in the grave. 
 Johnnie was one of the events. Johnnie, the aire- 
 dale fanatic with the zeal of a religious crusader, 
 while only a kid had seen a slave boy beaten by an 
 overseer. He had taken a vow then and there that he 
 would bust slavery for good or boot the pail in the 
 attempt, and from that moment until they sprung 
 the trap and left him hanging, he had devoted his 
 life to that one grand purpose. 
 
 Johnnie came from the finest stock this land 
 had to boast about, but he was always as poor as 
 the church rodent, because he not only raised cain 
 with slavery all his life, he also raised a young army 
 of kids, 20 in all. And every one of them were 
 zealots in the cause of freedom like their old man. 
 Two of his boys died in that Harpers Ferry affair 
 that caused the country to blaze. 
 
 On the night of Sunday, October 16, 1859 John- 
 nie led his band there to cop the government ar- 
 senal, take a hunk of the South, arouse the slaves, 
 ring the gong for freedom. The gang took the 
 arsenal, too, but Col. Robert E. Lee moved in an.d 
 took it back after killing the whole gang, except 
 Johnnie. The bullets miraculously missed him. 
 When Bob Lee got his dukes on the old bozo with 
 Page 140 
 
the flowing white beard he said, "Who sent you?" 
 and Johnnie said, "It was my own idea, or that of 
 my Maker, or that of the devil, whichever you 
 please." 
 
 "What was your game?" 
 
 "I came to free the slaves." 
 
 Virginia gave Johnnie a fair trial on the 
 charges of murder, treason and inciting slaves to re- 
 bellion, and sentenced him to swing until dead. 
 Brave old Johnnie faced death like a Trojan. 
 
 Just before they waltzed Johnnie out to the trap 
 he slipped a piece of paper to a fellow prisoner. On 
 it was written, "I, John Brown, am now quite cer- 
 tain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be 
 purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, 
 vainly flattered myself that without much blood- 
 shed it might be done." 
 
 John felt that his death was a blessing and 
 would hasten the complete annihilation of slavery 
 and he was ready to die in that cause. Die he did. 
 Bravely, and what he predicted came true. 
 
 Emerson, Thoreau, Victor Hugo and other 
 great writers of the time compared him to Christ, 
 to Socrates, the great martyrs who had met death 
 finely. Wendall Phillips said, "The lesson of the 
 hour is insurrection." 
 
 Steve Douglas shouted that the Republican 
 politicians had incited John Brown to his mad act, 
 and quoted Abe's "House Divided" speech to show 
 that there were inciting remarks in it. He also quot- 
 ed Seward's "Irrepressible Conflict" speech to show 
 that it was incendiary. Doug was trying to use the 
 Harper's Ferry act to wreck the Republicans. 
 
 But Lincoln warned against passion, warned 
 
 Page 141 
 
against such foolhardy stunts as Johnnie had tried 
 to pull. 
 
 At last Abe gave in and accepted the job of dark 
 horse in the race for president. He was invited to 
 speak in New York at the Cooper Institute and he 
 made a speech that will live forever. It rang 'round 
 the country and Abe was well on the way to the job. 
 
 On May 9 the Illinois Republican state conven- 
 tion went into session and as the meeting opened, 
 in walked John Hanks with two fence rails across 
 his shoulder. A banner on the rails proclaimed, 
 "Abraham Lincoln, the rail candidate for president, 
 I860" and there was an inscription beneath the big 
 type reading, "Two rails from a lot of 3,000 made in 
 1830 by Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln, whose 
 father was the first pioneer of Macon county." As 
 John marched in carrying these rails the delegates 
 to the state convention shouted, "Lincoln, Lincoln, 
 Lincoln — Speech — Speech." 
 
 A committee grabbed Abe and danced him to 
 the platform. He thanked them. His face was sober, 
 no laughs there then. And then the convention let 
 out a shout — "Three Times Three for Honest Abe, 
 Our Next President" — and after the cheers had 
 burst and died down John Hanks came to the plat- 
 form with more rails, shouting "Identify your work." 
 
 Abe said, "I cannot say that I split these rails," 
 and then he turned to the committee and said, 
 "Where did you get these rails?" A spokesman 
 cracked the silence, "At a farm you improved down 
 on the Sangamon." Abe said, "Well, that was a long 
 time ago. It is possible I may have split the rails, 
 but I cannot identify them." But the convention 
 Page 142 
 
kept on shouting, "Identify your work, identify 
 your work." 
 
 Then Abe began to grin. He saw it was a plan 
 to stage a demonstration for him and he didn't want 
 to throw any cold water on the fun. He asked, 
 "What kind of timber are they?" 
 
 "Honey locust and black walnut," they said. 
 
 "Well, that is lasting timber," and he gave the 
 rails a close up and down and said, "It may be that 
 I split these rails and again he gave the rails the 
 double O. "Well, boys, I can only say that I have 
 split a great many better looking ones." And in this 
 manner was the rail splitting candidate given a 
 moniker that has stuck. 
 
 The convention then got down to business and 
 picked Abe as their candidate for nomination. Seven 
 out of the 22 delegates were in favor of Seward of 
 New York for the Republican nomination, but the 
 convention instructed its delegates to vote unani- 
 mously for Abe. 
 
 Illinois had picked its candidate for president 
 on the Republican ticket. It was May 9 and on May 
 16 the national Republican convention was to go 
 into its great cluster at Chicago and pick a 
 candidate. 
 
 Men who favored Lincoln for president had de- 
 manded that the convention be held in Chicago. 
 They had said, "Listen to us or lose the middle west. 
 This vast, new territory is getting stronger than a 
 bull elephant and it won't be long now, no, it won't 
 be long until we are the strongest part of the 
 Union." So they talked to the national committee 
 and Chicago was selected. 
 
 Page 143 
 
WE'LL CALL IT 43 BECAUSE IT IS 
 
 The dark horse wins 
 
 HERE was much noise and making merry in Chi- 
 cago. The biggest lumber structure since the 
 wooden horse had been erected to house the howl- 
 ing delegates to the G. O. P. convention. Fair dames 
 squealed with delight at the bunting and thousands 
 of pigs squealed with pain, for the blow-hard 
 metropolis, even then in its tender years, was be- 
 coming the pork packing center of the world. Pork 
 barrels were to be seen here and there. Pork barrels 
 may still be sniffed when politicians get together. 
 
 Chi named the convention hall the Wigwam and 
 here in 1860 Abraham Lincoln, the dark pacer, was 
 nominated to head the ticket of the G. O. P. It was 
 a grand party then, but the O was a little misplaced, 
 for, as you know, the party was still wearing a tri- 
 angle as an emblem of babyhood. 
 
 Plenty politics was played at this mammoth 
 huddle, plenty of embarrassing promises were made, 
 but Honest Abe had made it plain to his backers that 
 he wasn't putting out. He said, "Make no promises 
 for me." A few were made, anyhow, but you can't 
 blame Abraham for them. Seward, the favorite, 
 came near copping early in the game, but the cards 
 were not stacked that way and it's a lucky thing 
 for the Red, White and Blue that it was as it was. 
 
 Abe didn't show up at the shindig and when he 
 ankled down the main stem of Springfield and 
 Page 144 
 
heard that the convention was going hot for Seward, 
 Abe heaved himself a sigh of relief. "I reckon I 
 can go back to my office and practice some law," he 
 said. Meaning for good. But on Friday, when they 
 put Abe across the line, a winner, he got a big belt 
 out of it. He took it calmly, though, and said, "I be- 
 lieve I'll slip up to Eighth st. There is a little 
 woman down at our house who would like to hear 
 the news." 
 
 Well, well, well. Molly wasn't such a crack-pot 
 after all when she said Abraham Lincoln was going 
 to be president of the United States. Molly knew 
 more about Abe's weight and worth than the cross- 
 roads wiseacres. When Abe slipped her the tidings, 
 she said, "I told you so," as wives will do now and 
 then in the best regulated domiciles. 
 
 The news brought out all the empty barrels and 
 combustible material in Sangamon county and that 
 night the heavens blazed with the happy fire of suc- 
 cess for a home boy. 
 
 A brass band blared up to put on a serenade for 
 the victor. Abe came out on the front porch and 
 said, "Howdy, boys," and they yelled, "Speech, 
 speech." So Abe said, "Well, boys, the honor of the 
 nomination is not for me personally at all. It's just 
 for the representative of a great cause. That's all." 
 
 When Judge David Davis, Abe's manager, was 
 asked how much it cost to put that nomination over, 
 the judge said, "Seven hundred smackers including 
 flowers, telegrams, the headquarters in Chi, rail- 
 road fare of delegates, and incidentals." Try and 
 do it now for $700.00. Try and do it. 
 
 And who was to be Abe's opponent in the big 
 race for the presidency? None other than our little, 
 
 Page 145 
 
hammered down, playmate, Steve Douglas himself, 
 not a motion picture. The Democrats had convened 
 and gone haywire over slavery. The convention had 
 broken up in a row, and they had convened again, 
 only to battle. Once more they split and Abe, 
 watching it all by the papers, laughed up his sleeve 
 and said, "I knew I would get Douglas back in those 
 debates. The South will have none of him." 
 
 The Northern Democrats pulled out and nomi- 
 nated Doug anyhow, and the Southern planters dug 
 a hole for John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky and 
 planted him for the race. They might as well have 
 thrown the dirt in then. He didn't have a ghost of 
 a show for his money. That split in the Democratic 
 party that Abe had managed by one deftly turned 
 question at Freeport, Illinois, marked the end of a 
 30-year reign for the Democrats. 
 
 The Republican campaign got away to a good 
 start on a smart hunch from a fourth-estater who 
 named a marching club of young voters the Wide 
 Awake club. In almost no time similar clubs were 
 organized in every jerk water hamlet in the north 
 and all the big cities had several of them. The na- 
 tional headquarters passed out thousands of oilskin 
 capes and hats and torchlight parades blazed away 
 everywhere. The campaign was running swiftly 
 and smoothly. 
 
 All the good anti-slavery boys opened up with 
 oratory all over the lots. Everybody got aboard the 
 wagon for the new party and its leader, Abe. He 
 alone kept his trap shut. He had said his say before. 
 They knew his stand against slavery and for the 
 Union and he made only one talk before the elec- 
 tion. That was in Springfield on August 14. They 
 Page 146 
 
came in baby buggies, on roller skates and mules, 
 any way to get there. It was the biggest crowd the 
 burg had ever welcomed. Abe was not accustomed 
 to such worship as was being shown. Humble Abe 
 wasn't out to reap glory. He said, "This is a fight 
 for a cause and the cause will go on if I were to die 
 tonight." 
 
 The spotlight of the nation was on Abe. Such 
 a harvest of biographies was never before seen and, 
 incidentally, they are still being turned out. The 
 country had a Lincoln complex. While the Re- 
 publican papers were printing reams about his good- 
 ness, smartness, genuiness, the Democratic papers 
 were calling him "a big baboon, a third rate country 
 lawyer." The pannings he got may have stung a 
 little, even if they were not true, not merited, but 
 the praise that was piled on him didn't turn his head 
 or unbalance him in any way. 
 
 Volk, the big hammer, chisel and marble artist, 
 said, "Now that you are going to be president, I 
 want to make a statue and I will do my best to do 
 you justice." 
 
 "I don't doubt it, big boy," Abe said, "I have 
 come to the conclusion that you are an honest man." 
 Volk had already made a bust of him. Volk wanted 
 to get the hands holding a stick and Abe went out 
 to the barn and found an old broomstick. He came 
 into the house whittling it down, smoothing it up. 
 
 The sittings started and as Abe's mug began 
 to look like him, he burst out one day, "There's the 
 animal himself." Abe was no God to himself, no 
 matter how the politicians tried to give him the 
 Godlike attributes. 
 
 Page 147 
 
COUNT IT 44 
 
 Elected and threatened 
 
 ORNING of the election day Abe crawled out of the 
 hay about 7 a. m., ate a light breakfast of pork side 
 and hen fruit, coffee and toast and said, "How you 
 guessing, Molly?" 
 
 "I married you, didn't I?" was Molly's come- 
 back. "And I said you would be president, didn't 
 I? Well, that settles it. You're going to be and you 
 had better be elected today, too, because you're get- 
 ting old." 
 
 Abe laughed at that and ankled down to the 
 principle drag to get the dope. When it began to 
 look like it was in the bag for him, he raced back 
 home, calling out, "Molly, we're elected." Note 
 that he didn't say "I am elected." He dragged 
 Molly in and made her full partner to the job. She 
 couldn't bear the tremendous burdens of the task, 
 but she was a partner to Abe just the same, even if 
 she did fly off the handle now and then. 
 
 The final count showed that the Lincoln guess- 
 ers were bright lads and thoroughly conversant with 
 their onions. It gave Abe 1,856,452 votes, a majority 
 of nearly half a million over Douglas, his nearest 
 competitor. But a few votes in different places 
 would have gummed the works and thrown the elec- 
 tion into the body of big law makers and graft in- 
 vestigators sometimes known as congress. This 
 might have been fatal. It probably would have 
 Page 148 
 
meant that the South could get its axe ground and a 
 man who favored slavery might have been picked. 
 It was a good win for Abe. But not a crushing one. 
 Fifteen states didn't give him a single electoral vote, 
 but the big places, New York and Pennsylvania and 
 Illinois crashed through and saved the day for 
 Abraham. 
 
 The balloters elected more Demmys than Re- 
 publicans to congress so Abe was going to meet a 
 hostile gang wh$n he took over the seat of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Almost as soon as Abe was elected the south 
 got going. The whole south had done everything 
 in its power to stop him, and having failed in that, 
 got peevish, nasty about it. South Carolina was the 
 first to pout and play the baby act. This state voted 
 to raise and equip 10,000 soldiers and lay out 500,000 
 smackers for shooting hardware. South Carolina! 
 declared itself a sovereign state and seceded from 
 the Union on December 20. It had its own flag, as 
 though it was going off and play nation all by it- 
 self. It grabbed the Federal forts and post office 
 and custom houses and said, "These are mine now. 
 I won't play with you any more." 
 
 Before Christmas of 1860 had arrived it began 
 to look as if there was no Santa Claus. All the Cot- 
 ton States were going to make merry with the con- 
 stitution and tell the government to go choke a calf. 
 By New Year's day of '61, the talk of forming a 
 Southern Confederacy was so insistent that the 
 world knew Hades was going to be popping soon. 
 
 Bob Tooms, a big shot politician from the South, 
 was shouting, "It is admitted that you seek to out- 
 law $4,000,000 worth of property of our people in the 
 
 Page 149 
 
territories. Is not that a cause for war?" Jeff Davis, 
 the boy who was soon to be elected as president of 
 the Southern Confederacy, was not sure it was a case 
 for secession and war. Hot headed as he was, he 
 was not yet ready to start a fight. 
 
 The guys who were singing for secession the 
 loudest were the slave breeders and peddlers, the 
 ones who ran the slave livery stables. A Southern 
 planter was yapping loud, too, saying, "These 
 durned fools of the North are just going to make 
 niggers higher, that's all. Why, I have to pay from 
 1,000 to 2,000 bucks a head for niggers as it is now 
 and they'll be higher, when, if rights were right, I 
 could go over to Africa and get better niggers for 
 $50.00 a head. It's a shame." In that cry of the 
 planter you can see the cruelty of the whole slave 
 system, and see what Abe hated with all his soul. 
 
 Six other Cotton States pulled out saying, "We 
 have the right to self government and self determi- 
 nation." These states picked a number of bozos to 
 represent them and they went into a huddle at 
 Montgomery, Ala., February 14, 1861. They im- 
 mediately started a brand new government saying, 
 "Now, while each state has a perfect right to be its 
 own nation, there is strength in coagulation. Let's 
 get together." 
 
 They picked the name, Confederate States of 
 America as a first class label and elected Jeff Davis, 
 the fire eater of Mississippi, as president. Then 
 they elected the soft spoken gentleman, Alexander 
 Stephens of Georgia, as vice president. Alex had 
 cautioned against the break, had said that the elec- 
 tion of Abe need not mean war; that Abe was honest 
 and just and that the war shouters of the South 
 Page 150 
 
were making chumps of themselves by pulling out ; 
 but Alex was a states right man and a loyal South- 
 erner, and he took the job. President Buchanan 
 broke down and wept like a child. He called a na- 
 tional fast day and he played sob sister in private, 
 moaning that he was the last president of the 
 United States of America. He took it on the wet 
 side, so to speak, instead of getting in there and 
 telling these states that he was sorry to inconveni- 
 ence them, but they were acting like spoiled babies 
 and would have to be spanked and made to go to 
 bed without any supper, he wept a bucket full of 
 tears and didn't know what to do. 
 
 Zach Chandler of Detroit, a department store 
 owner and congressman, wrote to the governor of 
 the now automotive state and said "a little blood- 
 letting" was wanted. And the same emotion pre- 
 vailed in the South. 
 
 Lincoln being elected was thought to be the 
 cause of all this unhappy state of affairs by many 
 cranks who started flooding Abe's home and office 
 with threatening letters. They called him a hairy 
 ape, a negro, a half wit, an idiot; they said he should 
 be flogged and tortured and torn into bits. They 
 drew pictures of gallows and daggers and sent them 
 to him. Many of these letters, most of them, came 
 from the North. The North was all bothered be- 
 cause it looked like the going was going to be bad 
 for some time to come. 
 
 Northern governors were saying, "Put the 
 rebels down. We'll send troops and spend money." 
 It was an awful time, a dangerous time. The United 
 States of America was headed for the ash can. It 
 needed a man to save the situation. 
 
 Page 151 
 
Abe Lincoln was that man. 
 
 He didn't fear the threats. He refused to have 
 shadows trailing him, sleuths on his track to save 
 his life. He went about as usual, waiting for March 
 and inauguration. He was hounded to death by 
 office seekers. He was troubled in his mind, too. 
 How to save the Union. That is what had him 
 studying day and night. 
 
 As the day for the big installation drew near 
 the threatening letters got more violent so Abe said 
 to Tom Mather, adjutant general of Illinois, "Tom, 
 take a slide down to Washington and see Gen. Win- 
 field Scott, the old pathfinder and Mexican battler." 
 The general was head of the army. Abe said, "Look 
 the old boy in the optics and see for yourself how he 
 stacks up on loyalty." Scott was a Virginian and 
 Virginia had votes enough for the Union on the 
 North. "See what the old gentleman has to say and 
 note it carefully." There was no telling in those 
 days. Southern officers were resigning from the 
 army fast and there was talk of taking Washington 
 so that Abe could not be inaugurated. The Illinois 
 general went down and he found Gen. Scott flat on 
 his back in a sick bed. He was raised on pillows and 
 said, "You may present my compliments to Mr. 
 Lincoln and tell him I expect him to come to Wash- 
 ington as soon as he is ready." And the conqueror 
 of Vera Cruz wheezed on, "And you can tell Abe 
 that when he gets here I shall consider myself re- 
 sponsible for his safety. If necessary I'll plant can- 
 nons at both ends of Pensylvania av. and if any so 
 and so show their hands or even venture to raise a 
 finger, I'll blow them to Hell." 
 Page 152 
 
CHAPTER 45 
 
 Talks cold turkey; takes oath 
 
 BE and his whole family moved to Washington. 
 There was a big whoopee made in his honor all 
 along the way. Pinkerton (the eye) busted up a plot 
 to kidnap Lincoln and another to blow his train 
 into smithereens, and Abe skidded into the capitol. 
 He put one over on Seward when that guy got to 
 feeling his oats too much after being asked in as 
 secretary of state. Abe convinced Seward that he 
 ought to accept and accept he did. 
 
 Let's get a motion picture of the inauguration. 
 
 Came the dawn. The senate was still in ses- 
 sion. It had met at 7 p. m. the night before and the 
 big voice and spiel men were still at it. The streets 
 of Washington were resounding to the tune of 
 marching men, thousands of soldiers lined the cob- 
 blestone boulevards, but they were not the only ones 
 doing a hot foot up and down the pavements. No, 
 thousands and thousands of men with a sprinkling 
 of skirts were wearing down the stones. These were 
 the folks who had got into Washington the night 
 before to be present at the first inauguration of a 
 Republican president this country had ever seen. 
 These bimboes had got into a town already packed 
 to the sideboards and there wasn't a flop to be had. 
 They walked the streets awaiting the time when 
 old, honest Abe, the rail splitter, would waltz out on 
 the portico of the capitol and take the oath. 
 
 Page 153 
 
Abe was up with the dawn — he never was one 
 to lie abed when things were doing and he was hard 
 at work in his room in Willard's hotel — he was dic- 
 tating letters and getting things in shape to go take 
 the oath. 
 
 Abe looked out of the window and saw the 
 marching crowd, the flash of bayonets and heard 
 the tramp, tramp of soldiers. Abe kept right on 
 working, building his political fences, getting set 
 to take over his job, until the hour of noon slipped 
 upon him and with it came Jimmy Buchanan to 
 escort his successor to the capitol. Abe walked 
 down to the old fashioned state surrey and he 
 climbed aboard and Jimmy got in beside him. A 
 guard of soldiers formed around the wagon and they 
 started the historic ride. At every corner along the 
 avenue were mounted orderlies, and on the roof tops 
 of the flat buildings they passed were squads of 
 sharp shooters. When the hack drew up to the capi- 
 tol he found a board tunnel carefully guarded by 
 soldiers and through this tunnel he entered the 
 building. Gen. Scott was taking no chances. He was 
 all loaded and primed for any eventuality. Inside 
 the capitol were armed guards in every wing and 
 when at last Abe stepped out on that platform over 
 the portico to make his inaugural address there were 
 60 riflemen under the floor and the general, himself, 
 having arisen from a sick bed, was at the head of a 
 flying squad of light artillery. 
 
 This great display of preparedness hit the 
 crowd in different ways. Some said the new admin- 
 istration was scared as a pink rabbit. Others 
 thought it was smart show to let pineapple tossers 
 know there was some strength in the land. 
 Page 154 
 
Abe passed into the senate chamber. Those 
 who saw the pair walk in together say that the con- 
 trast was startling. Jimmy Buchanan, withered 
 and bowed with age and worried about the affairs of 
 the government and Abe, tall and strong and tower- 
 ing. They said it made Jimmy look like half a man. 
 After a few minutes delay the justices of the 
 supreme court got into their trick suits and led the 
 way to the speakers' platform. 
 
 Abe walked to the front of the platform. He 
 carried a cane and a little role, the manuscript of his 
 inaugural address. 
 
 He had his eight-quart silk topper on his domb 
 and after getting out in front he lifted the lid and 
 bowed and then looked around for a place to stack 
 the chapeau. Steve Douglas, the boy whose goose 
 Abe had cooked two years before and thoroughly an- 
 nihilated in the election, was sitting right behind 
 him and he saw that the president was in need of a 
 corner to ditch the skypiece, so Doug stepped for- 
 ward, quickly took the hat and moved back into his 
 seat holding Abe's bonnet. Doug, the "Little 
 Giant," who had helped make Lincoln great by op- 
 posing him, leaned over and whispered to Mrs. 
 Brown, "If I can't be president, I, at least, can hold 
 his hat." Doug made a hit with the gesture. 
 
 The address that Abe gave had been written for 
 six weeks. He left no doubt in the mind of anyone 
 that he wasn't going to stand for any shenanigans 
 as Buchanan had. He talked cold turkey to the 
 South, not in a threatening way, no, instead he was 
 kindly and earnestly urging the South to snap out 
 of it and show some gumption, to get back on the 
 governmental band wagon and quit posing as a 
 
 Page 155 
 
separate nation. Abe told the South that he had no 
 intention of interfering with its property — but he 
 also made it clear that these states didn't have a 
 right to make monkeyshines with the government. 
 Here are some of his exact words : 
 
 "To the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the 
 constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that 
 the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all 
 the states — (He said all and when he said all he 
 didn't mean some). Doing this I deem it to be only 
 a simple duty on my part ... I trust this will not 
 be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared 
 purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally 
 defend and maintain itself. 
 
 "In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or vio- 
 lence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced 
 upon the national authority. The power confided 
 to me will be used to hold, OCCUPY and POSSESS 
 the property and places belonging to the govern- 
 ment, and to collect the duties and imposts, but 
 beyond what may be necessary for these objects, 
 there will be no invasion, no using of force against 
 or among the people anywhere." 
 
 This is a paragraph that Seward thought was 
 like a match to the fuse of that national load of 
 TNT Abe was sitting on. Seward wanted to cut 
 that paragraph out of the inaugural address, but Abe 
 said, "Be yourself, Seward. We can't kid with them 
 or try to kid 'em in this crisis — I mean to hold and 
 possess the federal property in the south and that's 
 not bunkum either. Why duck the issue?" 
 Page 156 
 
ABE 15 MADE PREXY 
 HE TAKES THE OATH 
 
And going on with his speech he appealed to 
 the South to come back and play ball on the home 
 lot. He said: 
 
 "Will you hazard so desperate a step — as the de- 
 struction of the national fabric with all its benefits, 
 its memories and its hopes — while there is any 
 possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from 
 have no real existence? Will you, while the cer- 
 tain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones 
 you fly from — will you risk the commission of so 
 fearful a mistake? 
 
 Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We can- 
 not remove our respective sections from each other, 
 nor build an impassible wall between them. In 
 YOUR hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, and not 
 in mine is the momentous issue of Civil War. The 
 government will not assail you. You can have no 
 conflict without yourselves being the aggressors. 
 You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy 
 the government, while I shall have the most solemn 
 one to preserve and defend it." 
 
 Right there Abe meant to close his address and 
 take that most solemn oath, but Seward had ob- 
 jected. Seward had a notion that he was 
 president and would have to do all the work. 
 Seward was all wet in this and he learned it, 
 too, but not until he had pulled a flock of bone- 
 head plays that Abe killed. Abe was willing to 
 listen to Seward then. Seward had wanted to hand 
 the South a large box of taffy and he stuck in some 
 flowery words for a closing number. Abe felt willing 
 to be gentle with the south and use honeyed phrases, 
 but he rejected Seward's words and used his own, 
 making the idea in them fit with his own notions. 
 
 Page 157 
 
So he closed using these words now famous in 
 history: 
 
 "I am loath to close, we are not enemies, but friends. 
 We must not be enemies. Though passion may have 
 strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. 
 The mystic chords of memory, stretching from 
 every battlefield and patriot grave to every living 
 heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will 
 yet swell the chorus of the Union when again 
 touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels 
 of our nature." Then he took the oath. 
 
 The New York Tribune said of that speech, in 
 effect, "The talk was the berries. There is no 
 wishy washy tripe in it. He who runs may read. It 
 will carry the glad tidings, good or not, as the case 
 may be, that the federal government of the U. S. A. 
 is still in existence with a MAN at the head of it." 
 
 grease 
 
 Other papers rapped it hard, put Abe in the 
 
 Page 158 
 
COMES 46 
 
 Fort Suntipter— the lid blows off 
 
 w 
 
 HEN Abe kissed the Book taking the oath to pre- 
 serve the Union he enthroned immediately on a vol- 
 cano already rumbling. The blow came pronto. On 
 March 5, just one day after the ceremony, he re- 
 ceived a letter from Maj. Bob Anderson, in com- 
 mand of Fort Sumpter, telling him he needed 20,000 
 men on the double to hold the harbor. 
 
 The U. S. was fresh out of 20,000 soldiers. In the 
 whole land there were only 16,000 and they cov- 
 ered plenty territory. Maj. Bob was in one bad spot, 
 in the Charleston harbor, surrounded by hot headed 
 rebels who wouldn't permit a Union boat to dock 
 near the fort. His doughboys' tummys were firmly 
 convinced their throats were cut. They hadn't got 
 their molars into a square feed for weeks. Jimmy 
 Buchanan had gummed the detail and Bob was 
 desperate. He wanted food and had to have men or 
 lose the fort. Whichever way Abe decided he was 
 going to get into it up to his neck. He was not one 
 to make snap decisions either, so he stalled for a 
 time. Gen. Scott, chief of the army, said, "Better 
 pull Bob and his men out of there." But Abe didn't 
 want to do that. He had said he would "hold and 
 possess all U. S. property" and he meant to do it if 
 he could. 
 
 He called a cabinet meeting and he didn't shut 
 an eye all night before the huddle. 
 
 Page 159 
 
The time had come when it was up to him, abso- 
 lutely up to him. His decision was the one that 
 would count and what he might do the next day 
 might either bring a war down on the ears of the 
 nation, or might save it from one. He had to do 
 some tall thinking and the more he thought, the 
 more certain he was that war could not be avoided, 
 the more certain he was that the time had come 
 when he had to be firm as a hunk of granite. The 
 time had come when he would have to order that 
 troops get into Fort Sumpter. When the cabinet met 
 he put it to them in such a way that they all agreed 
 with him except Seward and Smith. Seward still 
 thought that Abe was just a yokel who needed to be 
 kidded and kept in line while he, Seward, saved the 
 country. And that day Abe ordered that relief be 
 sent to Fort Sumpter and two days later he ordered 
 relief for Fort Pickens (Fla.). With the last order he 
 sent a mouth to ear message to Gen. Scott saying, 
 "This thing has got to be done — don't fail." 
 
 Seward got a streak of saffron up his back and 
 it turned to brass. Why that guy had more brass 
 than a governor's cuspidor, no fooling. He had the 
 nerve to say to Abe in a letter, "We have no policy. 
 We must change the question before the people. We 
 should start a war against Spain and France." Can 
 you tie that? We hadn't lost anything in Europe, 
 they didn't even owe us anything then, and there 
 was only one question before the American people. 
 Seward was hollering up a rain spout. But Abe put 
 him in his place, gently but firmly, and we must 
 note that Seward finally snapped out of it and 
 realized that Abe knew his oil and he acknowledged 
 his master. He said, "Executive force and vigor are 
 Page 160 
 
rare qualities. The president is the best of us," 
 meaning the whole cabinet. 
 
 On April 9 of '61 the expedition ordered by Abe 
 sailed from New York to relieve Fort Sumpter. The 
 day before the governor of South Carolina had re- 
 ceived notification from Abe that he would try to 
 get groceries into the boys holding the fort. The 
 South was watching Abe's every move to see just 
 how much of that "hold-possess" stuff he meant, 
 and so when he informed the governor that he was 
 going to nourish the bucks, an order to capture the 
 fort was given. 
 
 The bombardment of the fort began at 4:30 
 a. m. on the morning of April 12. All that day 
 rumors and private telegrams came to Abe, telling 
 of the attack and Maj. Anderson's heroic defense. 
 At dusk there was no doubt. Night was falling and 
 so was the fort. It had come — the South was the ag- 
 gressor. It meant war, nothing else. The South 
 had cracked the volcano by deliberately knocking 
 off a small force of hungry men. Northerners and 
 Southerners in congress and in private life started 
 pouring into the White House as the news of the 
 bombardment spread and for everyone Abe had this 
 question — "Will your state support me with mili- 
 tary power?" The way that bombardment presented 
 itself to Abe is set forth clearly in his message to 
 congress, when he could corral 'em. "The assault 
 upon and the reduction of Fort Sumpter was in no 
 sense a matter of self defense on the part of the 
 assailants. They well knew that the garrison in the 
 fort could by no possibility commit aggression upon 
 them. They knew — they were expressly notified — 
 that the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry 
 
 Page 161 
 
men of the garrison was all which would on that 
 occasion be attempted. They knew this govern- 
 ment desired to keep the garrison in the fort, not to 
 assault them, but merely to maintain visible pos- 
 session and thus to preserve the Union from im- 
 mediate and actual dissolution, trusting as herein- 
 before stated, to time, discussion, and the ballot box 
 for final adjustment; and they assailed and reduced 
 the fort for precisely the reverse object — to drive 
 out the visible authority of the Federal Union and 
 thus force it to immediate dissolution. 
 
 "And this issue embraces more than the fate of 
 these United States. It presents to the whole fam- 
 ily of man the question whether a constitutional re- 
 public or democracy — a government of the people 
 by the same people — can or cannot maintain its ter- 
 ritorial integrity against its own domestic foes." 
 
 So viewing the issue, no choice was left but to 
 call out the war power of the government; and so 
 resist force employed for its destruction by force 
 for its preservation. 
 
 On April 15 he asked for 75,000 soldiers and the 
 North like a man said, "Here we come. Look out, 
 South." State after state started raising its quota. 
 The North was getting ready. 
 
 Page 162 
 
CHAPTER 47 
 
 The Union takes it on the nose 
 
 HE North resounded to the tread of marching men. 
 States poured out doughboys. In the first burst of 
 enthusiasm it was a pipe to get men. Kids of 12 ran 
 away to join. 
 
 Birds who were suspected of being Southern 
 sympathizers were hooted off the streets of the 
 North. The fall of Fort Sumpter had made a living 
 Union of the North. The North was glad the tension 
 was over, glad that war had come. Too many years 
 they had been on the brink, poised for a nose dive. 
 Hatred needed a bath of blood and it was going to 
 get it. For too many years the North and South had 
 been ready to rip the hearts out of each other, and 
 compromise after compromise had held the struggle 
 in check. Now it had come and the North and South 
 both seemed glad. 
 
 The South coagulated tightly, too. Now it was 
 all for the Confederacy. Both Carolinas, Virginia, 
 Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri refused Abe's 
 calls for troops. In Virginia a convention was in 
 session. When the fort fell, the lawmakers voted to 
 pull out of the Union on the dot. The vote came on 
 April 17 and the next day the government arsenal 
 at Harpers Ferry was seized by Virginia militia, and 
 the Southern Confederacy at Montgomery, Alabama 
 was wired, "Virginia is in." The lines of hostility 
 had reached to the very borders of the nation's big 
 
 Page 163 
 
law and executive offices, Washington itself. The 
 bluffs across the Potomac, now getting a new dress 
 of spring green, the bluffs on which Abe rested his 
 optics every morning looking out from the White 
 House window — no longer belonged to the Union. 
 They were in the hands of the enemy. 
 
 With the news that Virginia had given the 
 Union a kick in the pants, rumors that the South was 
 to seize Washington itself filled the capital. There 
 were just 2,500 armed men in Washington. Regi- 
 ments were on their way from Pennsylvania and 
 Massachusetts, but nobody knew when they would 
 get there. 
 
 Women and children were shipped out of 
 Washington, sent further away from the line of 
 hostilities, and an effort to defend the city was 
 made. When the women were grabbing their bags 
 to beat it, they came to Mrs. Lincoln and said, 
 "Molly, old girl, you'd better take the boys and shag 
 out of town. There's going to be some shooting. 
 You'd better take it on the lam to the North." 
 
 Molly said, "How do you get that way? What 
 do you take me for, a cry baby? I am as safe as Abe 
 and I shall not leave him." And Molly wouldn't 
 leave, either. 
 
 Washhouse rumors had it that Jeff Davis with 
 15,000 men was marching on Washington. Northern 
 troops were due, but slow getting there. One regi- 
 ment got in after a brawl in coming through Balti- 
 more. Marylanders told Abe he couldn't bring 
 troops through their state. He told them to g/o sit 
 on tacks. The Union had to be protected. Bridges 
 were cut and telegraph wires torn down. Tough 
 times these. 
 Page 164 
 
But eventually the troops got in, building their 
 own bridges as they marched. "Atta boy, atta boy," 
 Abe cried as the men, tired, dirty and fagged out, 
 ankled into Pennsylvania ave. 
 
 It soon became apparent that this was no push- 
 over. The South was raising a great army. The 
 North would need a greater one. Abe increased the 
 regular army and called for three year enlistments. 
 So fast did the young bloods leap to the colors that 
 by July 1 there were 310,000 men under the com- 
 mand of the secretary of war, so many that they 
 didn't know how to feed 'em and get 'em hob nail 
 shoes and arms. 
 
 Rifles, rifles — there were no rifles to speak of. 
 The South had copped a flock and the South was 
 buying more in Europe, but the North wasn't get- 
 ting the small bores fast enough. The manufacturers 
 started the old profiteering game — the old army 
 game — and were actually selling arms to the South. 
 There was something very putrid in Denmark, as 
 the crack goes. 
 
 Washington was one big camp. And it wasn't 
 long until the rookies knew they had one real friend 
 in the world — Abe Lincoln. He won the name, 
 "Father of the army." The enlisted men loved him. 
 The Federal troops made a couple of sallies into 
 the enemy camp and smacked 'em for a loss. The 
 North went wild and hollered, "On to Richmond." 
 But the Union generals refused to start driving yet. 
 They cried the blues about their army> saying it was 
 of a rare green shade and needed seasoning. Abe 
 said, "Well, I reckon the Southern troops aren't 
 sugar cured yet, either." But he listened to the gen- 
 erals and let 'em have their way. 
 
 Page 165 
 
Those insignificant victories were just about all 
 the Union managed to cop for a deuce of a long time. 
 The first big battle of the war, the battle of Bull 
 Run, July 21, saw a big Union army knocked for a 
 row of Chinese pagodas. An alibi artist tried to ex- 
 plain the whipping to Abe, but he said, "I don't want 
 post mortems. I want action. I want to win this war 
 as fast and with as little bloodshed as possible." So 
 he went into executive session with himself to dope 
 out a plan. 
 
 Congress, scared to a pickle shade at the un- 
 expected wallop, voted men and money as fast as 
 Abe asked for them. Abe's most serious problem at 
 the moment was to regain the confidence of the 
 Union. Popular opinion is always a fickle thing — 
 ready to do a hero worship act for a winner and 
 ready to boo and hiss a loser. 
 
 To help recapture the confidence Abe called in 
 George B. McClellan and said, "Georgie, you are the 
 boy to take hold of this man's army, whip the rook- 
 ies into shape." 
 
 It looked like a smart move on Abe's part. Mac 
 was a Pointer and a popular bird for some military 
 stuff he had pulled in West Virginia. He was the 
 hero of the day. But if you ask me, Mac turned out 
 to be a gold brick. Abe had the toughest luck with 
 generals early in the war that any commander-in- 
 chief ever had to put up with. 
 
 Johnnie C. Fremont, the first Republican candi- 
 date for president, a regular army general, a path- 
 finder of old, a brave geezer, was put in as big shot 
 of the western army and he also turned sour, went 
 haywire and otherwise got monkey wrenches into 
 the machinery. Johnnie suffered from the Napoleon 
 Page 166 
 
complex, thought he was bigger than the world, and 
 Abe had to cut him down to a walk before it had got 
 too bad. 
 
 And things kept getting no better fast with the 
 Army of the Potomac, too. McClellan's dome suf- 
 fered from a severe case of swelling. His bonnet 
 wouldn't fit. He started knocking Abe at every 
 turn, refused to take the commander-in-chief into 
 the know, and whenever Abe offered a little sug- 
 gestion he said, "Rotten. You don't know anything 
 about running an army." The news hounds got hep 
 to this and said, "Abe, you ought to trim that boy 
 down to his natural size." But Abe only answered, 
 "It does look like he's putting on the altitudinous 
 millinery, but it's a battle I want from him — success, 
 not deference." 
 
 But what he got was neither. The people who 
 had ballyhooed for Mac as the salvation of the army 
 got fed up on his stalling and started putting him 
 on the pan. He figured he would pull a grandstand 
 play and regain the applause, but what he did actu- 
 ally was to pull an ivory and get in worse. The Rebs 
 had been advancing further along the front, bring- 
 ing up gats and go-getters while Mac whistled. At 
 last he ordered Gen. Stone to pull a raid on Lees- 
 burg on the Virginia side of the Potomac. The bat- 
 tle is known as the flop at Puffs Ball and it was a 
 riot. Half of congress went out to see the big Union 
 gang mop up on the smaller Reb detachment. When 
 the boys in Gray started taking the boys in Blue, 
 the congressmen almost died of heart failure and 
 they broke many legs in tearing for the rear. Abe, 
 of course, had to suffer the criticism for this de- 
 feat, too. 
 
 Page 167 
 
THIS BRINGS US TO 48 
 
 Gloona and despair 
 
 OST battles were not the only bad breaks the Union 
 got. The government was taking an awful trimming 
 from the manufacturers of shoes, blankets, canned 
 willy, etc. Cameron, Abe's secretary of war, was 
 practically charged with getting his out of the game 
 of gyp the government, but Abe didn't believe that 
 Cammy was guilty. However, he saw that he was 
 a dud as a secretary if he couldn't handle his end 
 better than that; therefore Abe looked for a way out. 
 He didn't want to slip him the glistening tinware 
 and make the country believe absolutely that Cam- 
 my was crooked, but he wanted him out, so when 
 Cameron, feeling blue, said to Abe, "This is a tough 
 job; I wish I were not in it," Abe said, "Boy, that's 
 fixed for you. You are no longer secretary of war. 
 No, sir, instead you are ambassador to Russia." 
 
 The job then was to pick a bird for the job who 
 would not let anything be put over on him, a smart 
 operator who could make the manufacturers come 
 clean, a man who could direct organization. Who 
 would he pick? The country held its breath won- 
 dering. 
 
 When Abe picked him he stuck one more 
 feather in his cap and got a gold star for being a big- 
 ger, better man than most humans. The choice 
 showed Abe was thinking of the cause and not of 
 himself. Why? Because he picked a bird who had 
 Page 168 
 
been panning him for years, a man who had said 
 every mean thing he could think of against Lincoln. 
 And Abe picked him because he had brains enough 
 to fill the job and was the best man in the country 
 for it, and for no other reason. 
 
 He picked Edwin M. Stanton, a lawyer, a big 
 time barrister, a genius at law, but a guy with an 
 ingrowing disposition, snooty and sarcastic, but, 
 nevertheless, a man who was there when it came to 
 doing his duty. 
 
 And even after he was in the cabinet for a time 
 he kept passing Abe the razz. Here is what one 
 gazabo wrote of Stanton: "The most disagreeable 
 thing about him was the extreme virulence with 
 which he abused the president, the administration, 
 and the Republican party. He never spoke of the 
 president in any other way than the 'original goril- 
 la,' and often said that Du Challu was a fool to go 
 all the way to Africa in search of what he could so 
 easily have found at Springfield, Illinois. Nothing 
 could have been more bitter than his words and 
 manner always when speaking of the administra- 
 tion and the Republican party." 
 
 Still McClellan got nowhere with his army and 
 the country was getting more disgusted and Abe 
 was getting more worried. At last he decided Mac 
 had to put over a big push and issued orders that 
 Mac concentrate the army and capture Manassas 
 Junction. Mac didn't even budge then. And while 
 Abe was being kept in a terrible stew over the na- 
 tional situation, another sorrow hit him that nearly 
 knocked him for a complete fade out. It was the 
 saddest thing that had happened so far in his life 
 that had been filled with sorrow. It was a worse 
 
 Page 169 
 
blow, I guess, than the death of Ann Rutledge. 
 
 Willie Lincoln, his beloved Willie, took sick. 
 
 Abe shared with the nurse the nightly vigils at 
 the bedside. Abe spent hours and hours with him 
 and when he passed on into the big beyond Abe was 
 almost prostrate with grief. Many feared that it 
 would result in a complete break down of Abe's 
 great physical strength, but he tried to stick at his 
 job, the biggest and toughest in the world at the 
 moment. Two days after the funeral he held a 
 cabinet meeting and talked with reporters. 
 
 Abe had always been familiar with the Bible, 
 never denied a Supreme Being ; all his most serious 
 utterances were touched by a belief in God, but he 
 had never been religious. He had never joined a 
 church. He had been satisfied to rely on his own 
 mind and heart for help in all emergencies and situ- 
 ations. After the death of his son, it seems he strove 
 very hard to find relief in Christianity. He felt that 
 he could not support himself without help from 
 God. From this time on he was seen more fre- 
 quently with a Bible in his hand and it was known 
 that he prayed often. 
 
 From the time he had tossed his hat in the ring 
 he had been thinking of emancipation of the blacks, 
 trying to solve the problem without confiscating 
 property, without endangering the Union. Now he 
 thought he had hit on the right scheme — compen- 
 sated emancipation. He wanted congress to buy the 
 slaves in the border states that were still sticking 
 with the Union and put up jack to send them to 
 Haiti or provide a colony for them. The plan made 
 the anti-slavery factions of the north happy, but the 
 border states wouldn't sail for it. This, however, 
 Page 170 
 
was the first break from the government at freeing 
 the slaves, and congress immediately wiped out 
 slavery in Washington, D. C. 
 
 Gen. Dave Hunter, who was in command of the 
 department of the South, got hot hands, couldn't 
 wait, and declared all the slaves in Georgia, Florida 
 and South Carolina to be free. This riled Abe for 
 he was trying to do it legally; pay for the slaves; 
 and his first object now was to save the Union. 
 Smashing slavery he knew would come when the 
 Union was preserved. So Abe shoved Dave's fast 
 order in the ash can and thereby collected some 
 more hard knocks from the galoots of the North who 
 didn't see that Abe was working it out right. What 
 they wanted was speed and not so much direction. 
 Abe didn't crack under the razz, however, cruel as it 
 was. His only answer was, "I am trying to do what 
 is right and best and with God's help I'll do just 
 that." 
 
 While Republicans were heaping bitter words 
 on Abe's head, McClellan started his long put off 
 move on Richmond; and if he had hit like a half- 
 back and done something, everything would have 
 been hotsi totsi, but Mac flivved again. He wasn't 
 good enough for Bobbie Lee and Stonewall Jackson. 
 Not half good enough. They took his measure and 
 popped him. The details of this terrible lacing are 
 tpo gruesome to tell about. What is more terrible 
 than brother tearing the heart out of brother? 
 
 By fast marching, Stonewall bowled over three 
 divisions of McClellan's boys in the Shenandoah 
 valley; then he dashed toward Washington, throw- 
 ing a swell scare into the politicians. After giving 
 Washington the creeps, Stony turned and raced for 
 
 Page 171 
 
Richmond to reinforce Bob Lee, the greatest of all 
 Confederate generals — one of the great generals of 
 all time. 
 
 McClellan pushed on and had a go at Richmond 
 in what is called the "Seven Days" battle. More 
 than 16,000 Union men were butchered before the 
 last engagement of the campaign ended in defeat 
 on July 1, and Richmond was further than ever from 
 being taken. Mac started crying the blues and offer- 
 ing alibis in a bitter message to Abe. He said, "The 
 government has not sustained the army. I tell you 
 plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any per- 
 son in Washington if I save the army now." 
 
 With things in such a miserable shape, Abe was 
 driving on, working day and night. A friend asked, 
 "Abe, do you never despair of saving our country?" 
 and Abe answered, "I am as nearly inconsolable as 
 I can be and still live, but there's nothing to do but 
 keep fighting. We are right. We must win." 
 
 The country was broken hearted and in despair. 
 The war department had felt certain when Mac 
 stated in April that he could take this big army and 
 mop up on the South. 
 
 There was nothing to do but cry for help from 
 the country, get more men, more gats and keep try- 
 ing. Abe issued a call for 300,000 more men, but this 
 time the north didn't start pouring the men in. They 
 called the army "McClellan's trap." Mac hadn't won 
 a fight that amounted to a row of Mexican jumping 
 beans. The North felt like sending 300,000 more 
 men into such a trap was just a waste of good men, 
 but even so, they started raising them. Not, how- 
 ever, with the old pepper shown when the first call 
 went out. 
 Page 172 
 
THE DIVISION IS 49 
 
 Off conic the ankle irons— Grant 
 
 HAT the time was about ripe to free the slaves 
 was Abe's conclusion. All by himself he worked out 
 an emancipation proclamation, then studied it day 
 and night without letting anyone in on the idea. 
 When he figured he had it pat, he sprung it on his 
 cabinet. To his cabinet he said, "I'm going to free 
 the slaves," and he read his paper. The meeting was 
 on July 22 in the year '62. The verdict was that "On 
 January 1, 1863, any person held as a slave in a state 
 where the constitutional authority of the Federal 
 government is being violated is thenceforward 
 free." The proclamation didn't aim at the border 
 states that were serving the Union. Abe meant to 
 pay the slave holders in these territories. 
 
 The cabinet was knocked off its pins. It hadn't 
 expected anything so sweeping. But Seward stuck 
 in a bright idea. He said, "Abe, that is the right 
 dope, but this is a bum time to put it on the spot. 
 It'll look like a cry from a whipped Union, a cry to 
 Ethiopia for help. What we should do is have the 
 proclamation look like an order from a strong gov- 
 ernment." 
 
 Abe scratched his head and thought, "Seward, 
 at last you've used the bean." Then he said, "Secre- 
 tary, you hit the ten-penny on the head with that 
 blow and you win. I'll wait." 
 
 While the papers of the North cursed and swore 
 
 Page 173 
 
at Abe for not freeing the slaves, he carried that 
 proclamation in his jeans waiting for a victory so 
 that he could issue it. Horace Greeley, the wet 
 smack editor of New York, was especially virulent 
 against Abraham. Preachers came in herds to de- 
 mand a proclamation, but Abe would not give in. 
 He knew in his heart he was going to free the slaves 
 when he thought it best for the Union, and not a 
 minute before. 
 
 While he waited and prayed for a victory, Mac 
 took it on the button again in the battle of Bull Run. 
 It began to look like soft picking to Bobby Lee and 
 he moved nearer Washington. 
 
 Then McClellan at last mustered some real 
 courage, and when Lee slid up Antietam creek he 
 put over a half hearted win against him with the aid 
 of several sterling generals and the north took a 
 little heart once more. The victory was half baked. 
 Mac didn't follow it up and wash out the Confeder- 
 ate army as he might have done; but it was a 
 change, anyway, and Abe said to his cabinet, "The 
 time has come. I wish it were better. When the 
 Rebs were at Fredericks I determind to issue this 
 proclamation as soon as we shagged them out of 
 Maryland. I said nothing to anyone, but I made that 
 promise to myself (here he hesitated a little) and to 
 my Maker. Now I am going to fulfill that promise. 
 I am not asking your advice on the matter. I know 
 there are plenty of folks who can do things better 
 than I can, but there is no way I can stick anybody 
 else in my shoes. I am here; I must do the best I 
 can and bear the responsibility of taking the course 
 which I feel I ought to take." 
 Page 174 
 
The emancipation proclamation appeared in the 
 news sheets the next day. 
 
 There was plenty rejoicing in the North, but 
 some birds doubted that Abe would go through with 
 the proclamation. They didn't know Abe, that's all. 
 On New Year's Day he slapped his John Henry on 
 it and it became a law. 
 
 Abe had at last decreed what he wanted to de- 
 cree; had done what he had longed to do since the 
 time, when as a boy of 19 he had taken a flat boat 
 loaded with pork and potatoes down the river to 
 New Orleans, where he had seen the slave markets, 
 the slave barges loaded with black cargo; seen tiny 
 pickaninnies snatched from their screaming 
 mothers to be sold apart. 
 
 McClellan muffed another opportunity and Abe 
 at last decided he would have to give him his walk- 
 ing papers. But he had no general who had showed 
 anything much. Burnsides was finally picked and 
 he promptly stepped into a trap Bob Lee laid for 
 him at Fredericks and lost ten for one. The slaugh- 
 ter, as the Union men charged up the heights, was 
 terrific. Abe broke down and cried like a baby when 
 he got the story of that butchery. Abe had told 
 Burnie that his plans looked like suicide, but the 
 general was in command and Abe let him try the 
 stunt that he had said would put a terrific crimp in 
 the South. Instead it nearly wrecked the North. 
 
 The country mourned, and so did Abraham. 
 Every death was like another red hot iron searing 
 his heart. The great sympathetic Abraham was 
 bowed down so low with the appalling news that it 
 looked for a few hours as if he wouldn't snap out of 
 it. Abe's faith in Burnside went glimmering. Burnie 
 
 Page 175 
 
was just one more flop and Abe ordered Burnie to 
 lay off of the next stunt he had planned. Abe was 
 afraid it would end like this one had. And then Gen. 
 Halleck showed the white feather. Abe asked him 
 to take over the job of general-in-chief and give his 
 opinion on Burnie's new plan. But Halleck said, 
 "Nothing doing. I don't want the job and I don't 
 want to advise on this situation." 
 
 Abe next tried Hooker, a five-minute egg, but 
 a man with heart and courage, and loyal as the day 
 is long. But Hook, too, went haywire and lost an 
 appalling number of men in the battle of the Wilder- 
 ness. Lee and Jackson were too clever for him. This 
 was one of the bloodiest battles of the war and 
 probably would have resulted in complete extinc- 
 tion of the Army of the Potomac, but a sad thing 
 happened for the South. Stonewall Jackson was ac- 
 cidentally shot and killed by his own men. Without 
 Stoney to lay the plans, Hooks managed to escape 
 with the remnants of his doughboys. Hook had 
 started out with 125,000 men and lost 17,000 in killed 
 and wounded and got no place; but the death of 
 Stoney was a big break for the Union. Hook was 
 out and Abe was desperate. He had to have a gen- 
 eral and have one quick. The Rebels were on his 
 heels. Abe slammed Meade into the job and on the 
 first day of July 1863, Meade and Lee crashed to- 
 gether in the biggest battle of the war — Gettysburg. 
 It was the turning point in the war. The Union 
 army knocked the Rebels for several loops and cap- 
 tured many prisoners. The loss was 23,000 men in 
 doing it, though. It came in time for the North to 
 celebrate the Fourth of July and it wasn't the only 
 cause for celebration. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had 
 Page 176 
 
just taken Vicksburg and he wasted no men and no 
 words in taking it. "Unconditional surrender is all I 
 want out of you," he had said. And so his initials 
 stood for a lot of things — U. S. (Unconditional Sur- 
 render) (United States) and most of all, his middle 
 name was sockem. This battle had made the 
 "Father of Waters" wide open for the Union. And 
 the victory split the Confederacy in twain. 
 
 Abe had been tuning in on the Gettysburg affair 
 and he was all hyped up. He was on the sidelines 
 rooting, "Get 'em, Meade, get 'em. Go on now and 
 finish the war," but Meade fell down on his nose, 
 too. He didn't follow up and put the winning 
 smash across at all. This failure disgusted Abe 
 plenty. He still needed a finisher. Abe had been 
 getting the dope on U. S. Grant, too, and he said to 
 himself, "Now, there is a boy who got in there with- 
 out urging, and when he gets in he mops up. He 
 is the guy I need to end this horrible fraternal war." 
 
 But do you think the country raised shouts of 
 joy when Abe called Uly in? Not by a jug full. Big 
 men, generals, church societies and luncheon clubs 
 started crabbing the act. They all howled Uly 
 down, saying "Why, it is reported that he drinks." 
 
 When they came to Abe with that charge, say- 
 ing, "Grant drinks liquor. He will never do," Abe 
 answered, "Is that so? Well, well. Can you tell me 
 what kind of liquor he drinks? I would like to get 
 a barrel for each one of my other generals. No, good 
 people, I can't spare that man. He fights." 
 
 Abe forced congress to raise the rank of U. S. 
 to lieutenant general and Abe said to him, "Your 
 job now is to run the whole shooting works, take 
 Richmond and end this war." 
 
 Page 177 
 
Uly said, "Give me the men and I'll do it." Then 
 Grant went to his new post, stuck a big black cigar 
 in his map, scratched a match on his breeches and 
 turned on the think juice. 
 
 "Bagging Richmond is a swell play. It's like 
 rolling eleven a couple of times. Richmond is the 
 head of the rebellion. Cut off the head of a snake 
 and it's dead, but it still wiggles. Now, me, I'm for 
 fixing this Confederacy so there isn't a wiggle in it. 
 The thing to do is pluck out the heart as well. Now, 
 what is the heart? — Atlanta, Georgia. With that 
 boy, Sherman down in my old job we can give At- 
 lanta the squeeze at the same time we are putting 
 Richmond in the bag, and then Sherman can hot 
 foot it across country from Atlanta to Richmond 
 and stretch out the snake so it'll never squirm an- 
 other squirm." Uly was planning to end the conflict 
 instead of letting it drag. It would cost men's lives, 
 thousands of lives, and he knew it, but Uly was one 
 of these tough birds who said, "Spend 'em now and 
 end it. It'll beat the losing of 'em in driblets from 
 now on until Heavens only knows when." Uly had 
 more than a million men, 4,000 big guns, and 600 
 battleships. He pulled his whiskers and looked at 
 all this in his mind's eye and it looked pretty good. 
 But then he contemplated the vast distances. Those 
 million soldiers were scattered all along the long 
 line. Up to that minute in history it was probably 
 the longest battle line the world had ever seen. 
 
 Uly said to himself, "We have to close that in, 
 squeeze 'em." So he prepared to put the South in 
 a wine press, squeeze all the juice out of it. The real 
 squeeze play didn't start until May, 1864. 
 Page 178 
 
HALF A CENTURY 
 
 Sherman, Farragut and Providence 
 
 HILE Grant was making his plans and reorganizing 
 the army, a presidential year slipped upon the coun- 
 try. Would Abraham be put back in there. The 
 draft had made a million men sore at him. The 
 North was seething with anger because Abe hadn't 
 said "presto chango" and tucked the war in his 
 pocket, turning all the slaves free at one fell swoop 
 and called it a day. 
 
 Horace Greeley was determined that Abe be 
 shoved in the dust. Early in '63 Horace had started 
 out to get Abe. He had framed a gang of Republi- 
 cans to have Abe ousted before he finished his first 
 term and then run Gen. Rosencrans for the big job. 
 Rosy was on the square, however. He told the dele- 
 gation that tried to rib him into the deal to take a 
 ride on a galloping goose. He said, "Do I look like 
 a guy who would throw the president down? No, sir, 
 not on your old daguerreotype. My job is here in 
 the field. The country gave me my military edu- 
 cation and it has a right to my military services." 
 (He was going big in the field, too.) Rosy ended 
 his speech by saying, "You can tell that big shot, 
 Horace, that he is full of canal juice and all wet in 
 his estimate of Abe Lincoln. Time will prove what 
 I say. Time will show that Abe was the greatest 
 man of the age. Put that in your harmonica and 
 
 play it." 
 
 Page 179 
 
I guess Rosy had been dropped on his head as 
 an infant. 
 
 Abe knew the radicals who were laying for him 
 to sock him with a sandbag and so a flock of his 
 friends loyal to him rallied around and said, "Abe, 
 do something to kid these radicals back into the 
 party. We need them on our side or we're sunk." 
 
 "Never," said Abraham. "Never, I am doing 
 just exactly what I think is right and that is what I 
 am going to do no matter what transpires — comes 
 trouble for me — too bad — comes the tinware — too 
 bad. But I can only do what I think is right. If I 
 lose all my friends it will hurt me. Yes, it will hurt. 
 But if I lose my own friendship, that will kill me. I 
 have to do what I think is right." 
 
 Copperheads tried all sorts of stunts to get Abe 
 whipped. But Abe stuck by his guns, did just what 
 he thought was right and he had a great backing in 
 the rank and file of the army. These bucks loved 
 Abe, most of them, at any rate. They knew his 
 great heart. They knew how many men he had 
 saved from swinging because they had buck fever 
 in the face of the enemy. They knew how he felt — 
 each soldier in the great army was a son to him. 
 Let's have a short peek at the sort of thing that 
 made the soldiers love him. 
 
 Ida Tarbell tells 'em in her book. 
 
 A Pittsburgh boy had been ill with a fever for 
 a long time. He had enlisted at 17 and after getting 
 over the fever was almost dying of homesickness. 
 Abe knew what a feeling like that was. The boy 
 couldn't get a furlough, but he slipped into the 
 White House one day and saw Abe. He told him 
 how he felt and Abe grabbed a card and wrote an 
 Page 180 
 
order to the secretary of war. The boy got his fur- 
 lough. Many soldiers waylaid Abe as he was pass- 
 ing between the White House and the war depart- 
 ment. 
 
 One day a negro boy stopped him and poured 
 out a pitiful story. One leg had been shot off and 
 the negro was hungry, starving. Abe wrote him a 
 check for five bucks. It read, "Pay to colored man 
 with one leg $5.00," and the negro cashed it. Here 
 is an incident that has a hot human appeal. A gent 
 named Swan tells it. He said that he was with an- 
 other bimbo and they were beating it for the war de- 
 partment one day when they lamped Abe walking 
 just ahead of them. They also saw a buck private 
 coming toward him, cussing at the top of his lungs. 
 He was red hot and just ready to burst into flames. 
 He was calling the government everything mean he 
 could reel off the tongue, and as for Abraham Linc- 
 oln, he was the lowest skunk in existence. The 
 names he called Abe would burn out the transmit- 
 ter. Abe heard it all and stopped the buck — "What's 
 the matter, boy?" he asked. "You seem to be a lit- 
 tle displeased." "Displeased, why, blankety- 
 blank,'* ! ! ! etc.," the buck said, "I've been discharged 
 and I can't get my pay." "Well, now, that's too bad," 
 Abe said, "Have you got your papers with you?" 
 "Sure, blank, blank, Abe Lincoln, the old blank, 
 blank." 
 
 "Well, let me take a peek at your papers," Abe 
 said, "I used to practice law in a small way and may- 
 be I can help you some." The soldier passed over 
 the papers. Abe took a look at them, saw they were 
 in order and wrote a line on the back of one of them, 
 then said, "Now, you take these to Mr. Potts, chief 
 
 Page 181 
 
clerk of the war department and he will doubtless 
 attend to the matter at once." Whereupon Abe 
 walked on to the war department. Now, Sw^n and 
 his friend had ducked behind some shrubbery to see 
 and hear all this, and as soon as Abe got away they 
 stepped out and called to the buck. He came to 
 them and Swan asked, "Do you know who you were 
 talking to just now?" The buck answered, "Some 
 ugly old man who said he was a lawyer." Swan 
 asked to look at the papers and he saw this line 
 scribbled on one: "Mr. Potts, attend to this man's 
 case at once and see that he gets his pay. A. L." 
 Swan said, "Come with me, we'll see if Potts knows 
 who this A. L. is." 
 
 Potts broke his neck in getting the paper work 
 done and giving the buck his pay, and then they 
 told him that the ugly old man who said he was a 
 lawyer was none other than the president of the 
 U. S. A. The private couldn't make up his mind 
 whether he was sorry or glad that he cussed Abe 
 Lincoln to his face. 
 
 In his personal relations with the bucks and 
 rooks, top kicks and generals, the thing that caused 
 greatest sorrow to Abe excepting only the load of 
 men killed in battle, was the necessity of punishing 
 soldiers. You can't get a gang of more than a million 
 together in war time and have them all pure and 
 holy. Nor can you have them all brave and loyal. 
 Plenty of Union soldiers went A. W. O. L.; 
 plenty went over the hill ; plenty deserted in the face 
 of the enemy; some actually went over to the enemy 
 and peddled news. The only thing to do to a de- 
 serter in the face of the enemy is bump him off when 
 you get him, and the Union generals were not slow 
 Page 182 
 
in giving the sentence to fill those deserting babies 
 with a couple rounds of bullets, nor were they loath 
 to give 'em eight feet of hemp. Oh, how Abe hated 
 to permit an execution. He saved hundreds of bucks 
 from paying the penalty. Actually hundreds he kept 
 from dancing on the air or from tasting the lead of 
 a firing squad. Whenever Abe could find any cause 
 for clemency he stopped the executions ; and no mat- 
 ter what else he was doing, he would take time to 
 examine the merits of a case where a youth was 
 about to get the rope. Abe saw reason for clemency 
 that the tough cookies in the field couldn't see. 
 
 Abe knew about the copperheads, a snaky or- 
 ganization that was boring in from underneath, a 
 mob of Northerners who were presumably loyal but 
 who were trying to stop the war by making men re- 
 fuse to fight; by getting youths who were lonesome 
 and homesick to desert; and when one of these 
 young men had been got to by a serpent and made to 
 desert, Abe would save his neck. Once he said, 
 "Must I shoot a simple minded soldier boy who de- 
 serts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agi- 
 tator who induces him to desert? Not so as you can 
 tell it. I think that in such a case to silence the agi- 
 tator and save the boy is not only constitutional but 
 withal a great mercy." 
 
 Mercy, mercy, justice ! 
 
 The hundreds he saved from execution are told 
 about in telegrams on file at the war department. 
 Scores of telegrams written in Abe's own handwrit- 
 ing asking about cases or suspending execution alto- 
 gether are there, and many times Abe made his gen- 
 erals boil up and run over because he stuck his nose 
 in to save these deserters. These telegrams show so 
 
 Page 183 
 
that all the world can see the great heart of Abra- 
 ham and his willingness to take pains and time and 
 trouble to prevent an injustice or soothe a sorrow. 
 
 Once when he had pardoned a kid for beating it 
 in the face of the enemy, Abe said, "Cowardice — yes. 
 But I never felt sure but I might drop my gun and 
 run away if I found myself in line of battle." Abe 
 didn't pretend. Brave! Why that boy, Abe, had 
 more moral bravery, more real inside fortitude than 
 any great man I know who ever pranced up and 
 down the pages of history, or is now pounding the 
 pavements of life. But Abe said frankly that he 
 didn't know but what he might drop his gat and ske- 
 dadle. Did you ever notice this? Most of the heroes, 
 the real, big heroes, have their congressional medals 
 for bravery hidden in trunks. They say when you get 
 to 'em — "Scared? I was scared to death." But, of 
 course, their virtue was that they whipped the fear. 
 
 The Republican nomination took place after 
 U. S. Grant got going. He marched a few parasangs 
 into the enemy country, smacked Bobbie Lee a few 
 resounding whacks and the North was getting op- 
 timistic again. Abe went over like a shot. Then 
 Grant struck Petersburg. He saw it would take a 
 long siege and a lot of men to take this town and he 
 figured he had to take it to get Richmond. His 
 losses had been heavy, but he had kept going. 
 
 A new draft again got the North sore at Abe. It 
 would take a whole volume alone to tell all that hap- 
 pened, the politics and Abe's smart moves. But in 
 the worst of it he pulled a line that did more than 
 all the yapping of the soreheads. He said, "It ain't 
 bright to swap horses in the middle of a stream." 
 
 McClellan, the general who had gummed the 
 Page 184 
 
works so long early in the war, was nominated by 
 the Democrats. They built a rotten platform of 
 peace at any price but Mac, despite his bum plans, 
 was no coward and he was decidedly for the Union. 
 He might have won at that if Providence hadn't 
 moved into the game and helped Sherman, a fight- 
 ing fool, an old war horse of the highest rank, to 
 smear Atlanta. Grant's plan was working. Sherman 
 was doing his stuff. 
 
 Sherman had done the impossible. He had trav- 
 eled 300 miles from his base of supplies, had driven 
 a big Rebel army before him, whipping it at almost 
 every turn — had kept his lines open for that great 
 stretch and had knocked off Atlanta, the second 
 most important city, as far as the South was con- 
 cerned. It was a terrific blow to the South in this 
 fraternal war. It was the beginning of the end. 
 Sherman had pulled a stunt that stands alone in the 
 annals of history. 
 
 Providence didn't stop with Sherman. It kissed 
 Farragut and he came through with a win, smack- 
 ing Mobile by the river route. The gobs had won a 
 sweeping victory, too. 
 
 When Seward got the wires telling of the wins 
 he tossed his customary dignity into the air with 
 his hat and ran shouting, "Atta boy, Sherman, atta 
 boy, Farragut," to Abe when he said, "Sherman and 
 Farragut have got a strangle hold on the South that 
 will save the day for your administration. The elec- 
 tion is in the sack now, Abe." And it was. 
 
 Page 185 
 
CHAPTER 51 
 
 "With Malice Toward None" 
 
 OON after he was nominated, Abe made the greatest 
 speech in the English language. School boys learn 
 it by heart and they should. Everyone should. It 
 is a short speech but powerful, calm and kind. The 
 speech that Lincoln gave in dedicating the cemetery 
 on the battle ground of Gettysburg should have 
 calmed all passion, wiped out all hatred, but, of 
 course, it didn't. 
 
 Hatred smouldered and flared up during that 
 campaign and many threats to murder Abe were 
 heard. Cranks and copperheads, Southern sympa- 
 thizers and vicious enemies muttered as the bally- 
 hoo went on. 
 
 Nevertheless Abe won in a walkaway. He 
 skinned McClellan to a standstill. It was a happy 
 hour for Abe for the ambition of his life was near to 
 realization. He felt it in his bones. He knew the 
 Union would be preserved, the slaves freed. 
 
 Union victories continued. Sherman made his 
 monumental march to the briny deep, taking 
 Savannah just before Christmas. He wired the news 
 to Abe as a gift from Santa Claus. 
 
 The Rock of Chickamauga, old Gen. Thomas, 
 came through with a victory at Nashville at the 
 same time. Things were moving swiftly. To make 
 that victory a real victory for humanity, Abe knew 
 that an amendment to the constitution forever blot- 
 Page 186 
 
ting out slavery must be passed. Slavery had to be 
 killed as dead as a pickled herring. 
 
 Abe rode congress like a cowperson rides a 
 Montana mustang until on Jan. 31, the last day of 
 the eventful year of 1864, it was passed and Abe was 
 happy. "That will finish the job," he said, and 
 tossed his elongated skypiece into the atmosphere, 
 metaphorically at least. 
 
 A gang of serenaders rallied around the White 
 House steps that night after the news of the passage 
 had spread — and Abe came out and talked. "It is a 
 happy day, congress has done its duty. This evil, 
 slavery, is the root of the war, the root of hatred, 
 and it just simply had to be rooted out and con- 
 sumed." 
 
 Another thing that held Abe's attention after 
 his election was reconstruction. Big hearted 
 Abraham wanted to see all the states back in the 
 Union as speedily as possible, and he wanted them 
 to come back without pain. 
 
 Revenge? Never! There was not a single 
 thought of vengeance in his heart. This wasn't true 
 to many of the North. Hatred still burned in the 
 gizzards of beaucoup babies who wanted the South 
 to suffer. But not so Abe, and he didn't want the 
 leaders in the rebellion punished, either. Getting 
 them all back on the home lot as friends was what 
 Abe wanted and his heart almost burst thinking up 
 ways and means to get 'em in. This was before the 
 war was over, mind you. In his annual message to 
 congress he asked for a measure of reconstruction, 
 one passing out absolute pardons even to leaders in 
 the rebellion if they would kiss the Holy Book and 
 swear to support the constitution. It also promised 
 
 Page 187 
 
protection to whole states that would establish a 
 constitution and come back home. Clear sighted 
 Abraham was planning to save the wreck of the 
 South as well as save the North all he could. Far 
 sighted Abe saw there was going to be Hades pop- 
 ping after the war if smart measures were not taken 
 early. If he hadn't been bumped off by a foul 
 assassin, our reconstruction period would have had 
 a much cleaner history. 
 
 Kind, inspired Lincoln stood on the portico to 
 take his second oath as president of the United 
 States and this great declaration rang out: 
 
 "With malice toward none, with charity for all, 
 with firmness in the right as God gives us to see 
 the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are 
 in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him 
 who shall have borne the battle and for his widows 
 and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and 
 cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves 
 and with all nations." 
 
 That most quoted of all Lincoln's utterances 
 reveals the soul of a towering figure, towering above 
 mere men as a mountain above a mole hill, but a 
 meek, humble and unassuming mountain. Every act 
 of his was in complete harmony with those words. 
 Some weeks after taking the oath Abe said, "I'll 
 also take a little vacation." He went to Grant's head- 
 quarters to have a look at the army, get close to the 
 men he loved. And on that day Bob Lee started his 
 final push, his last effort to slam over a win. It was 
 the beginning of his swan song, but he held on for 
 a long time just the same. Abe was at headquarters 
 when it started. 
 
 Sherman had marched north from the sea and 
 was moving in to help Grant take Richmond. Bat- 
 Page 188 
 
ties raged all over the place, but we can't prolong 
 this brief jazzistory to tell of them. Phil Sheridan, 
 on his hayburner, pulled some fast ones for the 
 Union — got away with famous plays and added 
 luster to a name that was already shining from his 
 work in the Shennandoah valley. 
 
 Abe sighed and shuddered as the blood flowed, 
 but he said to himself, "It won't be long now," and 
 he was right. Grant took Richmond. And how. It 
 still echoes in the slang of the day. "Like Grant took 
 Richmond" is a gag line with gusto in it. 
 
 The grand assault on Bobbie Lee's works 
 started on Sunday, April 2, and it was just one week 
 later, Sunday, April 9, that Bobbie came through 
 with his meat ax and signed the surrender orders. 
 When the boys in blue heard that Lee had surren- 
 dered they let out a shout that could have been 
 heard in Africa ; they kept the whoopee up for hours. 
 
 Abe went into Richmond. Black boys fell at his 
 feet and shouted, "Bless de Lord, dis am de Mes- 
 siah." Abe stayed in the fallen capital for two days, 
 doping out ways of dealing with the geezers who 
 started the rebellion. 
 
 "We must be liberal," he kept telling the birds 
 who flocked around him to urge punishment. 
 
 No bitterness was in Abraham's soul. He made 
 a firm determination to deal with all questions by 
 the rule, "Be merciful." 
 
 On the second day Abe got word that Seward 
 had been thrown from a carriage and injured, and 
 Abe decided it was time to rush back to his job. He 
 just got to Washington when the news that Lee 
 had kicked in reached him. The war was over. Abe 
 at once ordered the draft shut off. 
 
 Page 189 
 
THE LAST CHAPTER 52 
 
 "Now he belongs to the ages" 
 
 PRIL 14, 1865 was the happiest day in Abe's life. 
 The war was over. Everything was working out 
 fine. The cabinet was showing gumption. Slavery 
 was certainly doomed and reconstruction was on 
 its way. 
 
 U. S. Grant and his wife were in Washington, 
 guests of Abe and Molly. Uly wasn't there to dope 
 out more war medicine, but to talk about smoothing 
 things out, easing the bucks back home. 
 
 On the afternoon of that day, Abe and Molly 
 got behind their favorite oats eater and took a spin 
 out to the beautiful country side. As they drove 
 along, Abe leaned over, patted Molly's hand and 
 started talking, slow and thoughtful like. "Mary, 
 old sweetheart," he said, "We have had a hard time 
 of it since we came to Washington, but the war is 
 over, and with God's blessing we may hope for four 
 years of peace and happiness, and then we will go 
 back to Illinois and pass the rest of our lives in quiet. 
 We have laid by some little money, and during this 
 term we will try to save more, but shall not have 
 enough to support us. We will go back to Illinois, 
 and I will open a law office at Springfield or 
 Chicago, and practice law and at least do enough to 
 help give us a livelihood." The quote is exact. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when they got back 
 and as he leaped out of the barouche he saw Dick 
 Page 190 
 
Oglesby, the governor of Illinois. Abe called, "Hey, 
 Dick, come on back, how's the folks?" Dick came 
 back and they sat on the portico of the White House 
 chinning for a long time. And while they sat, the 
 White House hired help kept calling Abe to "come 
 and get it." The groceries were spread, but Abe was 
 in no hurry. Finally, however, he explained to Dick 
 that he had to go to a theater party that night and 
 he supposed he would have to go in and get his 
 victuals. 
 
 A theater party had been made up by Molly, 
 and Grant and his wife were to be the guests. They 
 were going to see "Our American Cousins" at Ford's 
 theater. Laura Keene was the star of the play and 
 she was ending her season in Washington that 
 night. The box had been ordered in the morning 
 and the theater had thrown some dog to welcome 
 Abe and Uly Grant, who was the greatest hero of 
 the moment. The theater manager being a publicity 
 hound — all of them are— had got it into the papers 
 that Abe and the hero of Appomattox would be 
 present at the show that night. 
 
 The house, of course, was packed. Most of them 
 came to see Grant, not Abe. Abe they had seen or 
 could see almost any time there in Washington, but 
 few had given Uly's whiskers the up and down. Abe 
 had kidded with Dick so long that his party was 
 late and Grant got a call to rush up North and there- 
 fore couldn't catch the show. 
 
 The play started on time, without the presi- 
 dential party. Now here Fate barks its shins into 
 the picture. When Grant had to be excused they 
 discussed calling off the party. Abe didn't seem es- 
 
 Page 191 
 
pecially keen to go anyway. He was just happy, re- 
 joicing over the end of the war. 
 
 But Molly said, "Abe, we've got that box or- 
 dered, we ought to go," and she got a Miss Harris, 
 daughter of Sen. Ira Harris, and her boy friend, Maj. 
 H. H. Rathbone, to take the places left vacant by 
 Grant and his better half. 
 
 When the presidential party reached the 
 theater the show was in full swing, but on sighting 
 Abe the orchestra struck up, "Hail to the Chief " and 
 the actors snapped to attention until Abe and his 
 companions made their way into the box which was 
 draped with the flag of our country. There was loud 
 cheering from the audience. The show went on and 
 Abe laughed heartily at the clever crevices pulled. 
 
 The cash customers split their time between 
 watching the stage and watching the presidential 
 box as they were still anxious to get a look at Uly. 
 
 In one scene on the stage a swell looking cookie 
 was seated on a garden bench. She swings her mop 
 of hair to the left and sighting Lord Dundreary says, 
 "My lord, will you kindly throw a shawl over my 
 shoulders — there appears to be a draft in here." 
 Now the actor who is playing the lord's role gets a 
 hot inspiration, and instead of pulling his regular 
 lines he looks up at Abe and says, "You are mis- 
 taken, Miss Mary, the draft has already been 
 stopped by order of the president." 
 
 It was a smart crack, as indeed Abe had stopped 
 the draft, and he got a big belt out of it. Abe started 
 laughing as only he could laugh and the whole 
 house took it up. 
 
 But even as he was laughing an assassin was 
 making his stealthy way toward the box. This 
 Page 192 
 
black-hearted bozo was well known in that theater, 
 a privileged character. No one paid much attention 
 to him. One bird, however, kept his peeper on the 
 guy because he knew him and wondered who this 
 thespian was chummy with in the prexy's box. 
 
 The moving figure passed behind the doors 
 that guarded the box and once inside the door he 
 picked up a hunk of wood he had planted there. 
 With it he bolted the exit. There was still a thin 
 panel between him and the president. He peeked 
 through a hole he had bored in that panel earlier in 
 the day. Then, moving like a serpent, he eased the 
 panel door open and stepped into the box. All eyes 
 in the box were on the stage. No one saw him. He 
 drew a Derringer pistol and took careful aim. 
 
 A shot barked out. 
 
 In an instant all was confusion. 
 
 What was this? Was it in the play? 
 
 Those who knew the play knew that there was 
 no shooting in it. It was a tragedy, certainly, but 
 where did the shot come from? Only three persons 
 in the world knew for a certainty then. They were 
 the three persons in the box with Abraham Lincoln. 
 One was Molly. She screamed, a blood curdling 
 scream of agony. She had seen Abe's head slump 
 forward on his chest. He probably did not hear the 
 shot for the ball entered his brain. Maj. Rathbone 
 whirled and saw the assassin with the smoking 
 pistol in his hand. The major grabbed him and a 
 battle started. 
 
 Booth drew a dagger and plunged it into the 
 major, aiming for his heart. The major was too fast. 
 He threw up his arm and caught the wound. With 
 the other arm he tried to hold the actor, but weak 
 
 Page 193 
 
from the loss of blood which was spurting freely, he 
 was unable to hold the fiend. Booth jumped to the 
 balustrade of the box. Maj. Rathbone grabbed his 
 coat, but Booth leaped from the balustrade to the 
 stage below, jerking his coat from the major's weak 
 grasp. Booth was an agile man, he would have made 
 a clean, neat leap, but he was wearing spurs. One 
 spur caught in the silk American flag that draped 
 the box and this threw him off balance. He landed 
 heavily on his left leg. A bone snapped, but he was 
 up in a second. A long strip of the flag clung to his 
 spur. Limping a little he walked to the center of 
 the stage and faced the audience as if he were to 
 put on a specialty. 
 
 All had happened so quickly that the audience 
 was still in the dark about it. What a love for the 
 dramatic!! What an insane, fiendish maneuver!! 
 There he stood, still brandishing the dagger with 
 which he had tried to kill the major, and standing 
 there he shouted the words — "Sic semper tyrannis 
 (Thus always to tyrants.)" Then he turned to beat 
 it, to race for his life. Hundreds were gasping, 
 "Why, its John Wilkes Booth/* 
 
 These hundreds still failed to realize what had 
 caused the interruption. They did not know their 
 president had been shot. Some, however, had 
 grasped the situation. They realized that one pierc- 
 ing shriek had come from Molly Lincoln. As they 
 came to this conclusion some sat dazed for a mo- 
 ment, then leaped over seats, starting for the stage 
 with the cry, "Hang him! Hang him!" It was a 
 wild scramble. The house was a milling, mad mob 
 in a few minutes. But Booth, the dramatic actor, the 
 lover of the spotlight, had doped all this out. He 
 Page 194 
 
knew a mob would be at his heels in a moment and 
 he was too fast for them. He leaped across the 
 stage and running to a small door that he had fixed 
 for his exit he dashed out into the alley, climbed 
 upon a swift horse, dug the spurs into its flanks and 
 was away, long before the alarm could be raised out- 
 side the theater. 
 
 But most of the people in the house thought 
 only of getting to the president's box. Miss Harris 
 called, "Get water. Has anyone any stimulants?" 
 And dozens called and screamed, "What is it? 
 What's the matter?" She answered, "The president 
 is shot." A surgeon was helped over the balustrade 
 into the box. Then another physician came to the 
 box. The pair lifted Abe and laid him on the floor. 
 It was some time before they found the wound. 
 They looked for a wound, a bullet hole, just back of 
 the left ear. The surgeons knew then that a ball had 
 lodged in the brain and their first efforts were to get 
 Abe out of the theater. Men lifted him and carried 
 him through the dress circle and down the stairs 
 into the street. The bearers did not know where to 
 go with their precious burden. They called "Where 
 shall we take him?" 
 
 Across the street from the showhouse was a 
 plain, three story, brick building, a rooming house. 
 On the steps of this house stood a man who had left 
 the theater, bored with the play. He had seen it 
 before and had come this night only to see Grant. 
 This man saw the crowd gathering in front of the 
 theater. He saw two men carrying a body. He 
 heard the call, "Where shall we take him?" He 
 saw a woman with flowers in her hair— Molly 
 Lincoln. He heard someone shout, "The president 
 
 Page 195 
 
is shot" and he dashed across and said, "Bring him 
 to my room." The president was carried up the 
 steps and through a narrow hall and laid, still un- 
 conscious, on the bed of a commonplace room in a 
 down-at-the-heels rooming house, and the surgeons 
 then started their desperate effort to save the life 
 of the greatest man then living — perhaps the great- 
 est, most human, most kind man who had lived for 
 1800 years. And while these doctors worked the 
 news spread like the often mentioned wild fire. 
 People ran about the streets shouting, "The presi- 
 dent is dead, the president is dead." 
 
 On the morning after the shooting, Abe passed 
 away. Stanton, once his enemy, was beside his bed. 
 As Abraham Lincoln breathed his last, Stanton said, 
 "Now he belongs to the ages." 
 
 On Sunday grief still hung over the Union like 
 a black cloud. Almost every preacher in the United 
 States made Abraham Lincoln and the assassination 
 the subject of his sermon. Every preacher seemed 
 inspired and never before were the churches so filled. 
 
 A grief stricken nation realized that their dead 
 president did belong to the ages. There were not 
 fifty houses in Washington that were not draped in 
 funeral black. 
 
 On Tuesday morning the White House was 
 opened to the public and practically the whole popu- 
 lation of Washington was waiting at the gates. All 
 day long the throngs surged through the east room 
 where the body lay, and when at night the gates 
 were locked, thousands who had waited all day still 
 waited. The soldiers from the camps and hospitals 
 came to see the man they had called Father Abra- 
 ham; the negroes from hovels and shacks came to 
 Page 196 
 
see their emancipator; and both the soldier and the 
 negro wept — the soldier for the father, the negro 
 for the liberator. The funeral service in the capitol 
 was held on Wednesday. The nation's greatest men, 
 all of them, were there. Bishop Simpson and Dr. 
 Gurley conducted the services. But there was only 
 one Lincoln present — Captain Robert — the eldest 
 son. Mrs. Lincoln was unable to attend, being over- 
 come with grief. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon 
 services ended and then all the bells of Washington 
 were tolled and a cannon boomed to mark the end. 
 
 The journey of the funeral train to Springfield, 
 Illinois, resulted in demonstrations the like of which 
 had never before been seen in the world. The dis-* 
 play of reverence, love and grief has never been 
 equalled. 
 
 It was April 21 when the train pulled out, and 
 not until May 3 did it reach its destination. For all 
 the time in between thousands swarmed to see the 
 train and stand in silence while it passed, even 
 though it be at midnight. Other thousands came to 
 view the coffin when the body was placed in halls 
 along the way. Night seemed to make no difference 
 — at every little village, hamlet, way station, 
 throngs were on hand to pay reverence, though the 
 train was not even to slow up. 
 
 The greatest demonstrations were held in New 
 York, Philadelphia and Chicago. 
 
 On May 4, fifteen days after the funeral in 
 Washington, the body was laid to rest in Oakland 
 cemetery, a shaded and beautiful spot at the foot of 
 a wooded knoll, two miles from Springfield. Here 
 in a vault the body was placed and the body of Wil- 
 lie Lincoln was placed beside it. Friends — hundreds 
 
 Page 197 
 
— were present. The vault remained open until, as 
 the sun was sinking, it was closed, and these friends 
 turned sadly toward their homes. 
 
 There is no place here for the story of the na- 
 tion's anger at the escape of Booth, no place for the 
 story of the chase and final killing of the insane 
 actor in a burning barn near Bowling Green, Vir- 
 ginia, by Boston Corbett, a sergeant who disobeyed 
 orders. There is no place to discuss the controversy 
 over the secret burial of Booth. Let us end by saying 
 that he was killed and buried. And so saying, end 
 the book with the quotation: 
 
 "Abraham Lincoln belongs to the ages." 
 
 Page 198 
 
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