973o7u63 Tisler, C.C., and Aleita G, 
 
 ChT52£ Tislero 
 
 Lincoln Was Here (for Another 
 Go at Douglas). 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
* C. C. Tisler and Ateit 
 
 OTTAWA, ILLINOIS 
 
Last survivors of the Lincoln-Douglas debate, so far as known, taken in July 1950. 
 Left, Mrs. Fannie Barber, then 94, of Sheridan, a small town 20 miles from Ottawa. She 
 rode on her mother's lap in the Douglas parade in which her father and an older brother, 
 John Armstrong, then 15, also took part. 
 
 Bight, Morris Lewis of Marseilles who was six months old when the debate took 
 place and who also rode with his mother. Mrs. Barber and Mr. Lewis both died in 
 September 1952 within a few days of each other. 
 
 iliifelii'l-' 
 
 The home of Mayor J. O. Glover, 810 Columbus Street, who was host to Lincoln at 
 the time of the debate. It passed from the hands of the Glover family and was made 
 into an apartment house. Its red brick construction was covered with shad belly gray 
 stucco. The house was marked with a bronze plaque in 1938 by Illini Chapter of the 
 Daughters of the American Revolution. 
 
Lincoln 
 Was 
 Here 
 
 far another (ft at fcouata* 
 
 □□□□□□ 
 
 By 
 
 C. C. Tisler and Aleita G. Tisler 
 Ottawa, Illinois 
 
 □ □ □ □ □ 
 
 McCowat-Mercer Press, Inc. — Jackson, Tennessee 
 
 1958 
 
Copyright 1958 
 
 by 
 
 C. C. Tisler and Aleita G. Tisler 
 
 Library of Congress 
 Catalogue Card Number 58-11861 
 
 Manufactured in the U.S.A. by McCowat-Mercer Press, Inc. 
 Jackson, Tennessee 
 

 ^-£t ' \S*-J / \ ^ 
 
 
 o 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Gluttons for Punishment 7 
 
 Some Rough Treatment 9 
 
 Support and Non-Support 10 
 
 A Party Born 14 
 
 Pen of Prophecy 23 
 
 Pa and Lincoln 23 
 
 Through Editorial Eyes 27 
 
 When Fire Flew 31 
 
 Roaring Little Giant 50 
 
 From The Wigwam 55 
 
 Storm Clouds Gather 59 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/lincolnwasherefoOOtisl 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 Acknowledgments are due many persons and many sources for 
 their help and suggestions in the preparation of the "First Debate." 
 
 These include Paul M. Angle, secretary of the Chicago Historical 
 Society; the late Harry E. Pratt, secretary of the Illinois State Historical 
 Society; his wife, Mrs. Marian Pratt; Clyde C. Walton, Jr., successor 
 to the late Mr. Pratt; Lincoln Memorial University at Harrogate, Ten- 
 nessee; Dr. R. Gerald McMurtry and the staff of the Lincoln National 
 Life Foundation at Fort Wayne, Indiana; fellow members of the Civil 
 War Round Table at Chicago ; the Library of Congress at Washington, 
 D. C; Senator Everett Dirksen and Representative in congress Noah 
 M. Mason; the late W. R. Foster, who for 40 years was LaSalle county 
 superintendent of schools; Wayne C. Townley, attorney, historian and 
 for six years an associate member of the board of the Illinois State 
 Historical Society; the Association for State and National History for 
 its award in 1951 of a regional citation for historical research and writ- 
 ing; the staff of Reddick's Library and its former librarian, Mrs. 
 Barbara Kelly; the descendants of Stephen A. Douglas for their cour- 
 tesies in furnishing their family history; the Newberry Library; the 
 Chicago Public Library, the late Fred A. Sapp, publisher of the Daily 
 Republican Time and his encouragement in the line of historical 
 research and writing; the Glover family of Ottawa, and the LaSalle 
 county Historical Society. 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
 Low rolling thunder on a hot summer day forecasts always the 
 gathering of the black clouds, the yellow shimmer of wind on the 
 horizon and the coming of the storm that sweeps all before it and 
 leaves in its wake only destruction, the ruin of crops and the wreckage 
 of homes. 
 
 So the rumble of oratory that echoed over the prairies of Illinois 
 in the late summer of 1858 presaged the coming of the storm of 
 sorrow and sadness, of broken homes, of a nation torn by internal strife 
 and filled only with agony and with anguish. 
 
 But as a just and merciful God sends the calm after the storm, to 
 heal the wounds it has left so the storm over the prairies came to an 
 end in the chill days of the fall of '58 and so the same merciful and 
 forebearing Providence spared the nation from destruction so that 
 mankind could again pick up its burden of free government not only 
 in our own land but in all others for all time to come. 
 
GLUTTONS FOR PUNISHMENT 
 
 Our fathers were gluttons for punishment. 
 
 Political speeches that lasted four hours were common to them. 
 Then the orators took time out to rest and for lunch while others took 
 up the cudgels against the party in power. 
 
 Such was the case when Stephen A. Douglas, at the age of twenty- 
 seven, was laying the groundwork for his campaign for election to 
 congress on the Democratic ticket. 
 
 Douglas was seeking the first rung on the political ladder. In 
 Springfield, Abraham Lincoln was struggling to establish a law prac- 
 tice, after serving in the Illinois General Assembly, to which he had 
 been elected when he was only twenty-five years old. 
 
 The Illinois Free Trader, the first issue of which was published 
 in Ottawa on May 23, 1840, took note of the presence of Douglas in 
 the city, on October 25, 1840. He tried out his oratorical wings in the 
 second county court house, which for many years stood at the south 
 end of LaSalle street, but was torn down in 1936. The Free Trader 
 story of the presence of Douglas in the city was as follows, and is 
 written in the characteristic style of that period when politics were 
 discussed: 
 
 "GREAT MEETING OF THE DEMOCRACY OF LASALLE. 
 
 "On Monday, the 25th inst, agreeably to previous notice, the 
 people assembled in the court house in Ottawa. The meeting was 
 organized by Joel Strawn, president; H. P. Woodworth, Charles 
 Hayward, Michael Canady, Asa Mann, William Stadden and General 
 McClasky, vice-presidents, and William Chumasero and Michael 
 Ryan, secretaries. 
 
 "Stephen Douglas, the Democratic candidate for congress, being 
 introduced to the meeting, took the stand amid the reiterated cheers 
 and cries of welcome from the audience. 
 
 "He proceeded to show up the Whig party in no enviable light. 
 He exposed their falsehoods and mannerisms. He reviewed the history 
 
8 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 of the party, the part these prominent leaders have taken in the opposi- 
 tion to the true principles of democracy, and in one of the most able, 
 argumentative, speeches that we have ever listened to he enchained 
 the audience for upwards of four hours, portraying the truth and 
 beauties of the democracy and exposing the deformities and evils of 
 federalism so as to carry conviction to every unprejudiced mind. He 
 was listened to by a large crowd of intelligent farmers with that atten- 
 tion which showed that they understood and appreciated the truths 
 and principles he advanced. 
 
 "He closed with a most eloquent and stirring appeal that seemed 
 to fire the soul and nerve the arm of every Democrat for the contest. 
 He resumed his seat amid the loud and long applause of an enraptured 
 audience. 
 
 "After an adjournment of an hour, Mr. Wentworth, the talented 
 and facetious editor of the Chicago Democrat, took the stand, and in 
 a speech of more than three hours' length, unfolded such a mass of 
 facts and showed so clearly the pernicious tendencies of the Whig 
 doctrines, and illustrated so beautifully the happy tendencies of the 
 eternal principles of democracy that no one could longer doubt the 
 true party for every friend of his country to pursue. 
 
 "He exposed the humbugs, the follies and the absurdities of the 
 federal Whig party in such an amusing way as to keep the audience 
 in a constant roar of laughter. His eloquent appeal to the Democracy 
 of LaSalle awakened feelings that never again will slumber as long 
 as the enemy are in the field ; it will long be remembered with feelings 
 of emotion and gratitude. 
 
 "After Mr. Wentworth had resumed his seat, Mr. Dodge made 
 a few eloquent and pertinent remarks, and the meeting adjourned. 
 
 "This had been one of the largest and most enthusiastic gatherings 
 we have had in old LaSalle. The farmers came pouring in until the 
 court house was a 'complete jam.' The real Democracy of the county 
 is aroused. They are rising in indignation against the party which has 
 so little respect for their intelligence as to think to gull them by mis- 
 representation, humbug and falsehoods. They are no longer willing to 
 countenance a party that has not the honesty to avow its sentiments. 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 9 
 
 "Old Democratic LaSalie is good for six hundred majority for 
 Van Buren. Democracy, the soul, light and life of freedom, is sure to 
 triumph. It will live eternal with American liberty, and upon the 
 perpetuity of its principles depend the happiness and liberties of the 
 American people." 
 
 SOME ROUGH TREATMENT 
 
 Steve Douglas got rough treatment from the partisan Ottawa 
 Republican when he appeared in Ottawa for a campaign speech Sep- 
 tember 13, 1854, and to defend his record in congress against his critics. 
 The Republican said of his appearance: 
 
 "Douglas arrived in Ottawa Tuesday evening and stopped at the 
 Fox River house. Wednesday forenoon he spoke to the members of the 
 county board of supervisors then in session at the court house. 
 
 "At about 2 o'clock in the afternoon he appeared on the stand. 
 On motion of Captain Stadden, General Frey was appointed chairman 
 and William Osman and D. P. Jones, secretaries, after which about a 
 dozen men and boys were elected vice-presidents and took their places 
 on the stand. 
 
 "Shields Guards fired a shot from their brass cannon to open the 
 meeting. 
 
 "His speech was but a repetition of his usual sophism and gross, 
 uncivil language against all who oppose him and whom without 
 discrimination he denounces as Abolitionists. 
 
 "He dodged the points at issue — the Nebraska bill in particular. 
 He misstated his grounds of opposition to the bill and then levelled his 
 most powerful efforts against opposition which was the creation of his 
 own idea. 
 
 "His speech lasted over two hours during which time there was 
 not a rational point made upon the subject at issue. He misrepresented 
 the opposition and dealt out the epithets accordingly. He assumed 
 premises themselves false and built arguments upon them, endeavoring 
 
10 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 to give them the semblance of truth but failed in every particular of 
 making his audience believe them. There was but little enthusiasm 
 exhibited during the speech and we thought the violent exertions of 
 the Little Giant were lost upon the audience and so it will prove." 
 
 Then the Republican commented sarcastically on an article which 
 had appeared in the LaSalle, Illinois, Herald and which read this way: 
 
 "The enthusiasm with which everyone meets Judge Douglas in 
 his progress throughout the state reminds us of the triumphs of a 
 Roman general in the times when Rome rewarded the conquerors of 
 its enemies." 
 
 Of this eulogy the Republican said: "The editor of the Herald 
 must be gifted with a creative brain. We saw nothing that looked like 
 a triumphal procession in this city. Mr. Douglas was brought from 
 Morris by a few attendants just at dusk and left in the upper part of 
 the town overnight as Barnum does with Tom Thumb, and the baby 
 elephant to keep the boys from seeing them before the time of 
 exhibition." 
 
 Douglas did not know then that he was already whistling in the 
 dark past his political graveyard when he spoke on the court house lawn. 
 August 1, 1854, 500 men had met there, suggested the name Republi- 
 can be used for a new party, then had adopted resolutions condemning 
 slavery, its extension and fence straddling politicians of all parties. Six 
 years later the new party buried Douglas and his hopes of being 
 elected president. 
 
 SUPPORT AND NON-SUPPORT 
 
 T. Lyle Dickey, attorney, future justice of the Illinois State 
 Supreme Court and also destined to be a commander of Union cavalry 
 in the Civil War sat down at his desk at his home on the old north 
 bluff in Ottawa November 19, 1854, and penned a note to his old 
 friend, Abraham Lincoln, at Springfield. 
 
 He told Lincoln that he "loved him" and wanted him elected 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 11 
 
 United States Senator from Illinois in the contest in the general 
 assembly of 1855. 
 
 Five weeks later, on Christmas Day 1854, another Ottawan, also 
 an attorney and politician, Burton C. Cook, sat at his desk at his home 
 at 902 Paul street and wrote his old friend, Lincoln, a letter about the 
 coming senatorial campaign of 1855. 
 
 But unlike Dickey, Cook was blunt and to the point. He would 
 support an anti-Nebraska Democrat for the senatorship, he told 
 Lincoln, in preference to any one else. 
 
 That was a bitter disappointment to Lincoln at Christmas time 
 in particular and coming as it did from a man on whom he may have 
 counted for support in his campaign for the senatorship at a period in 
 state history when the general assembly and not the public at large 
 elected senators. 
 
 The letters of Dickey and Cook were among the thousands of 
 items which came to light when the Robert T. Lincoln collection of 
 his father's correspondence was opened in the Library of Congress at 
 Washington in July 1947. 
 
 They were among the many letters which passed between 
 Lincoln and a quartet of prominent Ottawans of the period, some of 
 which had not been known before the Robert Lincoln collection was 
 made public. The quartet consisted of Dickey, Cook, Justice John Dean 
 Caton of the State Supreme Court, and General W. H. L. Wallace, 
 attorney and politician. The letters were sent to Lincoln at various 
 places from Ottawa — Springfield, Washington, Peoria, Havana and 
 Chicago. 
 
 But back to the opposing sides which Dickey and Cook took in 
 the senatorial campaign of 1855. 
 
 Cook was an eastern man — Dickey, a Kentuckian — and both had 
 arrived in Ottawa in its swaddling clothes days to set up law offices 
 and dabble wholeheartedly in politics. Dickey, a Kentucky gentleman 
 of the old school, who had hoed a hard row, had gone bankrupt and 
 spent years repaying his debts and also had freed his slaves. At the 
 same time he looked askance at the more radical Abolitionists then 
 
12 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 agitating for the freeing without restrictions of any kind, of the 
 Negroes from slavery. 
 
 Dickey in 1842 built his beautiful mansion on the north bluff in 
 Ottawa, now the home of Mrs. Louise McDougal. 
 
 Cook was a member of the law firm of Glover, Cook and Campbell, 
 then one of the best in the state. A leading barrister, he also was a 
 Sunday school teacher for a long time and was a member of the ill- 
 starred "peace conference" in Washington in February 1861, which in 
 vain sought some means of averting the coming Civil war at a time 
 when many southern states already had withdrawn from the union 
 and had set up the Confederate States of America. 
 
 Such were the vagaries of politics then, for in the senatorial cam- 
 paign of 1858 in Illinois Dickey went storming through southern 
 Illinois in support of Douglas against Lincoln while Cook, who had 
 declined to support Lincoln for the senatorship in 1855, nine years later 
 mounted the platform at the Union party convention in Baltimore and 
 nominated in less than 30 words, the same Abraham Lincoln for 
 reelection that he had opposed in 1855. 
 
 But back again to Dickey and his letter of November 19, 1854, 
 to Lincoln at Springfield, Dickey wrote: 
 
 "Hon. A. Lincoln 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 "I love you and want you to be a U. S. Senator from Illinois but 
 there is no Whig to be elected to the legislature from LaSalle (county) . 
 
 "Our members are David Strawn, a nephew of old Jacob Strawn 
 of Morgan and Fred S. Day, an eastern man originally and for several 
 years a citizen of Peru — a merchant produce dealer — and more recently 
 a banker, etc. Day is a cute little man without much stamina and like 
 men of his course of life is purely financial. They are both of Locofoco 
 stock. 
 
 "I saw Mr. Cofring of Peru and from him learned that Day was 
 probably in favor of Mr. Sweet (who was beaten for congress by 
 Thompson Campbell) for the senatorship. Coffing professed to be for 
 you and I suggested to him to take measures to committ him for you 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 13 
 
 as a second choice if Sweet's chance failed. He said he would try him. 
 I have, however, very little hope of doing you any good in that 
 quarter, I am sorry to say. 
 
 "I am very busy professionally and am not posted on political 
 chances but I sincerely hope you may succeed. 
 
 "My good old father now lives in your city and I expect to be 
 there in your city in January and if any phase presents where you think 
 I can serve you don't fail to draw on me. The old gentleman is a 
 genuine old fashioned moderate Kentucky Abolitionist and might be of 
 use to you — with some of the Abolitionists. He is a Presbyterian 
 preacher and perhaps if it is convenient through some of your Presby- 
 terian friends — you better make his acquaintance if you have not. 
 
 "I would be glad to hear from you as to the probable "lay of the 
 land" as to your success. I am your friend and find no fault with your 
 veracity. 
 
 "T. Lyle Dickey." 
 
 The Cook letter that certainly brought no joy to Lincoln at 
 Christmas time of 1854 or brightened his hopes of election to the 
 United States senate follows: 
 
 "Dear Sir: 
 
 "Absence from home has prevented my replying to your letter. 
 And now I will talk frankly not like a politician but like a candid man. 
 I would prefer the election of an Anti-Nebraska Democrat to that of 
 any other man. With the highest regard and respect for you you will 
 understand me when I say there are some of us who have been pro- 
 scribed and put under ban, because we did not believe this patent 
 popular sovereignty doctrine to be like old Dr. Jacob Townsend's 
 sasarparilla, valuable even if it killed the patient, who would like to 
 be heard of counsel. 
 
 "Yours Truly 
 
 "B. C. Cook to Hon. A. Lincoln, 
 "Springfield, Illinois." 
 
 Making his disappointment still greater over his failure of election 
 as senator from Illinois in 1855 Lincoln had been elected to the lower 
 
14 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 house of the Illinois general assembly in November 1854, from the 
 Springfield district. He resigned at the suggestion of friends to make 
 the race for senator when it was pointed out to him that his election 
 to the latter office might be challenged if he was also serving as a 
 member of the general assembly at the same time under the state 
 constitution of 1848. 
 
 Cook was one of the three die hard members in the state senate 
 in February 1855 who on no account would vote for a Whig (Lincoln) . 
 
 Their obstinacy proved his undoing and defeated him for the 
 office. 
 
 February 8, 1855, the joint session of the Illinois general assembly 
 proceeded to vote a third time for United States senator with Lyman 
 Trumbull winning. He had received 51 votes against 47 cast for Joel A. 
 Matteson and one for an Archibald Williams. 
 
 After nine ballots had been taken, Lincoln withdrew from the 
 race and switched his votes to Trumbull in order to defeat Matteson. 
 
 Originally Lincoln had entered the race for senator against James 
 Shields, the same Shields who had been his opponent, almost, in a 
 ludicrous episode of 1842 that led to challenges to a duel. Shields had 
 the distinction of serving in the United States senate from two states — 
 Illinois and Minnesota. 
 
 A PARTY BORN 
 
 In the fall of 1856 Lincoln took the stump for the Republican 
 ticket of John C. Fremont for president and William L. Dayton for 
 vice-president. 
 
 He stumped the length and breadth of the state of Illinois, making 
 in all over fifty speeches, in one day stands, with other orators and 
 those seeking office on the Republican ticket. 
 
 Ottawa was on the itinerary of Lincoln and his fellow campaigners, 
 and the rally was held here October 7, in Washington park. 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 15 
 
 The Chicago Daily Journal of October 8 had the following to 
 say of the meeting in Ottawa: 
 
 "What Has Caused This Great Commotion? 
 "Glorious Meeting in Ottawa 
 "Twenty Thousand in Council 
 "Lincoln, Lovejoy, Yates, etc. 
 
 "Ottawa, October 7. 
 
 "Today has been a great and glorious day for old LaSalle. Her 
 freemen gathered in thousands from every hill and valley and came up 
 to honor freedom by their presence and pledge themselves anew to her 
 name. 
 
 "Of the many large meetings I have attended in the state the one 
 held here today equalled the best of them in numbers and enthusiasm. 
 
 "The crowd is variously estimated. The best idea of the hosts 
 present is to give the number of teams in the procession, which by 
 actual count were nine hundred and seventy-six — one, two, four and 
 six horses, beside the immense throng on foot, which poured into the 
 city by railroads. Three stands were occupied. 
 
 "From Stand No. 1. Messrs. Trumbull and Lincoln addressed the 
 people, each of whom made their best speeches. I never listened to 
 more clear, convincing, and effective public speaking. Stand No. 2 was 
 occupied by Messrs. Lovejoy, and Bross. The speeches of both were 
 excellent — that of the former being one of the most eloquent I ever 
 listened to. 
 
 "At Stand No. 3 addresses were delivered in German, and judg- 
 ing from the plaudits of the Germans, I should think the speakers had 
 enkindled considerable enthusiasm among their countrymen. Mr. 
 Kreistman, of Chicago, was the principal speaker. 
 
 "A free entertainment was given by the citizens of Ottawa, and 
 ample justice was done to their bounteous repast. 
 
 "In the evening a large crowd still lingered in town. They were 
 called together at the Court House, where the Hon. Richard Yates 
 enchained them in a burning and impassioned speech of great force. 
 
16 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 "Altogether, you may congratulate our friends in LaSalle on the 
 distinguished success of their meeting. It was an era of this glorious 
 campaign. 
 
 "Messrs. Lincoln, Lovejoy and Trumbull go from here to attend 
 the grand mass meeting in Joliet tomorrow, from which place you will 
 again hear from 
 
 "VERITAS." 
 
 Where the Journal was laudatory in its story of the meeting at 
 Ottawa the Free Trader was gently cynical, and poked fun at the 
 Fusionists and their meeting. Yet today, after the lapse of so many 
 years the mild sarcasm and ridicule that the Free Trader heaped upon 
 those who spoke and those who sponsored the meeting remains an 
 accurate and illuminating commentary of the times and of the great 
 day in Ottawa. 
 
 The Free Trader, in its issue of Saturday, October 11, said of the 
 meeting here: 
 
 "The Fusionist Gathering On Tuesday. 
 
 "Tuesday was the great day of Fusionism in Ottawa — a day for 
 which the note of preparation had been sounding for the last four 
 weeks. No means of machinery had been neglected to make this the 
 great gathering of the campaign in northern Illinois. A great ox roast 
 and free dinner had been prepared — a splendid pageant in the way of 
 a procession and great orators innumerable to exhort and animate and 
 cheer the drooping spirits of the Fremonters. 
 
 "The Democracy, in the view of the immense preparations, com- 
 menced in season to brace themselves against the coming tempest, 
 expecting of course to be overawed by the display and lost and 
 swallowed up in the surging masses. 
 
 "At length the great and notable day came. Never shone a more 
 benignant sun upon a more beautiful morn. At an early hour flags and 
 streamers innumerable began to span our principle streets and dozens 
 of excited marshals, on prancing steeds, rushed furiously in every 
 direction. Presently a column of dust is seen approaching from the 
 north, and away rush twenty marshals in blue ribbons to greet the 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 17 
 
 delegates from Newark. Another column approaches from the south, 
 and a dozen marshals rush in that direction. And so on in squads of 
 two, three or a half a dozen of teams, they continue to arrive until 
 noon, when the order proceeds to form the procession. Happily, it is 
 placed in array on Main street directly in front of our office and we 
 can see it. In a hour it is ready and the huge column gets into motion. 
 
 "Well, say some Democrats, gathering courage and eyeing the 
 procession askance, 'this is not so great an affair after all. Let's go 
 and count it.' 
 
 "They stationed themselves at different points and count, and the 
 following is the result agreed upon by all, without a variance of a 
 dozen, as the procession passed the corner of LaSalle and Madison 
 streets, when it was fullest: 
 
 "Vehicles of all sorts — 197. 
 
 "Men, women and children in wagons and on foot — 930. 
 
 "Looked like voters — 382. But to be liberal we shall concede 200 
 wagons in the procession and 1200 people of all ages and sizes. There 
 were certainly no more. 
 
 "The speakers stand was erected in the new public square 
 (Washington Park) and thither in the afternoon we betook ourselves 
 to see what was going on. At one stand we found Deacon Bross blow- 
 ing and sweating apparently over some editorial cut from the Demo- 
 cratic Press. At another stand Trumbull was telling what he did in the 
 senate, and at a third stand a German was talking. About four o'clock 
 the crowd was largest and we ask some Fusionist, 'How many people 
 do you estimate that are now in the square?' 'Oh, ten or twelve 
 thousand, at least.' 'Well, let's figure on it a little.' So we figure. The 
 square, pretty tightly packed, will hold 25,000 people. Is it half full? 
 No. Is it a quarter full? No. About an eighth? Yes; that is a liberal 
 estimate. So this immense crowd does not exceed 3,000 people, men, 
 women and children. But there are many outside the town. Well, say, 
 2000 more. That makes the great mass demonstration 5,000 and no 
 more, and we will stake everything on it, did attend the meeting on 
 Tuesday, including Democrats and all. 
 
18 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 "But how this world is given to lying. Deacon Bross goes home to 
 Chicago and writes an account of the affair for his paper, The Press, 
 and says: 
 
 1 'By actual count, there were nine hundred and seventy-six 
 wagons in the procession, many of them four and six teams. The 
 excitement and enthusiasm as it moved through the principal streets 
 were intense. Beside the procession, the city was full of teams, and the 
 intelligent citizens of LaSalle and adjoining counties crowded the 
 streets on every side. The lowest estimate we heard anyone make of the 
 number of persons was from ten to twelve thousand/ 
 
 "That will do for a deacon. Nine hundred wagons would make a 
 procession five miles long, enough to fill all the streets in Ottawa east 
 of the Fox River. 
 
 "Beside Bross and Trumbull, Lovejoy, Lincoln and Yates were 
 the only speakers. Bissell, although promised on the bill, of course, 
 did not show up." 
 
 The Sentinel said of the Joliet meeting on October 8, 1856: 
 
 "Great Fusion Rally 
 
 "2,500,000 Freedom Screechers in Council. 
 
 "Last Wednesday was a wonderful day for the niggers and 
 nigger worshippers of this county. 
 
 "Our city was literally filled with enthusiastic Fremonters and the 
 vast multitude were troubled to find ground to stand upon. Indeed, it 
 is doubtful if ever as large a number of people were ever assembled 
 together since the world began. 
 
 "And the speakers, it is but necessary to mention their names to 
 give an idea of the great oratorical demonstration, Lovejoy, Yates, 
 Norton, 'Nakas,' Trumbull and last but greatest Knud Iverson Bross 
 of the Chicago Democratic Press astonished and confounded the 
 countless host with their inspired eloquence. 
 
 "There were three stands on the grounds for the speakers; and 
 the one occupied by Owen Lovejoy was blessed with the presence of 
 the "colored population," which proves that the niggers, unlike a cer- 
 tain man, who was elected to office, in this county, by the Democrats, 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 19 
 
 are not insensible to gratitude. The niggers knew their friends and 
 wenches and all gathered around the 'bressed Lubjoy' with Fremont 
 badges on their necks. 
 
 "Lovejoy was the best spokesman on the grounds, 'Nakas,' 
 Trumbull and Abe Lincoln coming in second best." 
 
 Bross doubled as a reporter for the Democratic Press after making 
 speeches with Lincoln and other members of the Republican troupe 
 in a series of one day stands in Illinois as the new party neared the 
 end of its campaign to elect a president, members of congress and 
 state and local officers. 
 
 Fremont carried LaSalle county in his unsuccessful bid for the 
 presidency, polling 3,271 to 2,655 for James Buchanan, the Democratic 
 winner. Fremont carried the county ticket to victory with Burton C. 
 Cook winning for state senator and Washington Bushnell for states 
 attorney in the most important offices. Owen Lovejoy won the election 
 to congress, polling 3,693 votes in the county against 2,738 for Uri 
 Osgood, William Bissell, also a Republican, was elected governor of 
 Illinois. 
 
 The Free Trader account of the meeting at Ottawa, October 7, 
 1856 was known to historians, but that of the Ottawa Republican was 
 lost, so it appeared, and it was not in its proper place in the file of 1856. 
 
 Chance scanning of the file revealed that it had been misplaced 
 in the Republican file for the first week of October 1855. 
 
 LaSalle county and Ottawa histories make no mention of this 
 important event in Illinois history, so the newspaper accounts of it are 
 the only source material now known of Lincoln's presence on that day. 
 The Republican account follows: 
 
 "A Great Gathering of Fremonters. 
 
 "Twelve Thousand in Council. 
 
 "Enthusiastic, Successful, Demonstration. 
 
 "The Fremont meeting called at this place last Tuesday was a 
 complete success while naturally there is some dispute as to the exact 
 number. 
 
20 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 "All, we believe, admit that it is the largest gathering ever held 
 in Ottawa. 
 
 "There was a procession, eloquent public speaking, music, and a 
 free dinner, all set down on the program and performed according to 
 the bills. Of course, with limited space at our command, we cannot 
 do more than glance at the prominent points, that presented themselves 
 to our observation. 
 
 "The procession under the orders of James Keeler, Esq. Marshal, 
 assisted by numerous corps of mounted aides marched to the splendid 
 music of the Chicago Light Guard band through the principal streets 
 of the city. Numerous delegations from Farm Ridge, New Michigan, 
 Deer Park, Vermillion, South Ottawa, Grand Rapids, Peru, LaSalle, 
 Freedom, Manlius, Mission, Morris and Newark filled in at their 
 appointed places and filled up the ranks of the glorious array. We 
 have various estimates as to the number of wagons, and other vehicles 
 in the procession, some placing it as high as 900 and others lower. We 
 did not count and therefore cannot say how many, but we do know 
 that the procession was large and that it was extensive enough to show 
 that our fellow citizens of the surrounding country side are hand in 
 hand in enthusiasm for the Pathfinder. 
 
 "In our notice of the procession, we must like Good Knights, give 
 the precedence to the Ladies. The Blooming Beauties, robed in white, 
 who represented the several states of the union, challenged the regards 
 of all eyes and constituted the best part of the display for lending the 
 charms of their presences on that occasion. They deserve the thanks of 
 the Fremonters of Ottawa. Will the gentlemen, who particularly 
 assisted as their squires please inform his fair friends, that we but echo 
 the general opinion, when we say that the procession, large as it was, 
 marching to the strains of inspiring, martial music, under the waving 
 banners, flashing and floating in the glorious sunlight, would have 
 lacked its chief attraction had their star decorated car, with its blue 
 canopy and spirited horses, that day been wanting its fair freightage. 
 
 "Immediately after these rode a lady on horseback clad in deep 
 mourning. 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 21 
 
 "Young America, with drum and fifes, flags and banners on one 
 side of which was, 'Fremont and Dayton,' on another '10 cents a day, 
 don't pay us,' headed by a boy marshal, on horseback, must not be 
 passed over without notice. 
 
 The Ottawa Glee Club' as the procession moved along, sang 
 campaign songs with a precision of execution, which would be a credit 
 to the best glee clubs in the country. 
 
 "Proceeding to the ground for speaking, we found three stands 
 erected; two for English and one for German. Around the different 
 stands were placed banners, with mottoes and devices, a few of which 
 we give. 
 
 "One man represented a man astride a goose, 'All right with the 
 goose.' 
 
 "Another was a buck with a chain around his neck fastened to a 
 padlock, the buck, looking very complacent and apparently well 
 satisfied. 
 
 "One device showed a wall with a spike on it. Against the side of 
 it was fastened a scroll on which was, '36.30, Missouri Compromise.' 
 Below was seen a ruthless hand tearing it down. Above the top of the 
 wall was a pair of manacled hands stretched imploringly. 
 
 "Another one was 'The Fremonter of Kansas to northern dough- 
 faces — If you refuse your aid in this never so needed help, do not 
 upbraid us with our distress.' 
 
 "Another was, 'God made men free before law made them slaves.' 
 
 "At the southwest stand W. T. Hopkins, Esq., of Morris was 
 called out by the crowd for a song and gave them one of his rare 
 musical songs, 'Buchaneer any more, sir.' 
 
 "Hon. Lyman Trumbull on the questions of the day, exposed and 
 ridiculed sophistries, that have been piled up around them. After him, 
 came the old Whig War Horse, Hon. Abraham Lincoln, who was very 
 happily introduced to the crowd as 'Our next United States Senator.' 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln's speech was, as always the case with him, convinc- 
 ing, fair and logical. His argument, showing the political necessity of 
 the Republican movement was unanswerable and his defense of the 
 
22 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 party against the charge of disunionism and sectionalism was complete 
 and must have satisfied any fair minded man. 
 
 "At the northeast stand Mr. Bross of the Chicago Democratic 
 Press made one of his most telling and effective speeches. 
 
 "After him, Hon. Owen Lovejoy addressed the crowd in that 
 happy mixture of wit, argument, and pathos and satire for which he 
 is so celebrated. 
 
 "At the northwest platform, Mr. Kreiman of Chicago spoke to his 
 Teutonic brethren in a speech which was full of fire, eloquence, and 
 energy, and must have carried conviction to the most of those to whom 
 it was addressed. Messrs. Raub and Singer also spoke in German to 
 good effect. Mr. Gray, also from the same platform, made an English 
 speech which was heartily cheered. 
 
 "During the whole time of the speaking persons were passing 
 backwards and forwards beneath the stand and the refreshment tables, 
 where the promise of a free dinner was made good on a most liberal 
 scale. 
 
 "Cheering and shouting could be heard from time to time, pealing 
 in thunderous tones of approval, when the speakers made a hit or 
 closed a point, or making the welkin ring with hussahs for Fremont 
 and Dayton, Bissell and Lovejoy. 
 
 "Some interruptions of the speakers took place but generally the 
 intruders got the worst of it. Altogether, it affords us great pleasure to 
 be able to say that the meeting thus passed off harmoniously and 
 without any serious disturbance. 
 
 "In the evening, after supper, Hon. Richard Yates of Jacksonville 
 spoke to the crowd with his usual happy effect. 
 
 "Mr. Bross was again called on and entertained the crowd up to 
 a late hour. This closed the grand Fremont meeting on Tuesday, 
 without, so far as we know, any accident or riot." 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 23 
 
 PEN OF PROPHECY 
 
 When the editor of the Republican at Ottawa heard the result of 
 the first Republican party convention in 1856 which put up John C. 
 Fremont, "The Pathfinder" for president and a New Jersey politician, 
 William L. Dayton, for vice-president, he wrote a prophetic editorial. 
 
 He was disappointed that the vice-presidential nomination had 
 not gone to an Illinois man, Abraham Lincoln, and said so. Then in a 
 prophetic mood he wrote this way, July 4, 1856: 
 
 "It is gratifying to the friends of Abraham Lincoln that his name 
 received honorable mention and support as a candidate for the vice- 
 presidency at the Philadelphia convention. 
 
 "He is that kind of stuff of those who occupy that office should 
 be made of and in the responses to the nomination made near the close 
 of the convention that fact was alluded to by different speakers. The 
 circumstances that Colonel Fremont for president had been taken from 
 the extreme west was, it is probable, weighed with many in the choice 
 of an eastern man for the vice-presidency and in making the selection, 
 in view of this case they doubtless were wisely guided in that choice to 
 Mr. Dayton, though it would have given us great pleasure had all 
 trifles about the locality of candidates been overlooked and we would 
 have supported Mr. Lincoln for the second office in the gift of the 
 people though we hope some day to vote for him for the first. 
 
 "He is among the men who endure" 
 
 PA AND ABE LINCOLN 
 
 His pa and Abe Lincoln were old time friends but political 
 opponents who did not let that fact interfere with their friendship. 
 
 Delightfully and in an informal manner Charles Dickey, son of 
 Justice T. Lyle Dickey, set down his recollections of his pa and Abe 
 Lincoln in an autobiography published in 1926, six years before his 
 death in 1932 at the age of 90. 
 
24 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 He was a member of the Fourth Illinois cavalry in the Civil war 
 commanded by his father who was for several months chief of cavalry 
 on the staff of General U. S. Grant in the western theater of war. 
 
 A fine old gentleman he was one of the last survivors of his Grand 
 Army post as well as one of the last of the boys in blue who went to 
 war with the Fourth Illinois raised at Ottawa in the fall of 1861. 
 
 The description that he left of Lincoln as seen through the eyes 
 of a boy is as good and in some cases better than any given by the 
 scores of authors, good, bad and indifferent, who have tried to describe 
 a man that nobody fully knew in depth of soul, patience, ability, 
 mysticism, sadness, and ironbound and inflexible will. 
 
 Charley Dickey was born in Ottawa August 12, 1842 — and came 
 very nearly, as he tells it, being born in a blackberry patch. His parents 
 had gone to the northwest corner of LaSalle county to pick blackberries 
 and Charles was born a few hours after the family got back to their 
 home on "Propiety Hill" on the north bluff as he called it. 
 
 His older brother, Cyrus, who died of wounds received in the Red 
 River Campaign in April 1864 was born in a log cabin in Macomb, 
 where the Dickeys had settled before they came to Ottawa. 
 
 After the return of T. Lyle Dickey from Mexican War service in 
 which he was gravely ill for a long period, he soon after was named 
 judge of the circuit courts in northern Illinois, a district that took him 
 from Springfield to the northern end of the state and brought him into 
 contact with Lincoln and Douglas. Those friendships endured until 
 the deaths of both men long before that of Judge Dickey. 
 
 Tragedy struck the Dickey family on Christmas Eve 1855 in the 
 death of Mrs. Dickey. 
 
 Dickey tells of this sad turn of affairs when he was still a school 
 boy. "Early in December of that year," he wrote, "we received word 
 that our mother was very sick and we were to come home. It was her 
 last illness and she passed away Christmas eve. My recollections of my 
 mother are very vague. I remember I loved her very much and she was 
 very kind to me. 
 
 "John was sent back to Oakfield but I was kept at home with my 
 sister Ann. Ann was host in those days and took care of Belle and me 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 25 
 
 for weeks. Two of pa's friends, Abraham Lincoln of Springfield and 
 David Davis of Bloomington offered each to take a child for a time 
 and the offer was accepted. I was to go to Mr. Lincoln at Springfield 
 and Belle was to go to Judge Davis. When we were ready to go, how- 
 ever, the plans were changed and we were both sent to Bloomington. 
 
 "I presume Mrs. Lincoln was taken with one of her attacks of 
 brain trouble and it would not be pleasant to have a boy around. In the 
 spring we returned home after a pleasant winter at the judge's." 
 
 Charley Dickey spent the summer at a school near Peru and came 
 back home in the fall of 1856. Soon after, Belle married W. H. L. 
 Wallace and they lived in the little green house on a low bluff on 
 LaSalle street. 
 
 The much travelled Dickey family spent the winter of 1856 in 
 Chicago and it was there that the homeliness of Lincoln first struck 
 Dickey. 
 
 He was doing the family marketing then and went to the court 
 room, where his father was conducting a case to make a touch off him. 
 
 "The lawyer on the other side," Dickey remembered, "was talking 
 and Mr. Lincoln was listening to him. I had never remembered Mr. 
 Lincoln as being especially homely until that day. He was walking up 
 and down the room listening intently; grasping his chin in his hands, 
 he would twist it first one way and then another, causing a very 
 ludicrous effect and not at all handsome." 
 
 The Dickeys came back to Ottawa in the summer of 1858 in time 
 for Charles Dickey to take in the Lincoln-Douglas debate, which 
 Dickey describes thusly: 
 
 "I heard the debate at Ottawa. An immense crowd assembled in a 
 square where a platform had been erected from which they spoke. 
 Douglas, short, broad, and red-faced, spoke an hour first. Then 
 Lincoln with his lanky six feet five inches, replied for an hour and a 
 half and Douglas replied in an address of a half hour. The contrast 
 between the two men was remarkable. Besides being so dissimilar in 
 physique, Douglas had a deep bass voice which could be heard in the 
 distance, but his enunciation was not distinct and only the crowd 
 
26 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 within a hundred feet could understand what he said. Lincoln on the 
 other hand, had a high tenor voice and very distinct enunciation, so 
 he could be heard and understood out to the extreme edge of the 
 crowd. 
 
 "Lincoln was my favorite but my father was one of the Douglas 
 followers politically. He stumped the central and southern parts of the 
 state for Douglas during the campaign. Some weeks after the election 
 in which Mr. Lincoln was beaten for the senate by Douglas he came 
 to Ottawa on court business and as usual came to our house. He did 
 not seem to have the slightest feeling toward my father for opposing 
 him in the campaign. I heard him tell pa that it was his work in 
 Central Illinois that had beaten him. I remember that I played chess 
 with him that night and beat him. He and pa were great story tellers 
 and we children always enjoyed Mr. Lincoln's visits for they would 
 get to telling stories to which we listened with open mouths. 
 
 "That fall I met Mr. Douglas for the first and last time. It was on 
 the fair grounds in Chicago, I think, at the first world's fair held in 
 America. The race between Flora and Princess Temple was about to 
 be run and I stood by Judge Douglas while it came off. Flora made a 
 world's record by trotting in 2:20. 
 
 "Pa and Mr. Lincoln had been political cronies for many years. 
 They had belonged to the "OLD LINE WHIG" party which had gone 
 to pieces after the death of Henry Clay some years before. 
 
 "Lincoln had joined the Republican party on its formation but 
 Pa could not find his way clear to do so as he had feared that the large 
 number of Abolitionists in that party might bring on war between the 
 states. Both he and Mr. Lincoln believed in the gradual emancipation 
 of the negroes, the government to stand the loss. For some years, Pa 
 was out of politics but when Douglas started the Conservative Demo- 
 cratic party he joined it as being nearer to what he advocated. 
 
 "That winter our family was broken up. Pa took an office on 
 Dearborn street in Chicago. Cyrus opened a law office in Bloomington, 
 Illinois. John started in at State Normal and I went to Jacksonville to 
 be an office boy for Rice Smith. I visited my father before going there. 
 He had a bedroom back of his office. One day John Lyle King, a 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 27 
 
 lawyer in the same building, told Pa that Abe Lincoln and "Long Jim" 
 Davis of Southern Illinois were going to spend the evening in his office 
 and he wanted Pa to join the party. Pa asked if there would be any 
 objection to bringing me along and he said "certainly not." So I was 
 privileged to hear the most remarkable lot of stories told by four of 
 the most interesting story tellers in Illinois." 
 
 THROUGH EDITORIAL EYES 
 
 One of the pioneer daily newspaper editors of northern Illinois, 
 J. F. Linton, through his personal meetings with Lincoln in the 
 politically exciting years of the decade that preceded the Civil war, 
 appraised him through the eyes of his profession and left his 
 impressions of the man of destiny. 
 
 Linton and his brother, N. B. Linton, founded the Peru Daily 
 Chronicle down river 16 miles from Ottawa in 1854, in an age when 
 even the weekly newspapers had a hard struggle to survive. 
 
 Their publication lasted about a year then was suspended. 
 
 Half a century after the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Linton, then 
 far on the sunset side of life, wrote his impressions of the former in 
 this manner: 
 
 "I first met Lincoln in September of 1854 and I last saw him in 
 May of 1864. 1 had the good fortune to be with him along with a dozen 
 other guests at Mayor Glover's table in Ottawa the day of the first 
 debate and to spend the evening with him at his hotel in Freeport on 
 the evening of the second debate. 
 
 "I was also favored by being a member of the 39th Illinois Infan- 
 try, the only Illinois infantry regiment on the eastern front in the war. 
 On the Rappahannock, near Falmouth, Lincoln paid us a friendly visit 
 and treated us as though we were at least his cousins. 
 
 "Lincoln has been uniformly described as uncouth and abnormal, 
 while in fact he was an exceptionally good looking man, being 
 symmetrically developed, mentally, morally and physically. He was 
 as self possessed and easy in his manner as any man I know. 
 
28 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 "He was without a trace of awkwardness. It is the fashion to 
 mourn over the fact that Lincoln's only schooling was gained during 
 a six month's term in a backwoods school and to regret that he could 
 not have had the advantage of a university education. 
 
 "This is taking a very narrow view of the case. Pioneer life was 
 not without its compensation. Abraham Lincoln was in reality a very 
 finely educated man. His education was the kind that gave him the 
 right point of view and fitted him for the great tasks that developed 
 upon him in after years. 
 
 "Had he given eight years of his life to the primary schools, four 
 more years to the high school and six more years to the university, he 
 could never have been, even approximately, the man he was. The 
 education he received during the first 20 years of his life made him 
 the peer of any man of his years in the country. 
 
 "It fitted him to be a capable business man at 21, an influential 
 politician when he was 23 and a most useful member of the legislature 
 when he was 25, having been elected to that body as a Whig by a 
 large majority in a Democratic district. 
 
 "He served four terms in succession. He was the Whig candidate 
 for speaker during the last two terms. He opposed all pro-slavery 
 measures while in the legislature. When he was 31 he was chosen to 
 represent his party throughout the state in opposition to Douglas, 
 who was the acknowledged champion of the Democrats and then two 
 years later. 
 
 "He acquitted himself so well in these contests that the people 
 sent him to congress in 1846 when he was 37 years old to represent a 
 district that normally was largely Democratic. He was the only Whig 
 representative from Illinois at that time. During those years he was 
 the acknowledged leader of the Whig party in Illinois and the party's 
 choice for United States senator twice and vice-president once. 
 
 "It is fact that no better endowed man through education or prac- 
 tical experience was ever elected president in this country. No president 
 has ever given us abler state papers and no president has enriched our 
 literature with so precious a gem as the Gettysburg address. 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 29 
 
 "With no desire to lessen our estimates of the value of a college 
 education we must admit that had Lincoln been a college bred man he 
 could never have filled the place he did in the life of our country, 
 could never have been the master of the pure English that he was, 
 could never have composed the Gettysburg address. Valuable as a 
 college education is it cannot compensate entirely for a lack of the 
 knowledge that comes from actual contact with the world. 
 
 "Another mistake the public has generally entertained is the belief 
 that Illinois in the forties and fifties was a wild and woolly western 
 country. 
 
 "I knew the state quite well all through the fifties and I can truth- 
 fully say that I have never known a community more uniformly refined 
 and cultured than were the people of Illinois even before the advent 
 of the railroad. 
 
 "Every town had a lecture association, those with a population 
 from three to five hundred as well as those from three to five thousand, 
 and up inhabitants. 
 
 "Such men as Horace Greeley, Park Godwin, Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson, John G. Saxe, Bayard Taylor and others toured the country 
 regularly every winter, in large and small towns. 
 
 "The fee generally was $35. When Taylor returned from Japan 
 with Commodore Perry's fleet the charge was $75 but he was the only 
 exception to the rule. 
 
 "Particularly, the northern part of the state was settled by the 
 best that eastern states could supply. Douglas came to Illinois when a 
 boy from Vermont and in 1853, after becoming famous, was invited 
 to return and deliver the principal address at the state fair and 
 incidentally to be the center of attraction. 
 
 "In his speech he boasted of Illinois and particularly her people. 
 They were smarter and better in every way than the people of the 
 eastern states — they were all from those states. He said, in reply to a 
 joking question, they were superior to the people in the east because all 
 the smart young men in the east had gone west, leaving only those 
 who would not bear transportation. This is about the only way in which 
 I can account for the superiority of Illinois people in those days. 
 
30 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 "Lincoln was always popular with the masses of the people and 
 early in his career acquired the name of "Honest Abe," a name by 
 which he was affectionately known ever after. John Fiske, the historian, 
 has said that Jefferson and Lincoln possessed the affections of the peo- 
 ple to a greater extent than have any of the other presidents. The 
 people of Illinois admired Lincoln for his ability, had an abiding 
 faith in his honesty and in addition simply loved him. 
 
 "Lincoln was not what could be called a conventional man in 
 either his habit or thought of life. He had respect for popular opinion 
 but was not ruled by it. He was honest with himself and with the 
 public. When he addressed an audience he did not say that which he 
 thought they would like to hear. He aimed simply to give them a fair 
 understanding of the subject being discussed. He was a close reasoner 
 and had the happy faculty of making his statements so clear that any 
 man could understand them. 
 
 "In addressing an audience he never indulged in oratorical tricks 
 of any kind. He simply stood up and talked straight at the people, 
 articulating every word so distinctly that all could hear and understand. 
 
 "Douglas was an orator with a national reputation and knew that 
 his friends were on the lookout for some brilliant oratorical flights 
 whenever he addressed them and would be disappointed if he failed 
 to do so. 
 
 "In the historical debates of 1858 Douglas seemed to cultivate 
 applause while Lincoln gave his attention to the making of convincing 
 arguments. While Douglas' hearers were taking in his oratory they 
 were losing the thread of his argument. Lincoln's hearers were never 
 discommoded that way. 
 
 "All who saw Lincoln in the last two or three years of his life 
 were impressed by the extreme melancholy of his countenance. A man 
 of his wide sympathies could not but be weighed down by the untold 
 suffering that the war had entailed. He knew that the miseries of the 
 war fell more relentlessly upon the innocent children, women and the 
 aged than they did upon the active soldier. 
 
 "He knew of the mistakes of some of our generals and of the 
 incompetencies of others. He knew of dishonesty and grafting in many 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 31 
 
 departments. The Union forces met with many discouragements, a 
 knowledge of which was necessarily to a large extent kept from the 
 general public while the details all came to him. 
 
 "I was through the south soon after the close of the war and at 
 different times since and I have talked freely with the people about 
 the war and its results. 
 
 "Not once did I hear a harsh judgment of Lincoln from any one 
 of them. I really believe that Lincoln's death was sincerely mourned by 
 a large part of the white people of the South as it was by the people 
 of the North. 
 
 "Wherever I went it was the uniform expression that in Lincoln's 
 death the South had lost their best and most influential friend. 
 Lincoln would have had the courage and ability to have prevented the 
 misunderstandings that characterized the reconstruction period." 
 
 WHEN FIRE FLEW 
 
 In Ottawa there had been feverish activity in the heat of August 
 1858 by the supporters of the rival candidates for the senatorship from 
 Illinois. 
 
 Before the first debate at Ottawa, Douglas and Lincoln had 
 clashed on the same question of the extension of slavery. Lincoln had 
 spoken in reply to Douglas at six places. They also had locked horns 
 in a supreme court case at Ottawa at the April term of court in 1851. 
 Douglas and S. T. Logan were winners. The irate judges scolded all 
 three for their slipshod work in the case. 
 
 Plans for a joint reception of the opposing candidates fell through. 
 Douglas remained overnight at the home of Captain J. McCormick, a 
 river boat man on the bluff of the Illinois river in Peru and marked 
 by the wheel house of one of the boats that McCormick had piloted. 
 
 That Lincoln appeared to be in no hurry about telling his sup- 
 porters at Ottawa how he planned to get to Ottawa is shown in one of 
 the three letters written him by W. H. L. Wallace and which he 
 apparently did not answer. 
 
32 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 The committee to greet Lincoln had been at work in the little 
 town of 5,000 people nestled at the junction of the Fox and Illinois 
 with the aristocratic parts of the town then on the north bluff and in 
 the vicinity of Illinois avenue, Webster street and Clay street in west 
 Ottawa and in east Ottawa. 
 
 August 8 Wallace wrote to Lincoln in this vein: 
 
 "Hon. A. Lincoln 
 
 "Springfield 
 
 "Dear Sir: A committee of Republicans has been appointed to 
 make arrangements for the meeting between yourself and Douglas at 
 this place on the 21st inst. On behalf of the committee I write to 
 ascertain from you at what hour and by what route you will reach 
 here and whether or not you will come in company with Judge D. 
 Please let us know by Saturday next as we are acting in cooperation 
 as far as practicable with a similar committee appointed by the Douglas 
 Democrats and we are to have a joint meeting of the committees on 
 Saturday evening next to complete the arrangements. 
 
 "Very Respectfully, 
 "Yours, 
 "W. H. L. Wallace" 
 
 The next day Wallace had found Douglas' supporters had balked 
 at making arrangements for the joint reception for the two senatorial 
 candidates. He dispatched a second letter to Lincoln sending it to 
 Peoria where Lincoln was to be and in this manner: 
 
 "Hon. A. Lincoln 
 
 "Peoria 
 
 "Dear Sir: I wrote you yesterday to ascertain whether you and 
 Judge Douglas would probably arrive here together on the 21st. We 
 also have since ascertained that it is the purpose of Mr. Douglas's par- 
 tisan friends to land him at Buffalo Rock about four miles below town 
 and escort him into town with carriages, etc. We also learn that they 
 are averse to a joint reception. It has occurred to our committee that 
 if you can make it convenient to be at Joliet on Saturday morning and 
 take the special train which will probably pass there about 9 o'clock 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 33 
 
 you would then meet the Chicago delegation and arrive in company 
 with them about 11 o'clock. 
 
 "We will meet you at the depot here and escort you to the 
 residence of J. O. Glover, Esq., where quarters will be provided for you. 
 
 "It is contemplated to have Douglas speak also in the evening. 
 If so it might be desirable you to speak also. 
 
 "Mr. Campbell will confer with you and you may write or send 
 word by him. 
 
 "Yours Respectfully 
 "W. H. L. Wallace 
 "On behalf of the Republican Committee" 
 
 Nine days passed Wallace fretted in his law office down town and 
 in the little green house on LaSalle street, which he owned before he 
 built his stone mansion on the North Bluff, once owned by the state 
 and completed a year before he went to war. The mansion now is 
 private property. 
 
 It was then August 18th and still Lincoln had given the committee 
 at Ottawa no hint as to his plans for reaching Ottawa. He apparently 
 was giving nothing away as to his plans that might enable the Douglas 
 supporters to try and go him one better and was keeping his strategy 
 to himself which did not add to the comfort of Wallace and the other 
 Republican big wigs of the day. 
 
 The political breech between Wallace and Judge Dickey, his 
 father-in-law, also was revealed in the third letter of Wallace to 
 Lincoln, dated August 18, three days before the debate was to take 
 place. Dickey also had broken with Lincoln politically, and was to go 
 storming off to southern Illinois in the fall of 1858, to work for the 
 election of Douglas and the defeat of Lincoln in which Dickey suc- 
 ceeded. Southern Illinois was Democrat ground in the campaign and 
 the presence of Judge Dickey, Kentucky born, one time slave owner — 
 he had freed his slaves at heavy personal cost and he had flirted with 
 Abolitionism in the early 1850's but found some of its theories too 
 radical for him to swallow. That added fuel to the fires being lighted 
 against Lincoln, the Kentucky born lawyer now accused of being a 
 
34 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 "black Republican" by his political enemies and of being in league 
 with the Abolitionists of the north. 
 
 Wallace's third letter to Lincoln followed: 
 
 "Ottawa, August 18, 1858 
 "Hon. A. Lincoln 
 "Peoria 
 
 "Dear Sir: I wrote you on behalf of the Republican committee 10 
 days ago to know how and when you would arrive here for the meeting 
 on the 21st inst. and whether you would arrive in company with Mr. 
 Douglas. I directed the letter to Springfield and have not received a 
 reply. As the time is short now I address you at Peoria as I see you 
 have an appointment to speak there tomorrow. Please advise me by 
 telegram from Peoria how and when you will reach Ottawa and 
 whether you will arrive on the same train with Mr. Douglas. 
 
 "We are expecting a large gathering here on the 21st. Your 
 friends are enthusiastic and hopeful. You have doubtless seen that 
 Dickey is going for Douglas. I regret this very much, Mr. Lincoln, as 
 you can see and perhaps it is proper, considering the relationships 
 between Dickey and myself, that I should assure you that his course 
 will have no influence with me. I cannot support Douglas and shall do 
 all I honorably can to secure your election. 
 
 "W. H. L. Wallace" 
 
 These three letters came to light in the opening of the Robert 
 Todd Lincoln collection of his father's papers in 1947. 
 
 However, while Lincoln made no effort to answer the Wallace 
 letters and left Wallace and the committee "hanging in the air," so 
 to speak on arrangements for the debate, he had been in communica- 
 tion with Mayor Glover and with Burton C. Cook before the debate. 
 
 A copy of this letter came to light in newspaper files of 1908 in 
 Ottawa, when the city marked the semi-centennial of the debate. It 
 was republished in 1939 in "Rambling Around," a collection of the 
 writer's columns for many years. 
 
 The companion letter to the one to Mayor Glover had been 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 35 
 
 written by Lincoln on August 2 to Burton C. Cook, one time political 
 opponent of Lincoln, who now was in the Republican fold. 
 
 It follows: 
 
 "Springfield, Illinois 
 "Hon. B. C. Cook 
 "My Dear Sir: 
 
 "I have a letter from a very true friend and intelligent man insist- 
 ing that there is a plan on foot in LaSalle and Bureau to run Douglas 
 Republicans for congress and for the Legislature in those counties if 
 they can only get the encouragements of our folks nominating pretty 
 extreme Abolitionists. It is thought they will do nothing obnoxious to 
 the charges of abolitionism. Please have your eye upon this. 
 
 "Signs are looking pretty fair. 
 
 "Yours very truly 
 "A. Lincoln" 
 
 On August 9, Lincoln wrote to Mayor Glover, who was to be 
 his host over the weekend at the time of the debate — in this manner: 
 
 "Yours of the 4th in answer to mine addressed to Mr. Cook is 
 received and for which I thank you. I have written Mr. Lovejoy as I 
 wrote Mr. Cook and he answers substantially as you do. 
 
 "Things look reasonably well down this way. Friends write from 
 all the places where Douglas is speaking and they all say he gains 
 nothing. This shows at least that he does not scare and cow our friends 
 where he goes. 
 
 "I shall be glad of a line from you at any time. 
 
 "Yours truly, A. Lincoln" 
 
 The young corn was green, in long, brave rows, under a hot June 
 sun when Lincoln made his famous "house divided" speech. The 
 wheat was golden under a burning July sun when he and Douglas 
 completed their arrangements for the series of seven public debates 
 in seven different places in Illinois. 
 
 The oats were in long straggling rows in the clipped harvest 
 fields of August when the "Railsplitter" and the "little Giant" met at 
 Ottawa on August 21, 1858, in the first of the debates. 
 
36 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 The hills flamed with gold and red and brown and scarlet when 
 the last of the debates took place at Alton on October 18, when the die 
 was cast and the fate of Lincoln and Douglas was in the hands of the 
 electorate. 
 
 Ottawa on August 21, 1858 was a vast human sea filled with a 
 crowd of from 10,000 to 15,000 people shuffling back and forth on 
 crowded wooden sidewalks. In effect, it was more like a huge and 
 overgrown county fair than the meeting of two giants of the time, met 
 to debate the gravest and most momentous issues of their day, on the 
 answer to which depended the future course of the nation and its very 
 life. 
 
 The impression that the crowd was in a holiday mood, whereas it 
 should have been in the mood to pay strict attention to what was being 
 said by the opposing champions of two different and widely opposite 
 theories of government and of human relationship to that government, 
 was aptly summed up long years later by Mrs. Hannah Patterson, of 
 Ottawa. She was one of the last survivors of the debate and recalled 
 the appearance of the great opponents for many years. 
 
 "I remember how the crowd had a holiday air," said Mrs. 
 Patterson. "It seemed out of place to me, for those were serious 
 questions that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas were debating. The people 
 paid for the gaiety of that day in the horrors of Civil War." 
 
 A brassy sky beat down on the tremendous crowd in Ottawa on 
 the day of the debate, where a contest of giants, which had been 
 inevitable since their paths first had crossed on the prairies of their 
 adopted Illinois, was about to take place. The crowd milled and jostled 
 restlessly for hours before the debaters squared off in the afternoon. 
 
 By canal boat, by train, and by foot, by wagon, and by carriage, 
 on horseback, in groups and alone, they gathered from all parts of 
 northern Illinois, from the central part of the state, from Chicago, and 
 even from distant states, for the meeting of Abraham Lincoln and 
 Stephen Douglas in debate in an inland town in Illinois. 
 
 Roads were thick with dust and crowded with the thousands all 
 headed toward Ottawa. Many started long before dawn from many 
 miles away in order to make sure to reach the city by afternoon. 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 37 
 
 Farmers suspended work, busy as they were, and went to Ottawa. 
 Hawkers and fakers set up stands. The camp fires had gleamed all 
 night in Ottawa before the debate. Taverns and inns did a rushing 
 business. A horse thief stole a lady's carriage. 
 
 At noon the human sea, faces sunburned in the August heat, 
 dressed in their best, which only added to their discomfort, because 
 the clothes then the year around were hot and heavy, started its way to 
 the park. On the northeast corner the new building of the Northern 
 Grand Division of the Illinois Supreme Court was half completed. It 
 was an object of interest to both Lincoln and Douglas from a 
 professional standpoint as attorneys. 
 
 Chicago newspapers sent their best writers to cover the debate. 
 One used a new system known as shorthand in order to set down every 
 word spoken by the two senatorial candidates, Lincoln and Douglas. 
 They were objects of much curiosity to that part of the tremendous 
 crowd which got close enough to see them work. 
 
 Here, indeed, was a contest of mighty men. Douglas, a native of 
 Vermont, where few slaves had ever set foot and remained in bondage, 
 had come to Illinois seeking his fortune. Here, he had earned his first 
 money, here he had studied law, here the people of the state had 
 honored him with election to the United States senate, and here he 
 had risen by his own talents to a position of power and honor. 
 
 His eyes were on the Presidency, but first was the matter of dis- 
 posing of an ungainly, tall man with the shock of black hair, who 
 likewise had been honored by election to Congress by the people of 
 Illinois, and who now was to engage him in debate at seven designated 
 places in Illinois. 
 
 Never in American history had there been such a great contrast, 
 physically and sartorially, between two men seeking such a high office 
 as that of United States senator from the same state. 
 
 Douglas was short and thick set and was only five feet and one 
 inch tall. His hair was thick and dark, streaked with gray, and his eye- 
 brows were bushy over the dark blue eyes. He had a pugnacious 
 appearance, his neck was short and thick and set on square shoulders, 
 while his hands were small and chubby. Usually, he was elegantly 
 
38 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 dressed, and when he ascended the platform to make a talk he looked 
 and talked like a great statesman. 
 
 By contrast, Lincoln was born in Kentucky, of poor white parents, 
 in a state where the black man was held in bondage and where the 
 average white family was doomed to utter poverty. Tall and thin, 
 where Douglas was short and stocky; possessed of large hands and 
 large feet, where those of Douglas were small and dainty, almost 
 effeminate; carelessly dressed, where Douglas was elegant, as a rule. 
 Lincoln nevertheless in spite of his awkward appearance, possessed the 
 God-given gift of holding an audience to the strictest attention when 
 he once warmed to his subject. 
 
 Farmers, attorneys, politicians, merchants, gamblers, adventurers, 
 and all the heterogeneous population of what was still a comparatively 
 new country in northern Illinois were, shortly after noon, gathered by 
 the thousands in and around Washington Park. 
 
 The early comers gained the most advantageous spots and the 
 balance crowded as close to the speakers as they could, adding to the 
 heat of a vast human sea which already had been burned brown by a 
 hot summer sun. 
 
 Lincoln's train had been met at the Rock Island station at noon 
 by a delegation of Republicans, who escorted him to the home of 
 Mayor J. O. Glover. 
 
 Douglas came in from the west, by carriage from Peru, in a long 
 procession of carriages, wagons, riders and people on foot. The 
 Democrats were determined to give Douglas an even greater reception 
 than the one that the Republicans had manufactured for Lincoln. 
 
 Douglas was entertained at the Geiger House, headquarters for 
 the Democrat party for the day. 
 
 Notables occupied the platform with Lincoln and Douglas when 
 the debate got under way at 2 o'clock. Among them were old Chief 
 Shabbona, then, past eighty years of age and with less than a year to 
 live; Mayor J. O. Glover, O. C. Gray, B. C. Cook, Washington Bushnell, 
 leading attorneys of the city; Arthur Lockwood, merchant, William 
 Reddick, whose beautiful home, now a public library, stands opposite 
 the northeast corner of the park; George Walker, merchant and first 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 39 
 
 Sheriff of LaSalle County; Judge John V. A. Hoes, kin of former 
 President Martin Van Buren; J. F. Nash, banker and Circuit Clerk, 
 John Manley, hardware merchant, William Cogswell, industrialist and 
 ardent supporter of Douglas, and W. H. W. Cushman, who amassed 
 a fortune after the Civil War. 
 
 Lincoln was in a genial mood. He mingled with the crowd, patted 
 school boys on the head, and told them, "Rub against people. Learn 
 from them. Don't be afraid if they are larger and know more." He 
 picked up two small boys, joked with them, and told their mother, 
 "Here comes Douglas; a little man in some respects but a mighty one 
 in others." 
 
 Parades wound their way through the streets, winding up just 
 before the speakers started their orations. In the Lincoln parade were 
 carried rails and a maul, symbolic of the work that he had done in 
 southern Illinois, swinging the same type of maul on ash, oak, walnut 
 and butternut logs. 
 
 The heat was oppressive. Lincoln loosened his black string tie 
 and handed his coat to Burton C. Cook with the request to "Hold it 
 while I stone Douglas." 
 
 Lincoln's confidence was matched by that of Douglas, who had 
 every reason to believe that in short order he could dispose of this tall 
 man from the state capital in the first of a series of history-making 
 debates on the soil of their adopted state. 
 
 It may have been this confidence in his own ability that led 
 Douglas to take a desperate and long chance of disposing of Lincoln 
 and his senatorial ambitions through falsely connecting him with the 
 Anti-Nebraska state convention of 1854. 
 
 Douglas, speaking first, pulled from his pocket what was supposed 
 to be a copy of a newspaper containing the account of the Anti- 
 Nebraska meeting of 1854 and the resolutions drawn up at the meet- 
 ing. It was his purpose to present the accusation that Lincoln took 
 part in the meeting and drafting of the resolutions, so that he 
 (Lincoln) would have to use up all his time replying to the Douglas 
 accusations and would not have time to present his side of the questions 
 
40 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 to be debated. In such a manner did Douglas plan to dispose of 
 Lincoln. It was one of the few bad political moves that Douglas made. 
 
 The resolutions condemning slavery and its further extension, and 
 condemning the men in public office who either openly condoned its 
 further extension or secretly worked with the advocates of the further 
 spread of slavery while publicly pretending to be opposed to it, were 
 read by Douglas. 
 
 He called on Lincoln to answer the charges, to defend himself 
 because he had helped to draft the resolutions, and to deny, if possible, 
 that he had been connected with the convention. 
 
 Lincoln had not been present at the convention. He said so in 
 reply to Douglas, and disclaimed any knowledge of having had a hand 
 in the preparation of the resolutions, which he said were drafted in 
 Kane county. 
 
 Then he went on to present his side of the debate, after he had 
 been cheered by the huge crowd of 10,000 or more people for laying 
 low what was a false accusation by Douglas. 
 
 He charged that Douglas and former President Franklin K. 
 Pierce, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, and President James Buchanan all had had previous 
 knowledge of what the Dred Scott decision would be before it was 
 made public. He enlarged on his previous charge that a conspiracy 
 was on foot to make slavery legal throughout the nation, north and 
 south, east and west, in free territory and in territory that was not yet 
 organized as a state. 
 
 The Dred Scott decision, ruling that slaves could not become 
 citizens even when they had fled to the free north, had thrown that 
 part of the nation into an uproar of anger and unrest unparallelled in 
 the nation's history. It had been a boon, a Godsend to the Abolitionists 
 and further fuel for the flames of hatred sweeping the nation and 
 rapidly dividing it into two armed and hostile camps. Outwardly they 
 were still under the same flag. In reality, on the questions of state's 
 rights and slavery, its extensions or its eventual abolition, they were as 
 far apart as the poles. 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 41 
 
 Lincoln at Ottawa laid the ground work for future debates where 
 he was to make accusations and propound questions in such a manner 
 that Douglas either must lose the south by replying in one way and 
 forfeit the presidency in I860, or by answering in the opposite manner 
 lose the senatorship from Illinois in 1858. 
 
 Because Douglas occupied practically all his time at Ottawa in 
 first presenting his forgery that Lincoln had been connected with the 
 anti-Nebraska convention of 1854, and, in his rebuttal, in enlarging on 
 the same accusations, Lincoln is considered winner of the debate in 
 Ottawa. 
 
 The debate in Ottawa set the stage for the one in Freeport, on 
 August 27. There Lincoln maneuvered Douglas into a trap from which 
 the latter emerged with the senatorship from Illinois in his possession 
 virtually, but with his hopes for the presidential nomination in I860 
 dimmed. 
 
 Following the debate, Douglas was hoisted on the shoulders of 
 several husky supporters and was carried to the Geiger House. Soon 
 after, he left town. 
 
 An equal number shouldered Lincoln and carried him, protesting, 
 for nearly three blocks before he finally wriggled loose and walked 
 to the Glover home. He told his bearers as his long legs dangled in 
 the air and his lanky body was carried along the heads of the crowd, 
 "Now, boys, let me down please." After he gained his feet he shook 
 hands with the bearers. 
 
 The next day Lincoln wrote to a friend, J. O. Cunningham, 
 "Douglas and I for the first time this canvass crossed swords here 
 yesterday. The fire flew some, and I am glad to know that I am yet 
 alive. There was a vast concourse of people — more than could get 
 close enough to hear." 
 
 Part of the huge crowd lingered in town long after the debate. 
 They called on Owen Lovejoy for a speech, and he made one that night 
 from the porch of the Glover home, to the delight of a crowd of a 
 thousand people or more. 
 
 On Monday, August 23, Lincoln spoke at Henry, on the Illinois 
 river, in Marshall county, to a crowd of farmers who left their thresh- 
 
42 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 ing to throng the little town forty miles down river from Ottawa. Of 
 the Henry meeting, the Ottawa Republican on August 28, said: "Mr. 
 Lincoln left Ottawa on the Monday morning train between three and 
 four o'clock to fill an appointment in the afternoon. He spoke at that 
 place about two and a half hours to a crowd that was variously 
 estimated at from two to five thousand. We learn by a gentleman of 
 this city who was present that he made an even better speech than he 
 did in Ottawa. 
 
 "In the evening Capt. O. C. Gray, of this city, addressed a large 
 audience assembled there and he kept them in an uproar with his tell- 
 ing hits against the 'African amalgamation Democracy/ The Repub- 
 licans of the county are wide awake and determined to give their 
 opponents an overwhelming defeat in November." 
 
 Partisan as it is, the Republican description of Douglas when 
 he was making his charges that Lincoln had taken part in the anti- 
 Nebraska convention of 1854, and helped to draft resolutions first 
 drawn up at Ottawa, before the convention was held, is nevertheless 
 an interesting example of the manner in which newspapers of the time 
 colored their stories to suit their editorial policies. The Republican 
 said of Douglas: "We can give but little idea of the appearance of the 
 speaker while perpetrating his fraud. His face was livid with rage and 
 despair; he threw himself into contortions, shook his head, shook his 
 fist, his whole body shook as with palsy; his eyes protruded from 
 their sockets, he raved like a mad man. His voice at times descended 
 to a demoniacal howl; and such looks as he gave his opponent. They 
 were those of a fiend in despair. The most considerate part of his 
 worshippers were disgusted with their champion. 
 
 "At the close of Douglas' hour Mr. Lincoln came forward and 
 was greeted with rousing cheers from full three-fourths of the vast 
 crowd. He disposed of Douglas' grand onslaught by simply affirming 
 that he was not at the convention mentioned, had nothing to do with 
 its resolutions and consequently was not subject to criticism on them, 
 whatever they were. 
 
 "This was answer enough for a fair opponent. Having disposed 
 of this, he entered upon leading topics, and in a very gentlemanly 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 43 
 
 and masterly manner gave Douglas such an excoriation as he will not 
 get over before November. He did not retort on Douglas by proclaim- 
 ing his assertions 'infamous falsehoods,' but intimated it was such. His 
 reference to Douglas' record upon Supreme Court decisions cut 
 Douglas up so badly that he did not attempt to reply, but occupied 
 most of his closing half hour by enlarging on his forgery with more 
 vehemence than before. 
 
 "Subtract the forgery from his two speeches and there is nothing 
 left. Indeed, intelligent men of all parties are free to say that Lincoln 
 won the field. Douglas lost friends and lost votes by the exhibition he 
 made of himself in Ottawa, and when his willful forgery becomes 
 generally known, he must lose every decent man in his party." 
 
 So thick was the dust in Ottawa on the day of the debate that the 
 city resembled a vast smokehouse according to one newspaper account 
 of that famous event. 
 
 It was carried in the Illinois State Journal of August 25, 1858, 
 which in turn had condensed it from the Chicago Press and Tribune. 
 
 The account follows: 
 
 "Incident at Ottawa 
 
 "So deep was the interest manifested and so vast the crowd in 
 attendance upon the opening debate between Lincoln and Douglas at 
 Ottawa that we cannot forego giving the following incidents of the 
 occasion condensed from the Press and Tribune-. 
 
 ' 'Before breakfast Ottawa was beleaguered with a multiplying 
 host from all parts of the compass. At 8 o'clock the streets and avenues 
 leading from the country were so thronged with dust that they resem- 
 bled a vast smokehouse. Trams, trains and processions poured in 
 from every direction like an army with banners. 
 
 ' 'National flags and mottoes and devices fluttered and stared 
 from every street corner. Military companies and bands of music 
 monopolized the thoroughfares. 
 
 ' 'Around the court house and the public square two brass 12 
 pounders banged awav in the center of town and drowned the hubbub 
 of the multitudes with their own higher capacities for hubbub. Vanity 
 Fair never boiled with madder enthusiasm. 
 
44 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 ' 'At 11 o'clock two big processions were formed — one marching 
 to the depot of the Rock Island Railroad, where Mr. Lincoln was 
 expected to arrive and the other moving down the road towards 
 Peru, whence Mr. Douglas was advertised to come. 
 
 ' 'As the first procession was crossing the canal one enormous 
 canal boat was moored near the bridge crowded with men and women. 
 On the boat was a large banner inscribed The corporation of 
 Marseilles for Abraham Lincoln.' " 
 
 Long years after the thousands had melted away from Washing- 
 ton Square, Ottawa, long after the great crowd had dwindled to a 
 handful of old men and white haired women, long after the two great 
 Americans had died one at the beginning and one at the end of the 
 great Civil War, the shadows of which even then hung over the park 
 at Ottawa, the Quincy Herald-Whig commented on the bitterly partisan 
 attitude of the newspapers of 1858 which had carried accounts of the 
 debate. 
 
 The Herald-Whig said: "The most dramatic example of the kind 
 of news stories printed in the partisan press is the reporting of the 
 Lincoln-Douglas debate by the newspapers of Illinois. Every newspaper 
 was bitterly partisan in those days not only in its editorial opinions but 
 also in the coloring of its news stories. In Quincy there was the 
 Herald, intensely partisan to Stephen A. Douglas, and the Democratic 
 party, and the Whig, just as loyal to Republicanism and Abraham 
 Lincoln. When Lincoln and Douglas debated in Washington Park in 
 Quincy on October 13, 1858, the reporters for the two newspapers saw 
 the same crowds, heard the same speeches and witnessed the same 
 demonstrations. However, the news stories in the two papers differ 
 as widely as the comments in its editorial columns. 
 
 "Concerning the Douglas parade the Whig said, The thing was 
 a most miserable fizzle. About 50 boys carried torches and the crowd 
 itself did not number more than 200.' But the Herald said, 'The 
 procession of Democracy was over an hour passing the Quincy house 
 and was not less than two miles in length. It was the largest procession 
 ever seen in Quincy.' " 
 
 "The Whig said of Douglas' speech, 'All he did was to roar, 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 45 
 
 fume, slobber and fret. Old Abe maintained his equanimity, his good 
 humor and his complacency. Judge Douglas squirmed like a bear with 
 a sore head.' The Herald said of Lincoln's speech, 'Mr. Lincoln was 
 nervous and trembling. Before the close of the debate he was the most 
 abject picture of nervousness we ever had witnessed Poor Lincoln.' 
 
 "And so for column upon column each newspaper distorted the 
 facts in the interests of what it believed to be loyalty to its party." 
 
 One of the best descriptions of the debate at Ottawa was that of 
 the Illinois State Journal at Springfield under date of August 25, 1858, 
 which read: 
 
 "Incidents at Ottawa 
 
 "In a few minutes another boat appeared from Morris with a 
 similar crowd and similar devices. 
 
 "Shortly after 12 o'clock the special train from Chicago, Joliet, 
 etc., came in with seventeen cars. When it reached the depot three 
 deafening cheers went up for Abraham Lincoln. The cheers were 
 repeated and repeated until the woods and the bluffs rang. Mr. 
 Lincoln was placed in a carriage beautifully decorated with evergreens 
 and mottoes by the young ladies of Ottawa and escorted by the proces- 
 sion over half a mile in length and bands of music from the depot to 
 the public square, around the public square, and to the residence of 
 Mayor Glover. 
 
 "Enormous crowds blockaded the streets and sidewalks through 
 which the procession moved and the shouts of the multitude rolled 
 from end to end around the street corners and across the bridge in a 
 continuous tumult. 
 
 "When Mr. Lincoln's carriage stopped at Mayor Glover's residence 
 three mighty cheers were given and the crowd scattered for dinner. 
 
 "The Douglas procession moved down the Peru road to Buffalo 
 Rock, where they met the pro-slavery champion whom they escorted 
 to the Geiger house. The procession was about half as long as that 
 which waited for Mr. Lincoln and the enthusiasm was almost wholly 
 confined to the Irish Catholics. 
 
 "At one o'clock the crowd commenced pouring into the public 
 square. The rush was literally tremendous. The speakers' stand had 
 
46 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 been foolishly left unguarded and was so crowded with people before 
 the officers of the day arrived that a half hour was consumed in a battle 
 to make room for the speakers and the reporters. Even then the 
 accommodations were of the most wretched character. Two or three 
 times the surge of people on the platform almost drove the reporters 
 off and a half dozen clowns on the roof broke through some of the 
 boards and let them down on the heads of the reception committees. 
 The whole number of persons present could not have been less than 
 12,000. Large numbers were present from Chicago, Galena, Springfield, 
 Peoria, Quincy, Rock Island, Bloomington, Alton, and other points. 
 The crowd was considerably larger than the crowd that assembled in 
 Chicago on the night of Douglas's opening speech. 
 
 "At the conclusion of the debate when Lincoln walked down the 
 platform he was seized by multitudes and borne off on their shoulders ; 
 in the centre of a crowd of 5,000 shouting Republicans with a band 
 of music in the front. 
 
 "It was the opinion of every unprejudiced listener that Douglas 
 would give a full year off his life if he could escape meeting Lincoln 
 at the six other discussions through which he must pass." 
 
 Young Knute Sampson, only a few months over from Norway, 
 heard the debate. It was a puzzle to him. He came with a Democrat 
 uncle and he applauded at the proper time. He knew vaguely that 
 great issues, mighty issues, issues that would help mold the fate of a 
 nation were at stake. He left still puzzled by it all. Three years later 
 he was carrying a musket in the Union army with one man he could 
 not understand as his commander-in-chief. The other had died a few 
 weeks after the first cannon shot at Fort Sumter had touched off the 
 war. 
 
 Did Lincoln, with glee, write a one line comment on an editorial 
 boner on the part of William Osman, the Free Trader editor, at Ottawa 
 after the second of the debates at Freeport on August 27? 
 
 The question will never be answered. 
 
 But in one of the two files of the Free Trader in Reddick's library, 
 Ottawa, there appeared a now faded and pencilled, notation which 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 47 
 
 may be in his handwriting on the first page of the September 11, 1858, 
 issue. 
 
 Editor Osman, on page one, told his readers that he was publishing 
 on the same page, the speeches of Judge Douglas and Mr. Lincoln at 
 Freeport. 
 
 But no such speeches appear on the page. 
 
 The reason for the omission is unknown. The printer may have 
 gone fishing or for some other reason neglected to use the speeches 
 as promised or they may not have arrived in time for publication. 
 
 Then it would appear that a friend of Lincoln's whose first name 
 was James — the last name is faded and undecipherable, sent Lincoln 
 a copy of that issue of the Free Trader, calling attention to the editorial 
 boner. 
 
 Across the top of the page over the Free Trader masthead, there 
 appears this line and the signature of Lincoln, if it is such, "Yes, James, 
 ha, ha, I saw it. A. Lincoln." 
 
 Through an odd mishap of history there are no known copies 
 now in existence of the Free Trader issue of August 28, 1858, which 
 would present the Democratic side from the viewpoint of editor Osman. 
 
 The files in the library at Ottawa end with the issue of August 21 
 for one file and begin with the issue of September 1 1 in the other file. 
 There are then two issues missing. The files of the Republican in the 
 same library are complete as to the debate at Ottawa. 
 
 Lincoln bided his time after the debates, then arranged to have 
 them printed in booklet form, which brought a storm of protest from 
 the Douglas followers. 
 
 Lincoln had his friends collect newspapers in which accounts of 
 the seven debates had been printed. From these he selected those 
 accounts which he wanted published and had them put out for sale 
 in Columbus, Ohio, March 20, I860, where they sold like "hot cakes." 
 
 Contrary to the impression of many people Lincoln and Douglas 
 did not confine all their oratory to the seven debates on the prairies 
 and hills of Illinois — Ottawa, August 21, Freeport on the 27th, 
 Jonesboro, September 15, Charleston on the 18th, Galesburg on 
 
48 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 October 7, Quincy on the 13th, and finally the last one at Alton October 
 15. 
 
 Both stumped the length and breadth of Illinois, leaving no stone 
 unturned to reach the voters. It was a test of endurance for both in an 
 age when rugged, even vicious, never dull and never non-partisan 
 politics was the rule. 
 
 Lincoln wound up his campaign at Petersburg October 29 only a 
 mile or more from the abandoned village of New Salem. In truth he 
 had come a "far piece" from the black haired youth who had lived 
 there in the 1830's, read Shakespeare before the flickering fire in the 
 Jack Kelso cabin and dreamed of great days to come. 
 
 And in truth the same could be said of Douglas, who had left his 
 native Vermont with his sights set on high political office and who 
 had reached that ambition and now had his heart set on still higher 
 rungs on the political ladder. 
 
 When all the fanfare had died away, when the last of the 
 thousands who heard the debate at one or more of the seven places 
 had cast their ballots both Lincoln and Douglas had a hollow victory. 
 
 The Republicans had carried Illinois by a narrow margin and had 
 elected their candidates for superintendent of public instruction and 
 state treasurer. 
 
 But they did not gain control of the general assembly, the vital 
 element then in the election of United States Senator. 
 
 The assembly, through the gerrymandering of the powerful 
 Democratic party remained in its hands, so that, when it met in Jan- 
 uary 1859, it elected Douglas for a third time and for the second time 
 in four years. Lincoln saw his hopes dashed of becoming senator 
 from Illinois. 
 
 Rough and tumble affairs as they were, with no polished oratory, 
 some horse play and occasionally flashes of anger on the part of both 
 men the debates served important purposes. 
 
 They brought the attention of the nation to Lincoln, who had 
 competed in other debates, or legal cases, with some of the best men 
 that Illinois had produced and had vanquished them. These include 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 49 
 
 J. T. Stuart, Stephen T. Logan, O. H. Browning and Lyman Trumbull. 
 They cost Douglas the presidency in I860. Reelected senator from 
 Illinois, he was no longer the titular leader of his party. One of the 
 first acts to reduce him in the ranks was to strip from Douglas the 
 chairmanship of the powerful committee on territories and give it to 
 Senator Jefferson Davis of Kentucky, later to become the sole president 
 of the short lived Confederate States of America. 
 
 Douglas had taken the "popular sovereignty" stand that if the 
 people of a western territory wanted slavery let them have it. If they 
 did not want it they would be allowed to discourage it and to refuse it. 
 
 Lincoln and the Republican party stood on the ground that slavery 
 was wrong and should be treated as such. 
 
 In Ottawa Douglas had charged that Lincoln and Senator Lyman 
 Trumbull of Illinois were seeking to form an "Abolitionist party" and 
 he referred to the "Black Republicans," a term that swept the southern 
 states like wild fire. He trotted out his doctrine that Lincoln was intent 
 on dissolving the Union and favored social and political equality of 
 the negroes and the whites. 
 
 Lincoln rejoined that the Negro had the equal right with any man 
 to eat the bread earned by his own work. He told the sweltering crowd 
 that Douglas planned the perpetuity and nationalism of slavery. 
 
 Douglas was so far discredited in his party from the results of the 
 debate with Lincoln that his party split wide open in I860 and he 
 became the candidate of one splinter of it, the northern Democrat, and 
 was able, in the campaign of I860, to win electoral votes in only two 
 states, Missouri and New Jersey. John Breckenridge of Kentucky and 
 Joe Lane of Oregon carried the bulk of the southern states, with the 
 Constitutional Democratic party. John Bell of Tennessee and Edward 
 Everett of Massachusetts carried three states, Kentucky, Tennessee and 
 Virginia. Lincoln won the election with a total of 180 electoral votes 
 against 123 for his combined foes. But still he did not get a popular 
 majority of the vote, a fact that he never forgot. 
 
 In Freeport Douglas brought out his popular sovereignty doctrine. 
 In Jonesboro he insisted that the words of the Declaration of Indepen- 
 
50 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 dence, "All men being created equal," meant all "white men." That 
 was in Democratic territory. 
 
 Other debates were at Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy and at 
 Alton, where the last of the seven were held. By that time in October 
 both men were exhausted from their almost endless campaign for more 
 than two months on the prairies of their adopted state. 
 
 Defeated as he was in the race for the presidency the example of 
 Douglas, when the Civil War broke out was an inspiration for all 
 Americans for generations to come. 
 
 He raised his powerful voice and tremendous energy in a plea for 
 preservation of the nation and did much to lead his adopted state of 
 Illinois into the forefront of that battle through the raising of troops, 
 the raising of money, and the raising of supplies for a war, which at 
 the outset did not appear as if it would last four long years. 
 
 But his energies were spent. He died June 3, 1861, honored as a 
 great American and patriot in its time of greatest peril. 
 
 ROARING LITTLE GIANT 
 
 When Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas swung into the 
 heat of their famous debates on the prairies of Illinois late in the sum- 
 mer of 1858 Charles Delano of Ottawa laid down the surveyor's 
 instruments and took up the editor's pen to aid the cause of Douglas 
 through the publication of the Daily Little Giant. 
 
 Delano's inexperience in the editorial field is shown in the 18 
 issues of the Little Giant which were preserved at Ottawa until the 
 summer of 1950. Then 14 of the 18 went to the Illinois State Historical 
 Library at Springfield, two remained in the hands of the then owner, 
 Leon V. Gonigam of Ottawa. The writer has one and Lincoln Memo- 
 rial University at Harrogate, Tennessee, has the 18th. 
 
 In all there were 45 issues of the Little Giant published between 
 September 21 and November 10. 
 
 Delano was a member of a New York state family which had 
 moved to Illinois more than 20 years before Lincoln and Douglas 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 51 
 
 locked horns in their debates in Illinois, which set the prairies on fire 
 and divided the state into two hostile camps; one ardently for Lincoln, 
 the other equally determined to elect Douglas, the "Little Giant" as 
 United States Senator. 
 
 Loring Delano, a brother of Charles, built a hotel in Ottawa along 
 the Illinois-Michigan canal on east Superior street. It is not known if 
 Lincoln ever stayed there but the famous old place sheltered such 
 varied types of Americans as Daniel Webster, when he was on land 
 buying junkets in Illinois, the Jefferson troupe of actors, canal con- 
 struction forces, army officers, and many others. The old hotel, long 
 famous for the fine meals served by mine host, was torn down in the 
 early years of this century. 
 
 Tradition in Ottawa relates that Charles Delano, at the outbreak 
 of the Civil War, sold his United States government bonds and went 
 south to invest in cotton. Then General U. S. Grant seized the cotton 
 as contraband and Delano had to sue to get it back. 
 
 The Daily Little Giant was not a large paper. Its editor may have 
 had little financial backing. Certainly he could not have had much if 
 any editorial experience. The 18 issues known of the Little Giant show 
 that he did not in person attend any of the debates, so far as a reading 
 of them shows, or that he made any attempt to interview either Lincoln 
 or Douglas on the issues of the campaign of 1858. 
 
 Because of these facts the Daily Little Giant is interesting merely 
 as reflecting the mode of the day in strictly partisan organs which 
 flourished a few weeks or months then went out of business. 
 
 It adds nothing to our knowledge of the debates or the debaters, 
 the issues of the day or how they were presented to the voters. 
 
 The copies of the Little Giant that have been preserved are those 
 of September 22, 24, 29; October 2, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 21, 
 27 and 29, November 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 10. 
 
 Subscription rates were $6 a year with the expectation that its 
 publication would continue in some form after the close of the 
 campaign of 1858. 
 
 The bias of the Little Giant, not uncommon in an Age when 
 
 ■ 
 
52 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 editors dipped their pen in acid, is evident in the second issue on 
 September 22. 
 
 Whether Delano was the writer of this masterpiece of sarcasm 
 or had a ghost writer is not known, but it set the editorial tone of the 
 entire issues of the 45 copies, it would appear. 
 
 Delano wrote of a political meeting at Ottawa: 
 "How They Like It 
 
 "We heard a prominent Republican tell another the other day 
 that Mr. Schlosser should have been kicked out of the court house for 
 presuming that a Nigger was going to speak at the Free church, 
 although the object of his address was to help Lincoln. Every fool 
 knows that his speech would do Lincoln more harm than good and 
 that this abolitionist fanaticism must be dropped. It was hard enough 
 to go Lovejoy without being obliged to swallow every greasy Nigger 
 that happened along." 
 
 Lovejoy was the Owen Lovejoy, then a member of congress from 
 Illinois, with his home at Princeton, 38 miles west of Ottawa, where it 
 still stands. He was a fiery Abolitionist, the brother of the martyred 
 editor of Alton, Elijah Lovejoy, who lost his life for writing against 
 slavery at the hands of a mob which stormed his newspaper plant. 
 
 His lashing tongue and biting pen were feared and hated in 
 congress by the southern slaveholders and the social pariahs of the time, 
 the slave catchers and slave dealers. 
 
 But that diatribe of Delano's was matched in virulence by the one 
 on September 21 of "Limerick," written from LaSalle, 16 miles west of 
 Ottawa. 
 
 Limerick wrote: 
 
 "Mr. Cofring spoke last night in Cody's new hall to an audience 
 of one thousand persons. His remarks were listened to with breathless 
 attention for one hour and he was only interrupted at intervals by the 
 most enthusiastic applause. 
 
 "After defining his position he directed his remarks to the rev- 
 erend Parson Lovejoy (Owen Lovejoy), who had spoken there a few 
 evenings previous and proceeded to show up the hypocrisy and hollow 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 53 
 
 headedness of that delectable nigger worshipper. He showed how in 
 1844 Lovejoy villianously abused Henry Clay and took the stump 
 against him and now had the audacity to claim that he was his friend. 
 He then read the celebrated Lombard letter and commented thereon 
 to the infinite delight of everybody but the woollies. 
 
 "I have seldom listened to an address more high toned and 
 explicit than this one. His sarcasm at times was withering in the 
 extreme and cut to the quick. Abolitionism has surfeited the public 
 mind to an extent no longer endurable and the people are determined 
 to repudiate this ultra Negro Stealer, who so publicly sets the laws at 
 defiance. 
 
 "The current is against Lovejoy — he can not be reelected. The 
 people are aroused. All the joy and all the love of his sable brethren 
 cannot save him from the Waterloo of defeat. 
 
 "The heads of the Abolitionists in this place and in Peru com- 
 menced swelling to an alarming extent this morning and a physician, 
 a counterfeit Fred Douglas, as dark as Erebus, has been sent for to 
 prescribe for them immediately. Poor fellows, their disease is mortal. 
 
 "Limerick" 
 But the shafts of sarcasm and ridicule aimed at the Republicans 
 by Delano and Limerick — they may have been the same person — were 
 outdone by those of the writer from Earlville, 20 miles north of Ottawa. 
 The Earlville correspondent wrote: 
 
 "Abolition Wake at Earlville 
 
 "Rabbits all out — 22 men, women and children all told — 
 
 one hand organ grinder 
 
 "Earlville, September 1858 
 "On the 18th inst. (Saturday) our quiet village was slightly 
 annoyed by the mournful notes of a hand organ and the swill milk and 
 slops of eloquence of one O. C. Gray (a prominent Ottawa attorney — 
 editorial note) alias "Otter Creek Orator" and one J. O. Glover from 
 some little obscure place on the canal, Utica we think. Twenty- two 
 men, women and children, all told, were present on the occasion and 
 the one organ grinder making in all 23 by actual count. Three of the 
 
54 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 ladies who were induced by their friends to attend left on the first 
 exhibition of the "Otter Creek Hero." He said he approved all the 
 national abolition party had said or done since that time. He is an 
 awful man. He must have been a great man in bygone days. 
 
 "Why don't the Abolition party appreciate more fully this 'Otter 
 Creek Hero'? 
 
 "By the way, who is J. O. Glover? He seems to have been, to 
 within a few days, we believe, a not very wise justice of the peace." 
 
 The Glover referred to in such disparaging terms was the same 
 Glover who had been host to Lincoln a month before at the time of 
 the debate with Douglas. He was then mayor of the town. His home 
 at 810 Columbus street was marked by a tablet placed by the Illini 
 chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1938. 
 
 The Little Giant day after day in September and October of 1858 
 listed the places where Douglas was speaking in his campaign for votes 
 for United States Senator. It did not, of course, as a matter of policy, 
 name the places where Lincoln also was beating the bushes for the 
 same purpose. 
 
 November 10, 1858, after the election had been held the Little 
 Giant published its last edition saying: 
 
 "Valedictory 
 
 "With this number ceased publication of the Little Giant. It was 
 commenced some weeks before election and we promised to continue 
 it until after election was over and the returns were in so that we could 
 announce the results. Our advices today show that result in not only 
 the county, in this congressional district, but also on the state ticket. 
 Having thus announced the entire result we are absolved from con- 
 tinuing the paper any longer and therefore wind up its brief career. 
 
 "That during the excitement of a political contest the editor of 
 an exclusively campaign paper should not make some enemies among 
 his political opponents was more than we ventured to expect or believe. 
 We believe, however, in the way of personal abuse and detraction we 
 have received fully as much as we gave and if our opponents are willing 
 to rest at that we are and we stand ready to shake their hand on it 
 and forgive and forget." 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 55 
 
 A suggestion that the Little Giant continue publication as a daily 
 paper met some favor in Ottawa. The editor of the Free Trader, 
 William Osman, who also was a Democrat, broached the subject in 
 this manner: 
 
 "Proposed Daily 
 
 "The Little Giant, having lived its day, a number of our business 
 men, realizing the convenience of a daily paper in the city, have urged 
 us to continue the publication of a daily. 
 
 "We have yielded so far to the solicitations as to make some 
 effort — our proposition is to commence in the course of two or three 
 weeks the publication of a Daily Free Trader, to be four columns 
 larger than the Giant and to be printed on new type. Politics, to which 
 the Giant was almost exclusively devoted, will in the new daily be 
 measurably ignored and our effort will be to make it a good daily 
 newspaper so as to take the place of the Chicago dailies for which such 
 large sums are now paid by our citizens. 
 
 "We shall endeavor to give full daily telegraph reports, keep up 
 a good local department and make it complete in giving the current 
 events of the day. The price will be put at $5 a year, payable in advance. 
 We propose during the coming week or two by ourselves or by an 
 agent to canvass the city on the subject both for subscriptions and 
 advertising, when we shall be able to report more positively in reference 
 to the enterprise. 
 
 "William Osman" 
 
 FROM THE WIGWAM 
 
 Here and there in 1865 a few early coming blue birds were 
 inquiring of apartments in the farmer's rail fences where the ageless 
 combination of time, decay and wind had rotted holes in the wood and 
 left an opening just big enough for their needs when Postmaster C. B. 
 King of Ottawa made his way to the telegraph office on business bent. 
 
 In the Carolinas Sherman's Union armies were slogging their 
 way through mud and rain, through the green of springtime, past the 
 
56 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 bodies of their comrades at the bridges and along the roads where the 
 Confederates were making a rear guard stand on their way north and 
 the end of the war. 
 
 King never got an answer to his telegram, so far as now known. 
 He waited in vain from the time it was sent March 25, 1865. 
 
 It lay in a littered desk in an office in Washington waiting to 
 be answered or it may have been pigeon holed as were many others as 
 President Lincoln with the rest of an embittered and strife torn nation 
 waited for the inevitable collapse of the rebellion and the end of the 
 long conflict. 
 
 The sharp crack of the derringer in the hand of John Wilkes 
 Booth on the terrible night of April 14, 1865, assured that the recipient 
 would never answer the telegram of King in which he made a request 
 to see the President about his appointment as postmaster at Ottawa 
 which King had held for four years. 
 
 The date of appointment was to have been April 15, a day that 
 found the north in mourning, found its people bewildered by the 
 tragedy that had befallen them, found a thousand versions of what 
 had taken place, found a new man in the White House, found the 
 soldiers weeping, unabashed, in camp, and field and hospital, found 
 the buildings in the north along the streets hastily draped in black, 
 found knots of people on the street corners talking of the assassination, 
 found farmers coming to town to be apprised for the first time of 
 what had taken place in distant Washington the night before and 
 early on the morning of April 15. 
 
 It found Joseph Dow, the newly named postmaster of Ottawa by 
 appointment of Lincoln on April 11, 1865, one of his last such 
 appointments. 
 
 King was one of the Ottawans who had been involved in the 
 sensational freeing of Jim Gray, a slave, in the fall of 1859 and who 
 had been indicted, convicted and fined a small sum for violation of 
 the Fugitive Slave law in the fall of I860 when the nation was engaged 
 in the last stages of a bitter political campaign and was paying little 
 attention to what had been a sensation a year before in the old town 
 of Ottawa. 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 57 
 
 He was rewarded by the postmastership for his part in the political 
 campaign of I860 in which he had published The Wigwam, now one 
 of the rarest of that extinct American institution of its time, the 
 political campaign paper. 
 
 There are 10 issues of The Wigwam in the department of Lin- 
 colniana of Lincoln Memorial University at Harrogate, Tennessee, the 
 gift of Carl W. Schaefer of Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 The history of The Wigwam was dealt with in the quarterly pub- 
 lication of the Lincoln Herald in an article in the June 1945 issue by 
 R. Gerald McMurtry, which follows: 
 
 "One thousand numbers of the first edition of The Wigwam, a 
 newspaper devoted to the interests of the Republican party, were run 
 off the press at Ottawa, Illinois, on July 18, I860. C. B. King, the 
 editor, announced in his first issue that his newspaper office was to be 
 located over the postoffice (King later became postmaster), the terms 
 were fifty cents a copy and that advertising rates would be accepted at 
 regular rates. Copies of the newspaper were to appear every Wednes- 
 day, ' 'til after the presidential election.' 
 
 "The publication of this weekly Republican organ brought forth 
 the courteous yet left-handed political thrust of William Osman 
 (postmaster under President James Buchanan), the editor of the 
 Illinois Free Trader, a strongly partisan organ on the other side of the 
 political fence. In the issue of July 21, I860, under the title 'The 
 Wigwam,' Osman made the following comments: The publication of 
 a Republican campaign paper under the name above has been com- 
 menced in this city by Claudius B. King, Esq. If the first number is a 
 fair specimen of those to succeed it The Wigwam will prove a for- 
 midable campaigner. The editorials are ably, spiritedly, and yet cour- 
 teously written. The publication of such a paper has been found a 
 necessity, we presume, on account of the weak, wish-washy, character 
 of the Ottawa Republican and for the same reason will no doubt be 
 liberally supported by the Republicans of the county. 
 
 "The Republican's comment on its rival on the same day, July 21, 
 I860, was brief as was natural. T. Hampton, the editor, merely said 
 under the heading of The Wigwam'; This is the title of a spirited 
 
58 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 little campaign paper started in the city by Mr. C. B. King. Mr. King 
 enters his business with zeal and we trust that his enterprise may be 
 an aid to the Republican cause. The terms are fifty cents for the 
 campaign.' 
 
 "It is believed after careful study of this file of newspapers that 
 only sixteen numbers were published. The last number bears the date 
 of October 31, I860. The file in the department of Lincolniana con- 
 sists of ten issues. Numbers 4, 6, 9, 10, 14, and 15 are missing. Number 
 2 through number 16 carries a different masthead from Number 1. 
 A woodland scene is depicted with Lincoln and Hamlin in the role 
 of the rail-splitters (Lincoln is wielding the maul and Hamlin is 
 holding the wedge) in the act of dividing the Northern Democracy 
 from the Southern Democracy. Every issue of this interesting news- 
 paper carries in bold face type, one column wide, the 'Republican 
 Nominations' with Lincoln's name heading the list. In addition to the 
 Presidential Electoral Ticket, the State Ticket and County Ticket are 
 prominently featured. 
 
 "Every number of The Wigwam carries political articles in praise 
 of the Republicans while Democrats are held up to scorn. One article 
 subjects Lincoln to the ordeal of these questions: 'Is he faithful to the 
 Constitution?' Needless to say Lincoln passed the test. A considerable 
 amount of national and state news having no political implications are 
 to be found in the columns of The Wigwam, as well as the usual 
 fillers and advertisements, one of which offers to sell to the public 
 'Lincoln hats made to order.' 
 
 "Historians may wonder why Ottawa could support two Republi- 
 can newspapers during the presidential campaign of I860. It is believed 
 the Republican, founded in 1844, was a conservative political organ 
 during these stirring times when an all-out Republican effort was being 
 made to win the vote in LaSalle county — a community always con- 
 sidered to be a Democratic stronghold. Ottawa's geographical location 
 at the confluence of the Fox and Illinois rivers was a determining 
 factor in molding its political thought. Prior to 1848 virtually all of its 
 commercial traffic was carried by river steamers on the Illinois, which 
 in turn had come up the Mississippi. As would be expected the con- 
 
FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUGLAS 59 
 
 struction of the Rock Island railroad between Ottawa and Chicago 
 changed, to some extent, the political situation after 1853, as did the 
 opening of the Illinois-Michigan canal in 1848, which provided a water 
 route from Ottawa to Chicago for trade and travellers. Yet in spite of 
 these new arteries of travel the town had strong southern leanings, 
 which had not been broken at the time of the Presidential campaign 
 of 1860. 
 
 "This file of The Wigwam is excessively rare. Up to date not a 
 single copy has been located in the state of Illinois, and the newspaper 
 is not listed in Scott's or Gregory's bibliographies of Illinois 
 newspapers. 
 
 STORM CLOUDS GATHER 
 
 Seed time in Illinois would come, when the corn would be dibbled 
 in, and the time for gathering the seed corn for another year's crop 
 would come in the shortening days of September, but there would be 
 many a young, strong, farm hand missing after the bloody horror that 
 was Chickamauga. 
 
 The time of the magnolias to bloom on the cotton plantations of 
 Mississippi and the time for fox hunting in the fall would come and 
 go but after the last gun and field piece had barked in the snowy 
 shambles of Murfreesboro more than one great plantation would be 
 left without an heir. 
 
 The Irish boy from south Boston, with ambitions to be a priest 
 and serve his church, would not survive the charge up Mary's Height 
 in gloomy December, 1862, but would find his narrow plot of earth, 
 among so many others, among the rows of dead. 
 
 When the last muskets had echoed their sullen rumble and Vicks- 
 burg had surrendered the boy from the hills of Vermont, who wanted 
 to be a physician, would lie among the dead, to be forever known only 
 to his creator, not far from the tall, dark French speaking youth in 
 gray, from the swamps of Louisiana. He, too, would lie for all time 
 among the dead, whose identity was lost in the roar and grumble of 
 
60 LINCOLN WAS HERE— 
 
 cannon and musket fire, of the thunder of cavalry charges and the 
 deadly hand work with bayonets and fists and clubbed muskets. 
 
 And so the list of dead and of maimed, of the blind and the leg- 
 less and the armless, of those who died of fever and smallpox and 
 pneumonia in the prison camps and in the crude hospitals would grow 
 and grow, month, on month, and year on year, until it seemed there 
 would be no end to it and that before it was over every home in the 
 land would be deep in sorrow. 
 
 The little towns in the midwest and those along the Atlantic 
 coast, the old cities, the big cities, the strident noisy, bustling manu- 
 facturing towns would see their dead come back, would hear the 
 parsons preach funeral sermons, one after another, for so many long 
 years. 
 
 The family burial grounds on the plantations of the old south, 
 would see the processions winding their way to the walled enclosure, 
 would hear the measured tones of the family minister give the prayers 
 for the dead and then, when the people had gone and it was nearing 
 sun down, the Negro retainers would start the burial work among the 
 dead, who had lain there a century or more. 
 
 The sea was to take its toll, too, along the coasts of the Carolinas, 
 in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Confederacy had set up shore 
 batteries to protect its scant amount of foreign commerce from the 
 raids and attacks of the Union vessels of war. 
 
 The far west knew the rumble of battle and the Indians of the 
 Oklahoma tribes were to be divided, with some to take on the Southern 
 gray and others to lay down their lives in the Union blue. 
 
 Seed time and harvest time came and went and there was no end 
 to it all, until fateful April of 1865, when the last shots were fired 
 and the last of the dead were laid under the grass, the universal 
 covering for beggar and king. 
 
* JT * 
 
 Boulder in Washington Park, Ottawa, which was dedicated in 1908 when the city 
 observed the semi-centennial of the Lincoln-Douglas debate. The boulder of red granite 
 weighs about 22 tons and was hauled from a small creek about six miles north of 
 Ottawa. The dedication ceremonies were in charge of IllinL Chapter, Daughters of the 
 American Revolution. One of the speakers was Stephen Douglas, a son of Douglas who 
 had debated with Lincoln. 
 
 Front Cover Pictures: 
 
 Lincoln at Bearstown, Illinois in 1858. 
 By courtesy of the Illinois State Historical Society at Springfield. 
 
 Hitherto unpublished photograph of Stephen A. Douglas taken from an oil painting 
 owned by Attorney Wayne C. Townley of Bloomington, Illinois, a past president of the 
 Illinois State Historical Society and by whose permission it was furnished. 
 
Bed in which Lincoln slept at the time of the debate with Douglas. It is still in the 
 hands of the Glover family and is now owned and used by Mrs. Ralph Carley of 37 East 
 Losey Street, Galesburg, by whose permission the photograph was furnished. 
 
 Third LaSalle county court house which was torn down in 1881. It stood two blocks 
 south of Washington Park. This was the court house which served a double purpose 
 from 1849 to the spring of 1860. It was used as a county court house and also for sessions 
 of the Northern Grand Division of the Illinois Supreme Court, which had its other branches 
 at Springfield, the State Capital, and at 3It. Vernon, deep in southern Illinois. 
 
 This was the court house in which Lincoln and Douglas and Stephen Logan were op- 
 posing counsel in a law case which the Supreme Court heard at the spring term of 1851. 
 The court held for Douglas in the case, then scolded all the attorneys for their failure to 
 present all the evidence in the case. Lincoln took the bulk of the censure, since he lost 
 the case. Douglas had as co-counsel S. T. Logan. From the writer's own file of pictures 
 of old Ottawa and his previous publication, "Lincoln's In Town," 1940. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 973.7L63C4T52L CQ01 
 
 LINCOLN WAS HERE, FOR ANOTHER GO AT DOUG 
 
 3 0112 031806414