"I felt badly to see him cut so," says a witness of the scene.
Here was an opportunity for revenge. The humble laborer was his employer'scaptain, but the opportunity was never improved. Mr. Lincoln frequentlyconfessed that no subsequent success of his life had given him half thesatisfaction that this election did. He had achieved public recognition;and to one so humbly bred, the distinction was inexpressibly delightful.
A Humorous Speech--Lincoln in the Black Hawk War.
The friends of General Cass, when that gentleman was a candidate for thePresidency, endeavored to endow him with a military reputation. Mr.Lincoln, at that time a representative in Congress, delivered a speechbefore the House, which in its allusions to Mr. Cass, was exquisitelysarcastic and irresistibly humorous:
"By the way, Mr. Speaker," said Mr. Lincoln, "do you know I am a militaryhero? Yes, sir, in the days of the Black Hawk War, I fought, bled and cameaway. Speaking of General Cass' career reminds me of my own. I was not atStillman's Defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass to Hull's surrender;and like him I saw the place very soon afterward. It is quite certain Idid not break my sword, for I had none to break, but I bent my musketpretty badly on one occasion. * * * If General Cass went in advance of mein picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon thewild onion. If he saw any live, fighting Indians, it is more than I did,but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes, and although Inever fainted from loss of blood, I can truly say I was often veryhungry."
Mr. Lincoln concluded by saying that if he ever turned Democrat and shouldrun for the Presidency, he hoped they would not make fun of him byattempting to make him a military hero!
Elected to the Legislature.
In 1834, Lincoln was a candidate for the legislature, and was elected bythe highest vote cast for any candidate. Major John T. Stuart, an officerin the Black Hawk War, and whose acquaintance Lincoln made at Beardstown,was also elected. Major Stuart had already conceived the highest opinionof the young man, and seeing much of him during the canvass for theelection, privately advised him to study law. Stuart was himself engagedin a large and lucrative practice at Springfield.
Lincoln said he was poor--that he had no money to buy books, or to livewhere books might be borrowed or used. Major Stuart offered to lend himall he needed, and he decided to take the kind lawyer's advice, and accepthis offer. At the close of the canvass which resulted in his election, hewalked to Springfield, borrowed "a load" of books of Stuart, and took themhome with him to New Salem.
Here he began the study of law in good earnest, though with no preceptor.He studied while he had bread, and then started out on a surveying tour towin the money that would buy more.
One who remembers his habits during this period says that he went, dayafter day, for weeks, and sat under an oak tree near New Salem and read,moving around to keep in the shade as the sun moved. He was so muchabsorbed that some people thought and said that he was crazy.
Not unfrequently he met and passed his best friends without noticing them.The truth was that he had found the pursuit of his life, and had becomevery much in earnest.
During Lincoln's campaign he possessed and rode a horse, to procure whichhe had quite likely sold his compass and chain, for, as soon as thecanvass had closed, he sold the horse and bought these instrumentsindispensable to him in the only pursuit by which he could make hisliving.
When the time for the assembling of the legislature had arrived Lincolndropped his law books, shouldered his pack, and, on foot, trudged toVandalia, then the capital of the State, about a hundred miles, to makehis entrance into public life.
"The Long Nine."
The Sangamon County delegation to the Illinois Legislature, in 1834, ofwhich Lincoln was a member, consisting of nine representatives, was soremarkable for the physical altitude of its members that they were knownas "The Long Nine." Not a member of the number was less than six feethigh, and Lincoln was the tallest of the nine, as he was the leading manintellectually in and out of the House.
Among those who composed the House were General John A. McClernand,afterwards a member of Congress; Jesse K. DuBois, afterwards Auditor ofthe State; Jas. Semple, afterwards twice the Speaker of the House ofRepresentatives, and subsequently United States Senator; Robert Smith,afterwards member of Congress; John Hogan, afterwards a member of Congressfrom St. Louis; General James Shields, afterwards United States Senator(who died recently); John Dement, who has since been Treasurer of theState; Stephen A. Douglas, whose subsequent career is familiar to all;Newton Cloud, President of the convention which framed the present StateConstitution of Illinois; John J. Hardin, who fell at Buena Vista; JohnMoore, afterwards Lieutenant Governor of the State; William A. Richardson,subsequently United States Senator, and William McMurtry, who has sincebeen Lieutenant Governor of the State.
This list does not embrace all who had then, or who have since beendistinguished, but it is large enough to show that Lincoln was, during theterm of this legislature, thrown into association, and often intoantagonism, with the brightest men of the new State.
A Joke on Lincoln's Big Feet.
He had walked his hundred miles to Vandalia; in 1836, as he did in 1834,and when the session closed he walked home again. A gentleman in MenardCounty remembers meeting him and a detachment of "The Long Nine" on theirway home. They were all mounted except Lincoln, who had thus far kept upwith them on foot.
If he had money he was hoarding it for more important purposes than thatof saving leg-weariness and leather. The weather was raw, and Lincoln'sclothing was none of the warmest.
Complaining of being cold to one of his companions, this irreverent memberof "The Long Nine" told his future President that it was no wonder he wascold--"there was so much of him on the ground." None of the partyappreciated this homely joke at the expense of his feet (they weredoubtless able to bear it) more thoroughly than Lincoln himself.
We can imagine the cross-fires of wit and humor by which the way wasenlivened during this cold and tedious journey. The scene was certainly arude one, and seems more like a dream than a reality, when we rememberthat it occurred not very many years ago, in a State which contains hardlyless than three millions of people and seven thousand and six hundredmiles of railway.
Lincoln's Marriage--Interesting Letters.
In 1842, in his thirty-third year, Mr. Lincoln married Miss Mary Todd, adaughter of Hon. Robert S. Todd, of Lexington, Kentucky. The marriage tookplace in Springfield, where the lady had for several years resided, on thefourth of November of the year mentioned. It is probable that he marriedas early as the circumstances of his life permitted, for he had alwaysloved the society of women, and possessed a nature that took profounddelight in intimate female companionship.
A letter written on the eighteenth of May following his marriage, to J. F.Speed, Esq., of Louisville, Kentucky, an early and a life-long personalfriend, gives a pleasant glimpse of his domestic arrangements at thistime. "We are not keeping house," Mr. Lincoln says in this letter, "butboarding at the Globe Tavern, which is very well kept by a widow lady ofthe name of Beck. Our rooms are the same Dr. Wallace occupied there, andboarding only costs four dollars a week. * * * I most heartily wish youand your Fanny will not fail to come. Just let us know the time, a week inadvance, and we will have a room prepared for you, and we'll all be merrytogether for awhile."
He seems to have been in excellent spirits, and to have been very heartyin the enjoyment of his new relation. The private letters of Mr. Lincolnwere charmingly natural and sincere. His personal friendships were thesweetest sources of his happiness.
To a particular friend, he wrote February 25, 1842: "Yours of the 16th,announcing that Miss ---- and you 'are no longer twain, but one flesh,'reached me this morning. I have no way of telling you how much happiness Iwish you both, though I believe you both can conceive it. I feel somewhatjealous of both of you now, for you will be so exclusiv
ely concerned forone another that I shall be forgotten entirely. My acquaintance with Miss---- (I call her thus lest you should think I am speaking of your mother),was too short for me to reasonably hope to long be remembered by her; andstill I am sure I shall not forget her soon. Try if you cannot remind herof that debt she owes me, and be sure you do not interfere to prevent herpaying it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S RESIDENCE AT SPRINGFIELD, ILL.]
"I regret to learn that you have resolved not to return to Illinois. Ishall be very lonesome without you. How miserably things seem to bearranged in this world! If we have no friends we have no pleasure; and ifwe have them, we are sure to lose them, and be doubly pained by the loss.
"I did hope she and you would make your home here, yet I own I have noright to insist. You owe obligations to her ten thousand times more sacredthan any you can owe to others, and in that light let them be respectedand observed. It is natural that she should desire to remain with herrelations and friends. As to friends, _she_ should not need themanywhere--she would have them in abundance here. Give my kind regards toMr. ---- and his family, particularly to Miss E. Also to your mother,brothers and sisters. Ask little E. D---- if she will ride to town with meif I come there again. And, finally, give ---- a double reciprocation ofall the love she sent me. Write me often, and believe me, yours forever,LINCOLN."
Lincoln's Mother--How He Loved Her.
"A great man," says J. G. Holland, "never drew his infant life from apurer or more womanly bosom than her own; and Mr. Lincoln always lookedback to her with unspeakable affection. Long after her sensitive heart andweary hands had crumbled into dust, and had climbed to life again inforest flowers, he said to a friend, with tears in his eyes: 'All that Iam, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother--blessings on her memory!'"She was five feet, five inches high, a slender, pale, sad and sensitivewoman, with much in her nature that was truly heroic, and much that shrankfrom the rude life around her.
Her death occurred in 1818, scarcely two years after her removal fromKentucky to Indiana, and when Abraham was in his tenth year. They laid herto rest under the trees near their cabin home, and, sitting on her grave,the little boy wept his irreparable loss.
Gen. Linder's Early Recollections--Amusing Stories.
I did not travel, says Gen. Linder, on the circuit in 1835, on account ofmy health and the health of my wife, but attended court at Charleston thatfall, held by Judge Grant, who had exchanged circuits with our judge,Justin Harlan.
It was here I first met Abraham Lincoln, of Springfield, at that time avery retiring and modest young man, dressed in a plain suit of mixedjeans. He did not make any marked impression upon me, or any other memberof the bar. He was on a visit to his relations in Coles, where his fatherand stepmother lived, and some of her children.
Lincoln put up at the hotel, and here was where I saw him. Whether he wasreading law at this time I cannot say. Certain it is, he had been admittedto the bar, although he had some celebrity, having been a captain in theBlackhawk campaign, and served a term in the Illinois Legislature; but ifhe won any fame at that season I have never heard of it. He had been oneof the representatives from Sangamon.
If Lincoln at this time felt the divine afflatus of greatness stir withinhim I have never heard of it. It was rather common with us then in theWest to suppose that there was no Presidential timber growing in theNorthwest, yet, he doubtless had at that time the stuff out of which tomake half a dozen Presidents.
I had known his relatives in Kentucky, and he asked me about them. Hisuncle, Mordecai Lincoln, I had known from my boyhood, and he was naturallya man of considerable genius; he was a man of great drollery, and it wouldalmost make you laugh to look at him. I never saw but one other man whosequiet, droll look excited in me the same disposition to laugh, and thatwas Artemus Ward.
He was quite a story-teller, and in this Abe resembled his Uncle Mord, aswe called him. He was an honest man, as tender-hearted as a woman, and tothe last degree charitable and benevolent.
No one ever took offense at Uncle Mord's stories--not even the ladies. Iheard him once tell a bevy of fashionable girls that he knew a very largewoman who had a husband so small that in the night she often mistook himfor the baby, and that upon one occasion she took him up and was singingto him a soothing lullaby, when he awoke and told her that she wasmistaken, that the baby was on the other side of the bed.
Lincoln had a very high opinion of his uncle, and on one occasion he saidto me: "Linder, I have often said that Uncle Mord run off with the talentsof the family."
Old Mord, as we sometimes called him, had been in his younger days a verystout man, and was quite fond of playing a game of fisticuffs with any onewho was noted as a champion.
He told a parcel of us once of a pitched battle that he had fought on theside of a hill or ridge; that at the bottom there was a rut or canal,which had been cut out by the freshets. He said they soon clinched, and hethrew his man and fell on top of him.
He said he always thought he had the best eyes in the world for measuringdistances, and having measured the distance to the bottom of the hill, heconcluded that by rolling over and over till they came to the bottom hisantagonist's body would fill it, and he would be wedged in so tight thathe could whip him at his leisure. So he let the fellow turn him, and overand over they went, when about the twentieth revolution brought UncleMord's back in contact with the rut, "and," said he, "before fire couldscorch a feather, I cried out in stentorian voice: 'Take him off!'"
"Clary's Grove Boys"--A Wrestling Match.
There lived at the time young Lincoln resided at New Salem, Illinois, inand around the village, a band of rollicking fellows, or more properly,roystering rowdies, known as the "Clary's Grove Boys." The special tiethat united them was physical courage and prowess. These fellows, althoughthey embraced in their number many men who have since become respectableand influential, were wild and rough beyond toleration in any communitynot made up like that which produced them. They pretended to be"regulators," and were the terror of all who did not acknowledge theirrole; and their mode of securing allegiance was by flogging every man whofailed to acknowledge it.
They took it upon themselves to try the mettle of every newcomer, and tolearn the sort of stuff he was made of.
Some of their number was appointed to fight, wrestle, or run a foot-racewith each incoming stranger. Of course Abraham Lincoln was obliged to passthe ordeal.
Perceiving that he was a man who would not easily be floored; theyselected their champion, Jack Armstrong, and imposed upon him the task oflaying Lincoln upon his back.
There is no evidence that Lincoln was an unwilling party to the sport, forit was what he had always been accustomed to. The bout was entered upon,but Armstrong soon discovered that he had met more than his match.
The boys were looking on, and seeing that their champion was likely to getthe worst of it, did after the manner of such irresponsible bands. Theygathered around Lincoln, struck and disabled him, and then Armstrong, by"legging" him, got him down.
Most men would have been indignant, not to say furiously angry, under suchfoul treatment as this; but if Lincoln was either, he did not show it.Getting up in perfect good humor, he fell to laughing over hisdiscomfiture, and joking about it. They had all calculated upon making himangry, and they intended, with the amiable spirit which characterized the"Clary's Grove Boys," to give him a terrible drubbing. They weredisappointed, and, in their admiration of him, immediately invited him tobecome one of the company.
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The Aeroplane Series
By John Luther Langworthy
1. The Aeroplane Boys; or, The Young Pilots First Air Voyage2. The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing; or, Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics3. The Aeroplane Boys Among the Clouds; or, Young Aviators in a Wreck4. The Aeroplane Boys' Flights; or, A Hydroplane Round-up5. The Aeroplane Boys on a Cattle Ranch