Abraham Lincoln

Preface

An apology may be needed for another biography sent out to join the multiplying number of written and published lives of Abraham Lincoln. To many it may have seemed that the last word was said long since, and that nothing of value can now be added to the record. I am not certain that I have justified myself in the present effort to contradict that no doubt wide-spread belief. I claim for these chapters no vast amount of research into sources not before used by Lincoln's biographers. So thoroughly and well has this labor been performed by others that nothing of value can be hoped for from this exercise. Mcolay and Hay's ten volumes of history, supplemented by two volumes of the Civil War President's letters and speeches, leave little to be done in that direction. Because of the exhaustiveness of their study and the minutiae of the information they have brought to light, theirs will always be regarded as the first work of reference upon Lincoln. They have given us the closest view of his official life— but as private secretaries who knew him as young men, as very worshipful admirers of him, and as good haters of the other side. Herndon is our foremost authority for Lincoln's earlier life, especially in Springfield,

6 PKEFACE

and if the President is not so attractive a hero in the eyes of a neighbor, a law partner, an earlj friend, and in a fuller sense, a contemporary than either Mr. Nicolay or Mr. Hay. it is do subject for great wonder. Other printed works apon Lincoln are impressions like my own,— some by contempo raries and some by younger men, some l>.\ confessed admirers and some by students, who have ftp proached their subject in the true spiril of the his torian. In spite of a plenitude of biographical material, it has seemed to me thai there was lack of a readable, compact life of Lincoln bj one who never saw him, — born indeed well ftfter his day, — by one who knows him only for what he did, and who, therefore, may be in the temper to form an impression that is unbiased, and it maj be hoped also just. I have approached him in do spirit <>f worship, and have found much in him that does not well conform with my own ideals for humanity. These minor defects of character, however, have aot prevented me from appreciating tin- u r,, nin^ that always burned as a bright flame, and burns still t<> illumine the way of the American nation adown the centuries.

The series of volumes, of which this is the first, was planned to give an impartial twentieth century view of the greatest event in the life of the nation in the nineteenth century. The men of the South who in 1860 did not share the Hews of the men of the North will be estimated by the Southern stand

PREFACE 7

ards of this later tinu — by historians of their own section and of this generation. These Southern appreciations of Southern Leaders are admitted freely ami will I*.- accepted as jnsl by the editor of the series, and I hope, also, by the public into whose hands the volumes fall. We of the North bespeak the same attention for our volumes in the hands of Southern readers.

My own antecedents are all Northern and my sympathies, had I lived in that time, would have been with tin- North as against aegro slavery, and the strict constructionist ami State Bights view of tin- Constitution. These facts, however, cannot prevent me from appreciating honesty of motive, sincerity of inn]...-;-, political talent and sagacity, military valor, ami patience under great suffering after the war, on the part of the Southern people. Much of what thej did, when the anal estimate is given, must make as feel verj proud that we are sprung from a common stock, that our destiny was the Bame before the great difference arose, ami thai it is t<» be "in- henceforward. Thej are a part <>f ind we are a part of them, toget her ennobled, verj likely, i>\ the trial, as Lincoln was i>\ sore distress, for tin- ta->k-> t<> !>•• performed side i>\ side in this century.

That the work of setting the Civil War before the present generation of readers needs t«» i>«- done I have long flrmlj believed, ami it is qow undertaken with a sincere desire t»» execute the plan a-* dis] sionately, as authoritatively, and at the same time

8 PREFACE

as entertainingly, as the proportions of the task and the conditions of book-writing a in I publishing po mit. For our failures, if there be these, we bespeak the merciful consideration that man owes to man, North owes to South, South owes to North, and nation owes to other nations. Perfection of jndg ment and full agreement in opinion and thought we have never had. and can never enjoj except at a sacrifice of variety, without which human exist ence would soon grow very monotonous for all of us. Let it be said, however, when we begin, that we are trying to d<> the best the frailties induced bj upbringing in our separate Bections will alio* : when we have finished i hat we hai e done as well ae Northern and Southern men could be expected to do in formulating and uttering theii judgm< at each other.

CONTENTS chronology ....

Early Life ....

Benedick lnd Lawyer Hlfl i:\ i by i\ po mi. Avn 8LAVEB

The Great Debati

Si »MIN ' \ I li> POB TIN. PBEBJ m.\« ¥

VI. I > . po W \>m\«. r«»\ VI I. Tin l: r INNING OF i in. \\ \ k LAND AND THE South .

A NX'.

Tin SLAVE in rm: W \i:

IJN< I 'I N. THE l'< 'I I TH'I \N

Lincoln, the Man The Endoi phe Wab

\ VATION

[OORAPH1

India

I

II. [v V

VIM

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

1 1

L5

1 66

l.su

295 318

CHRONOLOGY

-Thomn* Lincoln and N.m. -y Bankfl married, June 12, in Kentucky.

•Birth <»f Abraham Lincoln, February 13, In Hardin, now La Rue County, Ky.

1818 Removal to Indiana, where the family settled in the neighborhood of Gentryville,

1-1- of Abraham Lincoln'- mother.

I - - First trip in a ana.

County, Illi!

n turning from which Abraham lea In behind him and settles in ' d on the Bangamon Rii bt, to

ark m 1 i

-Announces hu e Illinois Legislature, and

for the Black Hawk Waj l pon hu return lie is

defeated for the I i . nturt*, the only defeat he ever euf-

'i-li.-s the lii ni of Bei : j and Lincoln n»" in N tn.

Appointed po In N Jem. Cloaea the

later, to mi rej log and read law.

Elected to the niinoii tnre bj ■ large majority.

I »• ath of hie i.: \ inn Rutledge.

ttlen m Sj.i ingfield, the oonnty '"•at. to take up flip lotioe of Ian wilh Majoi John T. Stuart.

to the I re, in which he il the WIhk

1 thi M < •'!-•■ of Repreeentath i

12 CHKONOLCX i 2

1840— Reelected to the Legislature, again to be bifl partj '■ candidate for Speaker. "Stumps" the State fee lippe-

canoe and Tyler Too."

1841— Forms law partnership with Stephen T. Logan un.ln the firm name of Logan and Lincoln.

1842— Duel with James Shields, and marriage, November I to Mary Todd.

1844 — Heads Illinois' electoral tic-kit for Benrj Clay, the Whig

candidate for president.

1845— Law firm of Lincoln and Herndon organi

1846 — Elected to Congress over Peter Cartwright, frontier

evangelist and Democrat.

1848 — "Stumps" the Eastern States for Zaobary Taylor,

1849 — Failure to secure the appointmenl asComni f thr

General Land Office. Offered the goi n Dorship of Oi agon,

which he declines.

1854 — The principle <>f popnlai otj proclaimed. ami

the first of Lincoln's debates with Stephen \. I •■ nglanon the slavery question. Again chosen t<« the I ire,

but resigns to become the "Anti-Nebraska " oandii for United state- Senator, withdrawing In fn\<>i ol Lyman Trumbull, who is elected.

1856 — Joins the Republican party, and i 11 tea f"i

vice-president on tin- firsl Republican national fctokel headed by John C. Fremont

1858 — Contests Douglas's seat in the Unit* In n

remarkable series of debates, but tails <-f election narrow majority.

1859— Speaks for the Republicans of Ohio at Colombo* and

Cincinnati, and visits Ka\

1860— Cooper Institute Speech in N.u York Ctyj In 1 I

followed by a tour of New England with - in

Connecticut, Rhode Island a n. 1 \. -v. Hampshire. Ill; Republicans at Decatur make him their candi< president. Nominated for the president Convention over William H. Beward o! elected as the "Rail Candidate" in November

CHRONOLOGY 13

L881— Lc pringfield f<>r Washi] speaking at many

points in Indiana. Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and

knsylyania on his way. [nan rident of the

United 31 Ifarofa I. Assault upon Fort Bnmter,

April 13, and beginning deral

Sun on July 21. Calls foi troops.

on and Blidell, ami a narrow escape from

: m ith < ii.-at Britain.

McClellan's advance into '- i fur the nnsnecessfnl

initilar undoing at the Beoond

of Bull Ron, and the battll i, which

orthern movement. Emancipation p<

MoClellan reliei ed from duty to I

'- l>;iti<'ii proclaimed January 1. The <!

Appointment «>f ll<M>krr to command the Ai mv of 1 le <'f Chancellors^ ille

rth. Meade

' arg, .Inly 1,

hioh the < Jonfj i drn en Booth

'• ami bis

ill tin- V. U mii-M. The

\ ictories nrmi!

ilood) I Wilderness, and

operations in the . . pture of AI lanta,

hi- n ,,f Lincoln !

second ten Ian, the Demoa didate.

I • mil Intendment

t<> the stati -. Hampton I ith Con

1 . nation <>f

bmond ami I Lincoln

tichmond, returning from which be ifl shot by

nWilki In Ford's Theatre, Washington, April

it heath April 16, and burial in Springfield, Illinois.

M |

Chapter I

i:\ki.y i. u i;

I\ tin- crisis that ;ti «»><• in tin- a flairs of the American states, arraying section agaiusl section in a trial of the fundamental nature of the Union for the sake of the i»la< k slave, and t'<>r tin- preservation or overthrow <>f tin- economic system <»t' winch he was the i»;i-h part, the opportunity was afforded for tin* nnfolding <>t as man} different t \ pes «•!' character as can wrll be compacted into human form. It was

not a stru^le developed m a da\ t<» reveal tin- am

bitioo and contribute to theglon of a Ciesur or a Napoleon. It was a difference of slow development. It reached its crucial point naturally, and qo band could >ta\ the inevitable conflict. There was no

man, woman <»r child on either side in the struj

whose empathies were no! moved more or less

strongly, who did not feel the pinch of poverty , the

lit <.i' sorrow and distress, and did not .si-h for

ce with victory, or that I without victory,

lou- before the desirable result was attained.

One man there was, however, who by reason of the position to which he was called bj bifl fellows, conpled with his own sensitive and responsive bem perament, carried upon his Atlantean shoulders the whole nation's share of burdens on the Union side. What are the ingredients of greatness Ln men can never be known since no two have been or will ever be great in the same way, and what were the characteristics which raised Abraham Lincoln to place with everlasting claim upon the world's at tentionwill be a subjecl of discussion with bisb raphers for many generations. His wanton assa nation at a time of public excitemenl raised op eulogists on every hand, and years of graceless non entity as an ex-presidenl saved him from Bemi ob livion and the possible detraction growing out of later movements, which sometimes neutralize the impression created l>\ the mosl brilliant career. While his great, generous nature \\;i^ needed, Lord Russell declared in the British Bouse of Lords after the perpetration of Wilk< Booth's crime, "to temper the pride of victory and assu the misfortunes which his adversaries had experi enced," the degree of wisdom 1m- would have brought to the difficult problem of reconstruction is a mystery that will never be solved. Moreover the cause Lincoln led, was overwhelmingly sue cessful, though only after years through which hope and despair surged up and down the country in alternating currents. Victorj more quicklj gained would have made the final achievement

EAIM.Y LIFE 17

seem vastly leas important With the victory came the triumph of a large national idea which will always appeal to the imagination and the sense of right of multitudes of people. In the process of preserving the Onion he had emancipated nearly four millions of Africans and wiped slavery off the map of the civilized world, forwarding a movement long recommended by sentiments of humanity and releasing, as time has shown, a large and fruitful from bondage to ;> scheme of labor unjustified and unjustifiable by anj modem system of political

aomy .

It' -nine of these things are accidents bo is all human existence an accident Birth, gaunt strength, political sagacity, friendships, Dominations, elections, life in tin- midst of conspiracy are all in a sense accidental. So long ;i^ there are American boys who are taught at their mother's knee that their destiny Is the White House, the storj <>i Lincoln's life \sill have its fascinations. II.- u.i- a man of tli»- people in their humblest walk-. Pen who have attained height have had so great a distance t<> rise. With do adventitious aid, though t'<>i long his progress \\:i^ slow, his Dative powers which he assidnouslj cultivated, mnph-d with his opportunities, brought him the recognition he conrted ami desert ed i<> w in.

He 'MUM- of a long line '•: pioneers. Samuel Lin coin, ill.- immigrant ancestor reached Massachusetts from Norwich, England, in L638. Through Mor n and In-- son ftfordecai, who removed fii^t to

New Jersey and then to Berks County, Pennsyl vania, about sixty miles northwest of Philadelphia ; John who in 1750 settled in Rockingham County on the present western border of old Virginia we reach Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather of the sixteenth President of the United States. Before the American Revolution had yet ended, this Abraham Lincoln was attracted to Kentucky through his friendship for Daniel Boone, took np seme virgin tracts in Jefferson County near the present site of Louisville and, returning to his old home, wound op In - affairs and emigrated with his family to this new land of promise. He had been in Kentucky l>ut a short time when in 1784, while working in some cleared land with his sons, an Indian picked him off with a shot from the bush. An older bod ran to the cabin for the rifle and. aiming it well, avenged the death of his father just as the >a \ came out of cover to attack the youngest boy, Thomas, a child six years old, left beside the corpse. Thomas, who thus saw his father die and who so narrowly escaped with his own life, became twenty-five years later the father of Abraham Lin coin, the American war president, named for this

sturdy frontiersman m1i«) fell a prej to the bl I

thirst of the Kentucky Indian. The wife, hit with a family of children in a wild country, abandoned land claims of large future value and settled in Washington County in central Kentucky, B more populous region, where the children grew to man and womanhood, totally illiterate. Thomas, who became a carpenter, could not write his own name when he married Nancy Hanks, his employer's niece, June L2, L806, although under her instruction he later Learned to form his Letters.

Thomas brought his young wife no fortune; she brought him no dower. Few young couples in the backwoods were so j r, and their condition underwent no improi ement The head of the family was migratory and thriftless, a rolling stone gathering nothing to him. After tin- birth of one child, a daughter Sarah, he removed westward^ to a place in Bardin, no* La Rue County, Kentucky, built a cabin on a small, rocky and unfruitful farm where on February r_\ L809,) the second child, Abraham, entered a woi 1«1 Long to be to him a bleak home full of poverty, hard manual Labor and the coarsest personal experience.

( m this farm the Lincolns remained for four years when thej removed :i short distance t<» another of iter size and better promise, but it was not Long re Thomas' restless spirit lured him awaj again. This time bis destination was another state, Indiana. Loading his kit of tools and four hundred gallons of whiskej upon a rude raft he floated down the tributaries of the Ohio to that river and then west on its broader surfaces i<> the country In- had in Hew. Once his rati capsized, when he lost most <>i his whiskey ; although he fished out his tools, and after visiting the wilderness which had attracted him from Kentucky, fixed upon a site for his new home in Perrj Countj near tin- present town of

Gentryville. Keturning on foot for hifl family he brought them and all his earthly possessions on the backs of two borrowed horses into the Indiana t i in ber, leaving them through one winter with do slid ter but a shed built of poles, open to the frosts and snows upon one side. Even when a cabin took the place of this rude "camp" he Left it for two or three years without floor, doors or window a.

Here in the primeval American wood Abraham Lincoln spent his boy ho< k 1 . Bis bed was of leaves raised from the ground by poles, resting apon one side in the interstices of the Logs of which the hut was built, and upon the other in crotches of sticks driven into the earth. The skins of animals si forded almost the only covering allowed this truly miserable family. Their food was of the simplest and coarsest variety and very scarce. Bo black aj> peared this period i n Lincoln's life, though be was one whose pride did not take him far above bis origins, that he later never of his own choice reverted bo it Among all those who listened t<» his reminiscence and anecdote, not one recalls having heard more than the barest allusion to these dart years. Many old frontiersmen in America hark back with bappi ness in their eyes to the good old times when they slept in attics, rising before daybreak to find heaps of snow upon their beds and to warm their ban* feet of frosty mornings in the spots vacated l>\ cows in the field as the animals were brought in for tinmilking; but so painful was Lincoln's recollection of his squalid boyhood and its woeful lark of light thut he was content to let it be a forgotten chapter.

Nor did he of choice often refer to the period, though it was somewhat better, which immediately followed. Succumbing to the border hardships the wife and mother * 1 i * -< 1 in tin- autumn of L818 of an epidemic which tin- people knew as "milk sick" and which seems to have been a violent fever. It first attacked the cattle, coming perhaps from their eating a poisonous herb, and then ravaged the human family, terminating fatally in a lew days. Doctors, medicines and even the tolerably decent comforts of life were many miles away from this isolated camp. Thomas Lincoln made the coffin with his own ha ml-, the grave was dug in a el en red Space in the forest and there Nane\ Hanks Lincoln was buried. It was months after before it was practicable to secure a preacher who, when he came, gathered the family about him in the wood and ,s|»oke ;i f. u words over the mound of sod.

It was not long before Thomas Lincoln returned

to his old home in Kriitmk\ and despite his reputation for thriftlessness ami the unattractivehess of

the home he had t<> offer, made his loss g 1 very

promptly bj bringing out Sails Bush Johnston, an old flame, now the widow with several children of the jailer of I laid in County. With her came some bedding, woolen clothing, a few pieces <>f furniture and living utensils, a kind motherly manner and the ability and will to put her husband to work. He was persuaded to add doors and windows to the pegs, which served as a ladder to his Lodgings in the attic, he hid the book under the rafters. The rain which came in before morning soaked the leaves so that he was compel le< I to go to the farmer from whom he had procured ii and offer to make good the loss. That little philanthropic man * \ acted as its price three days' work in a corn field, and at the end of that time the damaged volume came into the boy's absolute possession.

The books within his reach were read and re read with avidity. He learned them by heart, mai le notes from them in his copj -books, R rote composJ tions and rude doggerel, and declaimed from time to lime to the men in the harvest field, at house raisings, log-rollings and wolf hunts. He, ho* ever, was less likely to impress the rough folk around him with a sense of being something apart from them by his greater Learning than by his superior size and strength. When he was eighteen or nine teen he had attained practically his full height which was about six feel four inches. !!«• was familiarly known as a Lon- Shanks." He shot up into the air much faster than his clothing could !>•' altered to keep pace, and for years after there was a kind of hiatus between his trousers and the tops of his brogans, which the frontier tailors were onable to fill in. Strong as an ox he early engaged in feats of muscle, lifting logs, wrestling with other boys in the neighborhood,— a lank, awkward Herculean farm-hand who, if he had read two or three books unknown by his fellows, was still not seriously regarded as likely material for a President of the United States. " Ee could strike with an axe, 5 hi old companion, " a heavier blow than

anj man. II*- could sink an axe deeper than any of his fellows."

When nineteen years old an opportunity presented itself for a trip to New Orleans. Chiefly l>y his own labor he had raised a quantity of produce for which the laniih desired a market, and an arrangement was made with Mr. Gentry, the man of affairs in the near-by village of Gentryville, by which he agreed to furnish a Aatboat, complete the cargo ami send along his son t<» assist in navigating the primitive vessel and in disposing of the goods. An incident occurred npon this journey to which Lincoln often afterward referred. Through this boat h<- earned his first dollar. The river Bteamers in those days took on their i>; rs in mid-

stream. There were no wharves at which to land, and two men who came down t<> the shore with their trunks i d him to scull them out into

the current. Thej paid him a dollar for the service, a larger sum of monej than he had ever up t<» that i ime been aide to call his own.

The voyage in other respects was not uneventful. When near Baton Rouge, Lincoln and his companion, after t\ ing np for the night, were attacked by some black ruffians. Abraham ><»>u put them to flight with a club. His powerful arm, the gang, though large, could not withstand. Several of the men were knocked overboard, and the two Hoosier boys pursued them some distance iu short*, returning to release their boat from its moorings and seek safer quarters down-stream for the rest of the night

Thomas Lincoln had remained in Indiana Longer than any one who knew him had righl to anticipate. In 1830 he was off again for the alluring West, and settled in Illinois where Abraham was destined to make his career in his country's politics. Always in the wash of the waves as thej beat into the West in the greal movement <>i* immigrants the Lincoln household \\a^ again Bel in motion. John Hanks, the most reliable male member of this motley family, had gone to Macon County the year before and on his representations Thomas Lincoln made over his mortgaged farm to Mr. Gentry in the village, packed his effects in a wagon drawn by a double yoke of oxen and with all his kin in his train Bet out through forest and over prairie for the m-w state. Coming to John Hanks' place they selected a tract of land near him on the north fork of t he Sangamon Rii er. Here a new cabin was to 1»<- built of Logs and Abraham, assisted by Banks, with an axe felled a number of walnut trees, splitting enough rails to fence in fifteen acres, thereby establishing a reputation which thirty years later strengthened him immensely with the "plain people" from whom he sprang and whose rotes were needed to put him into the place where he could applj bifl politicial genius to the task of preserving the Union of the American States.

EABLY LIFE 27

At this time Illinois contained a population of about L50,000; Chicago was little more than a straggling village around a fort on Lake Michigan. The state literally Leaped into wealth and prosperity and in L860 its most distinguished citizen, the rail-splitter of thirty years before was one of L,700,000 people. Lincoln went forward with it. one of it- true 90ns, his ear to the ground for the vox populi, following all the ramifications of mind and conscience bj which thai thing — ie and incomprehensible— is created and finds expression. The new cabin, the new rail fence, and all the Bankses and Lincoln- in Illinois were

at once obliged to face the most Bevere winter which settlers there had ever experienced. It was "the winter of tin- deep -now." The first months of L831 were marked by what we would to-day call a blizzard, but the cold which Bet in after an unprecedented tall of snow was prolonged, and the pioneers in this section suffered excruciating privations. For weeks they were prisoners In their iog lint-.

When young Lincoln u r ot out of the burro w, in which he hail perforce consumed much valuable time, he made the acquaintance of an adventurous frontier trader named Denton Offutt The Latter having been told of the maritime skill of the lad from Indiana, gained in the navigation of the Mississippi, fitted out the future War President, John Johnston, the idle -on of Abe's stepmother, and John Banks foi another voyage to New Orleans.

The boys were obliged first to build their boat from timber still uncut on government land, launch it in the Sangamon and float it down the current to New Salem, a village which had suddenly ans.n on the banks of that stream and which as suddenly disap peared after Lincoln on bis return from Louisiana had found a home there and a constituency willing to encourage his political ambitions for a period of seven years. The boat very promptly caught fast upon the breast of a mill dam. It \\a> Lincoln who released the craft and its crew from their sensational predicament i)> a plan of his own devising, which nearly twenty years later he made the ba^is of an invention "for Lifting vessels over shoals." A model of what seems to have been for all general purposes an entirely useless contrivance was pat ented and still reposes in I he -u\ eminent collection at Washington. This voyage, like that of three years before, was accomplished successfulrj ami the members of the party, finding passage on the return as far as St. Louis, cont Lnued t heir journey home <>n foot, a wearisome tramp which onlj young blood could enjoy.

Abraham was now of age ami free from further obligations to build rail fences for bis father. Tindebt of youth was paid, ami he Looked al><>ut him for opportunity to make himself mure than Thomas Lincoln was or ever e< mldl >e. [n August, L831, he left the cabin behind him forever and settled in New Salem on the Sangamon t<» become a clerk in a store which Ofl'ntt, the man who had capital the New Orleans venture, proposed to establish in that village. Meantime he "clerked" an election and piloted a boal through perilous places in the river for a man who was removing his family and his worldly goods t<> Texas. In Offutt's store Lincoln seems first to have won his title, "Honest Abe." When he innocently made mistakes in changing monej or his pack of goods were

tmder weight, In* locked lus till and pursued his customers to make the neoessarj amends.

It \\;h in New Salem, too, that Lincoln gained his wide repute for "rassling." To the young men in the West of that time wrestling matches

were what football, baseball and Other athletic

games are i" boys to-day. This sport furnished almost the only vent for youthful spirits and the love of muscular competition. Near the town, in a strip of timber called Clary's Grove, resided a number of brutal rowdies with whom Lincoln soon came into close relations. Dnder pretense of regulating the morals of the neighborhood they insulted, attacked and maltreated tip- inhabitants, and finally thej dared Lincoln to combat with their chief bully, Jack Armstrong. A.be'a greal strength could