On returning to New Salem, Lincoln at once plunged into electioneering. He ran as “an avowed Clay man,” and the county was stiffly Democratic. However, in those days political contests were almost purely personal. If the candidate was liked he was voted for irrespective of principles. “The Democrats of New Salem worked for Lincoln out of their personal regard for him,” said Stephen T. Logan, a young lawyer of Springfield, who made Lincoln’s acquaintance in the campaign. “He was as stiff as a man could be in his Whig doctrines. They did this for him simply because he was popular; because he was Lincoln.”
It was the custom for the candidates to appear at every gathering which brought the people out, and, if they had a chance, to make speeches. Then, as now, the farmers gathered at the county-seat, or at the largest town within their reach, on Saturday afternoons, to dispose of produce, buy supplies, see their neighbors, and get the news. During election times candidates were always present, and a regular feature of the day was listening to their speeches. Public sales, also, were gatherings which they never missed, it being expected that after the “vandoo” the candidates would take the auctioneer’s place.
Lincoln let none of these chances to be heard slip. Accompanied by his friends, generally including a few Clary’s Grove Boys, he always was present. The first speech he made was after a sale at Pappsville. What he said there is not remembered; but an illustration of the kind of man he was, interpolated into his discourse, made a lasting impression. A fight broke out in his audience while he was on the stand, and observing that one of his friends was being worsted, he bounded into the group of contestants, seized the fellow who had his supporter down, threw him “ten or twelve feet,” remounted the platform, and finished the speech. Sangamon County could appreciate such a performance, and the crowd that day at Pappsville never forgot Lincoln.
SCENE OF STILLMAN’S DEFEAT.
From a photograph loaned by S. J. Dodds of Lena, Illinois.
His appearance at Springfield at this time was of great importance to him. Springfield was not then a very attractive place. Bryant, visiting it in June, 1832, said that the houses were not as good as at Jacksonville, “a considerable proportion of them being log cabins, and the whole town having an appearance of dirt and discomfort.” Nevertheless it was the largest town in the county, and among its inhabitants were many young men of education, birth, and energy. One of these men Lincoln had become well acquainted with in the Black Hawk War, Major John Stuart,[17] at that time a lawyer, and, like Lincoln, a candidate for the General Assembly. He met others at this time who were to be associated with him more or less closely in the future in both law and politics, such as Judge Logan and William Butler. With these men the manners which had won him the day at Pappsville were of no value; what impressed them was his “very sensible speech,” and his decided individuality and originality.
From a photograph in the war collection of Mr. Robert Coster.
MAJOR ROBERT ANDERSON.
Born in Kentucky in 1805. In 1825 graduated at West Point. Anderson was on duty at the St. Louis Arsenal when the Black Hawk War broke out. He asked permission to join General Atkinson, who commanded the expedition against the Indians; was placed on his staff as Assistant Inspector-General, and was with him until the end of the war. Anderson twice mustered Lincoln into the service and once out. When General Scott was sent to take Atkinson’s place, Anderson was ordered to report to the former for duty, and was sent by him to take charge of the Indians captured at Bad Axe. It was Anderson who conducted Black Hawk to Jefferson Barracks. His adjutant in this task was Lieutenant Jefferson Davis. From 1835–37 Anderson was an instructor at West Point. He served in the Florida War in 1837–38, and was wounded at Molino del Rey in the Mexican War. In 1857 he was appointed Major of the First Artillery. On November 20, 1860, Anderson assumed command of the troops in Charleston Harbor. On April 14th he surrendered Fort Sumter, marching out with the honors of war. He was made brigadier-general by Lincoln for his service. On account of failing health he was relieved from duty in October, 1861. In 1865 he was brevetted major-general. He died in France in 1871.
The election came off on August 6th. Lincoln was defeated. “This was the only time Abraham was ever defeated on a direct vote of the people,” say his autobiographical notes. He had a consolation in his defeat, however, for in spite of the pronounced Democratic sentiments of his precinct, he received two hundred and seventy-seven votes out of three hundred cast. The facts upon this point are here stated for the first time. The biographers, as a rule, have agreed that Lincoln received all of the votes cast in the New Salem precinct, except three. Mr. Herndon places the total vote at 208; Nicolay and Hay, at 277; and Mr. Lincoln himself, in his autobiography, has said that he received all but seven of a total of 277 votes, basing his statement, no doubt, upon memory. An examination of the official poll-book in the county clerk’s office at Springfield shows that all of these figures are erroneous; exactly three hundred votes were cast. Of these Lincoln received 277. The fact remains, however—and it is a fact which has been commented upon by several of the biographers as showing his phenomenal popularity—that the vote for Lincoln was far in excess of that given any other candidate. The twelve candidates, with the number of votes of each, were: Abraham Lincoln, 277; John T. Stewart, 182; William Carpenter, 136; John Dawson, 105; E. D. Taylor, 88; Archer G. Herndon, 84; Peter Cartwright, 62; Achilles Morris, 27; Thomas M. Neal, 21; Edward Robeson, 15; Zachariah Peters, 4; Richard Dunston, 4.
Of the twenty-three who did not vote for Lincoln, ten refrained from voting for representative at all, thus leaving only thirteen votes actually cast against Lincoln. Lincoln is not recorded as voting. This defeat did not take him out of politics. The first civil office Lincoln ever held was that of clerk of the next election, in September. The report in his hand still exists; as far as we know, it is his first official document.
It was in August, 1832, that Lincoln made his unsuccessful canvass for the Illinois Assembly. The election over, he began to look for work. One of his friends, an admirer of his physical strength, advised him to become a blacksmith, but it was a trade which afforded little leisure for study, and for meeting and talking with men; and he had already resolved, it is evident, that books and men were essential to him. The only employment in New Salem which offered both support and the opportunities he sought, was clerking in a store. But the stores of New Salem were in more need of customers than of clerks. The business had been greatly overdone. In the fall of 1832 there were at least four stores in New Salem. The most pretentious was that of Hill and McNeill, which carried a large line of dry goods. The three others, owned respectively by the Herndon brothers, Reuben Radford, and James Rutledge, were groceries.
BAD AXE BATTLE-GROUND.
From a copy of a painting by Samuel M. Brookes, in the Museum of the Wisconsin Historical Society. The remnant of Black Hawk’s force was slaughtered here on August 1st and 2d, while attempting to cross the Mississippi. Only about one hundred and fifty of his original band of one thousand escaped.
Failing to secure employment at any of these establishments, Lincoln resolved to buy a store. He was not long in finding an opportunity to purchase. James Herndon had already sold out his half interest in Herndon Brothers’ store to William F. Berry; and Rowan Herndon, not getting along well with Berry, was only too glad to find a purchaser of his half in the person of “Abe” Lincoln. Berry was as poor as Lincoln; but that was not a serious obstacle, for their notes were accepted for the Herndon stock of goods. They had barely hung out their sign when something happened which threw another store into their hands. Reuben Radford had made himself obnoxious to the Clary’s Grove Boys, and one night they broke in his doors and windows, and overturned his counters and sugar barrels. It was too much for Radford, and he sold out next day to William G. Green for a four-hundred-dollar note signed by Green. At the latter’s request, Lincoln made an inventory of the stock, and then offered him six hundred and fifty dollars for it—a proposition which was cheerfully accepted. Berry and Lincoln, being unable to pay cash, assumed the four-hundred-dollar note payable to Radford, and gave Green their joint note for two hundred and fifty dollars. The little grocery owned by James Rutledge was the next to succumb. Berry and Lincoln bought it at a bargain, their joint note taking the place of cash. The three stocks were consolidated. Their aggregate cost must have been not less than fifteen hundred dollars. Berry and Lincoln had secured a monopoly of the grocery business in New Salem. Within a few weeks two penniless men had become the proprietors of three stores, and had stopped buying only because there were no more to purchase.
William F. Berry, the partner of Lincoln, was the son of a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. John Berry, who lived on Rock Creek, five miles from New Salem. The son had strayed from the footsteps of the father, for he was a hard drinker, a gambler, a fighter, and “a very wicked young man.” Lincoln cannot in truth be said to have chosen such a partner, but rather to have accepted him from the force of circumstances. It required only a little time to make plain that the partnership was wholly uncongenial. Lincoln displayed little business capacity. He trusted largely to Berry, and Berry rapidly squandered the profits of the business in riotous living. Lincoln loved books as Berry loved liquor, and hour after hour he was stretched out on the counter of the store, or under a shade tree, reading Shakespeare or Burns.
His acquaintance with the works of these two writers dates from this period. In New Salem there was one of those curious individuals sometimes found in frontier settlements, half poet, half loafer, incapable of earning a living in any steady employment, yet familiar with good literature and capable of enjoying it—Jack Kelso. He repeated passages from Shakespeare and Burns incessantly over the odd jobs he undertook, or as he idled by the streams—for he was a famous fisherman—and Lincoln soon became one of his constant companions. The taste he formed in company with Kelso he retained through life.
LINCOLN IN 1860.—HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
From a photograph loaned by H. W. Fay of DeKalb, Illinois. After Lincoln’s nomination for the presidency, Alexander Hesler of Chicago published a portrait he had made of Lincoln in 1857 (see page 49). At the same time he put out a portrait of Douglas. The contrast was so great between the two, and in the opinion of the politicians so much in Douglas’s favor, that they told Hesler he must suppress Lincoln’s picture; accordingly the photographer wrote to Springfield, requesting Lincoln to call and sit again. Lincoln replied that his friends had decided that he remain in Springfield during the canvass, but that if Hesler would come to Springfield he would be “dressed up” and give him all the time he wanted. Hesler went to Springfield, and made at least four negatives, three of which are supposed to have been destroyed in the Chicago fire. The fourth is owned by Mr. George Ayers of Philadelphia. The photograph reproduced above is a print from one of the lost negatives.
William D. Kelley records an incident which shows that Lincoln had a really intimate knowledge of Shakespeare. Mr. Kelley had taken McDonough, an actor, to call at the White House, and Lincoln began the conversation by saying:
“‘I am very glad to meet you, Mr. McDonough, and am grateful to Kelley for bringing you in so early, for I want you to tell me something about Shakespeare’s plays as they are constructed for the stage. You can imagine that I do not get much time to study such matters, but I recently had a couple of talks with Hackett—Baron Hackett, as they call him—who is famous as Jack Falstaff, from whom I elicited few satisfactory replies, though I probed him with a good many questions.’
“Mr. McDonough,” continues Mr. Kelley, “avowed his willingness to give the President any information in his possession, but protested that he feared he would not succeed where his friend Hackett had failed. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said the President, ‘for Hackett’s lack of information impressed me with a doubt as to whether he had ever studied Shakespeare’s text, or had not been content with the acting edition of his plays.’ He arose, went to a shelf not far from his table, and having taken down a well-thumbed volume of the ‘Plays’ of Shakespeare, resumed his seat, arranged his glasses, and having turned to ‘Henry VI.’ and read with fine discrimination an extended passage, said: ‘Mr. McDonough, can you tell me why those lines are omitted from the acting play? There is nothing I have read in Shakespeare, certainly nothing in “Henry VI.” or the “Merry Wives of Windsor,” that surpasses its wit and humor.’ The actor suggested the breadth of its humor as the only reason he could assign for its omission, but thoughtfully added that it was possible that if the lines were spoken they would require the rendition of another or other passages which might be objectionable.
“‘Your last suggestion,’ said Mr. Lincoln, ‘carries with it greater weight than anything Mr. Hackett suggested, but the first is no reason at all;’ and after reading another passage, he said, ‘This is not withheld, and where it passes current there can be no reason for withholding the other.’... And, as if feeling the impropriety of preferring the player to the parson [there was a clergyman in the room], he turned to the chaplain and said: ‘From your calling it is probable that you do not know that the acting plays which people crowd to hear are not always those planned by their reputed authors. Thus, take the stage edition of “Richard III.” It opens with a passage from “Henry VI.,” after which come portions of “Richard III.,” then another scene from “Henry VI.;” and the finest soliloquy in the play, if we may judge from the many quotations it furnishes, and the frequency with which it is heard in amateur exhibitions, was never seen by Shakespeare, but was written—was it not, Mr. McDonough?—after his death, by Colley Cibber.’
MONUMENT AT KELLOGG’S GROVE.
On June 24, 1832, Black Hawk attacked Apple River Fort, fourteen miles east of Galena, Illinois, but was unable to drive out the inmates. The next day he attacked a spy battalion of one hundred and fifty men at Kellogg’s Grove, sixteen miles farther east. A detachment of volunteers relieved the battalion, and drove off the savages, about fifteen of whom were killed. The whites lost five men, who were buried at various points in the grove. During the summer of 1886 the remains of these men were collected and, with those of five or six other victims of the war, were placed together under the monument here represented.—See “The Black Hawk War,” by Reuben G. Thwaites, Vol. XII. in Wisconsin Historical Collections. This account of the Black Hawk War is the most trustworthy, complete, and interesting that has been made.
“Having disposed, for the present, of questions relating to the stage editions of the plays, he recurred to his standard copy, and ... read, or repeated from memory, extracts from several of the plays, some of which embraced a number of lines.... He interspersed his remarks with extracts striking from their similarity to, or contrast with, something of Shakespeare’s, from Byron, Rogers, Campbell, Moore, and other English poets.”[18]
JOHN REYNOLDS, GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS 1831–1834.
After a steel engraving in the Governor’s office, Springfield, Illinois. John Reynolds, Governor of Illinois from 1831 to 1834, was born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, February 26, 1788. He was of Irish parentage. When he was six months old his parents moved to Tennessee. In 1800 they removed to Illinois. When twenty years old, John Reynolds went to Knoxville, Tennessee, to college, where he spent two years. He was admitted to the bar at Kaskaskia in 1812. In the war of 1812 he rendered distinguished service, earning the title of “the Old Ranger.” He began the practice of law in the spring of 1814. In 1818 he was made an associate justice of the Supreme Court; in 1826 he was elected a member of the legislature; and in 1830, after a stirring campaign, he was chosen Governor of Illinois. The most important event of his administration was the Black Hawk War. He was prompt in calling out the militia to subdue the Black Hawk, and went upon the field in person. In November, 1834, just before the close of his term as Governor, he resigned to become a member of Congress. In 1837, aided by others, he built the first railroad in the State—a short line of six miles from his coal mine in the Mississippi bluff to the bank of the river opposite St. Louis. It was operated by horse-power. He again became a member of the legislature in 1846 and 1852, during the latter term being Speaker of the House. In 1860, in his seventy-third year, he was an anti-Douglas delegate to the Charleston convention, and received the most distinguished attentions from the Southern delegates. After the October elections, when it became apparent that Lincoln would be elected, he issued an address advising the support of Douglas. His sympathies were with the South, though in 1832 he strongly supported President Jackson in the suppression of the South Carolina nullifiers. He died in Belleville in May, 1865. Governor Reynolds was a quaint and forceful character. He was a man of some learning; but in conversation (and he talked much) he rarely rose above the odd Western vernacular of which he was so complete a master. He was the author of two books; one an autobiography, and the other “The Pioneer History of Illinois.”