CHAPTER I_The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln

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[Illustration]

The Story of

Young Abraham Lincoln

WAYNE WHIPPLE

Author of The Story of the American Flag, The Story of the Liberty Bell,

The Story of the White House, The Story of Young George Washington, the

Story of Young Benjamin Franklin, etc.

Illustrated

PHILADELPHIA

HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION 9

I. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FOREFATHERS 15

II. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FATHER AND MOTHER 24

III. THE BOY LINCOLN'S BEST TEACHER 33

IV. LEARNING TO WORK 40

V. LOSING HIS MOTHER 52

VI. SCHOOL DAYS NOW AND THEN. 62

VII. ABE AND THE NEIGHBORS 77

VIII. MOVING TO ILLINOIS 94

IX. STARTING OUT FOR HIMSELF 102

X. CLERKING AND WORKING 115

XI. POLITICS, WAR, STOREKEEPING, AND STUDYING LAW 126

XII. BUYING AND KEEPING A STORE 140

XIII. THE YOUNG LEGISLATOR IN LOVE. 147

XIV. MOVING TO SPRINGFIELD 162

XV. LINCOLN & HERNDON 184

XVI. HIS KINDNESS OF HEART 194

XVII. WHAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ABRAHAM

LINCOLN AND HIS STEPBROTHER 208

XVIII. HOW EMANCIPATION CAME TO PASS 215

XIX. THE GLORY OF GETTYSBURG 226

XX. "NO END OF A BOY" 234

XXI. LIEUTENANT TAD LINCOLN, PATRIOT 248

INTRODUCTION

LINCOLN FROM NEW AND UNUSUAL SOURCES

The boy or girl who reads to-day may know more about the real Lincoln

than his own children knew. The greatest President's son, Robert

Lincoln, discussing a certain incident in their life in the White House,

remarked to the writer, with a smile full of meaning:

"I believe you know more about our family matters than I do!"

This is because "all the world loves a lover"--and Abraham Lincoln loved

everybody. With all his brain and brawn, his real greatness was in his

heart. He has been called "the Great-Heart of the White House," and

there is little doubt that more people have heard about him than there

are who have read of the original "Great-Heart" in "The Pilgrim's

Progress."

Indeed, it is safe to say that more millions in the modern world are

acquainted with the story of the rise of Abraham Lincoln from a poorly

built log cabin to the highest place among "the seats of the mighty,"

than are familiar with the Bible story of Joseph who arose and stood

next to the throne of the Pharaohs.

Nearly every year, especially since the Lincoln Centennial, 1909,

something new has been added to the universal knowledge of one of the

greatest, if not _the_ greatest man who ever lived his life in the

world. Not only those who "knew Lincoln," but many who only "saw him

once" or shook hands with him, have been called upon to tell what they

saw him do or heard him say. So hearty was his kindness toward everybody

that the most casual remark of his seems to be charged with deep human

affection--"the touch of Nature" which has made "the whole world kin" to

him.

He knew just how to sympathize with every one. The people felt this,

without knowing why, and recognized it in every deed or word or touch,

so that those who have once felt the grasp of his great warm hand seem

to have been drawn into the strong circuit of "Lincoln fellowship," and

were enabled, as if by "the laying on of hands," to speak of him ever

after with a deep and tender feeling.

There are many such people who did not rush into print with their

observations and experiences. Their Lincoln memories seemed too sacred

to scatter far and wide. Some of them have yielded, with real

reluctance, in relating all for publication in THE STORY OF YOUNG

ABRAHAM LINCOLN only because they wished their recollections to benefit

the rising generation.

Several of these modest folk have shed true light on important phases

and events in Lincoln's life history. For instance, there has been much

discussion concerning Lincoln's Gettysburg Address--where was it

written, and did he deliver it from notes?

Now, fifty years after that great occasion, comes a distinguished

college professor who unconsciously settles the whole dispute, whether

Lincoln held his notes in his right hand or his left--if he used them at

all!--while making his immortal "little speech." To a group of veterans

of the Grand Army of the Republic he related, casually, what he saw

while a college student at Gettysburg, after working his way through the

crowd of fifteen thousand people to the front of the platform on that

memorable day. From this point of vantage he saw and heard everything,

and there is no gainsaying the vivid memories of his first

impressions--how the President held the little pages in both hands

straight down before him, swinging his tall form to right, to left and

to the front again as he emphasized the now familiar closing words,

"_of_ the people--_by_ the people--_for_ the people--shall not perish

from the earth."

Such data have been gathered from various sources and are here given for

the first time in a connected life-story. Several corrections of stories

giving rise to popular misconceptions have been supplied by Robert,

Lincoln's only living son. One of these is the true version of "Bob's"

losing the only copy of his father's first inaugural address. Others

were furnished by two aged Illinois friends who were acquainted with

"Abe" before he became famous. One of these explained, without knowing

it, a question which has puzzled several biographers--how a young man of

Lincoln's shrewd intelligence could have been guilty of such a

misdemeanor, as captain in the Black Hawk War, as to make it necessary

for his superior officer to deprive him of his sword for a single day.

A new story is told by a dear old lady, who did not wish her name

given, about herself when she was a little girl, when a "drove of

lawyers riding the old Eighth Judicial District of Illinois," came to

drink from a famous cold spring on her father's premises. She described

the uncouth dress of a tall young man, asking her father who he was, and

he replied with a laugh, "Oh, that's Abe Lincoln."

One day in their rounds, as the lawyers came through the front gate, a

certain judge, whose name the narrator refused to divulge, knocked down

with his cane her pet doll, which was leaning against the fence. The

little girl cried over this contemptuous treatment of her "child."

Young Lawyer Lincoln, seeing it all, sprang in and quickly picked up the

fallen doll. Brushing off the dust with his great awkward hand he said,

soothingly, to the wounded little mother-heart:

"There now, little Black Eyes, don't cry. Your baby's alive. See, she

isn't hurt a bit!"

That tall young man never looked uncouth to her after that. It was this

same old lady who told the writer that Lawyer Lincoln wore a new suit of

clothes for the first time on the very day that he performed the

oft-described feat of rescuing a helpless hog from a great deep hole in

the road, and plastered his new clothes with mud to the great merriment

of his legal friends. This well-known incident occurred not far from her

father's place near Paris, Illinois.

These and many other new and corrected incidents are now collected for

THE STORY OF YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN, in addition to the best of

everything suitable that was known before--as the highest patriotic

service which the writer can render to the young people of the United

States of America.

WAYNE WHIPPLE.

THE STORY OF

YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CHAPTER I

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FOREFATHERS

Lincoln's grandfather, for whom he was named Abraham, was a distant

cousin to Daniel Boone. The Boones and the Lincolns had intermarried for

generations. The Lincolns were of good old English stock. When he was

President, Abraham Lincoln, who had never given much attention to the

family pedigree, said that the history of his family was well described

by a single line in Gray's "Elegy":

"The short and simple annals of the poor."

Yet Grandfather Abraham was wealthy for his day. He accompanied Boone

from Virginia to Kentucky and lost his life there. He had sacrificed

part of his property to the pioneer spirit within him, and, with the

killing of their father, his family lost the rest. They were "land

poor" in the wilderness of the "Dark-and-Bloody-Ground"--the meaning of

the Indian name, "Ken-tuc-kee."

Grandfather Lincoln had built a solid log cabin and cleared a field or

two around it, near the Falls of the Ohio, about where Louisville now

stands. But, in the Summer of 1784, the tragic day dawned upon the

Lincolns which has come to many a pioneer family in Kentucky and

elsewhere. His son Thomas told this story to his children:

HOW INDIANS KILLED "GRANDFATHER LINCOLN"

"My father--your grandfather, Abraham Lincoln--come over the mountains

from Virginia with his cousin, Dan'l Boone. He was rich for them times,

as he had property worth seventeen thousand dollars; but Mr. Boone he

told Father he could make a good deal more by trappin' and tradin' with

the Injuns for valuable pelts, or fur skins.

"You know, Dan'l Boone he had lived among the Injuns. He was a sure shot

with the rifle so's he could beat the redskins at their own game. They

took him a prisoner oncet, and instead of killin' him, they was about

ready to make him chief--he pretended all the while as how he'd like

that--when he got away from 'em. He was such a good fellow that them

Injuns admired his shrewdness, and they let him do about what he

pleased. So he thought they'd let Father alone.

"Well, your grandfather was a Quaker, you see, and believed in treatin'

them red devils well--like William Penn done, you know. He was a man for

peace and quiet, and everything was goin' smooth with the tribes of what

we called the Beargrass Country, till one day, when he and my brothers,

Mordecai--'Mord' was a big fellow for his age--and Josiah, a few years

younger--was out in the clearin' with the oxen, haulin' logs down to the

crick. I went along too, but I didn't help much--for I was only six.

"Young as I was, I remember what happened that day like it was only

yesterday. It come like a bolt out of the blue. We see Father drop like

he was shot--for he _was_ shot! Then I heard the crack of a rifle and I

saw a puff of smoke floatin' out o' the bushes.

"Injuns!" gasps Mord, and starts on the run for the house--to get his

gun. Josiah, he starts right off in the opposite direction to the

Beargrass fort--we called it a fort, but it was nothin' but a stockade.

The way we boys scattered was like a brood o' young turkeys, or

pa'tridges, strikin' for cover when the old one is shot. I knowed I'd

ought to run too, but I didn't want to leave my father layin' there on

the ground. Seemed like I'd ought to woke him up so he could run too.

Yet I didn't feel like touchin' him. I think I must 'a' knowed he was

dead.

"While I was standin' still, starin' like the oxen, not knowin' what to

do, a big Injun come out o' the brush, with a big knife in his hand. I

knowed what he was goin' to do--skelp my father! I braced up to 'im to

keep 'im away, an' he jist laffed at me. I never think what the devil

looks like without seein' that red demon with his snaky black eyes,

grinnin' at me!

TOM LINCOLN CHASED BY INDIANS

"He picked me up like I was a baby an set me on the sawlog, an' was

turnin' back to skelp Father, when--biff!--another gun-crack--and Mr.

Big Indian he drops jist like your grandfather did, only he wriggles and

squirms around, bitin' the dust--like a big snake for all the world!

"I was standin' there, kind o' dazed, watchin' another puff o' white

smoke, comin' out between two logs in the side of our house. Then I

knowed 'Mord' had shot my Injun. He had run in, got the gun down off'n

the wall, an' peekin' out through a crack, he sees that Injun takin'

hold o' me. Waitin' till the ol' demon turns away, so's not to hit me,

'Mord' he aims at a silver dangler on Mr. Injun's breast and makes him

drop in his tracks like I said. Your Uncle 'Mord' he was a sure

shot--like Cousin Dan'l Boone.

"Then I hears the most blood-curdlin' yells, and a lot o' red devils

jump out o' the bushes an' come for me brandishin' their tomahawks an'

skelpin' knives. It was like hell broke loose. They had been watchin'

an', of course, 'twas all right to kill Father, but when 'Mord' killed

one o' their bucks, that made a big difference. I had sense enough left

to run for the house with them Injuns after me. Seemed like I couldn't

run half as fast as usual, but I must 'a' made purty good time, from

what 'Mord' an' Mother said afterward.

"He said one was ahead o' the rest an' had his tomahawk raised to brain

me with it when--bing!--an' 'Mord' fetches _him_ down like he did the

fellow that was goin' to skelp Father. That made the others mad an' they

took after me, but 'Mord' he drops the head one jist when he's goin' to

hit me. But all I knowed at the time was that them red devils was

a-chasin' me, and I'd got to 'leg it' for dear life!

"When I gits near enough to the house, I hears Mother and 'Mord'

hollerin' to make me run faster and go to the door, for Mother had it

open jist wide enough to reach out an' snatch me in--when the third

Injun was stoopin' to grab me, but 'Mord' makes him bite the dust like

the others.

"My, but wasn't them Injuns mad! Some of 'em sneaked around behind the

house--they had to give 'Mord's' gun a wide berth to git there!--but he

could only protect the front--and was a-settin' fire to our cabin to

smoke us out or roast us alive, jist when the soldiers come with Josiah

from the fort and saved our lives. Then the Injuns made 'emselves

scurce--but they druv off the oxen and all our other stock.

"MORD" LINCOLN, INDIAN FIGHTER

"That was the breaking up of our family. None of us boys was old enough

to take Father's place, an' Mother she was afraid to live there alone.

Accordin' to the laws o' Virginia--Kentucky belonged to Virginia

then--the oldest son got all the proputty, so 'Mord' he gets it all. He

was welcome to it too, for he was the only one of us that could take

care of it. 'Mord' he wasn't satisfied with killin' a few Injuns that

day to revenge Father's death. He made a business of shootin' 'em on

sight--a reg'lar Injun stalker! He couldn't see that he was jist as

savage as the worst Injun, to murder 'em without waitin' to see whether

Mr. Injun was a friend or a foe.

"Oncet when I told 'im there was good an' bad red men like they wuz good

an' bad white men, he said I might jist as well say 'good _devil_' as

'good Injun!' He says 'the only good Injun's the dead Injun!'

"Well, the settlers must 'a' 'greed with 'Mord,' for they made him

sheriff o' the county--he was sech a good shot, too--an' they 'lected

him to the Legislatur' after Kentucky come in as a State. He stood high

in the county. Folks didn't mind his shootin' an' Injun or two, more or

less, when he got the chancet. They all looked on redskins like they

was catamounts an' other pesky varmints.

"Your grandmother Lincoln an' Josiah an' me moved over into Washington

County, but she had hard scrabblin' to git a livin'. Josiah he stayed

with her, an' between him an' 'Mord,' they helped her along, but I had

to git out and scratch for a livin'. From the time I was ten I was hired

out to work for my 'keep,' an' anything else I could git. I knocked

aroun' the country, doin' this, that an' t'other thing till I picked up

carpenterin' o' Joseph Hanks, a cousin o' mine, an' there I met his

sister Nancy, an' that's how she come to be your mother--an' 'bout how I

come to be your father, too!"

Little is known today of Mordecai Lincoln, and there would be less

interest in poor Thomas if he had not become the father of Abraham

Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. Mordecai Lincoln

was a joker and humorist. One who knew him well said of him:

"He was a man of great drollery, and it would almost make you laugh to

look at him. I never saw but one other man whose quiet, droll look

excited in me the disposition to laugh, and that was 'Artemus Ward.'

"Mordecai was quite a story-teller, and in this Abe resembled his 'Uncle

Mord,' as we called him. He was an honest man, as tender-hearted as a

woman, and to the last degree charitable and benevolent.

"Abe Lincoln had a very high opinion of his uncle, and on one occasion

remarked, 'I have often said that Uncle Mord had run off with all the

talents of the family.'"

In a letter about his family history, just before he was nominated for

the presidency, Abraham Lincoln wrote:

"My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished

families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother was of a

family of the name of Hanks. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln,

emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky about 1781 or 2,

where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians--not in battle, but

by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His

ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County,

Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of

the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of

Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai,

Solomon, Abraham, and the like.

"My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age; and he

grew up, literally without education."