Miss Todd (afterwards Mrs. Lincoln) had a keen sense of the ridiculous,
and wrote several articles in the Springfield (Ill.) “Journal”
reflecting severely upon General James Shields (who won fame in the
Mexican and Civil Wars, and was United States Senator from three
states), then Auditor of State.
Lincoln assumed the authorship, and was challenged by Shields to meet
him on the “field of honor.” Meanwhile Miss Todd increased Shields’ ire
by writing another letter to the paper, in which she said: “I hear the
way of these fire-eaters is to give the challenged party the choice of
weapons, which being the case, I’ll tell you in confidence that I never
fight with anything but broom-sticks, or hot water, or a shovelful of
coals, the former of which, being somewhat like a shillalah, may not be
objectionable to him.”
Lincoln accepted the challenge, and selected broadswords as the weapons.
Judge Herndon (Lincoln’s law partner) gives the closing of this affair
as follows:
“The laws of Illinois prohibited dueling, and Lincoln demanded that
the meeting should be outside the state. Shields undoubtedly knew that
Lincoln was opposed to fighting a duel--that his moral sense would
revolt at the thought, and that he would not be likely to break the
law by fighting in the state. Possibly he thought Lincoln would make a
humble apology. Shields was brave, but foolish, and would not listen to
overtures for explanation. It was arranged that the meeting should be
in Missouri, opposite Alton. They proceeded to the place selected, but
friends interfered, and there was no duel. There is little doubt that
the man who had swung a beetle and driven iron wedges into gnarled
hickory logs could have cleft the skull of his antagonist, but he had
no such intention. He repeatedly said to the friends of Shields that in
writing the first article he had no thought of anything personal. The
Auditor’s vanity had been sorely wounded by the second letter, in regard
to which Lincoln could not make any explanation except that he had had
no hand in writing it. The affair set all Springfield to laughing at
Shields.”
“DONE WITH THE BIBLE.”
Lincoln never told a better story than this:
A country meeting-house, that was used once a month, was quite a
distance from any other house.
The preacher, an old-line Baptist, was dressed in coarse linen
pantaloons, and shirt of the same material. The pants, manufactured
after the old fashion, with baggy legs, and a flap in the front, were
made to attach to his frame without the aid of suspenders.
A single button held his shirt in position, and that was at the collar.
He rose up in the pulpit, and with a loud voice announced his text thus:
“I am the Christ whom I shall represent to-day.”
About this time a little blue lizard ran up his roomy pantaloons. The
old preacher, not wishing to interrupt the steady flow of his sermon,
slapped away on his leg, expecting to arrest the intruder, but his
efforts were unavailing, and the little fellow kept on ascending higher
and higher.
Continuing the sermon, the preacher loosened the central button which
graced the waistband of his pantaloons, and with a kick off came that
easy-fitting garment.
But, meanwhile, Mr. Lizard had passed the equatorial line of the
waistband, and was calmly exploring that part of the preacher’s anatomy
which lay underneath the back of his shirt.
Things were now growing interesting, but the sermon was still grinding
on. The next movement on the preacher’s part was for the collar button,
and with one sweep of his arm off came the tow linen shirt.
The congregation sat for an instant as if dazed; at length one old
lady in the rear part of the room rose up, and, glancing at the excited
object in the pulpit, shouted at the top of her voice: “If you represent
Christ, then I’m done with the Bible.”