The story of naming the town of Lincoln, the county seat of Logan
county, Illinois, is thus given on good authority:
The first railroad had been built through the county, and a station
was about to be located there. Lincoln, Virgil Hitchcock, Colonel R.
B. Latham and several others were sitting on a pile of ties and talking
about moving a county seat from Mount Pulaski. Mr. Lincoln rose and
started to walk away, when Colonel Latham said: “Lincoln, if you will
help us to get the county seat here, we will call the place Lincoln.”
“All right, Latham,” he replied.
Colonel Latham then deeded him a lot on the west side of the courthouse,
and he owned it at the time he was elected President.
“OLD JEFF’S” BIG NIGHTMARE.
“Jeff” Davis had a large and threatening nightmare in November, 1864,
and what he saw in his troubled dreams was the long and lanky figure of
Abraham Lincoln, who had just been endorsed by the people of the United
States for another term in the White House at Washington. The cartoon
reproduced here is from the issue of “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper” of December 3rd, 1864, it being entitled “Jeff Davis’
November Nightmare.”
Davis had been told that McClellan, “the War is a failure” candidate for
the Presidency, would have no difficulty whatever in defeating Lincoln;
that negotiations with the Confederate officials for the cessation of
hostilities would be entered into as soon as McClellan was seated in the
Chief Executive’s chair; that the Confederacy would, in all probability,
be recognized as an independent government by the Washington
Administration; that the “sacred institution” of slavery would continue
to do business at the old stand; that the Confederacy would be one of
the great nations of the world, and have all the “State Rights” and
other things it wanted, with absolutely no interference whatever upon
the part of the North.
Therefore, Lincoln’s re-election was a rough, rude shock to Davis, who
had not prepared himself for such an event. Six months from the date of
that nightmare-dream he was a prisoner in the hands of the Union forces,
and the Confederacy was a thing of the past.