While Abraham clerked in Mr. Offut's store he studied hard. Some one
told him he ought to study grammar. In all the neighborhood there was
but one grammar. He heard where it was, and started off at once, and got
Kirkham's grammar. He applied himself to learning it, and would recite
to his friend, Green, and then would consult the school teacher, Mr.
Graham about points. In a few weeks he had learned it, and then took up
other studies. The men thereabouts, seeing him study so much, got the
idea that he was going to be a great man.
One morning in April, 1832, a messenger from the governor came into New
Salem, scattering circulars asking for volunteers for the Black Hawk
war. Black Hawk was one of the Indian chiefs who had caused the
government a great deal of trouble.
He made an attack on the settlers. The governor called for help, and
volunteers. Mr. Lincoln with a number of the Clary's Grove boys and
others about New Salem volunteered and went down to Beardstown on the
22nd of April, 1832 to form a regiment. They did not have regular
uniform, but each was dressed in whatever clothing he had. Many of them
wore buckskin breeches and coonskin caps. Each man had his own blanket,
and carried flint lock rifles, with a powder horn slung over his
shoulder. Mr. Kirkpatrick wanted to be captain, and Lincoln thought he
would like to be. This same Mr. Kirkpatrick had owed Abraham some money
for a long time and would not pay it; so Lincoln said to a friend, he
would run for the place, and may be Kirkpatrick would pay him. Each one
stood out, and the men were told to stand beside the man they preferred
for captain, and about two-thirds of them stood beside Lincoln, and thus
he was made captain. He said afterwards when he was president, that he
was never so proud of any election as that. They were not very well
trained soldiers, and Mr. Lincoln did not know the commands very well.
One day he wanted to get his company through a gateway, and he said, "I
could not for the life of me remember the word of command for getting my
company endwise so that it would get through the gate. So as we came
near the gate, I shouted, this company will disband for two minutes,
then it will fall in again on the other side of the gate."
A helpless Indian came to the camp one day and seven men wanted to kill
him, but Captain Lincoln stood in front of the seven men and told them
they should not hurt the helpless savage. The warfare was not very
successful and the company mustered out in May; but in the latter end of
the same month, Lincoln joined another company. A strange incident then
occurred, the meeting of four men, who afterwards became very
celebrated. It was on the Rock River near Dixon. There were together,
Colonel Zachary Taylor, afterwards commander in general and president of
the United States; Abraham Lincoln, afterwards president of the United
States; Lieut. Anderson, afterwards commander of Ft. Sumter when it was
fired upon and Lieut. Davis, afterwards president of the Southern
Confederacy. On July 10th, Lincoln's company mustered out. It was three
weeks before the last battle of the war which finally killed most of the
Indians and scattered the rest.
He returned to New Salem, ran for a member of the legislature. There
were eight candidates. He issued a circular in favor of widening the
Sangamon River and made a canvass of the district, going largely to
public sales and shaking hands with the people, and making speeches. At
one place he helped settle a fight and then got upon the platform and
went on with his speech. Lincoln was beaten in the election, although he
was third man in the number of votes of the eight candidates. This was
the only time that Abraham was ever defeated in a direct vote of the
people.
After the election, he bought an interest with a man named Berry in a
store. At the same time Lincoln began to study law. The law books were
not very numerous. One day a man going past drove up to the store, and
wanted him to buy a barrel of rubbish for which he had no room in his
wagon. Lincoln paid half a dollar for it. Sometime afterwards in looking
over the stuff, he found a complete edition of Blackstone's law
commentary. "The more I read," said he, "the more interested I became.
Never in my life was my mind so thoroughly possessed. I read until I
devoured it." These books are quite a large set of books and it must
have required a good deal of work to have learned them.
Lincoln was postmaster. The rates of postage then, were much higher than
they are now. For instance, a single sheet letter carried thirty miles
or under eighty was ten cents, four hundred miles, eighteen and one-half
cents, and over that twenty-five cents. As Mr. Lincoln studied so hard,
and his partner Berry did not attend to the business very well, the
store was not prosperous. They gave it up and sold out. Lincoln then
studied surveying, and became a surveyor. He also began to practice a
little law, and when anybody had a law suit about New Salem, he was
frequently employed. It is said that when he first took up surveying, he
was too poor to buy him a chain, and had to use a grape vine. Between
the surveying and a little law practice, Lincoln made his living; but it
was not until fifteen years afterwards that he was able to settle all
the debts made by the store of Berry & Lincoln.
The summer of 1834 he again ran for the legislature and was elected. The
capital at this time was located at Vandalia instead of Springfield.
They only had rough tables and benches for the legislators, and they did
not receive as much pay as they do now. They wore the same kind of
suits, buckskin trousers and coonskin caps as the soldiers of the Black
Hawk war. At the time Mr. Lincoln was a member of the legislature it was
very unpopular to be an abolitionist. The legislature passed a
resolution condemning the abolitionists because they stirred up the
people by agitating the freedom of slaves. Mr. Lincoln and one other man
signed a protest against the resolution, and were the only members of
the Illinois legislature at this time who were willing to stand up for
the freedom of the slaves.
Mr. Lincoln continued to study law quite hard while he was a member of
the legislature. He had four terms, and met some men there as
fellow-members who afterwards became very prominent men.
It was about one hundred miles from New Salem to Vandalia, the capital
of the state, where the legislature met. There were few railroads at
that time and in addition Abraham Lincoln was very poor, so he walked to
and from Vandalia. He was quite a big man and of course had big feet.
They tell a funny story of one time he and a companion were walking home
from Vandalia. It was cold weather and Mr. Lincoln complained of being
very cold. His companion said: "Well, Abe, I don't see how you can help
it when there is so much of you on the ground."
Mr. Lincoln was eight years a member of the state legislature and was
one of the most active members in securing the change of the capital
from Vandalia to Springfield, where it now is. Stephen A. Douglas was
also a member of the legislature. There is another funny story I might
tell you of Mr. Lincoln's peculiarity of appearance. Mr. Lovejoy, who
was a congressman from Princeton, Illinois, and a great abolitionist was
talking with Mr. Douglas one day in Washington when Mr. Lincoln was
passing by. They called over Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Lovejoy said: "Abe, I
have been telling Judge Douglas that his legs are too short (Mr. Douglas
was a very short, heavy-set man), and yours are too long; what do you
think about it?" Mr. Lincoln replied, "Well, I never gave the matter
much thought but I have always been of the opinion that a man's legs
ought to be long enough to reach from his body to the ground." In March,
1837, he was licensed to practice law, and concluded to move from New
Salem to Springfield. A pathetic incident is related of his moving. He
had very little goods, so borrowed a horse and put most of them into a
pair of saddle-bags, rode up to Springfield and went into the store of
his friend Speed and asked him how much it would cost to buy a bedroom
set of furniture. Mr. Speed figured it up. About the cheapest would be
seventeen dollars. A sad look came over Abraham's face, and he said,
"Well Speed, I suppose that is cheap enough, but cheap as it is, I have
not the money to pay for it." "Well," said Speed, "I tell you, Abraham,
I have a big double bed up stairs, and if you want to occupy half of it
with me, you are welcome." Mr. Lincoln grabbed his saddle-bags and went
up stairs. In another minute he was down, with a smile on his face.
"Well Speed, I moved," and he never moved again but once, and that was
when he moved as president of the United States from Springfield to
Washington. A strange comparison.
I must tell you a little story that happened to Mr. Lincoln at New
Salem, before he moved to Springfield. One of the prominent families
there was that of James Rutledge. They had a very pretty and sweet
daughter named Anne. She was gentle, kind and good, and everyone loved
her. She was also bright intellectually as a student, and a good many
young men about there tried to court her. Although Mr. Lincoln was a
very homely man, he had studied and developed his mind so much, and had
so much information that he really was handsome.
It proves that what we know, not how we look is the important thing, and
so he was the one favored by Anne Rutledge. They became quite in love
with each other and were engaged.
While Mr. Lincoln was away, Anne was taken sick and continued to get
worse. When he returned he found her past recovery. She died August
25th, 1835. Mr. Lincoln was wonderfully overcome with grief, and said to
a friend who tried to cheer him, and urge him to control his sorrow, "I
cannot. The thought of snow and rain on her grave fills me with
indescribable grief," and it was a long time before he could shake off
the melancholy and sadness of her death so as to apply himself to his
regular duties. He was wont to go off to her grave, and said, "My heart
is buried there." In years after, he said, "I really and truly loved the
girl, and think often of her now, and I have always loved the name of
Rutledge to this day."