Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  76. Henry Clay Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, ed. Paul M. Angle (1892; Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1940), 185.

  77. Chicago Times, 29 Aug. 1858.

  78. George B. McClellan to Mary Ellen McClellan, Washington, 21 Nov. 1861, Stephen W. Sears, ed., The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence, 1860–1865 (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1989), 137.

  79. Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, ed. Angle, 46.

  80. Sue E. Onstot to James R. B. Van Cleave, Forest City, Illinois, 17 Mar. 1909, Harry E. Pratt Papers, University of Illinois; reminiscences of R. Johnson Onstott, Bloomington, Illinois, Pantagraph, 6 Feb. 1909.

  81. George Tuthill Borrett, Letters from Canada and the United States (London: J. E. Adlard, 1865), 254–255 (letter dated “on board the Kangaroo,” Nov. 1864).

  82. John Hay, “Life in the White House in the Time of Lincoln,” in Michael Burlingame, ed., At Lincoln’s Side: John Hay’s Civil War Correspondence and Selected Writings (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), 137–138.

  83. John McNamar to Herndon, Petersburg, Illinois, 25 Nov. 1866, HI, 421.

  84. Lincoln to James H. Hackett, Washington, 17 Aug. 1863, CWL, 6:392.

  85. Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 121.

  86. Robert B. Rutledge, son of James Rutledge, to Herndon, [ca. 1 Nov. 1866], HI, 384–385.

  87. Wayne C. Temple, ed., “Lincoln and the Burners at New Salem,” Lincoln Herald 67 (1965):68–69.

  88. Records of the Rock Creek Lyceum, copy, Fern Nance Pond Papers, Menard County Historical Museum, Petersburg, Illinois.

  89. Stephen A. Douglas to Julius N. Granger, Jacksonville, 24 May 1835, Johannsen, ed., Letters of Douglas, 19.

  90. Greene, who alleged this was the only time he ever heard Lincoln swear, told the story to Henry C. Whitney. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 96.

  91. Autobiography enclosed in Lincoln to Jesse W. Fell, Springfield, 20 Dec. 1859, CWL, 3:512.

  92. Benjamin F. Irwin to Herndon, Pleasant Plains, Illinois, 22 Sept. 1866, HI, 353.

  93. William Cullen Bryant to his wife, Jacksonville, Illinois, 19 June 1832, in Bryant, Prose Writings, ed. Parke Godwin (2 vols.; New York: Appleton, 1889), 2:20.

  94. Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon’s Lincoln, 70.

  95. Ben: Perley Poore in Allen Thorndike Rice, ed., Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of His Time (New York: North American Review, 1888), 218–219.

  96. William Miller?, statement for Herndon, Sept. 1866, HI, 362.

  97. Royal Clary interview with Herndon, [Oct. 1866?], HI, 372.

  98. Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon’s Lincoln, 73.

  99. Francis Fisher Brown, The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln (New York: N. D. Thompson, 1886), 107.

  100. Letter by “Scrutatok,” New York, 4 July, New York Herald, 9 July 1860.

  101. George M. Harrison to Herndon, Richland, Illinois, 29 Jan. 1867, HI, 555.

  102. John Todd Stuart, interview with Herndon, [1865–1866], HI, 481.

  103. John Todd Stuart, interview with John G. Nicolay, 23 June 1875, Michael Burlingame, ed., An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), 8.

  104. John Todd Stuart, interview with James Q. Howard, [May 1860], copy in the hand of John G. Nicolay, John Hay Papers, RPB; Stuart, interview with John G. Nicolay, 23 June 1875, Burlingame, ed., Oral History of Lincoln, 8–9.

  105. William Greene to Herndon (interview), Elm Wood, Illinois, 30 May 1865, HI, 19.

  106. John F. Snyder to Frank E. Stevens, Virginia, Illinois, 1 Apr. and 28 Mar. 1916, Frank E. Stevens Papers, IHi.

  107. Greene to Herndon (interview), Elm Wood, Illinois, 30 May 1865, HI, 18–19.

  108. Reminiscences of a conversation held at Lincoln’s Springfield home on 8 Aug. 1860, with Risdon M. Moore, in Moore, “Mr. Lincoln as a Wrestler,” Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society 9 (1904):434.

  109. William G. Greene to Herndon (interview), Elm Wood, Illinois, 30 May 1865, HI, 19; Greene’s recollections, dated Tallula, 1882, in Osborn H. Oldroyd, The Lincoln Memorial: Album-Immortelles (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1883), 517; Greene, interviewed by George A. Pierce, correspondence dated “on the cars,” 12 Apr., Chicago Inter-Ocean, 30 Apr. 1881; Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 97–98; Moore, “Lincoln as a Wrestler,” 433–434.

  110. William G. Greene, interviewed by George A. Pierce, correspondence dated “on the cars,” 12 Apr., Chicago Inter-Ocean, 30 Apr. 1881.

  111. Joseph Gillespie to Isaac N. Arnold, Edwardsville, Illinois, 6 Sept. 1881, in Isaac N. Arnold, “Abraham Lincoln: A Paper Read before the Royal Historical Society, London, June 16, 1881” (pamphlet; Chicago: Fergus, 1881), 194a-b.

  112. Ben: Perley Poore in Rice, ed., Reminiscences of Lincoln, 219.

  113. James Grant Wilson, “Recollections of Lincoln,” Putnam’s Magazine 5 (Feb. 1909):516.

  114. Speech in the House of Representatives, 27 July 1848, CWL, 1:509–510.

  115. Robert B. Rutledge to Herndon, [c. 1 Nov. 1866], HI, 385.

  116. Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 56.

  117. Quoted in Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 67.

  118. New York Tribune, 29 Nov. 1845, quoted in Holt, Rise and Fall of the Whig Party, 70.

  119. New York Tribune, 2 June 1848, in William R. Brock, Parties and Political Conscience: American Dilemmas, 1840–1850 (Millwood, NY: KTO Press, 1979), 12.

  120. Fragment on government, [1 July 1854?], CWL, 2:220. This dating is probably inaccurate; in all likelihood, it was composed in the 1840s.

  121. CWL, 1:5–9.

  122. CWL, 2:126.

  123. Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 5 Nov. 1864.

  124. J. Rowan Herndon to William H. Herndon, 28 May 1865, HI, 7. I have modernized the spelling and punctuation in this quote.

  125. Henry McHenry, interview with Herndon, Petersburg, Illinois, 29 May 1865, HI, 15.

  126. S. T. Logan, interviewed by John G. Nicolay, Springfield, 6 July 1875, Burlingame, ed., Oral History of Lincoln, 35.

  127. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 100.

  128. J. Rowan Herndon to William H. Herndon, Quincy, Illinois, 28 May 1865, HI, 7. I have modernized spelling and punctuation in this quote.

  129. Autobiography enclosed in Lincoln to Jesse W. Fell, Springfield, 20 Dec. 1859, CWL, 3:512.

  130. Matheny told this to Henry Clay Whitney. Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 56.

  131. John Todd Stuart, interview with John G. Nicolay, Springfield, 23 June 1875, Burlingame, ed., Oral History of Lincoln, 10.

  132. Greene, interview with J. W. S., Chicago Tribune, n.d., copied in the Petersburg Observer (Illinois), 23 Aug. 1884; Greene, interviewed by George A. Pierce, correspondence dated “on the cars,” 12 Apr., Chicago Inter-Ocean, 30 Apr. 1881.

  133. CWL, 3:16.

  134. Autobiography written for John Locke Scripps, [ca. June 1860], CWL, 4:65.

  135. Leonard Swett in Rice, ed., Reminiscences of Lincoln, 465–466; Herndon interviewed by George Alfred Townsend, Springfield correspondence, 25 Jan., New York Tribune, 15 Feb. 1867.

  136. Bloomington Leader, n.d., copied in the Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 2 Mar. 1870.

  137. George J. Barrett, interview with Herndon, [1865–1866], HI, 436.

  138. Autobiography written for John Locke Scripps, [ca. June 1860], CWL, 4:65.

  139. Lincoln to George C. Spears, [1 July 1834], CWL, 1:25.

  140. James Miles, interview with Herndon, [1865–1866], HI, 473.

  141. [Anson G.] H[enry] to the editor of the Portland Oregonian, Lafayette, Oregon, 16 July 1860, copied in an unidentified newspaper clipping, Nicolay-Hay Papers, IHi; Bernice Babcock, “Postmaster Abe Lincoln,” undated clipping, Emanuel Hertz Scrapbooks, DLC.

  142.
James Short to Herndon, Petersburg, Illinois, 7 July 1865, HI, 74.

  143. Reminiscences of George B. Lincoln, The Caledonian (St. Johnsbury, Vermont), 23 Oct. 1890.

  144. John Moore Fisk, interview with Herndon, 18 Feb. 1887, HI, 715.

  145. Reep, Lincoln at New Salem, 62.

  146. Greene’s interview with James Q. Howard, [ca. May 1860], AL MSS DLC.

  147. Henry McHenry, interview with Herndon, [1866], HI, 534.

  148. Undated letter by Chandler’s daughter, Mrs. S. L. B. Chandler, in Josephine Craven Chandler, “New Salem: Early Chapter in Lincoln’s Life,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 22 (1930): 546–548.

  149. Henry McHenry, interview with Herndon, Petersburg, Illinois, 29 May 1865, HI, 15.

  150. A Mr. Maguire, quoted in the Chicago Times-Herald, 22 Sept. 1895.

  151. Van Bergen, interview with John G. Nicolay, Springfield, 7 July 1875, Burlingame, ed., Oral History of Lincoln, 33.

  152. Elizabeth Abell to Herndon, 15 Feb. 1867, HI, 557.

  153. James Short to Herndon, Petersburg, Illinois, 7 July 1865, HI, 74; Reep, Lincoln at New Salem, 65.

  154. John Todd Stuart, interview with John G. Nicolay, Springfield, 23 June 1875, Burlingame, ed., Oral History of Lincoln, 11.

  155. “Hints to Emigrants,” Illinois Monthly Magazine, quoted in the Sangamo Journal, 9 Feb. 1832.

  156. J. R. Herndon to William Herndon, Quincy, Illinois, 27 May 1865, HI, 6–8, 103.

  157. Maltby, Lincoln, 44.

  158. Vienna Camron Lyster, daughter of John M. Camron, interviewed in the Los Angles Times, 2 October 1904; undated statement by Martha C. Camron (Mrs. Noah McCuistion), in Julia A. Drake, Flame o’ Dawn: The Story of Reverend John M. Camron, Who Boarded Lincoln at New Salem (New York: Vantage, 1959), 209.

  159. Fell to Ward Hill Lamon, Normal, Illinois, 26 Sept. 1870, Jeremiah S. Black Papers, DLC.

  160. Herndon to Ward Hill Lamon, Springfield, 25 Feb. 1870, Lamon Papers, CSmH.

  161. Bledsoe, review of Ward Hill Lamon’s biography of Lincoln, Southern Review 12 (Apr. 1873):354.

  162. Parthena Hill, interview with Walter B. Stevens, 1886, in Stevens, A Reporter’s Lincoln, ed. Burlingame, 12.

  163. Dr. James LeGrande (paraphrasing remarks he heard from his mother, Sophie Hanks), undated interview with Arthur E. Morgan, Morgan Papers, DLC.

  164. The Rev. Mr. L. R. Cronkhite, “The Church Lincoln Didn’t Join,” The Christian Century, 6 Feb. 1935, p. 170.

  165. Henry C. Deming, Eulogy of Abraham Lincoln (Hartford: A. N. Clark, 1865), 42.

  166. Dillard C. Donnohue, interview with Jesse W. Weik, 13 Feb. 1887, HI, 602.

  167. Matheny, interview with Herndon, 3 May 1866, HI, 251.

  168. Reminiscences of Cornelius Cole, Illinois State Register (Springfield), 5 Feb. 1923.

  169. Hawkins Taylor, “Early Reminiscences,” Peoria Weekly Journal, 1895, copied in Emma Siggins White, Genealogy of the Descendants of John Walker of Wigton, Scotland ([Kansas City, MO]: Press of Tiernan-Dart Printing Company, 1902), 430.

  170. Leonard Swett in Rice, ed., Reminiscences of Lincoln, 466.

  171. Ninian W. Edwards, interview with Herndon, [1865–1866], HI, 446.

  Chapter 4. “A Napoleon of Astuteness and Political Finesse”

  1. Abner Y. Ellis to Herndon, Moro, Illinois, 6 Dec. 1866; enclosure by Abner Y. Ellis in Ellis to Herndon, Moro, Illinois, 23 Jan. 1866, in Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln [hereafter HI] (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 501, 173.

  2. James McGrady Rutledge, quoted in Ida M. Tarbell, The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln (New York: McClure, 1896), 200.

  3. Thomas P. Reep, Lincoln at New Salem (Chicago: Old Salem Lincoln League, 1927), 81.

  4. Baker’s speech in the U.S. Senate, 3 Jan. 1861, Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 2nd Session, 238.

  5. J. Rowan Herndon to Herndon, Quincy, Illinois, 3 July 1865, HI, 69; I have standardized the spelling and punctuation of this passage.

  6. A. Y. Ellis, statement for Herndon, enclosed in Ellis to Herndon, Moro, Illinois, 23 Jan. 1866, HI, 173. I have standardized the spelling and punctuation of this passage.

  7. Frederick Trevor Hill, Lincoln the Lawyer (New York: Century, 1906), 24.

  8. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed.; Dublin: John Exshaw, 1771), 1:33.

  9. Richard H. Beach of New York City in History of Sangamon County (Chicago: Interstate Publishing, 1881), 183.

  10. L. M. Greene, interview with James Q. Howard, [May 1860], AL MSS DLC.

  11. Gibson W. Harris, “My Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,” Woman’s Home Companion, Nov. 1903, p. 10.

  12. Herndon, “Lincoln the Lawyer,” H-W MSS DLC.

  13. Caroline Owsley Brown, “Springfield Society Before the Civil War,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 15 (1922):490.

  14. Herndon to Jesse W. Weik, Springfield, 10 Dec. 1885, H-W MSS DLC.

  15. Illinois State Register (Springfield), 14 May, 3 Sept., and 9 July 1841.

  16. Autobiography written for John Locke Scripps, [ca. June 1860], in Roy P. Basler et al., eds., Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln [hereafter CWL] (8 vols. plus index; New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953–1955), 4:65.

  17. Brown, “Springfield Society Before the Civil War,” 490.

  18. Jesse W. Fell to David Davis, Normal, Illinois, 15 Dec. 1885, Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 14 Jan. 1886; David Davis, address to the Illinois State Bar Association, 13 Jan. 1886, Bloomington, Illinois, Pantagraph, 6 Feb. 1886.

  19. Alban Jasper Conant, “My Acquaintance with Abraham Lincoln” (pamphlet; New York: De Vinne Press, 1893), 172.

  20. Allen B. Clough to Andrew Clough, Tolono, Illinois, 16 Nov. 1859, Clough Papers, ICHi.

  21. Joseph Story to T. Kennedy, Cambridge, 15 May 1844, in William W. Story, Life and Letters of Joseph Story (2 vols.; Boston: C.C. Little and J. Brown, 1851), 2:486.

  22. Josiah Quincy, An Address Delivered at the Dedication of the Dane Law College in Harvard University, October 23, 1832 (Cambridge, MA: Metcalf, 1832), 17.

  23. Lincoln to John M. Brockman, Springfield, 25 Sept. 1860, CWL, 4:121.

  24. Lincoln to James T. Thornton, Springfield, 2 Dec. 1858, CWL, 3:344.

  25. Lincoln to Isham Reavis, Springfield, 5 Nov. 1855, CWL, 2:327.

  26. Lincoln to George C. Latham, Springfield, 22 July 1860, CWL, 4:87.

  27. Parthena Hill, interview with Walter B. Stevens, 1886, Stevens, A Reporter’s Lincoln, ed. Michael Burlingame (1916; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 9.

  28. Paul Hull, “Lincoln as a Wrestler,” New York Mail and Express, 11 Jan. 1896, p. 11; Stephen T. Logan, interviewed by John G. Nicolay, Springfield, 6 July 1875, in Michael Burlingame, ed., An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), 35.

  29. Russell Godbey, interview with Herndon, [1865–1866], HI, 450.

  30. Henry McHenry, interview with James Q. Howard, [May 1860], AL MSS DLC.

  31. New York Herald Tribune, 27 July 1926, 5.

  32. Herndon, quoted in Volney Hickox, “Lincoln at Home,” Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 15 Oct. 1874.

  33. John Dean Caton, Early Bench and Bar of Illinois (Chicago: Chicago Legal News, 1893), 170–171.

  34. Coleman Smoot to Herndon, Petersburg, Illinois, 7 May 1866, HI, 254.

  35. Jesse K. Dubois, interview with Nicolay, Springfield, 4 July 1875, Burlingame, ed., Oral History of Lincoln, 30; Leonard Swett to Herndon, Chicago, 15 Jan. 1866, HI, 160.

  36. Dr. James C. Finley to Joseph Duncan, Jacksonville, 27 May 1834, Duncan-Putnam Family Papers, Putnam Museum, Davenport, Iowa.

  37. Joseph Gillespie’s appendix to Usher F. Linder, Reminiscences of the Early Bench and Bar of Illinois (Chicago: Chicago Legal News, 1879), 401.

  38. “A lobby mem
ber” to the editor, 31 Dec. 1840, Quincy Whig, 16 Jan. 1841.

  39. John G. Nicolay to John Hay, Washington, 29 Jan. 1864, in Michael Burlingame, ed., With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860–1865 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), 125; Milton Hay to John Hay, Springfield, 8 Feb. 1887, John Hay Papers, RPB.

  40. Davis to William P. Walker, Bloomington, Illinois, 16 Nov. 1840, Springfield, 2 Mar. 1844 and 25 June 1847, David Davis Papers, IHi.

  41. Anna Paschall Hannum, ed., A Quaker Forty-Niner: The Adventures of Charles Edward Pancoast on the American Frontier (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1930), 50.

  42. Thomas Ford, A History of Illinois from Its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847 (Chicago: S. C. Eriggs, 1854), 282, 286.

  43. Paul Simon, Lincoln’s Preparation for Greatness: The Illinois Legislative Years (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), 23.

  44. John J. Hardin to Sarah Hardin, Vandalia, Illinois, 14 Dec. 1836, Hardin Family Papers, ICHi; Joseph Duncan to Elizabeth Caldwell Smith Duncan, Vandalia, 18 Dec. 1836, Duncan-Putnam Family Papers, Putnam Museum, Davenport, Iowa.

  45. Frederick Hollman, “Autobiographical Sketch,” photocopy of an unpublished manuscript, dated Platteville, Wisconsin, 1870, p. 21, Evans Public Library, Vandalia.

  46. David Jewett Baker of Kaskaskia to Elias Kent Kane, Vandalia, 1 Dec. 1834, copy made by Elizabeth Duncan Putnam, Duncan-Putnam Family Papers, Putnam Museum, Davenport, Iowa.

  47. Sarah Smith Hardin to John J. Hardin, Jacksonville, 19 Feb. 1839, Hardin Family Papers, ICHi.

  48. Lemuel H. Smith to John J. Hardin, Shelbyville, 2 Mar. 1837, Hardin Family Papers, ICHi.

  49. James Stuart, Three Years in North America (2 vols.; Edinburgh: R. Cadell, 1833), 2:227.

  50. Browning, interview with John G. Nicolay, Springfield, 17 June 1875, Burlingame, ed., Oral History of Lincoln, 3–4.

  51. Lincoln, John J. Hardin, E. B. Webb, and John Dawson to Mrs. Browning, [Springfield, 11 Dec. 1839], CWL, 1:156.