Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume 1

by Michael Burlingame

  58. “May Term of the Urbana Court,” Illinois Citizen (Danville), 29 May 1850.

  59. David Davis, interview with Herndon, 19 Sept. 1866, HI, 347

  60. Logan interviewed by John G. Nicolay, Springfield, 6 July 1875, in Burlingame, ed., Oral History Abraham Lincoln, 39.

  61. Samuel C. Parks to Herndon, Lincoln, Illinois, 25 Mar. 1866, HI, 238–239; Stringer, “From the Sangamon to the Potomac,” 114.

  62. Ratcliffe Hicks, letter to The Century Magazine, New York, 10 Nov. 1893, The Century Magazine 47 (Feb. 1894):638.

  63. Gillespie to Herndon, Edwardsville, 31 Jan. 1866, HI, 182; Buckmaster for the Use of Dedham vs. Beems and Archer, LPAL, case file #02075.

  64. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 174.

  65. Draft of Lincoln’s public letter to Erastus Corning et al., Washington, [12 June 1863], AL MSS DLC.

  66. Frederick T. Hill, Lincoln the Lawyer (New York: Century, 1906), 181.

  67. Judge Owen T. Reeves in Stevens, A Reporter’s Lincoln, ed. Burlingame, 49.

  68. Swett, “An Old Friend’s Recollections of David Davis,” Chicago Mail, n.d., copied in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, 27 June 1888.

  69. John T. Lillard, son-in-law of Davis, to Harry E. Pratt, Bloomington, 4 Dec. 1929, in Harry E. Pratt, “David Davis, 1851–1886” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, 1930), 58n.

  70. “Court and Bar,” Clinton Transcript, n.d., copied in the Bloomington Pantagraph, 12 October 1858, quoted in Lavern Marshall Hamand, “Ward Hill Lamon: Lincoln’s ‘Particular Friend’ ” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, 1949), 74.

  71. Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 77.

  72. Usher F. Linder, Reminiscences of the Early Bench and Bar of Illinois (Chicago: Chicago Legal News, 1879), 182–183. The text reads “difference he showed,” doubtless a misprint for “deference he showed.”

  73. Herndon to Mrs. Leonard Swett, Springfield, 20 and 22 Feb. 1890, Swett Papers, IHi.

  74. Urbana Clarion, 29 Oct. 1859, in Pratt, “Davis,” 61.

  75. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 191–192.

  76. Charles Henry Davis journal, 7 May 1864, in Charles Henry Davis, Life of Charles Henry Davis, Rear Admiral, 1807–1877 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1899), 303.

  77. Our Constitution (Urbana), 18 Apr. 1857.

  78. Vermilion County Press (Danville), 5 May 1859, in Richter, Lincoln: Twenty Years on the Eastern Prairie, 230.

  79. Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 62–63.

  80. David Davis to William P. Walker, Bloomington, 16 Nov. 1840, Davis Papers, IHi.

  81. David Davis to Julius Rockwell, Bloomington, Illinois, 14 May 1844, Davis Papers, DLC.

  82. Leonard Sweet’s speech, “The Life of Lincoln,” delivered at the dedication of the St. Gaudens statue of Lincoln in Chicago, Chicago Times, 23 Oct. 1887; T. W. S. Kidd, lecture given in Washington, in Washington correspondence by Frank G. Carpenter, 14 Jan., Cleveland Leader, n.d. [probably 1883], clipping in scrapbook, Frank G. Carpenter Papers, DLC.

  83. King, Davis, 77, 75, 82, 85, 78; David Davis to Julius Rockwell, Bloomington, Illinois, 14 May 1844, Davis Papers, DLC.

  84. Clark E. Carr, The Illini: A Story of the Prairies (Chicago: McClurg, 1912), 47.

  85. Herndon to Isaac N. Arnold, Springfield, 24 Oct. 1883, Herndon Collection, ICHi.

  86. David Davis, interview with Herndon, 20 Sept. 1866, HI, 350.

  87. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (2 vols.; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1926), 2:297.

  88. David Davis, interview with Herndon, 20 Sept. 1866, HI, 349.

  89. Lecture by Swett, delivered in Chicago, 20 Feb. 1876, Chicago Times, 21 Feb. 1876.

  90. Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 63.

  91. Linder, “Reminiscences of the Late President Lincoln,” Washington Sunday Chronicle, 23 Apr. 1865.

  92. “Personal Reminiscences of the Late Abraham Lincoln by a contributor to the ‘Bulletin,’ ” San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, 22 Apr. 1865.

  93. Herndon to Isaac N. Arnold, Springfield, 24 Oct. 1883, Herndon Collection, ICHi.

  94. Gibson W. Harris to George Williams, Springfield, 31 Oct. 1846, in Roger D. Bridges, ed., “Three Letters from a Lincoln Law Student,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 66 (1973):87.

  95. John Dean Caton, Early Bench and Bar of Illinois (Chicago: Chicago Legal News, 1893), 185, 228.

  96. J. D. Wickizer to Herndon, Chicago, 25 Nov. 1866, HI, 424; lecture by Swett, delivered in Chicago, 20 Feb. 1876, Chicago Times, 21 Feb. 1876.

  97. Lecture by Swett, delivered in Chicago, 20 Feb. 1876, Chicago Times, 21 Feb. 1876; Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 181.

  98. T. W. S. Kidd, “Town Crier,” Ida Tarbell Papers, Allegheny College.

  99. Richard Price Morgan, address at Pontiac, Illinois, 12 Feb. 1909, in Phillips, Lincoln by Some Men Who Knew Him, ed. Angle, 71–72.

  100. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 175.

  101. Gibson William Harris, “My Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,” Woman’s Home Companion, Jan. 1904, p. 13.

  102. David Davis, “Memorial Address on Hon. John T. Stuart,” quoted in Pratt, “Davis,” 52.

  103. Linder to Lincoln, Chicago, 26 Mar. 1864, AL MSS DLC.

  104. Joseph Gillespie’s introduction to Linder, Reminiscences, 18.

  105. Williams to Justin Butterfield, Springfield, 10 Dec. 1849, Records of the Department of the Interior, Appointments Division, Central Office Appointment Papers, 1849–1907, box 32, Record Group 48, National Archives, College Park, Maryland.

  106. Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 196; Linder, Reminiscences, 239.

  107. Benjamin P. Thomas, Abraham Lincoln: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), 59.

  108. Linder, Reminiscences, 238.

  109. “May Term of the Urbana Court,” Illinois Citizen (Danville), 29 May 1850; Aurora Hunt, Kirby Benedict, Frontier Federal Judge (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clarke, 1961), 44–47; Linder, Reminiscences, 201, 203.

  110. Ralph Emerson Twitchell, Old Santa Fe: The Story of New Mexico’s Ancient Capital (Santa Fe: Santa Fe Mexican Press, 1925), 351.

  111. Danville Independent, 15 May 1856, quoted in Hamand, “Ward Hill Lamon,” 50.

  112. Thomas J. McCormick, ed., Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, 1809–1896 (2 vols.; Cedar Rapids, IA: Torch Press, 1909), 2:540.

  113. Scott, “Lincoln on the Stump and at the Bar.”

  114. Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 85–88.

  115. Richard Yates to Schuyler Colfax, Springfield, 9 Feb.1861, Abraham Lincoln Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale University; Leonard Swett in “Our New York Letter,” New York correspondence, 6 Feb. Indiana Journal (Indianapolis), 10 Feb. 1879; “Court and Bar,” Clinton Transcript, n.d., copied in the Bloomington Pantagraph, 12 Oct. 1858, quoted in Hamand, “Ward Hill Lamon,” 74.

  116. Ward Hill Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847–1865, ed. Dorothy Lamon Teillard (2nd ed.; Washington, DC: privately printed, 1911), 17.

  117. Ibid., 18–19.

  118. Weldon, “Reminiscences of Lincoln as a Lawyer,” 246.

  119. Lincoln to George P. Floyd, Springfield, 21 Feb. 1856, CWL, 2:332–333.

  120. Moores, “Abraham Lincoln, Lawyer,” 520–521.

  121. “More of Old Abe’s Peculiarities,” New York Daily News, 16 Nov. 1861.

  122. Basler, ed., Collected Works of Lincoln, First Supplement, 20.

  123. Lincoln to Andrew McCallen, Springfield, 4 July 1851, CWL, 2:106.

  124. CWL, 4:62.

  125. William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, Herndon’s Lincoln, ed. Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis (1889; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 194.

  126. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 182–183.

  127. Lincoln to Mason Brayman, Springfield, 31 Mar. 1854, in William D. Beard, “Lincoln and the Illinois Central Railroad,” Lincoln Herald 92 (1990):16.

  128. Herndon to Mrs. Leonard Swett, Springfield,
22 Feb. 1890, Swett Papers, IHi.

  129. CWL, 2:459; LPAL, case file #02160.

  130. LPAL, case file #02489.

  131. Dan W. Bannister, Lincoln and the Illinois Supreme Court (Springfield IL: n.p., 1995), 78.

  132. John B. Thomas to Thompson R. Webber, “at home,” 15 Sept. 1853, John W. Starr, Lincoln and the Railroads: A Biographical Study (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1927), 61.

  133. Starr, Lincoln and the Railroads, 69.

  134. Rock Island Railroad, “Seventieth Anniversary Brochure” (1922), p. 19, quoted in John J. Duff, A. Lincoln: Prairie Lawyer (New York: Rinehart, 1960), 129; L. O. Leonard, “The Founders and Builders of the Rock Island: Article 3, Abraham Lincoln,” Rock Island Magazine, Feb. 1926, p. 5.

  135. Colonel Peter A. Dey, an engineer on the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad, in Hill, Lincoln the Lawyer, 260–261n.

  136. Grant Goodrich to William H. Herndon, Chicago, 9 Dec. 1866, HI, 511.

  137. Reminiscences of Wells H. Blodgett, Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (2 vols.; New York: McClure, Phillips, 1902), 1:276.

  138. Albert A. Woldman, Lawyer Lincoln (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1936), 164.

  139. Bannister, Lincoln and the Illinois Supreme Court, 57.

  140. Davis to Julius Rockwell, Bloomington, 10 Feb. 1841, David Davis Papers, IHi.

  141. Whitney, Life on the Circuit, ed. Angle, 234.

  142. Grant Goodrich to Herndon, Chicago, 9 Dec. 1866, HI, 510.

  143. Harding’s recollections in Robert Henry Parkinson, “The Patent Case that Lifted Lincoln into a Presidential Candidate,” Abraham Lincoln Quarterly 4 (1946): 113–115.

  144. William B. H. Dowse to Albert J. Beveridge, Boston, 16 Oct. 1925, Beveridge Papers, DLC.

  145. Duff, A. Lincoln: Prairie Lawyer, 323; Donn Piatt in Benjamin P. Thomas and Harold M. Hyman, Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln’s Secretary of War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), 66; Benjamin Rush Cowen, Abraham Lincoln: An Appreciation by One Who Knew Him (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1909), 10–12.

  146. William B. H. Dowse to Albert J. Beveridge, Boston, 10 Oct. 1925, Beveridge Papers, DLC.

  147. Report of a statement by Harding, n.d., typescript, Ida M. Tarbell Papers, Allegheny College.

  148. W. M. Dickson, “Abraham Lincoln at Cincinnati,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 69 (June 1884):62.

  149. Matheny in an unidentified newspaper clipping, Pasfield Scrapbook, IHi, quoted in Duff, A. Lincoln, Prairie Lawyer, 81–82.

  150. Thomas Ford, History of Illinois from Its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847, ed. Rodney O. Davis (1854; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995) 55.

  151. People vs. Goings (1859), case file #01800, LPAL; John A. Lupton, “A. Lincoln, Esquire: The Evolution of a Lawyer,” in Allen D. Spiegel, A. Lincoln, Esquire: A Shrewd, Sophisticated Lawyer in His Time (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2002), 41.

  152. Whitney to Herndon, Chicago, 27 Aug. 1887, HI, 632–633; Whitney, statement for Herndon, [1887?], ibid., 650.

  153. Thomas S. Edwards, interviewed by John Hay, Sept. 1860, Michael Burlingame, ed., Lincoln’s Journalist: John Hay’s Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860–1864 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998), 11.

  154. J. N. Gridley, “Lincoln’s Defense of Duff Armstrong: The Story of the Trial and the Celebrated Almanac” (pamphlet; Illinois State Historical Society, 1910), 21.

  155. Tarbell, Lincoln, 1:272.

  156. Milton Logan, interviewed in a dispatch datelined Boone, Iowa, 5 Sept. [1905], unidentified clipping, LMF.

  157. John T. Brady in Gridley, “Lincoln’s Defense of Duff Armstrong,” 19.

  158. Allen T. Lucas to Albert J. Beveridge, Chandlerville, Illinois, 2 Oct. 1925, Beveridge Papers, DLC.

  159. Document #20690, jury instructions, People vs. Armstrong, case file #00800, LPAL.

  160. Brady in Gridley, “Lincoln’s Defense of Duff Armstrong,” 20.

  161. Milton Logan, interviewed in a dispatch datelined Boone, Iowa, 5 Sept. [1905], unidentified clipping, LMF.

  162. Duff Armstrong, interviewed by J. McCan Davis, Los Angeles Times, 7 June 1896.

  163. “Thrilling Episode in the Life of ‘Abe Lincoln,’ ” Cleveland Leader, n.d., copied in the Independent Democrat (Concord, NH), 7 June 1860.

  164. Brady in Gridley, “Lincoln’s Defense of Duff Armstrong,” 20.

  165. J. Henry Shaw to Herndon, Beardstown, 22 Aug. and 5 Sept. 1866, HI, 316, 333; J. Henry Shaw in Gridley, “Lincoln’s Defense of Duff Armstrong,” 20.

  166. William Walker to Herndon, Havana, 3 June 1865, HI, 22–23.

  167. James Harriott, undated interview with Herndon, HI, 704.

  168. Brady in Gridley, “Lincoln’s Defense of Duff Armstrong,” 19.

  169. Hannah Armstrong, interview with Herndon, [1866], HI, 526.

  170. “Interesting Story of Lincoln’s Defense of Duff Armstrong,” based on reminiscences of Duff’s brother A. P. Armstrong, Daily Illinoisan-Star (Beardstown), 12 Feb. 1916.

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

  172. Hill, Lincoln the Lawyer, 186–187.

  173. “Joe Blackburn and Mr. Lincoln,” undated clipping from the Chicago News, LMF.

  174. “A Helping Hand,” unidentified clipping, LMF.

  175. Lawrence Weldon, “Reminiscences of Lincoln as a Lawyer,” in William Hayes Ward, ed., Abraham Lincoln: Tributes from His Associates (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1895), 241.

  176. Jesse W. Weik, “A Law Student’s Recollection of Abraham Lincoln,” The Outlook (1911), 312–313.

  177. Gibson William Harris, “My Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,” Woman’s Home Companion, Dec. 1903, p. 15.

  178. R. R. Hitt, Journal, 274, Hitt Papers, DLC. The date for this entry is unclear, but probably sometime between Nov. 1860 and Feb. 1861.

  179. Joseph Medill to Lincoln, Washington, 18 Dec. 1860, AL MSS DLC.

  180. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 177.

  181. Declaration in Regnier vs. Cabot and Taylor, LPAL, case file #00158; Samuel C. Parks to Herndon, Lincoln, Illinois, 25 Mar. 1866, HI, 239.

  182. Scott, “Lincoln on the Stump and at the Bar.”

  183. Whitney to Herndon, Chicago, 27 Aug. 1887, HI, 630.

  184. Reminiscences of Adlai E. Stevenson, in Hill, Lincoln the Lawyer, 219.

  185. Pacific Commercial Advertiser, n.d., copied in the New York Sun, 29 May 1908.

  186. Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon’s Lincoln, 213; David Davis, interview with Herndon, 20 Sept. 1866, HI, 350.

  187. Herndon to Weik, Springfield, 12 Nov. 1885, H-W MSS DLC.

  188. Lincoln’s amended bill in Todd vs. Ware, case file #5877, LPAL.

  189. Herndon, “Analysis of the Character of Abraham Lincoln,” 432–433.

  190. Thomas Wesley Shastid, paraphrased in Thomas Hall Shastid, My Second Life: An Autobiography (Ann Arbor, MI: George Wahr, 1944), 62n.

  191. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 176.

  192. Henry McHenry to Herndon, Petersburg, Illinois, 29 May 1865, HI, 15.

  193. George M. Angell’s reminiscences, in an undated clipping marked “originally in the Crickfield Bros. Papers,” reminiscence files, folder 7, Abraham Lincoln Association files, IHi.

  194. Reminiscences of a juror, George Minier, 1882, in Osborn H. Oldroyd, ed., Lincoln Memorial: Album-Immortelles (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1883), 188–189; Arnold, Lincoln, 85-87.

  195. Lecture by Swett, delivered in Chicago, 20 Feb. 1876, Chicago Times, 21 Feb. 1876.

  196. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 179.

  197. Undated memo by J. S. S., William E. Barton Papers, University of Chicago.

  198. Reminiscences of Lawrence Weldon, in Hill, Lincoln the Lawyer, 215.

  199. Kidd, “Town Crier,” Ida Tarbell Papers, Allegheny College.

  200. Lincoln told this story sometime during the Civil War, probably in 1863. Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ett
linger, eds., Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997), 77 (entry for [July–August 1863]).

  201. Reminiscences of Henry Rickel, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Evening Gazette, 6 Feb. 1909.

  202. Newton Bateman, Abraham Lincoln: An Address (Galesburg, IL: Cadmus Club, 1899), 11–13.

  203. Reminiscences of Hon. J. G. Gest, Xenia, Ohio, Torchlight, n.d., copied in the New York Times, 27 Feb. 1888.

  204. Stringer, “From the Sangamon to the Potomac,” 129.

  205. Joseph Gillespie to Herndon, Edwardsville, 31 Jan. 1866, HI, 187.

  206. Lawrence Weldon in Hill, Lincoln the Lawyer, 190.

  207. Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon’s Lincoln, 216; William H. Somers to James R. B. Van Cleve, 7 Dec. 1908, in Pratt, “Judge Lincoln,” 36; King, Davis, 95–97.

  208. Herndon, “Lincoln the Lawyer,” in Emanuel Hertz, ed., The Hidden Lincoln: From the Letters and Papers of William H. Herndon (New York: Viking, 1938), 428.

  209. Allen B. Clough to Andrew Clough, Tolono, Illinois, 21 Aug. 1860, Clough Papers, ICHi.

  210. Elliott B. Herndon, statement for William H. Herndon, [1865–1866], HI, 459–460.

  211. Chicago Journal, 12 Feb. 1909.

  212. Lawrence Weldon in Rice, ed., Reminiscences of Lincoln, 200.

  213. Gibson William Harris, “My Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,” Woman’s Home Companion, Dec. 1903, p. 15.

  214. Herndon to Weik, Springfield, 18 Feb. 1887, H-W MSS DLC.

  215. Gibson William Harris, “My Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,” Woman’s Home Companion, Jan. 1904, p. 13.

  216. Whitney to Herndon, n.p., 23 June 1887, HI, 616.

  217. Mason Brayman quoted in an undated memorandum by his daughter, Mrs. Mary Brayman Gowdy, Ida Tarbell Papers, Allegheny College.

  218. Wilson and Davis eds., Herndon’s Lincoln, 210; Herndon to Weik, Chicago, 9 Dec. 1886, H-W MSS DLC.

  219. CWL, 8:424.

  220. Lincoln to Richard S. Thomas, Springfield, 27 June 1850, CWL, 2:80.

  221. Lincoln to Alexander, n. p., [13 June 1854], CWL, 2:218–219.

  222. Affidavit dated 9 Feb. 1846, in John P. Frank, Lincoln as a Lawyer (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961), 18.

  223. Quoted in Nelson G. Edwards to William E. Barton, Lexington, Virginia, 15 Jan. 1927, Barton Papers, University of Chicago.