By permission of the Strowbridge Lithographing Co.
MAPS vol. I
PAGE
map showing localities connected with early events in
the lincoln family— 20
map of new salem, ill., and vicinity 80
map of the boundaries of texas256
historical map of the united states in 1854 354
TABLE OF CONTENTS
vol. I chapter I. lineage
The Lincolns in America. Intimacy with the Boones.
Kentucky in 1780. Death of Abraham Lincoln the
Pioneer. Marriage of Thomas Lincoln. Birth and
Childhood of Abraham. 1
chaptee II. indiana
Thomas Lincoln leaves Kentucky. Settles at Gentry-
ville. Death of Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Sarah Bush
Johnston. Pioneer Life in Indiana. Sports and
Superstitions of the Early Settlers. The Youth of
Abraham. His Great Physical Strength. His "Voyage
to New Orleans. Removal to Illinois28
chapter III. illinois in 1830
The Winter of the Deep Snow. The Sudden Change.
Pioneer Life. Religion and Society. French and
Indians. Formation of the Political System. The
Courts. Lawyers and Politicians. Early Super
annuation47
chapter IV. new salem
Denton Offutt. Lincoln's Second Trip to New Orleans. His Care of His Family. Death of Thomas Lincoln. Offutt's Store in New Salem. Lincoln's Initiation by the " Clary's Grove Boys." The Voyage of the
Talisman .70
xix
XXTABLE OF CONTENTS
chaptee Y. lincoln in the black hawk wae
Black Hawk. The Call for Volunteers. Lincoln
Elected Captain. Stillman's Run. Lincoln Reenlists.
The Spy Battalion. Black Hawk's Defeat. Disband-
ment of the Volunteers87
chaptee VI. sueveyoe and repeesentative
Lincoln's Candidacy for the Legislature. Runs as a
Whig. Defeated. Berry and Lincoln Merchants.
Lincoln Begins the Study of Law. Postmaster.
Surveyor. His Popularity. Elected to the Legis
lature, 1834101
chaptee VII. legislative expeeience
Lincoln's First Session in the Legislature. Douglas
and Peek. Lincoln Reflected. Bedlam Legislation.
Schemes of Railroad Building. Removal of the Capi
tal to Springfield123
chaptee VIII. the lincoln-stone peotest
The Pro-Slavery Sentiment in Illinois. Attempt to Open the State to Slavery. Victory of the Free-State Party. Reaction. Death of Lovejoy. Pro-Slavery Resolutions. The Protest ....... 140
chaptee IX. , collapse of "the system"
Lincoln in Springfield. The Failure of the Railroad
System. Fall of the Banks. First Collision with
Douglas. Tampering with the Judiciary153
chaptee X. eaely law peactice
Early Legal Customs. Lincoln's Popularity in Law
and Politics. A Speech in 1840. The Harrison
Campaign. Correspondence with Stuart. Harrison
Elected. Melancholia167
chaptee XI. maeeiage
Courtship and Engagement, The Pioneer Tempera
ment. Lincoln's Love Affairs. Joshua F. Speed.
Lincoln's Visit to Kentucky. Correspondence with
Speed. Marriage186
TABLE OF CONTENTSxxi
chapter XII. the shields duel
A Political Satire. James Shields. Lincoln Chal
lenged. A Fight Arranged and Prevented. Subse
quent Wranglings. The Whole Matter Forgotten.
An Admonition203
chapter XIII. the campaign of 1844
Partnership with Stephen T. Logan. Lincoln Becomes
a Lawyer. Temperance Movement. Baker and Lin
coln Candidates for the Whig Nomination to Congress.
Baker Successful. Clay Nominated for President.
The Texas Question. Clay Defeated213
chapter XIV. lincoln's campaign for congress
Schemes of Annexation. Opposition at the North.
Outbreak of War. Lincoln Nominated for Congress.
His Opponent Peter Cartwright. Lincoln Elected.
The Whigs in the War. E. D. Baker in Washington
and Mexico237
chapter XV. the thirtieth congress
Robert C. Winthrop Chosen Speaker. Debates on the
War. Advantage of the Whigs. Acquisition of Terri
tory. The Wilmot Proviso. Lincoln's Resolutions.
Nomination of Taylor for President. Cass the Demo
cratic Candidate. Lincoln's Speech, July 27, 1848.
Taylor Elected258
chapter XVI. A fortunate escape
Independent Action of Northern Democrats. Lin
coln's Plan for Emancipation in the District of Co
lumbia. His Bill Fails to Receive Consideration. A
Similar Bill Signed by Him Fifteen Years Later.
Logan Nominated for Congress and Defeated. Lin
coln an Applicant for Office. The Fascination of
Washington283
chapter XVII. the circuit lawyer
The Growth and Change of Legal Habits. Lincoln on the Circuit. His Power and Value as a Lawyer.
xxiiTABLE OF CONTENTS
Opinion of David Davis. Of Judge Drummond. In
cidents of the Courts. Lincoln's "Wit and Eloquence.
His Life at Home298
chapter XVIII. the balance of poweb
Origin of the Slavery Struggle. The Ordinance of
1787. The Compromises of the Constitution. The
Missouri Compromise. Cotton and the Cotton-Gin.
The Race between Free and Slave States. The Admis
sion of Texas. The Wilmot Proviso. New Mexico
and California. The Compromise Measures of 1850.
Finality310
Stephen A. Douglas. Old Fogies and Young America.
The Nomination of Pierce. The California Gold Dis
covery. The National Platforms on the Slavery Issue.
Organization of Western Territories. The Three Ne
braska Bills. The Caucus Agreement of the Senate
Committee. Dixon's Repealing Amendment. Douglas
Adopts Dixon's Proposition. Passage of the Kansas-
Nebraska Act330
chapter XX. the drift of politics
The Storm of Agitation. The Free Soil Party. The American Party. The Anti-Nebraska Party. Dissolution of the Whig Party. The Congressional Elections. Democratic Defeat. Banks Elected Speaker .... 352
chapter XXI. lincoln and trumbull
The Nebraska Question in Illinois. Douglas's Chicago Speech. Lincoln Reappears in Politics. Political Speeches at the State Fair. A Debate between Lincoln and Douglas. Lincoln's Peoria Speech. An Anti-Nebraska Legislature Elected. Lincoln's Candidacy for the Senate. Shields and Matteson. Trumbull Elected Senator. Lincoln's Letter to Robertson. . . 365
chapter XXII. the border ruffians
The Opening of Kansas Territory. Andrew H, Reeder Appointed Governor. Atchison's Propaganda. The
TABLE OF CONTENTSxxiii
Missouri Blue Lodges. The Emigrant Aid Company.
The Town of Lawrence Founded. Governor Reeder's
Independent Action. The First Border Ruffian In
vasion. The Election of Whitfield393
chapter XXIII. the bogus laws
Governor Reeder's Census. The Second Border Ruffian Invasion. Missouri Voters Elect the Kansas Legislature. Westport and Shawnee Mission. The Governor Convenes the Legislature at Pawnee. The Legislature Returns to Shawnee Mission. Governor Reeder's Vetoes. The Governor's Removal. Enactment of the Bogus Laws. Despotic Statutes. Lecompton Founded 408
chapter XXIV. the topeka constitution
The Bogus Legislature Defines Kansas Politics. The
Big Springs Convention. Ex-Governor Reeder's Res
olutions. Formation of the Free-State Party. A
Constitutional Convention at Topeka. The Topeka
Constitution. President Pierce Proclaims the Topeka
Movement Revolutionary. Refusal to Recognize the
Bogus Laws. Chief-Justice Lecompte's Doctrine of
Constructive Treason, Arrests and Indictment of the
Free-State Leaders. Colonel Sumner Disperses the
Topeka Legislature425
chapter XXY. civil war in kansas
Wilson Shannon Appointed Governor. The Law and
Order Party Formed at Leavenworth. Sheriff Jones.
The Branson Rescue. The Wakarusa War. Sharps
Rifles. Governor Shannon's Treaty. Guerrilla Leaders
and Civil War. The Investigating Committee of Con
gress. The Flight of Ex-Governor Reeder. The
Border Ruffians March on Lawrence. Burning of the
Free-State Hotel438
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
CHAPTER I
LINEAGE
I
N the year 1780, Abraham Lincoln, a member of chap. i. a respectable and well-to-do family in Rocking- rrao. ham County, Virginia, started westward to establish himself in the newly-explored country of Kentucky. He entered several large tracts of fertile land, and returning to Virginia disposed of his property there, and with his wife and five children went back to Kentucky and settled in Jefferson County. Little is known of this pioneer Lincoln or of his father. Most of the records belonging to that branch of the family were destroyed in the civil war. Their early orphanage, the wild and illiterate life they led on the frontier, severed their connection with their kindred in the East. This , often happened; there are hundreds of families in the West bearing historic names and probably descended from well-known houses in the older States or in England, which, by passing through one or two generations of ancestors who could not read or write, have lost their continuity with the past as effectually as if a deluge had intervened vol. I—1
ABEAHAM LINCOLN
chap. i. between the last century and this. Even the patronymic has been frequently distorted beyond recognition by slovenly pronunciation during the years when letters were a lost art, and by the phonetic spelling of the first boy in the family who learned the use of the pen. There are Lincolns in Kentucky and Tennessee belonging to the same stock with the President, whose names are spelled " Link-horn" and "Linkhern." All that was known of the emigrant, Abraham Lincoln, by his immediate descendants was that his progenitors, who were Quakers, came from Berks County, Pennsylvania, into Virginia, and there throve and prospered.1 But we now know, with sufficient clearness, through the wide-spread and searching luster which surrounds the name, the history of the migrations of the family since its arrival on this continent, and the circumstances under which the Virginia pioneer started for Kentucky.
less.The first ancestor of the line of whom we have
knowledge was Samuel Lincoln, of Norwich, England, who came to Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638, and died there. He left a son, Mordecai, whose son, of the same name,—and it is a name which persists in every branch of the family,2—removed to Mon-mouth, New Jersey, and thence to Amity township,
1 We desire to express our obli- arisen in the attempt to trace
\ gations to Edwin Salter, Samuel their genealogy. For instance,
Samuel W. Pennypacker, How- County, son of one Mordecai and
ard M. Jenkins, and John T. brother of another, the President's
Harris, Jr., for information andancestors, left a fair estate, by
suggestions which have been ofwill, to his children, whose names
use to us in this chapter. were John, Abraham, Isaac,
2 The Lincolns, in naming their Jacob, Mordecai, Rebecca, and
children, followed so strict a tra-Sarah—precisely the same names
dition that great confusion haswe find in three collateral families,
LINEAGE
now a part of Berks County, Pennsylvania, where chap, i. he died in 1735, fifty years old. From a copy of his will, recorded in the office of the Register in Philadelphia, we gather that he was a man of considerable property. In the inventory of his effects, made after his death, he is styled by the appraisers, " Mordecai Lincoln, Gentleman." His son John received by his father's will " a certain piece of land lying in the Jerseys, containing three hundred acres," the other sons and daughters having been liberally provided for from the Pennsylvania property. This John Lincoln left New Jersey some years later, and about 1750 established himself in Rpckingham County, 1750. Virginia. He had five sons, to whom he gave the names which were traditional in the family: Abraham,—the pioneer first mentioned,—Isaac, Jacob, Thomas, and John. Jacob and John remained in Virginia; the former was a soldier in the War of the Revolution, and took part as lieutenant in a Virginia regiment at the siege of Yorktown. Isaac went to a place on the Holston River in Tennessee; Thomas followed his brother to Kentucky, lived and died there, and his children then emigrated to Tennessee.1 "With the one memorable exception the family seem to have been modest, thrifty, unambitious people. Even the great fame and conspicu-ousness of the President did not tempt them out of their retirement. Robert Lincoln, of Hancock County, Illinois, a cousin-german, became a captain and commissary of volunteers; none of the others,
i It is an interesting eoinci-tiye of the President, performed,
denee, for the knowledge of whichon the 17th of May, 1837, the
we are indebted to Colonel Johnmarriage ceremony of Andrew
B. Brownlow, that a ministerJohnson, Mr. Lincoln's succes-
named Mordecai Lincoln, a rela-sor in the Presidency.
ABKAHAM LINCOLN chap. I.
so far as we know, ever made their existence known to their powerful kinsman during the years of his glory.1
It was many years after the death of the President that his son learned the probable circumstances under which the pioneer Lincoln removed to the West, and the intimate relations which subsisted between his family and the most celebrated man in early Western annals. There is little doubt that it was on account of his association with the, famous Daniel Boone that Abraham Lincoln went to Kentucky. The families had for a century been closely allied. There were frequent intermarriages2 among them—both being of Quaker lineage. By the will of Mordecai Lincoln, to which reference has been made, his " loving friend and neighbor "
1 Soon after Mr. Lincoln arrived in Washington in 1861, lie received the following letter from one of his Virginia kinsmen, the last communication which ever came from them. It was written on paper adorned with a portrait of Jefferson Davis, and was inclosed in an envelope emblazoned with the Confederate flag : "To abraham lincoln, Esq., President of the Northern Confederacy.
" sir : Having just returned from a trip through Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, permit me to inform you that you will get whipped out of your boots. To-day I met a gentleman from Anna, Illinois, and although he voted for you he says that the moment your troops leave Cairo they will get the spots knocked out of them. My dear sir, these are facts which time will prove to be correct.
"I am, sir, with every consideration, yours respectfully,
"minor lincoln, "Of the Staunton stock of Lin-coins."
There was a young Abraham Lincoln on the Confederate side in the Shenandoah distinguished for Ms courage and ferocity. He lay in wait and shot a Dunkard preacher, whom he suspected of furnishing information to the Union army. (Letter from Samuel W. Pennypacker.)
2 A letter from David J. Lincoln, of Birdsboro, Berks County, Pennsylvania, to the writers, says, "My grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, was married to Anna Boone, a first cousin of Daniel Boone, July 10, 1760." He was half-brother of John Lincoln, and afterwards became a man of some prominence in Pennsylvania, serving in the Constitutional Convention in 1789-90.
LINEAG-E
G-eorge Boone was made a trustee to assist Ms chap. i. widow in the care of the property. Squire Boone, the father of Daniel, was one of the appraisers who made the inventory of Mordecai Lincoln's estate. The intercourse between the families was kept up after the Boones had removed to North Carolina and John Lincoln had gone to Virginia. Abraham Lincoln, son of John, and grandfather of the President, was married to Miss Mary Shipleylin North Carolina. The inducement which led him to leave Virginia, where his standing and his fortune were assured, was, in all probability, his intimate family relations with the great explorer, the hero of the new country of Kentucky, the land of fabulous richness and unlimited adventure. At a time when the Eastern States were ringing with the fame of the mighty hunter who was then in the prime of his manhood, and in the midst of those achievements which will forever render him one of the 1 In giving to the wife of the pioneer Lincoln the name of Mary Shipley we follow the tradition in Ms family. The Hon. J. L. Nail, of Missouri, grandson of Nancy (Lincoln) Brumfield, Abraham Lincoln's youngest child, has given us so clear a statement of the ease that we cannot hesitate to accept it, although it conflicts with equally positive statements from other sources. The late Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, who gave much intelligent effort to genealogical researches, was convinced that the Abraham Lincoln who married Miss Hannah Winters, a daughter of Ann Boone, sister of the famous Daniel, was the President's grandfather, Waddell's "Annals of
Augusta County" says he married Elizabeth Winter, a cousin of Daniel Boone. The Boone and Lincoln families were large and there were frequent intermarriages among them, and the patriarchal name of Abraham was a favorite one. There was still another Lincoln, Hannaniah by name, who was also intimately associated with the Boones. His signature appears on the surveyor's certificate for Abraham Lincoln's land in Jefferson County, and he joined Daniel Boone in 1798 in the purchase of the tract of land on the Missouri River where Boone died. (Letter from Bich-ard V. B. Lincoln, printed in the "Williamsport [Pa.] Banner," Feb, 25, 1881.)