“A STOPPED INDEFINITELY, and, for the first time, as it were, by himself at New Salem.” Lincoln would spend only six of his fifty-six years in New Salem, from 1831 to 1837, but he decided to devote nearly one-fourth of his campaign autobiographical statement of 1860 to this time period. He understood he was entering into critical years of development and change.
Lincoln, at age twenty-two, hoped he might find in New Salem a place to begin a new life. Even as he piloted his boat on the Sangamon, in coming to New Salem he intended to cast off some cargo of his former life and separate himself from his father. As he walked to New Salem, he also walked away from his forebears’ vocation of farming.
THE TWO WORDS—“New Salem”—rang with impressive promise. Two Southerners, James Rutledge and John Cameron, had founded the village in 1829 on a cliff on the bank of the Sangamon River twenty miles northwest of Springfield. Rutledge and Cameron wanted to build a mill and were looking for a river site with a powerful and steady flow of water.
Settlement in Illinois developed from south to north. When New Salem was founded, few villages of any size had been settled farther north. Peoria, Dixon’s Ferry on the Rock River, and Galena were tiny dots in the midst of the endless prairie. Villages in Illinois were established alongside rivers and lakes with easy access to water and timber. In 1831, the new settlement of Chicago, at the mouth of the Chicago River on Lake Michigan, had a population of sixty.
Like other settlers, Lincoln found the prairies a beautiful but beguiling experience. In the early years of the nineteenth century, no one dreamed one could cultivate them. Beneath what the first farmers called the “sea of grass” lay rich, naturally fertile soil, but the prairie grasses were tethered together for several feet below the surface. More than one pioneer, when first using a simple hoe, felt as if he had hit solid rock in trying to break through the surface.
The residents of New Salem hoped their settlement would become a flourishing river town. By the middle of the decade, New Salem would boast some twenty-five families and perhaps one hundred people.
Road travel in central Illinois was undependable. Travelers had to make their way through mud and mire, and routes were often changed. River travel was much more reliable. In the 1830s, the Sangamon River boasted a larger quantity of water than it does today. The Sangamon flowed into the Illinois at Beardstown, which joined the Mississippi River at Grafton. Rutledge and Cameron, soon to be joined by Lincoln, exuded optimism that light-draft steamboats could navigate the Sangamon.
New Salem had no church, but that did not mean there was an absence of religion. Baptists met in the schoolhouse. Presbyterians and Methodists met in homes. Charles James Fox Clarke, a young man from New England writing home to his mother, took note of the comings of camp meetings in the summers. “Camp meetings are all the rage here now, there is one every week for two months.” Methodist evangelist Peter Cartwright conducted several revival meetings in New Salem. While the emotional intensity of the revivals warmed the hearts of many, Lincoln was not among them. The anti-intellectualism and emotionalism of the revivals turned some residents away, while inspiring a search in others for a more rational faith.
ON AUGUST 1, 1831, LINCOLN participated in his first election. He voted at the polling station at John Cameron’s house by announcing out loud—no secret ballot here—his choices for Congress, magistrate, and constable to the clerks who sat behind a table. They recorded Lincoln’s votes on tally sheets.
At the end of August, Offutt’s goods and merchandise arrived from Beardstown. Lincoln helped Offutt unbox them, and the store opened around September 1 in a small log building near the edge of the bluff above the mill. Lincoln and Offutt stocked the shelves with dry goods, seeds, tools, saddles, and guns, as well as sugar, salt, coffee, eggs, and vegetables. Barrels of liquor lined one wall.
Lincoln worked as a clerk in Offutt’s store for a salary of fifteen dollars a month. Offutt hired Bill Greene to assist Lincoln, and the two men slept among the crates and barrels in the back storeroom. Greene recalled that the two “slept on the same cott & when one turned over the other had to do likewise.”
Bill Greene worked with Lincoln in Denton Offutt’s store in New Salem and served in the volunteer militia that elected Lincoln captain during the Black Hawk War
OFFUTT GAINED A reputation as a braggart, usually about himself and what he could do, but soon he began to brag about his new clerk, Lincoln. He boasted that Lincoln could run faster and jump farther than anyone in the county, and could beat anyone at wrestling. Young frontiersmen liked to participate in a variety of folk games. Offutt’s bragging got the twenty-two-year-old Lincoln into a contest he didn’t choose.
Jack Armstrong, a strong, muscular man, led a local gang called the Clary’s Grove Boys, who took their name from a small village of that name less than three miles from New Salem. In a time when men settled their arguments with their fists, the Clary’s Grove Boys were the bullies of the neighborhood. They gained their supremacy by fighting, especially wrestling.
Armstrong was known as the champion wrestler in the area. Not many men were willing to challenge him. Offutt offered up Lincoln as a newcomer who would be more than up to the task. Armstrong and his friends had nothing against Lincoln, but they kept hearing the claims about this new fellow in town.
Wrestling ran in the Lincoln family. His uncle Mord reputedly had a talent for it, and Lincoln had done a fair amount of wrestling growing up in Indiana. His long legs and arms had always given him a great advantage over his opponents.
In the fall of 1831, Armstrong and Lincoln met for a match. Five years older than Lincoln, but ten inches shorter, Armstrong had a reputation for using trickery to win his matches. The accounts of the match vary, offered long after it took place. The two men did not, as the legend has suggested, circle each other with arms free, looking for an opening to dart in and throw the opponent. Rather, they began with prescribed holds, agreed upon in advance, in which strength, leverage, and agility were the primary assets. This custom, passed down from Northern England, favored Lincoln, with his greater height and therefore leverage. Lincoln and Armstrong pushed and pulled until—and here many witnesses are in agreement—Armstrong, in frustration, broke his hold or lost his contact with Lincoln. Under the loose rules of wrestling on the frontier, Lincoln at this point might have been declared the winner, but instead he and Armstrong shook hands and agreed to call the wrestling match a draw.
Lincoln won something more important than a wrestling match that day. He proved his strength and his courage to himself and his new community by fighting the acknowledged champion of the area. After this, the newcomer became accepted in the young male culture of the region.
EARLY ON LINCOLN slept where he worked—in Denton Offutt’s store. Later, he followed the practice of nearly all single men of his day: He boarded with various families, staying weeks or even months at a time, earning his keep by doing chores around the house. Farmer James Short recalled, “Frequently when Mr. L was at my house he would help me gather corn.” When Lincoln lived with the Bennett and Elizabeth Abell family, she did his washing and he did odd jobs in exchange for a bed.
Lincoln wore characteristic clothing of the day. Jack’s wife, Hannah Armstrong, remembered, “I foxed his pants,” or made them with a leather lining, and “made his shirts.” Lincoln wore a “blue round about coat,” a snug jacket preferred by young men, and blue cassinette pantaloons as trousers, which were a combination of cotton and wool. He wore Conestoga shoes, a rough boot. What singled the tall Lincoln out, commented on by many in New Salem, was the persistent gap between the bottom of his pantaloons and the top of his shoes.
IN THE WINTER OF 1832, navigability of the Sangamon River was tested. Excitement grew when Lincoln and the other citizens of New Salem learned that the Talisman, a small steamer, had left Cincinnati on a journey to demonstrate that the Sangamon could be used for commercial boat traffic.
Vincent A. Bogue, a businessman, wanted to build a sawmil
l on the Sangamon River at a place called Portland’s Landing. His goal was to service the Sangamon River valley, connecting the people and their produce with the outside world. “I am well aware that the undertaking is dangerous, difficult, and expensive; still I am willing to risk my all upon it,” Bogue wrote. He stipulated that the boat should be “under the direction of some experienced man,” one who had “descended the river with flat-boats.” Lincoln met this qualification and volunteered for the task.
Bogue brought the Talisman safely to the confluence of the Illinois and Sangamon rivers at Beardstown on March 9, but the mouth of the Sangamon was jammed with winter ice. Lincoln joined the boat crew in working for four days to make a channel through the ice. The “experienced man,” Lincoln helped pilot the Talisman as it set off on its triumphant voyage. Men and boys, on foot or horseback, cheered as the boat made its way up the river. The boat passed New Salem and docked at Bogue ’s mill. Lincoln attended a grand ball in Springfield’s new court house to celebrate the great event. The Sangamo Journal exclaimed, “Springfield can no longer be considered an inland town.” Lincoln received forty dollars for his services.
IN 1832, LINCOLN, twenty-three, made his first move into politics. Lincoln’s friends, including Bowling Green, the jovial justice of the peace, and James Rutledge, the founder of a debating society, encouraged him to become a candidate for the state legislature. They admired Lincoln, but they also needed a representative in the legislature who could advance their interests, especially their desire to encourage commercial boat traffic on the Sangamon River. After less than one year in New Salem, Lincoln announced his first candidacy in the Sangamo Journal on March 15.
FELLOW-CITIZENS: Having become a candidate for the honorable office of one of your representatives in the next General Assembly of this state, in accordance with an established custom, and the principles of true republicanism, it becomes my duty to make known to you—the people whom I propose to represent—my sentiments with regard to local affairs.
Lincoln directed the bulk of his 1,800-word announcement to a discussion of internal improvements—measures to improve roads, rivers, and canals. He positioned himself as the person most trustworthy on the subject: “It is probable that for the last twelve months I have given as particular attention to the stage of the water in this river, as any other person in the country.” On many a day, people from the village had seen Lincoln out in the river measuring the depth of the water in different places and making notes about the river’s features. His recent association with the successful voyage of the Talisman boosted his reputation.
After briefly discussing the subject of education, Lincoln turned to his conclusion.
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition, is yet to be developed. I am young and unknown to many of you. I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or popular relations to recommend. My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of this county, and if elected they will have conferred a favor upon me, for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate. But if the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.
The final paragraph is remarkable for what it discloses about the young Lincoln. In appealing for the sympathy of the community, he underscores his own “ambition”—using the word twice—but modifies this aspiration by suggesting that every man has ambition. Lincoln did not see himself as alone in his desire; he evoked a motivation growing among the young men of his generation, who sought to shape their own lives as over against the well-worn paths of their fathers’ lives in the first decades of a new nation. Lincoln shifted the balance and tone of his final words by turning that ambition into a desire “of being truly esteemed of my fellow men.” Behind these words is Lincoln’s awareness that ambition can lead to selfish egotism in politics. His unvoiced question was: How can I be esteemed? His answer: “by rendering myself worthy.”
ON APRIL 19, 1832, a lone rider galloped into New Salem with startling news. Lincoln and other villagers gathered around to hear that Sauk and Fox Indians had left their settlements in Iowa, crossed the Mississippi River, and advanced up the east bank. They were now moving up the Rock River across the northwest corner of Illinois. No one knew their intentions, but some said they wanted to return to their former lands in northern Illinois. Lincoln’s initial foray into politics was about to be suspended by a military emergency.
The movements of the Indians caused a panic among the white residents in Illinois. Illinois governor John Reynolds heightened the alarm by calling their actions an “invasion,” even though the nearly four hundred warriors were accompanied by three times that many women and children.
Black Hawk, their leader, was an old man, born in 1767. He and his followers were bitter about giving up their homes in a disputed treaty negotiated in 1804. The recent surge of white settlers into Illinois precipitated sporadic hostilities between the settlers and Indians defending their lands.
Reynolds called for recruits to repulse the “invasion.” Lincoln promptly volunteered and was sworn into service on April 21. In the military, units elect their own officers. Some of the Clary’s Grove Boys put forward Lincoln’s name. Bill Kirkpatrick, who owned a sawmill, declared his candidacy. Each of the men was asked to step forward on the village green. The volunteers then formed a line behind the candidate they wanted for captain. Two-thirds of the men fell in behind Lincoln. The rest quickly abandoned Kirkpatrick, making Lincoln the unani mous choice. Lincoln later described his experience: “to his own surprise, was elected captain of it.”
The Black Hawk War, precipitated by the movement of Chief Black Hawk and his warriors across the Mississippi back into Illinois in 1832, was the first affirmation of Lincoln’s leadership.
On April 28, Captain Lincoln oversaw the enrollment of his company in the state militia. Jack Armstrong, Lincoln’s former wrestling opponent, served as his first sergeant. The next day Lincoln and his men began their march north from Beardstown along an old Indian track near the Mississippi River. Lincoln did not have an easy task instilling discipline in the group of volunteers.
On one occasion, an old Indian named Jack appeared in Lincoln’s camp. He showed a paper signed by General Lewis Cass stating he was “a good and true man,” but some of the men wanted to kill him. One said, “We have come out to fight the Indians and by God we intend to do so.” As tempers flared and rifles rose, Lincoln stepped between Jack and his men. Another man spoke sternly to Lincoln. “This is cowardly on your part, Lincoln.” Lincoln replied that if “any man thinks I am a coward let him test it.” His words silenced the men in his company and saved Jack’s life.
On May 15, just before sunset, Lincoln and his men encountered the deadly results of a battle from the previous day: eleven soldiers’ bodies scalped and mutilated. His company helped bury the dead soldiers.
When Lincoln’s enlistment expired, he signed up for another twenty days, this time as a private. On June 16, 1832, Lincoln’s company was discharged by Lieutenant Robert Anderson, but he enlisted once again. Finally, on July 10, he received his discharge.
Lincoln earned the title of “captain,” but he never used it, even though most of the men who served in the Black Hawk War hung on to their titles with pride for the remainder of their lives. Lincoln never participated in combat but expressed his feelings about his military experiences in his 1860 autobiographical statement. “He says he has not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction.”
Lincoln had lived in New Salem only nine months when the Black Hawk War intruded into his life. His election as captain represented how quickly he had won the loyalty and affection of his neighbors. He received $125 for his military
service. As he walked back to New Salem, he pondered what he should do with this substantial sum.
LINCOLN RETURNED TO New Salem in late July, just two weeks before the election. He began campaigning in earnest. As he began to speak on the campaign trail in Pappsville, a fight erupted in the crowd. Seeing that several men were attacking his friend Rowan Herndon, Lincoln left the platform, pushed through the crowd, picked up the main assailant by the seat of his pants, and threw him six feet. The fighting over, Lincoln resumed his place, and gave one of his shortest political speeches.
Fellow Citizens, I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of a national bank. I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protection tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected I shall be thankful; if not it will be all the same.
Lincoln won the day in deeds as much as words.
The election for state offices took place on August 6, 1832. Sangamon County was allotted four representatives in the lower house of the state legislature. Lincoln came in eighth in a field of thirteen candidates with 657 votes. He was not too disheartened, however, for in the precinct that included New Salem, he received 277 of the 300 votes.
He had discovered his appetite for politics. Lincoln knew his defeat was largely because he was unknown in the rest of the county, and he was determined to broaden the base of his political support.
LINCOLN LEFT FAMILY and farming behind when he migrated from Indiana, but he did not leave behind his love of learning. The distance that had developed between Abraham and his father was in part over Lincoln’s intellectual curiosity and love of reading and learning. Now, “by himself,” Lincoln became freer to read. Learning would take on fresh dimensions in the open space of New Salem.
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