ABRAHAM LINCOLN
FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE
• CLARA INGRAM JUDSON •
CONTENTS
1. FARM BOY
2. KENTUCKY SCHOOL
3. ACROSS THE WIDE OHIO
4. A NEW FAMILY
5. SQUIRE PATE AND THE LAW
6. ABE’S HORIZON WIDENS
7. RUTLEDGE DAM
8. THE CLARY GROVE BOYS
9. TWICE A CANDIDATE
10. YOUNG LAWMAKER
11. MR. LINCOLN OF SPRINGFIELD
12. CONGRESSMAN LINCOLN
13. RIDING THE CIRCUIT
14. DEBATES AND CONVENTIONS
15. PARADES AND FAREWELL
16. WASHINGTON IN 1861
17. THE MIDDLE WAR YEARS
18. “WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE”
19. APRIL 15, 1865
CAST OF CHARACTERS
TIMELINE
INDEX
• CHAPTER ONE •
FARM BOY
The pungent scent of newly plowed soil hung over the small field. On the hills dogwood and redbud blossoms glistened in the sunshine. Forest trees towered over hepaticas and spring beauties. Cardinals and indigo buntings darted about in the thick underbrush while overhead a hawk hovered, searching confidently. The Kentucky woods were full of game in this spring of 1813.
A man and a boy were walking across the field along a freshly turned furrow.
The Kentucky woods in the fall.
The man, Thomas Lincoln, was of medium height and stocky build; his buckskin breeches were tucked into worn boots and his homespun shirt was shabby. Strong hands were stained with the copper-colored soil and his hair was uncombed. A bulging sack hung from his left shoulder; he reached into it at regular intervals for kernels of corn which he dropped into the open furrow.
The boy had heavy black hair like his father’s. His only garment was a long shirt of linsey-woolsey that flapped against his skinny legs as he walked a little behind his father.
“Mind what yer doin’, Abe,” the man warned; “pumpkins are nice, but I don’ want too many vines a-crowdin’ out the corn. You keep a-watchin’ me an’ countin’ ‘one-two-three’ between yer plantin’.”
“One-two-three—I drapped one, Pappy,” the boy boasted. “I’ll not plant too many.”
“See that yer don’t,” Lincoln warned over his shoulder as they tramped on.
At the end of the furrow the man turned.
“We couldn’t a had a better day fer plantin’,” he remarked agreeably. Then he spied the hawk. “The woods air full of rabbits this spring, Abe. You’n me’s goin’ huntin’ soon as we git this field planted.”
“Kaint we go now?” Abe asked eagerly. His father had been working in the fields for several days and meals without fresh meat were monotonous.
“Not yet,” Lincoln told his son firmly. “An’ no use yer looking sour, Abe. You like corn pone, don’t ye?”
“I sure do!” Abe exclaimed, astonished at the question. His stomach under his flapping shirt had felt empty for an hour and the field was not half planted.
“The onlyest way we kin git corn fer meal is to plant it,” Lincoln said. “A four-year-old ought to know that. Now git to work.” They started planting again.
Thomas Lincoln spoke firmly, for he had to drive himself as well as Abe to do farm work. He much preferred making things. Thomas had had a dreary boyhood hiring out to any farmer who would take him. When he was grown, he chanced to come to Elizabethtown in central Kentucky. There he met the carpenter Joseph Hanks, who liked the youth and taught him the carpenter trade. In 1806 Thomas Lincoln married Joseph Hanks’s niece, Nancy Hanks, and the young couple went to housekeeping in Elizabethtown. Thomas had plenty of work because he was skillful at his trade, and their prospects seemed good.
But Lincoln found he did not like town life as well as he had expected. So after the Lincolns’ daughter Sarah was born, he suddenly bought a farm a few miles to the south, near Hodgen’s mill, and moved his family to the one-room cabin on the land. This place was known as the Sinking Spring farm because of a deep-set spring which bubbled up from under great rocks near the cabin. Here on the twelfth day of February in the year 1809 their son Abraham was born.
Sinking Spring farm was attractive to look at, but not a good place to live; the soil was poor, and the location was very lonely. So Thomas Lincoln decided to move again. His son was two years old before he found what he wanted—a good piece of land by Knob Creek on the main road between Nashville and Louisville. Nearly half of this rich land could be farmed.
Corn fields in the afternoon light.
The rest was spread over wooded hills that would furnish plenty of firewood, and along the side of one field there was a tiny creek that gave good water. This was the childhood home that Abraham Lincoln remembered and often mentioned.
When the Lincolns moved to Knob Creek farm they furnished the one-room cabin with the usual furniture of that day in Kentucky. There was a post-bed for the parents, made by setting a post into the dirt floor near a corner of the room and placing two long planks from this post to the log walls. Homespun twine laced from wall pegs to the longer board made a base on which was spread a mattress filled with dried cornhusks. The children slept on husk-filled mattresses laid on the floor. These were kept under the big bed in the daytime. Bedding was dressed skins of buffalo and foxes, home-woven blankets, and quilts. When they moved, the Lincolns could not take all their furniture with them. So in the evenings and on rainy days Thomas Lincoln made new furniture—a table, two splint-bottom chairs, benches, a corner cupboard, and a shelf over the fireplace for the clock. By planting time, two years later, the cabin seemed very comfortable. Lincoln planned to split logs for a puncheon floor and make a better door someday. Pioneers did not expect to have everything quickly.
The stone fireplace was the center of family life, and fire for cooking and for light was kept going all the year around. The woodpile was outside to the left of the door, handy in bad weather. Kitchen utensils hung conveniently at each side of the fireplace, and the spinning wheel and loom were nearby. Knives, pewter forks, and spoons and dishes were kept in the corner cupboard. Strings of dried pumpkin, apples, ears of corn, and herbs for seasoning hung from the ceiling. Mrs. Lincoln cooked meat in a pot that hung from a crane and could be swung over the fire; and she baked corn pones on a smooth plank on the hearth.
On this spring morning as Abe and his father finished planting, Abe ran to the cabin. He knew his mother would have food ready for him. As he came near he saw that blankets, dresses, and shirts were spread over bushes to dry in the hot sun, and he remembered that his mother and Sarah were doing a big washing. But she had baked, too. He could smell the fragrance of the toasting corn meal before he went inside.
“Hungry, Abe?” his mother asked him, teasingly. “Your pones air ready on the hearth. You kin eat now, too, Sarah,” she said to her daughter. “I reckon you’re both tired enough to sit.”
She watched them affectionately; her sallow face—long, like Abe’s—looked attractive when she smiled. Nancy Hanks Lincoln was slender and of medium height. Her dark brown hair was coiled in a knot, low on her head, and held in place by a comb carved from a steer’s horn. Her linsey-woolsey dress hung straight from her shoulders without hooks or buttons—pioneer women seldom had such luxuries. She waited till the children were settled on the woodpile; then she went into the cabin.
This woodpile was a fine place from which to watch for passing travelers. Sometimes as many as four or five went by in one day. They seemed to appear suddenly from around the hill, and watching for them was fun. Today the pones were almost eaten when Sarah nudged Abe excitedly.
“Look, Abe!” she whispered. “Look’t.”
Abe looked beyond her pointing finger as an elegantly dressed man on horseback came into full view from behind the hill. The traveler wore a tall hat of beaver fur, a smartly cut coat, short breeches, stockings, and shoes with big silver buckles.
“Mammy! Come!” Sarah called as she slid down from the woodpile and ran to fetch her mother.
“That man’s a lawyer,” Mrs. Lincoln said when she saw him. “See how his hair is tied back nice? See his fine clothes? Likely he’s goin’ to court in Elizabethtown. I’ve seen lawyers there at court-time but never any grander than that one. A lawyer is a great man, children; he kin read ’n write, and he knows the law of the land,” she added in a tone of respect.
The three Lincolns watched in silence as the man rode by. He did not glance in their direction. Behind him, on a smaller horse, rode his servant, weighted down with heavy saddlebags and a portmanteau. In his hand the servant carried a tall silk hat. This man turned to grin at the children, but he did not speak.
“Must be somethin’ t’ be a lawyer,” Sarah remarked, feeling snubbed. Most travelers either stopped to chat or shouted greetings as they went by.
Abe did not reply. He slid from the woodpile to fetch more corn pones. Sarah decided scornfully that he was too young to be interested in anything but food.
“Likely he never cared about seein’ that lawyer,” she thought. “Jes’ al’ays hungry.”
In a few days all the fields were planted, and after daily chores were done, Sarah and Abe helped their mother dig greens and plant a small garden back of the cabin. By the time that was done, spears of green corn had thrust through the ground and honeysuckle scented the hillsides. Soon it was summer, and the children hunted berries, helped to make soap, and later gathered wild apples for apple butter cooked out of doors in a big kettle.
At harvest time Mrs. Lincoln’s cousin, Dennis Hanks, came from town to help with the work. Dennis was fifteen years old, a strong, jolly youth and not uppity about playing and working with the younger Sarah and Abe. He liked stories and jokes, and evenings he encouraged Thomas Lincoln to tell tales of his boyhood.
On a rainy evening a few days after Dennis came, the family were snug in the cabin. Mrs. Lincoln was spinning wool in the corner; Sarah, on a log stool by the hearth, was knitting a sock; and the others sat before the cheerful fire. Raindrops splashed down the chimney and sizzled on hot coals, making the people feel safe and cozy inside the cabin.
“Tell us ’bout yer pappy, tonight,” Dennis begged.
“You’ve heard that tale,” Thomas Lincoln grinned at him, liking to be coaxed.
“Hit’s a good tale to hear often,” Mrs. Lincoln remarked. “Shows how lucky we air now.” Lincoln chuckled and leaned forward, ready to talk.
“My pappy was Abraham Lincoln of Virginny—don’ you ever forgit you’re named after him, Abe. He was a good man. Along about 1784 Pappy set out from Virginny with his wife and five children—I was the youngest son. He’d heard that Kentuck’ was a good place, and he meant to git thar.”
“Hadn’t he ever heard of Indians?” Dennis asked.
“I reckon not,” Lincoln replied. “In Virginny he jes’ heard that Kentuck’ was like paradise and that he could git plenty of land. Leas’ wise, that’s the way my brother told me. Remember I was only six, then. My brother said Pappy was a real American. His folks was Quaker and come out from England nigh two hundred years before—you kin al’ays be proud of the kin behind you, Abe,” he added, glancing at the listening boy.
“We come through the Cumberland Gap to a place Pappy liked, and he settled thar. Hit was nice. We liked hit fine and Pappy built a cabin. One day my brothers was buildin’ a fence and me and my pappy was plantin’ corn—jes like you an’ me planted last spring, Abe—when I heard a yell. Pappy fell down an’ rolled over, and I saw an arrow stickin’ outa his back.
“Mordecai, my older brother, yelled: ‘Josiah! Run fer the fort! Fetch help!’ And Josiah started runnin’. Mordecai dashed fer the cabin and got the loaded gun Pappy kept hangin’ there. He stuck hit through the window to shoot—but he saw me, bendin’ over Pappy. Mordecai had the sense to hold his fire, though hit was hard. He could see an Indian come creepin’, creepin’, from behind a tree to git Pappy’s scalp. Mordecai took keerful aim fer a bright silver bangle over that savage heart, and then he fired.
“Bout killed me, that racket did. The Indian fell over me an’ Pappy. Mordecai come runnin’ an’ pulled me out. The Indian was dead. After while help came from the fort. Those men stayed ’round. They killed two more Indians and buried Pappy. Then Mammy and us had to git on best way we could—but we made out.”
“An’ now you’re here, Pappy,” Abe said, and he sighed in sleepy content.
The fire had burned low. Raindrops still spattered. But the cabin felt warm and comfortable as the children pulled out pallets and went to bed.
• CHAPTER TWO •
KENTUCKY SCHOOL
Two years went by, all so run together in Abe Lincoln’s mind that afterwards he couldn’t tell which year was which. Dennis Hanks liked Knob Creek farm and came so often that he seemed like one of the Lincoln family. But he was not there on a chilly day early in 1815 when Thomas Lincoln arrived home with news.
“Schoolmaster Riney’s openin’ a school three miles up the pike,” he remarked.
“A school! Oh, Thomas!” Mrs. Lincoln exclaimed and her eyes sparkled joyfully. “The children kin go, kaint they?”
An old schoolhouse.
“I don’ know as they need schoolin’,” he replied. She watched him anxiously as he took off heavy shoes and stretched his feet to the fire. “I kaint read, ner write more’n my name, and I git along fine. What’s readin’ goin’ to git a person?”
“But Thomas, readin’s nice,” Mrs. Lincoln protested. “I al’ays wanted the children to learn to read.”
“Well, they’re goin’ t’ git their chance,” Lincoln said teasingly. “I’ve paid fer six weeks of schoolin’ for ’em already.”
“Abe an’ me go to school, Pappy?” Sarah exclaimed. Abe saw that his mother had flushed and looked happy, and smiled at her husband gratefully.
Mrs. Lincoln had to work hard to get them ready for school by Monday. Sarah needed a dress, and his mother made Abe his first pair of breeches. When he tried them on he paraded in front of the fire proudly, showing them off.
“They’re jes’ like Pappy’s!” he gloated. “Look, Sarah, I’ve got breeches like Pappy’s.” Sarah grinned, knowing that he had wanted man-clothes. The Lincoln children looked nice when their father took them to the new school.
At that time there were no public schools in Kentucky. Parents paid tuition in food or clothing or cash if they had any. Schoolmaster Riney taught a “blab school”—a name which meant that pupils “blabbed” (talked out loud while they memorized lessons) so that the teacher could know they were studying. The Knob Creek school was a shabby one-room cabin. A log left out of one wall let in light. Riney used Dilworth’s Spelling Book—the famous “Blue-Backed Speller”—and he stood over the dozen children, switch in hand, to make sure they worked. The room was full of sound, but Abe saw that Riney could not be fooled; he knew in a moment if a pupil stopped blabbing, and he went after that one with his switch.
When Sarah and Abe got home the first day their mother had hot pones ready for them and was eager to hear what they had learned. That night, after Abe had curled up under a buffalo skin he whispered the lesson, “a, b, c—” softly, so as not to waken his father.
“That you, Abe?” his mother whispered. “You sick?” “No, Mammy,” Abe replied, “jest sayin’ the lesson.”
She got up and covered him snugly. “You must learn hard whilst you have the chanct, Abe,” she said. “Learnin’s good!”
Sarah and Abe learned the alphabet, to spell a few words, and that two and two make four. Older children had writing lessons and used homemade quills and sumac-juice ink. Abe was just starting to make letters with a charcoal stick on
a split log when the school closed. Children were needed at their homes for the spring work.
At the Knob Creek farm, Abe now rode the horse while his father held the bull-tongue plow to a straight furrow. Thomas Lincoln was doing well on this rich land. He now had four horses, a cow, pigs, and some sheep; a boy could help a lot caring for the animals. After the planting, Abe weeded the potato patch and chopped firewood.
“You larn to knock up kindlin’ fer yer mammy, and soon I’ll teach you to chop down a tree,” his father promised.
After the chores were done, Abe fished or looked for honey, berries, or nuts according to the season. The Kentucky woods furnished many kinds of food for people who would gather it.
Sarah had her chores, too. She set the table with wooden bowls and cups her father had made, and after the meal she washed them and put them away. Their few crockery dishes were kept on a higher shelf, for company use. Sarah polished the knives and the pewter forks and spoons with sand that Abe fetched from the creek; and she rubbed the copper kettle till it shone. She milked the cow and helped Abe pull weeds and knitted socks; and this year Mrs. Lincoln had taught her to card wool shorn from their own sheep.
The father and mother worked hard; making a living was a family enterprise. Thomas Lincoln planted fields and harvested. He hunted for game and took the corn to Hogden’s mill to be ground into meal. He built fences and a shelter for his stock, and in the winter he did carpentering jobs for neighbors.
Mrs. Lincoln sewed and cooked and spun and wove cloth on her loom. She was a good seamstress and clothes she made hung better than many “best” clothes worn to church. In her spare time she pieced a coverlet that looked nice on the bed, daytimes. She was a good cook and knew which herbs to gather in the woods to make a tasty stew.
Abe liked to watch her make corn pone. She mixed meal and water in a bowl and then molded the cakes between the palms of her hands. A quick press when it was shaped put a print of her palm on the cake—“Nancy’s print” she called it, smiling as she set the pones on the hearth to bake.
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