Young Clary was one of John Clary’s sons; they had a farm three miles southwest of town. The Clarys and their relatives had gathered around them quite a group of strapping fellows who called themselves “Clary Grove Boys.” They were honest men, but rough and quarrelsome, and they respected nothing but physical strength. Jack Armstrong, their leader at the moment, had earned his place by hard hitting. And now Offutt boasted about a new man. The boys resented it.
Clary bet Offutt that Jack Armstrong could lick Abe Lincoln, and a match was arranged for the next Saturday afternoon. Offutt always had an eye for business; a fight would draw men to his store.
After the plans were made, Abe was told; but he did not object.
Saturday the opponents faced each other in a ring marked near the store. Jack was short but powerfully built and confident; Abe was tall and lean. Jack drew in blusteringly, but Abe’s long arms held him off so easily that Jack’s temper flared. He jammed his right foot on Abe’s instep.
The pain infuriated Abe. He grabbed Jack by the back of the neck, held him high, shook him like a dishrag, and tossed him aside. The Clary Grove boys stared, speechless. Was this their bold leader—this man tossed into the dust? They sprang at Abe angrily.
“I’ll fight every man of you—one at a time,” Abe yelled as he backed against the store wall. “Who’s first?”
No one moved.
Jack Armstrong stirred, feebly. The crowd watched as he crawled to his feet, tottered over to Abe, and shook the winner’s hand.
“He won, fair enough,” the fallen leader announced. The gang eyed Abe respectfully. They saw a tall man of some hundred and eighty pounds with unruly black hair, keen eyes, and a long, thin face that could smile all over. Suddenly Bill Clary recalled that Abe was the youth who had so cleverly got the flatboat over Rutledge Dam.
“Smart as a whip, he is, too,” Clary announced. He put out his hand—and Abe Lincoln was accepted as leader.
Winning this match so soon after he came to New Salem was a major event in Abraham Lincoln’s life. Those Clary Grove boys ruled the community; now he was their leader. As they came to know him they discovered some strange facts: he did not smoke, chew, or drink—and he had a passion for reading. Usually they called such a man a “sissy,” but a fighter like Abe was no sissy; so they simply agreed that he “had notions.” He was more honest than a man need be, they thought, when he walked miles to return a few pennies a farmer’s wife had overpaid at the store; and he was strict about fair play.
On the first wave of his popularity he was chosen as a “second” in a fight. The other second, a bantam-sized youth, challenged Abe.
“Sure, I’ll fight ye,” Abe agreed cheerfully. “You chalk up on me where your head comes and that much of me will fight you.” The crowd roared at the challenger’s astonishment, and no more was said about that fight.
But in spite of the clerk’s popularity, Offutt’s store failed early in 1832 and Abe was again out of work. Since he had some money saved and could pay his board, he decided to use the time for reading and wait for something to turn up.
Schoolmaster Graham often invited Abe over in the evenings and they talked about books. But Abe’s pioneer talk fretted him.
“Your language is understood here,” Graham said, “even when you debate. But if you want a larger audience you must improve your vocabulary. Train yourself to say ‘I am not’ instead of ‘I haint.’ Remember the word is ‘for’ and not ‘fer.’ And if you ever wish to write, Abe, you must study grammar.”
Abe liked that idea. “Where could I get a grammar?” he asked.
“I can loan you my book in the evenings,” Graham said. “But I need it at school during the day.” Then he pondered a minute.
“My old friend Vance has a copy of Kirkham’s Grammar, but he lives eight miles from here, in the country.”
“Eight miles is no distance!” Abe laughed, “I thank you for the suggestion.”
He studied Graham’s copy that evening and the next morning tramped out to borrow from Vance. This Kirkham’s Grammar was a difficult book, but Abe went at it with determination. Section by section he memorized that volume. Abe did more than memorize, he got the meaning of each rule. His speech improved, and before long he excelled his teacher in the written expression of his thought.
Lincoln always felt handicapped by what he called “his lack of education.” In this he made the common mistake of thinking that going to school was “education.” In all, he had less than twelve months in schools in Kentucky and Indiana; but in those schools he acquired the basic tools for learning— reading, writing, and simple arithmetic. Afterward he used those tools to learn whatever he needed to know for the work he chose to do. His speeches, writings, and lifework prove that he was well educated, and that anyone who is willing to work and can borrow books can educate himself.
Perhaps about the time of Abe’s twenty-third birthday, someone proposed that he try for election as state representative from Sangamon County. Friends urged him to campaign, and he turned over in his mind a plan of action.
At that time a candidate for the Legislature wrote out his statement of principles in the form of a letter which was then printed in a newspaper or on handbills. Voters were “for” this man or that one, instead of for a party and its platform. Andrew Jackson was President and would run for re-election in the fall; most pioneer voters were “Jackson men.” Abe Lincoln was for Clay. But national issues made little difference when voters elected their state representatives. They would vote for a man they knew and who would help pass laws that would improve Sangamon County conditions.
Lincoln’s letter was a clear statement of his beliefs on subjects important to local voters. The Springfield paper, the Sangamo Journal, printed it on March 9, 1832.
After introducing himself, Lincoln wrote about Sangamon County’s chief need—transportation for getting produce to markets.
Lincoln’s practical suggestion was that the Sangamon River be straightened and deepened, work which he thought would cost less than railroads. He wrote next about fair rates of interest (a big problem for new settlers who must borrow capital), and then about the need for better schools. He ended with a paragraph that was very revealing about himself:
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 me. 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 back ground, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.
With this statement back of him, Lincoln planned to get out and campaign for election.
• CHAPTER NINE •
TWICE A CANDIDATE
Abe Lincoln liked the appearance of his letter in the newspaper. But before he got his campaign under way, new and exciting news was brought to New Salem by a traveler from Beardstown, thirty miles to the west.
A mill owner, Vincent Bogue of Portland Landing, was coming up the Sangamon in a chartered steamer, the Talisman, with goods from Cincinnati. Now with New Salem on a commercial waterway, the long-hoped-for boom would come!
Chicago in 1820.
Soon Bogue and his steamboat arrived at Beardstown. He sent messengers to New Salem for workers. They were to meet his steamer at the mouth of the Sangamon and lop off overhanging branches that might harm the steamer’s paint. Abe Lincoln was hired as one of this gang.
When the Talisman steamed past New Salem, the bluff was packed with villagers eager to see the gleaming white and gold boat and to cheer
as her twin stacks sent smoke drifting over the prairie. Many people went to share in a great celebration.
On April 5, 1832, Springfield’s newspaper, the Sangamo Journal, printed an account of this event and even a “poem” written in honor of the occasion. People quoted favorite lines:
If Jason who the golden fleece
Sailed for many years from Greece
To such a height of fame did get
The Argonaut’s remembered yet
Then what a debt of fame we owe
To him who on our Sangamo
First launched the steamer’s daring prow.
What think ye, laddie, isn’t it grand
To see a steamer touch our strand?
The cargo sold at a profit and the captain was entertained till someone noticed that the high water was gone. If he wanted to go back to Ohio, the captain had better go while he could still float his boat!
Bogue engaged Rowan Herndon and Abe Lincoln to help him steam down river and all was well till they came to the Rutledge Dam. No clever trick could get this big steamer over!
“We’ll have to remove part of your dam,” Herndon yelled.
“Ye ain’t allowed to touch it,” Rutledge shouted back.
“You daren’t obstruct a navigable river,” Abe Lincoln announced firmly. Rutledge was silenced, for he too, knew the law. He fumed while Herndon and Lincoln laboriously removed part of the dam, got the steamer over, and made the repairs required by law.
New Salem people watched sadly. Such difficulty, early in the season, showed that the Sangamon could not be depended on. The boom was over. That inglorious retreat of the Talisman marked the end of New Salem’s hopes of becoming a great city.
Lincoln walked back to the village expecting to find his friends discouraged. Instead they were excited about a war and the governor’s call for volunteers to settle a dispute with the Indians.
Abe Lincoln and about twenty-five others from New Salem enlisted and went to Richland to enter the service. Lincoln was gratified when the company selected him captain. This honor was more than leadership of a gang; it was an election that gave him a responsible job for his country.
He did his best to train his men for battle, but they had no chance to show their bravery. After the month ended, many went home. Lincoln decided to re-enlist. This time he was a private among strangers, and again he had no chance to fight; for the Sac Chief, Black Hawk, was taken prisoner and his people driven across the Mississippi. Soon Abe’s company was mustered out in southern Wisconsin, and men from Sangamon County walked home together.
On this journey Abe Lincoln became acquainted with John A. Stuart, a young attorney from Springfield. Stuart was a well-educated Kentucky aristocrat who had come to Illinois in 1828. He was a Whig and two years older than Lincoln; he practiced law in Springfield, had influence in the county, and was running for election to the State Legislature, as Lincoln was. Stuart liked Abe and encouraged him to study law and to run for the state office. As they tramped south the two men became friends, and Abe discovered that Stuart had what Abe wanted most—law books which he was willing to lend to a new friend.
The Black Hawk War was a minor event in national history but a major factor in Lincoln’s development. It brought him his first election, the captaincy, and introduced him to a man competent and willing to help him study law. His feeling that destiny sent him to New Salem had been right; in the year that he had lived there, he had attained leadership in his community, improved his education, and had found a lawyer friend who would help him.
His next step was to start his campaign. Election day was less than two weeks away.
Since the time was so short, Abe decided to make a direct appeal to the voters. At harvest time men got together for the auction of livestock, for cornhusking, and for other seasonal work; and they liked some political talk when the job was done. Lincoln’s first chance to speak came at an auction nearby. He arrived early, dressed in his best—a coat of mixed-jeans, cut claw-hammer fashion (with sleeves and coattails too short), tow-and-flax pantaloons, and a straw hat without a band. He visited with the men and made a campaign speech. His statement of principles got attention, and his backwoods tales delighted them. A favorite yarn was about a preacher who during a long sermon felt a lizard crawling up inside his breeches. Abe Lincoln’s gifted mimicry as he acted out the preacher’s frantic misery had the men rocking with laughter.
Chicago in 1820.
Encouraged by this modest success, Lincoln tramped from place to place around New Salem. Just before election day he went to Springfield for a meeting where all candidates spoke.
Lincoln lost the election; he stood eighth among the thirteen who contested. John Stuart was among the fortunate four who were elected. But, though he lost, Lincoln had profited by trying. He had learned to speak in public, he had made many friends, and—at the Springfield meeting—he had become acquainted with Stephen T. Logan, a prominent attorney. Like Stuart, Logan was a Whig from Kentucky. He was already considered one of the best lawyers in the state. Now Abe had two lawyer friends in Springfield.
“I didn’t do badly,” Abe Lincoln consoled himself. “If I had had more time I might have won.” He was proud that all but seven of the New Salem men had voted for him.
The campaign over, there was the matter of earning a living. Abe called on James Herndon, who with his brother Rowan had a store in New Salem, and asked for a job as a clerk.
“Me need a clerk?” Herndon growled. “Business is so bad that I’m more likely to sell out than to hire! This town has been dead since the steamboat line busted. But you’re welcome to live here, Abe, till you get settled.”
Soon James Herndon did sell out his half interest to a William Berry and Rowan sold his half to Lincoln, taking Abe’s promise in payment. So Lincoln, to his amazement, found himself a penniless half owner of a store under the name of the Lincoln-Berry Store. Of course there was a debt of several hundred dollars but that did not worry Lincoln—nor Herndon either, for he knew Abe was honest.
During the next few months (in late 1832 and early 1833) Lincoln had a comfortable life. He roomed back of the store, and had time to read and to enjoy his neighbors. The Rutledge tavern was just across the way. Ann often came in to buy for the family, and they talked about books and their ambitions. On Saturdays the store was full of customers.
During this time Abe Lincoln often went to Springfield to borrow books from Stuart or Logan and to talk with them about the books he returned. On one trip he chanced to hear of an auction in town. He strolled over, arriving as a copy of Blackstone’s Commentaries (a basic law book) was put up for sale. He bought it and stumbled all the way home as he tried to read and walk across the prairie!
But alas! Bill Berry’s carelessness and Lincoln’s devotion to reading did not help business. Women who came to buy found Bill asleep and Abe deep in Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason, good-humored enough but not much interested in matching thread or buttons. Few shared the owner’s surprise when the store failed. Soon after his twenty-fourth birthday Lincoln was jobless again and in debt. A few months later Berry died, leaving the whole sum for Abe to pay.
At that time, most men in such a situation simply left town and started over in a new place. But Abe Lincoln had a firm faith in himself and a conviction that he should stay in New Salem.
Friends got him a job as postmaster for the village, and he began work in May of 1833. This position gave him a place to stay, in Hill’s store, and a small income. Stamps were not yet used: the person who received a letter paid the fee. A single sheet cost six cents for thirty miles, twenty-five cents for four hundred miles. The postmaster kept thirty per cent of the fee and sent the remaining seventy per cent to the mail service.
Now, Abe could read incoming newspapers after the mail arrived each Saturday. He had a growing audience as he read aloud the Sangamo Journal, the Illinois State Register, and other papers.
He had further good fortune. Mentor Graham chanced to hear that
the county surveyor was behind in his work since settlers were arriving daily. So Graham recommended Lincoln as an assistant.
“Abe is not informed in higher mathematics,” Graham admitted to Calhoun, the surveyor, “but if you can wait for six weeks, I think I can coach him for you.” Calhoun agreed to wait.
Now, again, Lincoln educated himself for a particular task. With Graham’s help, Abe studied days and evenings. In six weeks he bought a compass and surveyor’s chain and started work while he continued to study evenings. The surveyor was paid a fee for each piece of land surveyed. Abe’s share—plus small fees as postmaster—gave him a fair cash income, so he could pay board and also set aside something toward his debt. “You should forget that store debt,” friends told him.
“Surely you don’t owe for Berry’s share. He’s dead.”
“He was my partner,” Lincoln replied. “I’ll pay.” And he did pay—though it took many years of saving.
Abe Lincoln made many friends as he tramped the county with Calhoun. His tall, lanky figure and friendly smile were remembered. He was often asked questions about deeds or taxes or sales of lands. He answered those the best he could, and when he did not know, he looked for the answer in the Springfield libraries. One day he bought some legal forms so he could fill out papers for friends. He made no charge for this work of course. He was not licensed to practice law and his advice had no standing. But it was a kindly service, and it helped him educate himself.
Often a friend loaned him a horse and he combined his two jobs. He carried in his straw hat, letters or papers addressed to a farmer living far from the village.
“That’s mighty kind of you, Abe!” was his reward.
Motherly wives took an interest in him. “Abe, yer lookin’ kinda peaked,” one said.
“Abe’s fixin’ to be a lawyer,” her husband remarked. “He’s studyin’ nights.”
When Abe went through Clary’s Grove, Mrs. Jack Armstrong had him stay while she “foxed his pants” and fed him a good dinner. She sewed strong buckskin patches on his worn breeches.
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