8. Norton to George William Curtis, Shady Hill, 10 December 1863, Sara Norton and M. A. DeWolfe Howe, eds., Letter of Charles Eliot Norton (2 vols.; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1913), 1:266.
Chapter 1. “I Have Seen a Good Deal of the Back Side of This World”
1. Lincoln to James Madison Cutts Jr., Washington, 26 Oct. 1863, Roy P. Basler et al., eds., Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln [hereafter CWL] (8 vols. plus index; New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953–1955), 6:538.
2. James Grant Wilson, “Recollections of Lincoln,” Putnam’s Magazine 5 (Feb. 1909):515.
3. Lincoln to Jesse Lincoln, Springfield, 1 Apr. 1854, CWL, 2:217.
4. William Dean Howells, Life of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Harry E. Pratt (Springfield, IL: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1938, facsimile of the 1860 edition with emendations made by Lincoln), 30.
5. William H. Herndon, “Nancy Hanks,” notes written in Greencastle, Indiana, ca. 20 Aug. 1887, H-W MSS DLC; Jesse W. Weik, The Real Lincoln: A Portrait, ed. Michael Burlingame (1922; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 37–38.
6. William E. Barton’s notes of an interview with Mrs. Ben Hardin Helm, Lexington, Kentucky, 11 Mar. 1921, Barton Papers, University of Chicago.
7. Edgar K. Webb, “Lincoln’s Birthplace to Be Made a National Park,” unidentified clipping, 1905, reference files of the Abraham Lincoln Association, “Romance” folder, IHi.
8. Dennis Hanks, quoted in an unidentified clipping, LMF.
9. Otis M. Mather, “Thomas Lincoln in Larue County, Kentucky,” talk given 26 June 1937, p. 2, Mather Papers, Filson Club, Louisville, Kentucky.
10. George T. Balch, recalling the words of his father, George B. Balch, paraphrased in Dr. W. H. Doak, Martinsville, Illinois, to his nephew, Dr. W. D. Ewing of Cambridge, Ohio, [1 Feb. 1923], Terre Haute, Indiana, Star, 11 Feb. 1923.
11. Henry C. Whitney, manuscript version of Lincoln the Citizen, p. 24, Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, Tennessee. This passage was omitted from the published edition of the biography (Henry C. Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, vol. 1 of A Life of Lincoln, ed. Marion Mills Miller [2 vols.; New York: Baker and Taylor, 1908]). The words quoted by Whitney are from Henry Clay’s description of his own paternal inheritance.
12. Samuel Haycraft to Herndon, Elizabethtown, Kentucky, [ June 1865], Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln [hereafter HI] (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 67; Jack Peck (b. 1800), interviewed by Harvey H. Smith in 1888, Harvey H. Smith, Lincoln and the Lincolns (New York: Pioneer Publications, 1931), 168; the Rev. Mr. Thomas Goodwin, in Walter B. Stevens, A Reporter’s Lincoln, ed. Michael Burlingame (1916; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 167; Janesville, Illinois, correspondence, 30 May 1880, Chicago Chronicle, n.d., copied in La Porte Weekly Herald (Indiana), 27 [?] Oct. 1921, clipping, LMF; George B. Balch, “The Father of Abraham Lincoln,” manuscript pasted into a copy of Francis Fisher Browne, The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln, Lilly Library, InU.
13. Dennis F. Hanks, interview with Erastus Wright, Chicago, 8 June 1865, HI, 28.
14. Balch, “The Father of Abraham Lincoln.”
15. William Bender Wilson, “A Glimpse of the United States Military Telegraph Corps, and of Abraham Lincoln” (pamphlet; Philadelphia: Holmburg, [1889]), 18–19.
16. William G. Greene to Herndon, Tallula, Illinois, 20 Dec. 1865, HI, 145; Greene interviewed by George A. Pierce, dispatch dated “on the cars,” 12 Apr., Chicago Inter-Ocean, 30 Apr. 1881.
17. John J. Hall in Eleanor Gridley, The Story of Abraham Lincoln, or The Journey from the Log Cabin to the White House (n.p.: Juvenile Publishing Co., 1900), 62.
18. Balch, recalling the words of his father, Terre Haute, Indiana, Star, 11 Feb. 1923.
19. Marcy Gordon Bodine of Western Illinois University, “Story of the Lincolns of Hancock County,” paper delivered before the Illinois State Historical Society, published in the Macomb, Illinois, Journal, 12 Feb. 1955.
20. James S. Pirtle, summarizing the testimony of his father, who was a neighbor of Mordecai’s in Kentucky. James S. Pirtle to Joshua F. Speed, Louisville, Nov. 1877 [no day of the month indicated], Joseph Gillespie Papers, ICHi.
21. A. R. Simmons to William E. Barton, Colchester, Illinois, 7 Mar. 1923, Barton Papers, University of Chicago.
22. Bernice V. Lovely to W. A. Evans, Colchester, Illinois, 21 Apr. 1921, and Lovely to William E. Barton, Colchester, Illinois, 14 May 1922, Barton Papers, University of Chicago.
23. William H. Townsend, Lincoln and the Bluegrass: Slavery and Civil War in Kentucky (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1955), 19.
24. Hancock County Court, “Verdict of Jury in the Matter of Mary Jane Lincoln Alleged to Be Insane,” 17 May 1867, Illinois State Archives, in Joshua Wolf Shenk, Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 247.
25. E. R. Burba to Herndon, Hodgenville, Kentucky, 31 Mar. 1866, HI, 240; Balch, recalling the words of his father George B. Balch, Terre Haute, Indiana, Star, 11 Feb. 1923; “Abraham Lincoln’s Boyhood,” anonymous manuscript written on the stationery of the Spencer County Assessor’s Office, assessor Bartley Inco, 189_, copy, Francis Marion Van Natter Papers, Vincennes University; Samuel Haycraft, quoted in Elizabethtown correspondence, n.d., Louisville Courier Journal, n.d. [ca. 1886], clipping, Lincoln Scrapbook, Rare Book Room, DLC.
26. Dennis Hanks to Herndon (interview), Chicago, 13 June 1865, HI, 37; Augustus H. Chapman’s statement for Herndon, [before 8 Sept. 1865], ibid., 97.
27. Gridley, Story of Lincoln, 61–62.
28. George Tuthill Borrett, Out West: Letters from Canada and the United States (London: J. E. Adlard, 1865), 253 (letter dated “on board the Kangaroo,” Nov. 1864).
29. Notes for a law lecture, [1 July 1850?], CWL, 2:81.
30. Gridley, Story of Lincoln, 48, 45.
31. Wayne C. Temple, “Thomas and Abraham Lincoln as Farmers” (pamphlet; Racine, Wisconsin: Lincoln Fellowship of Wisconsin, 1996), passim; Kenneth J. Winkle, The Young Eagle: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln (Dallas, TX: Taylor, 2001), 143–144.
32. Balch, “The Father of Abraham Lincoln;” Balch, interview with Jesse W. Weik, [1886?], HI, 597.
33. Nathaniel Grigsby, interview with Herndon, Gentryville, Indiana, 12 Sept. 1865, HI, 113.
34. Recollections of William E. Grigsby, recounted by his great granddaughter, Elizabeth Decker of Arizona, memorandum on the Grigsby family, Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial, Lincoln City, Indiana.
35. Robert Mitchell Thompson, interviewed in the Louisville Times, clipping, ca. 1891, William H. Townsend Papers, University of Kentucky, Lexington.
36. Interview with Austin Gollaher by J. C. M., Hodgenville correspondence, 23 Mar., Cincinnati Tribune, 24 Mar. 1895; Joseph Davis Armstrong, undated article in the Oakland City, Indiana, Enterprise, copy, Francis Marion Van Natter Papers, Vincennes University; “Abraham Lincoln’s Boyhood,” anonymous manuscript written on the stationery of the Spencer County (Indiana) Assessor’s Office, Assessor Bartley Inco, 189, copy, ibid.
37. Greene to Herndon, Tallulah, Illinois, 29 May 1865, HI, 12; Greene interviewed by George A. Pierce, dispatch dated “on the cars,” 12 Apr., Chicago Inter-Ocean, 30 Apr. 1881; Francis F. Browne, The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln (New York: N. D. Thompson, 1886), 87; Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 74.
38. William Henry Perrin, The History of Coles County, Illinois (Chicago: Lebaron & Co., 1879), 422.
39. Arthur E. Morgan, “New Light on Lincoln’s Boyhood,” Atlantic Monthly 125 (Feb. 1920):213.
40. Dennis F. Hanks to Herndon (interview), Chicago, 13 June 1865, HI, 39.
41. John Mack Faragher, Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), 97.
42. Francis Grierson, The Valley of Shadows: Sangamon Sketches, ed. Robert Bray (1909; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990),
44.
43. Lincoln to John D. Johnston, Washington, 24 Dec. 1848, and Shelbyville, Illinois, 4 Nov. 1851, CWL, 2:16, 111; William H. Herndon to a clergyman in New York, Springfield, 24 Nov. 1882, Washington Post, 4 Feb. 1883.
44. Autobiograpy enclosed in Lincoln to Jesse W. Fell, Springfield, 20 Dec. 1859, CWL, 3:511; autobiography written for John L. Scripps, [ca. June 1860], ibid., 4:61.
45. Dennis Hanks in Robert McIntyre, “Lincoln’s Friend,” Charleston, Illinois, Courier, n.d; Paris, Illinois, Gazette, n.d., Chicago Tribune, 30 May 1885; Dennis F. Hanks to Herndon, n.p., 26 Jan. 1866, HI, 176.
46. Augustus H. Chapman to Herndon, Charleston, Illinois, 28 Sept. 1865, HI, 134.
47. Lincoln to John D. Johnston, Springfield, 12 Jan. 1851, CWL, 2:97.
48. Usher F. Linder, Reminiscences of the Early Bench and Bar of Illinois (Chicago: Chicago Legal News, 1879), 38.
49. William H. Herndon to Ward Hill Lamon, Springfield, 25 Feb. 1870, Lamon Papers, CSmH.
50. Caroline Dall to James Freeman Clarke, Chicago, 1 Nov. 1866, Dall Papers, Bryn Mawr College.
51. Ward Hill Lamon, The Life of Abraham Lincoln: From His Birth to His Inauguration as President (Boston: J. R. Osgood, 1872), 40n.
52. Dennis Hanks to Herndon (interview), Chicago, 13 June 1865, HI, 39; Amanda Hanks Poorman, “New Stories about the Great Emancipator,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 26 May 1901.
53. Notes of Arthur E. Morgan’s interview with Nancy Davidson, half-sister of Sophie Hanks’s son James LeGrande, Feb. 1909, Morgan Papers, DLC.
54. “Notes on Arthur E. Morgan’s first trip—Jasper [Arkansas, Feb. 1909],” Morgan Papers, DLC.
55. Undated questionnaire filled out for Arthur E. Morgan by Dr. James LeGrande, Morgan Papers, DLC.
56. Dennis Hanks to Herndon (interview), Chicago, 13 June 1865, HI, 41.
57. William G. Greene in Whitney, Lincoln the Citizen, 75; Browne, Every-Day Life of Lincoln, 88.
58. John Hanks to Jesse W. Weik, Linkville, Oregon, 12 June 1887, HI, 615; Dennis F. Hanks, interview with Jesse W. Weik, [1886?], ibid., 598; Nathaniel Grigsby, interview with Herndon, Gentryville, Indiana, 12 Sept. 1865, ibid., 113, 111; Augustus H. Chapman’s statement for Herndon, [before 8 Sept. 1865], ibid., 97; John Hanks, interview with John Miles, Decatur, Illinois, 25 May 1865, ibid., 5; Elinor Peck’s reminiscences of Nancy Hanks as recounted by her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Henry B. Peck (née Catherine Smith, 1827–1909), the daughter of Dr. William B. Smith, in Harvey H. Smith, Lincoln and the Lincolns (New York: Pioneer Publications 1931), 11–12; Samuel Haycraft to John B. Helm, Elizabethtown, Kentucky, 5 July 1865, and to Herndon, Elizabethtown, Kentucky, [ June 1865], HI, 84, 67; Henry Brooner, paraphrased in David Turnham to Herndon, Dale, Indiana, 19 Nov. 1866, ibid., 403; John Hanks, interview with Herndon, [1865–1866], ibid., 454; Nathaniel Grigsby, interview with Herndon, Gentryville, Indiana, 12 Sept. 1865, ibid., 113.
59. J. Edward Murr, “Some Pertinent Observations Concerning ‘Abe Lincoln—The Hoosier,’ ” 5, unpublished typescript, Murr Papers, DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana.
60. Herndon to Ward Hill Lamon, Springfield, 25 Feb. 1870, Lamon Papers, CSmH; Herndon to John W. Wartman, Springfield, 19 Feb. 1870, copy, Southwestern Indiana Historical Society Papers, Evansville Central Library.
61. Dennis F. Hanks to Herndon (interview), Chicago, 13 June 1865, HI, 37.
62. Nathaniel Grigsby, interview with Herndon, Gentryville, Indiana, 12 Sept. 1865, HI, 113.
63. Dennis Hanks to Herndon (interview), Chicago, 13 June 1865, HI, 40.
64. Undated letter by Charlotte Spear Hobart Vawter to the editor of the Indianapolis Journal, Indianapolis Journal, n.d., copied in the Louisville Courier-Journal, 20 Feb. 1874, in HI, 585.
65. Reminiscences of Pamelia Cowherd (b. 1804), in an 1885 interview, Smith, Lincoln and the Lincolns, 151; William H. Herndon to Jesse W. Weik, Springfield, 10 Oct. 1888, H-W MSS DLC.
66. Elinor Peck’s reminiscences of Nancy Hanks, recounted by her daughter-in-law, Catherine (Mrs. Henry) Peck (b. 1826), the daughter of Billy Smith, in Smith, Lincoln and the Lincolns, 76.
67. J. Edward Murr to Albert J. Beveridge, [New Albany, Indiana, 21 Nov. 1924], Beveridge Papers, DLC.
68. Brown to Reuben T. Durrett, Louisville, Kentucky, 12 May 1886, Durrett Personal Papers, University of Chicago.
69. John B. Helm to Herndon, n.p., 1 Aug. 1865, HI, 82; Presley Nevil Haycraft to John B. Helm, 19 July 1865, ibid., 86.
70. Herndon to Charles H. Hart, Springfield, 28 Dec. 1866, Hart Papers, CSmH.
71. Herndon to Jesse W. Weik, Springfield, 19 Jan. 1886, H-W MSS DLC.
72. Linder, Reminiscences of the Early Bench and Bar, 39.
73. This is based on research done by John Y. Ewing of Louisville. Ida N. Pendleton to Ida Tarbell, Hartford, Kentucky, 17 June 1896, Tarbell Papers, Allegheny College.
74. Mrs. William Maffitt Smith (1814–1902), who claimed to be related to Nancy Hanks Lincoln through her mother (Jane Gray), interviewed by Harvey H. Smith in 1889, in Smith, Lincoln and the Lincolns, 219, 71.
75. Herndon to Truman H. Bartlett, Springfield, Oct. 1887, Bartlett Papers, MHi.
76. Herndon to Ward Hill Lamon, Springfield, 25 Feb. 1870, Lamon Papers, CSmH; Herndon, “Nancy Hanks,” memo written in Greencastle, Indiana, ca. 20 Aug. 1887, H-W MSS DLC.
77. Herndon told this to Caroline Dall in 1866. Dall, “Journal of a tour through Illinois, Wisconsin and Ohio, Oct. & Nov. 1866,” entry for 29 Oct. 1866, Dall Papers, Bryn Mawr College.
78. Murr to Noble L. Moore, New Albany, Indiana, 17 Aug. 1942, Murr Papers, Indiana Division, Indiana State Library, Indianapolis.
79. Herndon to Charles H. Hart, Springfield, 28 Dec. 1866, Hart Papers, CSmH; Herndon to Lamon, Springfield, 25 Feb. 1870, Lamon Papers, ibid.
80. David Turnham, interview with Herndon, 15 Sept. 1865, HI, 122.
81. Herndon to Ward Hill Lamon, Springfield, 6 Mar. 1870, Lamon Papers, CSmH.
82. Herndon to Charles H. Hart, Springfield, 2 Mar. 1867, Hart Papers, CSmH.
83. Herndon, “Nancy Hanks,” notes written in Greencastle, Indiana, ca. 20 Aug. 1887, H-W MSS DLC.
84. Scripps to Herndon, Chicago, 24 June 1865, HI, 57.
85. Lincoln to Mrs. Orville H. Browning, Springfield, 1 Apr. 1838, CWL, 1:118.
86. “Conversation with Redmond Grigsby, Sr., July 17, 1904,” in Charles F. Brown’s notebook, copy, Francis Marion Van Natter Papers, Vincennes University.
87. Cincinnati Commercial, n.d., copied in the New York Evening Post, 8 July 1865.
88. Eliza W. Farnham, Life in Prairie Land (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1846), 65–66.
89. Quoted in William E. Wilson, “ ‘There I Grew Up,’ ” American Heritage 17 (Oct. 1966):102.
90. Interview with Jack Peck (b. 1800), 1888, in Smith, Lincoln and the Lincolns, 170–171.
91. 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), 33.
92. John L. Scripps to Herndon, Chicago, 24 June 1865, HI, 57.
93. Leonard Swett in Allen Thorndike Rice, ed., Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of His Time (New York: North American Review, 1886), 457.
94. Lincoln to Andrew Johnston, Springfield, 6 Sept. 1846, CWL, 1:384.
95. After returning to Springfield following his travels in the East during the late winter of 1860, Lincoln told this to a friend named Jim (probably James Matheny), who in turn related it to Edward Eggleston. Browne, Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln, 323.
96. E. R. Burba to Herndon, Hodgenville, Kentucky, 31 Mar. 1866, HI, 240; Usher F. Linder, speech before the Chicago Bar Association, 17 Apr. 1865, Washington Sunday Chronicle, 23 Apr. 1865.
97. Louisville Courier-Journal, 11 Sept. 1895; interview with Austin Gollaher by J. C. M., Hodgenville correspondence, 23 Mar. 1895, Cincinnati Tribune, 24 Mar. 1895; Gollaher paraphrased in J. M. Atherton to Otis M. Mather, 20 June 1924, copy, enclosed
in Mather to Albert J. Beveridge, Hodgenville, Kentucky, 24 July 1924, Beveridge Papers, DLC.
98. A Mrs. Rathbone, paraphrased in the Louisville correspondence of the Enquirer [Cincinnati?], 10 Feb. [1911? or 1912], clipping headlined “Governor Willson to Leave for Hodgenville, Ky.,” clipping collection, LMF.
99. Dennis Hanks to Herndon, 26 Jan. 1866, HI, 176.
100. Paris, Illinois, correspondence, 21 Oct., Roanoke, Illinois, Times, 12 Nov. 1892, clipping collection, LMF.
101. Maude Jennings Cryderman (daughter of Josiah and Elizabeth Crawford) to Mrs. Calder Ehrmann, Tipton, Indiana, 4 Mar. 1928, John E. Iglehart Papers, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis.
102. Presley Nevil Haycraft to John B. Helm, n.p., 19 July 1865, HI, 87; John Pitcher, paraphrased in Oliver C. Terry to Jesse W. Weik, Mt. Vernon, Indiana, 14 July 1888, and [?] July 1888, ibid., 658–659, 662–663.
103. Reminiscences of Mrs. Annie Heibach, daughter of James L. Grant, San Francisco Call, 16 Feb. 1896.
104. Mrs. Bartley Inco (née Nancy Grigsby), in a talk given 20 June 1916, Grandview, Indiana, Monitor, 20 Sept. 1934; Carrie Grigsby, wife of Reuben Grigsby’s grandson, in a roundtable discussion in Gentryville, n.d., paraphrased in Arietta F. Bullock, “Jonesboro in 1830,” 19, typescript of a paper delivered to the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society, 1938, Bullock Papers, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis.
105. John W. Wartmann’s talk, 20 June 1916, Evansville Courier, n.d., in “Sarah Lincoln Grigsby, Remarks of Hon. Charles Lieb, of Indiana, in the House of Representatives, June 28, 1916,” Congressional Record, 64th Congress, 1st Session, vol. 53, part 10, p. 10177.
106. Joseph Blackford in the New York Evening Post, 11 Feb. 1911.
107. Murr, “He Knew Lincoln’s Neighbors,” Bess V. Ehrmann, The Missing Chapter in the Life of Abraham Lincoln (Chicago: Walter M. Hill, 1938), 92–93.
108. Murr, “Lincoln in Indiana,” Indiana Magazine of History 14 (1918):13.
109. Joseph D. Armstrong, “History of Spencer County,” in An Illustrated Historical Atlas of Spencer County, Indiana (Philadelphia: D. J. Lake, 1879), 13.
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