22 a shadowy image: Betty J. Atkinson, “Some Thoughts on Nancy Hanks,” LH 73 (Fall 1971): 127–137, reviews the historiography. The only attempt at a biography is Harold E. Briggs and Ernestine B. Briggs, Nancy Hanks Lincoln: A Frontier Portrait (New York: Bookman Associates, 1952).
23 his “angel mother”: Joshua F. Speed, Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln and Notes of a Visit to California: Two Lectures (Louisville, Ky.: John P. Morton and Co., 1884), p. 19.
23 “owe to her”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:3
23 “off the field”: Warren, Lincoln’s Parentage and Childhood, p. 143.
23 “would learn much”: Dennis F. Hanks, statement written by A. H. Chapman, Sept. 8, 1865, HWC.
23 was a Catholic: Roger H. Futrell, “Zachariah Riney: Lincoln’s First Schoolmaster,” LH 74 (Fall 1972): 136–142.
23 “to his school”: Samuel Haycraft to WHH, Hardin Co., Ky., [Aug. 1, 1865], Lamon MSS, HEH.
23 “somewhat wild nature”: Dennis Hanks, statement written by A. H. Chapman, Sept. 8, 1865, HWC.
24 “land titles in Ky.”: CW, 4:61–62.
24 opposed to slavery: Warren, Lincoln’s Parentage and Childhood, chaps. 14 and 18, offers an excellent account of the Lincolns’ religious views.
24 “think, and feel”: CW, 7:281.
24 age of sixteen: Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1982), p. 188.
25 on the swine: CW, 1:386.
25 proper log cabin: Charles H. Coleman, “The Half-Faced Camp in Indiana—Fact or Myth?” ALQ 7 (Sept. 1952): 138–146, demolishes the myth that the Lincolns remained in the half-faced camp for the entire winter.
25 “all the time”: Dennis F. Hanks to WHH, June 13, 1865, HWC.
25 “any larger game”: CW, 4:62.
25 “and harvesting seasons”: Ibid.
26 no permanent damage: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:51–52.
26 called milk sickness: Milton H. Shutes, Lincoln and the Doctors (New York: Pioneer Press, 1933), pp. 4–5; Philip D. Jordan, “The Death of Nancy Hanks Lincoln,” Indiana Magazine of History 40 (June 1944): 103–110; Warren, Lincoln’s Youth, pp. 51–53, 228–229.
26 “to the world”: Dennis F. Hanks to WHH, June 13, 1865, HWC.
26 “nay for life”: Ibid.
26 “couldn’t ketch any”: Warren, Lincoln’s Youth, p. 58.
27 “what I say”: CW, 6:16–17. For this quotation, and for a thoughtful discussion of Lincoln’s attitude toward death, I am indebted to Robert V. Bruce, Lincoln and the Riddle of Death (Fort Wayne, Ind.: Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum, 1981).
27 matter of speculation: See the discussion of this issue in Charles B. Strozier, Lincoln’s Quest for Union, pp. 24–30, with a masterful summary of the psychoanalytical literature on p. 239. Howard I. Kushner’s analysis in Self-Destruction in the Promised Land: A Psychocultural Biology of American Suicide (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1989), chap. 5, is suggestive. John Bowlby’s three vols, entitled Attachment and Loss are very important, esp. vol. 3, Loss: Sadness and Depression (New York: Basic Books, 1980).
27 “ours to us”: Matilda Johnston Moore, statement to WHH, Sept. 8, 1865, HWC.
27 “in the tombs”: CW, 1:378–379.
28 look “more human”: Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, statement to WHH, Sept. 8, 1865, HWC.
28 “well and clean”: Dennis F. Hanks to WHH, June 13, 1865, HWC.
28 “expect to see”: Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, statement to WHH, Sept. 8, 1865, HWC.
28 “he loved her”: Charles H. Coleman, Abraham Lincoln and Coles County, Illinois (New Brunswick, N. J.: Scarecrow Press, 1955), p. 199.
28 “nothing of want”: Allen Thorndike Rice, ed., Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of His Time (New York: North American Review, 1888), p. 468.
29 “how to write”: Dennis F. Hanks to WHH, June 13, 1865, HWC.
29 “slowly, but surely”: John Hanks, statement to WHH, undated, HWC.
29 “understanding of it”: Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, statement to WHH, Sept. 8, 1865, HWC.
29 they were strangers: Nathaniel Grigsby, statement to WHH, Sept. 12, 1865, HWC.
29 “to one year”: CW, 4:62.
29 “as a wizzard”: CW, 3:511.
29 grammar and spelling: On the books Lincoln studied and read I have closely followed the excellent accounts in Beveridge, 1:70, 73–77, and in Warren, Lincoln’s Youth, pp. 28–30, 87–95, and 103–111. Douglas L. Wilson, “What Jefferson and Lincoln Read,” Atlantic Monthly 267 (Jan. 1991): 51–62, is a thoughtful essay. There is much useful information in M. L. Houser, Lincoln’s Education and Other Essays (New York: Bookman Associates, 1957).
30 the word correctly: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:35.
30 “fools to read”: Facsimile of page from Lincoln’s Sum Book, at the beginning of vol. 1 of The Collected Works.
30 “his hands on”: Dennis F. Hanks to WHH, June 13, 1865, HWC.
30 “head, and read”: John Hanks, undated statement to WHH, HWC.
30 “[and] repeat it”: Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, statement to WHH, Sept. 8, 1865, HWC.
30 “for his age”: Ibid.
31 “men struggled for”: CW, 4:235–236.
31 in elementary mathematics: The following paragraph is based on an excellent article by Maurice Dorfman, “Lincoln’s Arithmetic Education: Influence on His Life,” LH 68 (Summer 1966): 61–80. Lloyd A. Dunlap, “Lincoln’s Sum Book,” LH 61 (Spring 1959): 6–10, is also valuable.
31 “go on again”: Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, statement to WHH, Sept. 8, 1865, HWC.
32 “Lincoln’s shin bone”: Nathaniel Grigsby, statement to WHH, Sept. 12, 1865, HWC.
32 began to deteriorate: For a sensitive interpretation of Lincoln’s difficult relations with his father, see Charles B. Strozier and Stanley H. Cath, “Lincoln and the Fathers: Reflections on Idealization,” in Stanley H. Cath et al., eds., Fathers and Their Families (Hillsdale, N. J.: Analytic Press, 1989), chap. 14.
32 sight in the other: Hidden Lincoln, p. 367.
32 “doing nothing great”: Nathaniel Grigsby, statement to WHH, Sept. 12, 1865, HWC.
32 “hoeing, making fences”: Beveridge, 1:67.
32 “it himself first”: Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, statement to WHH, Sept. 8, 1865, HWC.
32 “work by reading”: Dennis Hanks to WHH, June 13, 1865, HWC.
32 “of his sensations”: Ibid.
33 boy got older: It is possible that Abraham Lincoln doubted that Thomas Lincoln really was his father. There was a strong undercurrent of gossip in Kentucky that mumps, or perhaps an accidental castration, rendered Thomas Lincoln impotent. That left the door open for speculation that Abraham’s father was one Abraham Enlow, who bore more of a physical resemblance to the future President than Thomas Lincoln did. These legends have long ago been exploded, and the story of Lincoln’s bastardy is utterly groundless. See William E. Barton, The Paternity of Abraham Lincoln: Was He the Son of Thomas Lincoln? (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1920), for a sober, but unintentionally funny, examination of allegations that Abraham Lincoln was fathered by Enlow, Chief Justice John Marshall, John C. Calhoun, and others. The point here, however, is that the story about Enlow (sometimes spelled “Inlow”) was circulated at least by the time of the Civil War. For instance, John J. Joel wrote to William H. Seward on July 22, 1863 (Seward MSS, UR), that the President’s “real name is Abraham Hanks.—He is the illegitimate son by a man named Inlow—from a Negress named Hanna Hanks.” Such rumors may well have reached Abraham Lincoln’s ears when he was a boy.
33 John D. Johnston: A. H. Chapman to WHH, Sept. 28, 1865, HWC.
33 “he ever did”: Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, statement to WHH, Sept. 8, 1865, HWC.
33 “him to work”: Matilda Johnston Moore, statement to WHH, Sept. 8, 1865, HWC.
33 “ciphering—writing Poetry”: Dennis F. Hanks, statement to WHH, Sept. 8, 1865, HWC.
33 “like killing snakes”: John Romine, statement to WHH, Sept. 1
4, 1865; Elizabeth Crawford to WHH, Sept. 7, 1865—both in HWC.
33 “ambition for education”: CW, 3:511; 4:61.
33 about his father: Strozier, Lincoln’s Quest for Union, p. 14, strongly makes this point.
34 “of all kinds”: Beveridge, 1:79.
34 “Abe and listen”: Dennis F. Hanks to WHH, June 13, 1865, HWC.
34 “owned or worn”: Jesse W. Weik, The Real Lincoln: A Portrait (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1922), p. 25.
34 “made to do”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:52.
34 he slaughtered hogs: Green B. Taylor, statement to WHH, Sept. 16, 1865, HWC.
34 “fairer before me”: Carpenter, Six Months, pp. 97–98.
34 “’weighed anchor and left”: CW, 4: 62.
35 “felt miffed—insulted”: William Wood, statement to WHH, Sept. 15, 1865, HWC.
35 “The Chronicles of Reuben”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:45–48, gives a detailed account. Howard M. Feinstein, “The Chronicles of Reuben: A Psychological Test of Authenticity,” American Quarterly 18 (Winter 1966): 637–654, makes a striking case for Lincoln’s authorship.
35 at the match: HL, pp. 286–287.
35 “than Watts hymns”: William Wood, statement to WHH, Sept. 15, 1865, HWC.
35 “want a start”: Ibid.
36 “and saved him”: Peter Smith to J. Warren Keifer, July 17, 1860, MS in private hands (copy through the courtesy of Glenn L. Carle).
36 as an elector: CW, 1:2.
37 future of Illinois: Howells, Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 28; Jane Martin Johns, Personal Recollections of Early Decatur, Abraham Lincoln, Richard J. Oglesby and the Civil War, ed. Howard C. Schaub (Decatur, 111.: Decatur Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution, 1912), pp. 60–61.
37 another Thomas Lincoln: This interpretation is similar to that offered by Jean H. Baker, in “Not Much of Me”: Abraham Lincoln as a Typical American (Fort Wayne, Ind.: Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum, 1988), from which I have learned much.
CHAPTER TWO: A PIECE OF FLOATING DRIFTWOOD
The basic source for Lincoln’s New Salem years is William H. Herndon’s collection of letters and statements by Lincoln’s friends and associates, mostly written shortly after the President’s death. The originals are in the Herndon-Weik Collection of the Library of Congress, and copies are in the Herndon-Lamon MSS at the Huntington Library. Ward Hill Lamon, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1872), was the first biography to draw on this material, but the most frequently used secondary account is William H. Herndon and Jesse E. Weik, Herndon’s Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life (Chicago: Belford-Clarke Co., 1890). Because all subsequent accounts necessarily have drawn on Herndon and his sources, there is inevitably a considerable amount of repetition in the biographies, the best of which for this period is Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 1809–1858 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1928).
In addition to the Herndon-Weik Collection, this chapter rests heavily on several excellent secondary works. Benjamin P. Thomas, Lincoln’s New Salem (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1954), is an indispensable study, both charming and informative. It can be supplemented at points by John Mack Faragher, Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986), a model study of another community in the Sangamon valley, some forty miles from New Salem. William E. Baringer, Lincoln’s Vandalia: A Pioneer Portrait (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1949), offers a vigorous, entertaining account of life in the state capital. The authoritative work on Lincoln’s years in the legislature is Paul Simon, Lincoln’s Preparation for Greatness: The Illinois Legislative Years (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971).
38 “of floating driftwood”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:79.
39 “on the boat”: Day by Day, 1:14.
39 “were, by himself”: CW, 4:64.
39 was perfectly suited: See, in addition to Benjamin P. Thomas’s admirable Lincoln’s New Salem, Thomas P. Reep, Lincoln at New Salem (Petersburg, Ill.: Old Salem Lincoln League, 1927).
39 “done with the Bible”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:79–80.
40 “of Genl Washington”: A. Y. Ellis, undated statement to WHH, HWC.
40 no special point: See Benjamin P. Thomas, “Lincoln’s Humor: An Analysis,” Abraham Lincoln Association Papers, 1935 (Springfield, III.: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1936), pp. 61–83.
40 “to take part”: Robert L. Wilson to WHH, Feb. 10, 1866, HWC.
40 and the invalid: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:82.
40 “wooling and pulling”: Henry McHenry, statement to WHH, Oct. 10, 1866, HWC.
41 “all were amazed”: HL, p. 314.
41 “kindness and honesty”: Mentor Graham to WHH, May 29, 1865, HWC.
41 “old law functionary”: Jason Duncan to WHH, [1865], HWC.
42 “dollars per month”: CW, 1:320.
42 “plenty of friends”: Roy P. Basler, ed., “James Quay Howard’s Notes on Lincoln,” ALQ 4 (Dec. 1947): 391.
43 “in the country”: All quotations in the following paragraphs are from this announcement. CW, 1:5–9.
43 “cabin steamer Talisman”: For a detailed account, see Harry E. Pratt, “Lincoln Pilots the Talisman,” ALQ 2 (Sept. 1943): 319–329.
44 “brain rattling man”: Hardin Bale to WHH, May 29, 1865, HWC.
44 down the river: Mentor Graham to WHH, May 29, 1865, HWC.
44 “petered out”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:85.
44 Black Hawk War: For detailed accounts of Lincoln’s military experiences, see Harry E. Pratt, “Lincoln in the Black Hawk War,” Bulletin of the Abraham Lincoln Association, no. 54 (Dec. 1938): 3–13, and Pratt’s article on the same subject in O. Fritiof Ander, ed., The John H. Hauberg Historical Essays (Rock Island, III.: Augustana Book Concern, 1954), pp. 18–28.
44 sworn in to service: Wayne C. Temple, Lincoln’s Arms, Dress and Military Duty During and After the Black Hawk War (Springfield: State of Illinois Military and Naval Department, 1981), p. 12.
44 and joined them: Reep, Lincoln at New Salem, p. 40.
44 “have had since”: CW, 3:512.
45 “to do so”: W. G. Greene to WHH, May 30, 1865, HWC.
45 “often very hungry”: CW, 1:509–510.
45 “than enlist again “: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:100.
46 “Rivers of Illinois”: Henry McHenry to WHH, May 29, 1865, HWC.
46 “and a straw hat”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:103.
46 “or Clay, man”: Lincoln’s corrections in W. D. Howells, Life of Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, Ill.: Abraham Lincoln Association, 1938), p. 40.
46 “old woman’s dance”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:104.
46 “of the people”: CW, 4:64.
46 “to go to”: Ibid., pp. 64–65.
47 “of the whole”: Herndon’s Lincoln, 1:107.
47 selection of shoes: Beveridge, 1:127.
47 and American novelists: The story that Lincoln read the sentimental novels of Caroline Lee Hentz at this time is incorrect, since Mrs. Hentz’s first novel was not published until 1846. Roy P. Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings (Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1946), p. 6.
47 “and transcendent genius”: CW, 8:237.
48 “inexpressibly touching”: Carpenter, Six Months, p. 59.
48 Sir Walter Scott: Ibid., pp. 60–61.
48 “I am ruled”: M. L. Houser, Lincoln’s Education and Other Essays (New York: Bookman Associates, 1957), pp. 117–118.
48 “he now does”: CW, 4:62.
48 “in constant agitation”: William J. Wolf, The Almost Chosen People: A Study of the Religion of Abraham Lincoln (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1959), p. 42.
49 “opinion in argument”: CW, 1:382.
49 “a thriftless soul”: Lincoln let this characterization go uncorrected in Howells, Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 42.
50 “in the world”: William H. Townsend, Lincoln and Liquor (New York: Press of the Pioneers, 1934), remains authoritativ
e. See also Wayne C. Temple, “Lincoln’s Tavern License,” LH 82 (Fall 1980): 463–464.
50 “winked out”: CW, 4:65.
50 “of a hollow”: Townsend, Lincoln and Liquor, p. 37.
50 to purchase liquor: Jason Duncan to WHH, [1866], HWC.
50 “politics an objection”: CW, 4:65.
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