Chapter 1

Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added by the transcriber.

McCLURE'S MAGAZINE

JANUARY, 1896

Vol. VI, JANUARY, 1896, NO. 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Edited by Ida M. Tarbell. Lincoln's First Experiences in Illinois. In Charge of Denton Offutt's Store. The Clary's Grove Boys. Lincoln Studies Grammar. A Candidate for the General Assembly. The Black Hawk War. Lincoln a Captain. The Black Hawk Campaign. Electioneering for the General Assembly. EUGENE FIELD AND HIS CHILD FRIENDS. By Cleveland Moffett. POEMS OF CHILDHOOD, By Eugene Field. With Trumpet and Drum. The Delectable Ballad of the Waller Lot. The Rock-a-by Lady. "Booh!" The Duel. The Ride to Bumpville. So, So, Rock-a-by so! Seein' Things. A CENTURY OF PAINTING. By Will H. Low. THE DEFEAT OF BLAINE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. By Murat Halstead. THE SILENT WITNESS. By Herbert D. Ward THE SUN'S LIGHT. By Sir Robert Ball, CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Life in Andover before the War. THE WAGER OF THE MARQUIS DE MÉROSAILLES. By Anthony Hope, MISS TARBELL'S LIFE OF LINCOLN.

ILLUSTRATIONS

ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1861. THE KIRKHAM'S GRAMMAR USED BY LINCOLN AT NEW SALEM. A CLARY'S GROVE LOG CABIN. NANCY GREEN. DUTCH OVEN. LINCOLN IN 1858. JOHN POTTER. JOHN A. CLARY. SITE OF DENTON OFFUTT'S STORE. ZACHARY TAYLOR. BOWLING GREEN'S HOUSE. THE BLACK HAWK. WHIRLING THUNDER. WHITE CLOUD, THE PROPHET. BLACK HAWK. LINCOLN IN 1860. BLACK HAWK WAR RELICS. MAJOR ROBERT ANDERSON. MONUMENT AT KELLOGG'S GROVE. JOHN REYNOLDS, GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS 1831-1834. ELIJAH ILES. A DISCHARGE FROM SERVICE IN BLACK HAWK WAR SIGNED BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN. MAP OF ILLINOIS IN 1832. A FACSIMILE OF AN ELECTION RETURN WRITTEN BY LINCOLN. VIEW OF THE SANGAMON RIVER NEAR NEW SALEM. EUGENE FIELD TELLING A STORY. THE LAST PORTRAIT OF EUGENE FIELD. LUCY ALEXANDER KNOTT. JAMES BRECKINRIDGE WALLER, JR. KENDALL EVANS. WILLIAM AND KENT CLOW. ROSWELL FRANCIS FIELD, EUGENE FIELD'S YOUNGEST SON. ELIZABETH WINSLOW, IRVING WAY, JR.. KATHERINE KOHLSAAT. PARK YENOWINE, THE SABINE WOMEN. JACQUES LOUIS DAVID AS A YOUNG MAN. MICHEL GÉRARD AND HIS FAMILY. POPE PIUS VII. JUSTICE AND DIVINE VENGEANCE PURSUING CRIME. THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN. HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN. PRUD'HON. THE PRINCESS VISCONTI. THE COUNTESS REGNAULT DE SAINT-JEAN-D'ANGELY. THE ARRIVAL OF A DILIGENCE. BRUTUS CONDEMNING HIS SONS TO DEATH. THE BURIAL OF ATALA. MADAME LEBRUN AND HER DAUGHTER. FRANCIS I., KING OF FRANCE, AND CHARLES V., EMPEROR OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. JAMES G. BLAINE. MR. BLAINE IN 1891. MR. BLAINE AT HIS DESK IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT. FACSIMILE OF THE LETTER WRITTEN BY MR. BLAINE TO MR. HALSTEAD. BLAINE'S GRAVE AT WASHINGTON, D.C.. STATUE OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. ANNA SYMMES HARRISON, THE SILENT WITNESS. "MOVE ON, WILL YER!" "AM--I--IMPRISONED BECAUSE I AM FRIENDLESS AND POOR?" "OH, MY GOD!" HE SOBBED. "MY GOD! MY GOD!" THE SUN'S CORONA. ERUPTIVE PROMINENCE AT 10.34 A.M. ERUPTIVE PROMINENCE AT 10.40 A.M. ERUPTIVE PROMINENCE AT 10.58 A.M. THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY BUILDINGS, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS. PROFESSOR AUSTIN PHELPS'S STUDY. VIEW LOOKING FROM THE FRONT OF ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS'S HOME. DR. EDWARDS A. PARK. THE PHYSICIAN RECEIVING THE PRINCESS IN THE MARQUIS'S SICKROOM. SHE STOLE UP AND SAW MONSIEUR DE MÉROSAILLES SITTING ON THE GROUND. LINCOLN IN 1863. LINCOLN IN 1854. LINCOLN IN FEBRUARY, 1860.

MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE

VOL. VI. JANUARY, 1896. NO. 2.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

EDITED BY IDA M. TARBELL.

LINCOLN AS STOREKEEPER AND SOLDIER IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR.

_This article embodies special studies of Lincoln's life in New Salem made for this Magazine by J. McCan Davis_.

LINCOLN'S FIRST EXPERIENCES IN ILLINOIS.

It was in March, 1830, when Abraham Lincoln was twenty-one years of age, that he moved from Indiana to Macon County, Illinois. He spent his first spring in the new country helping his father settle. In the summer of that year he started out for himself, doing various kinds of rough farm work in the neighborhood until March of 1831, when he went to Sangamon town, near Springfield, to build a flatboat. In April he started on this flatboat for New Orleans, which he reached in May. After a month in that city, he returned, in June, to Illinois, where he made a short visit at his parents' home, now in Coles County, and in July went to New Salem, to take charge of a store and mill owned by Denton Offutt, who had employed him on the flatboat.[A] The goods for the new store had not arrived when Lincoln reached New Salem. Obliged to turn his hand to something, he piloted down the Sangamon and Illinois rivers, as far as Beardstown, a flatboat bearing the family and goods of a pioneer bound for Texas. At Beardstown he found Offutt's goods waiting to be taken to New Salem. As he footed his way home he met two men with a wagon and ox-team going for the goods. Offutt had expected Lincoln to wait at Beardstown until the ox-team arrived, and the teamsters, not having any credentials, asked Lincoln to give them an order for the goods. This, sitting down by the roadside, he wrote out; and one of the men used to relate that it contained a misspelled word, which he corrected.

IN CHARGE OF DENTON OFFUTT'S STORE.

The precise date of the opening of Denton Offutt's store is not known. We only know that on July 8, 1831, the County Commissioners' Court of Sangamon County granted Offutt a license to retail merchandise at New Salem; for which he paid five dollars, a fee which supposed him to have one thousand dollars' worth of goods in stock. When the oxen and their drivers returned with the goods, the store was opened in a little log house on the brink of the hill, almost over the river.

The copy of Kirkham's Grammar studied by Lincoln belonged to a man named Vaner. Some of the biographers say Lincoln borrowed [it,] but it appears that he became the owner of the book, either by purchase or through the generosity of Vaner, for it was never returned to the latter. It is said that Lincoln learned this grammar practically by heart. "Sometimes," says Herndon, "he would stretch out at full length on the counter, his head propped up on a stack of calico prints, studying it; or he would steal away to the shade of some inviting tree, and there spend hours at a time in a determined effort to fix in his mind the arbitrary rule that 'adverbs qualify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs.'" He presented the book to Ann Rutledge [the story of Ann Rutledge will appear in a future number of the Magazine], and it has since been one of the treasures of the Rutledge family. After the death of Ann it was studied by her brother, Robert, and is now owned by his widow, who resides at Casselton, North Dakota. The title page of the book appears above. The words, "Ann M. Rutledge is now learning grammar," were written by Lincoln. The order on James Rutledge to pay David P. Nelson thirty dollars and signed "A. Lincoln, for D. Offutt," which is shown above, was pasted upon the front cover of the book by Robert Rutledge. From a photograph made especially for MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE.--_J. McCan Davis_.]

The frontier store filled a unique place. Usually it was a "general store," and on its shelves were found most of the articles needed in a community of pioneers. But to be a place for the sale of dry goods and groceries was not its only function; it was a kind of intellectual and social centre. It was the common meeting-place of the farmers, the happy refuge of the village loungers. No subject was unknown there. The _habitués_ of the place were equally at home in talking politics, religion, or sport. Stories were told, jokes were cracked and laughed at, and the news contained in the latest newspaper finding its way into the wilderness was discussed. Such a store was that of Denton Offutt. Lincoln could hardly have chosen surroundings more favorable to the highest development of the art of story-telling, and he had not been there long before his reputation for drollery was established.

THE CLARY'S GROVE BOYS.

But he gained popularity and respect in other ways. There was near the village a settlement called Clary's Grove. The most conspicuous part of the population was an organization known as the "Clary's Grove Boys." They exercised a veritable terror over the neighborhood, and yet they were not a bad set of fellows. Mr. Herndon, who had a cousin living in New Salem at the time, and who knew personally many of the "boys," says:

"They were friendly and good-natured; they could trench a pond, dig a bog, build a house; they could pray and fight, make a village or create a state. They would do almost anything for sport or fun, love or necessity. Though rude and rough, though life's forces ran over the edge of the bowl, foaming and sparkling in pure deviltry for deviltry's sake, yet place before them a poor man who needed their aid, a lame or sick man, a defenceless woman, a widow, or an orphaned child, they melted into sympathy and charity at once. They gave all they had, and willingly toiled or played cards for more. Though there never was under the sun a more generous parcel of rowdies, a stranger's introduction was likely to be the most unpleasant part of his acquaintance with them."

Denton Offutt, Lincoln's employer, was just the man to love to boast before such a crowd. He seemed to feel that Lincoln's physical prowess shed glory on himself, and he declared the country over that his clerk could lift more, throw farther, run faster, jump higher, and wrestle better than any man in Sangamon County. The Clary's Grove Boys, of course, felt in honor bound to prove this false, and they appointed their best man, one Jack Armstrong, to "throw Abe." Jack Armstrong was, according to the testimony of all who remember him, a "powerful twister," "square built and strong as an ox," "the best-made man that ever lived;" and everybody knew the contest would be close. Lincoln did not like to "tussle and scuffle," he objected to "woolling and pulling;" but Offutt had gone so far that it became necessary to yield. The match was held on the ground near the grocery. Clary's Grove and New Salem turned out generally to witness the bout, and betting on the result ran high, the community as a whole staking their jack-knives, tobacco plugs, and "treats" on Armstrong. The two men had scarcely taken hold of each other before it was evident that the Clary's Grove champion had met a match. The two men wrestled long and hard, but both kept their feet. Neither could throw the other, and Armstrong, convinced of this, tried a "foul." Lincoln no sooner realized the game of his antagonist than, furious with indignation, he caught him by the throat, and holding him out at arm's length, he "shook him like a child." Armstrong's friends rushed to his aid, and for a moment it looked as if Lincoln would be routed by sheer force of numbers; but he held his own so bravely that the "boys," in spite of their sympathies, were filled with admiration. What bid fair to be a general fight ended in a general hand-shake, even Jack Armstrong declaring that Lincoln was the "best fellow who ever broke into the camp." From that day, at the cock-fights and horse-races, which were their common sports, he became the chosen umpire; and when the entertainment broke up in a row--a not uncommon occurrence--he acted the peacemaker without suffering the peacemaker's usual fate. Such was his reputation with the "Clary's Grove Boys," after three months in New Salem, that when the fall muster came off he was elected captain.

Lincoln showed soon that if he was unwilling to indulge in "woolling and pulling" for amusement, he did not object to it in a case of honor. A man came into the store one day who used profane language in the presence of ladies. Lincoln asked him to stop; but the man persisted, swearing that nobody should prevent his saying what he wanted to. The women gone, the man began to abuse Lincoln so hotly that the latter finally said, coolly: "Well, if you must be whipped, I suppose I might as well whip you as any other man;" and going outdoors with the fellow, he threw him on the ground, and rubbed smartweed in his eyes until he bellowed for mercy. New Salem's sense of chivalry was touched, and enthusiasm over Lincoln increased.

His honesty excited no less admiration. Two incidents seem to have particularly impressed the community. Having discovered on one occasion that he had taken six and one-quarter cents too much from a customer, he walked three miles that evening, after his store was closed, to return the money. Again, he weighed out a half-pound of tea, as he supposed. It was night, and this was the last thing he did before closing up. On entering in the morning he discovered a four-ounce weight on the scales. He saw his mistake, and closing up shop, hurried off to deliver the remainder of the tea.

LINCOLN STUDIES GRAMMAR.

As soon as the store was fairly under way Lincoln began to look about for books. Since leaving Indiana, in March, 1830, he had had, in his drifting life, little leisure or opportunity for study--though he had had a great deal for observation. Nevertheless his desire to learn had increased, and his ambition to be somebody had been encouraged. In that time he had found that he really was superior to many of those who were called the "great" men of the country. Soon after entering Macon County, in March, 1830, when he was only twenty-one years old, he had found he could make a better speech than at least one man who was before the public. A candidate had come along where John Hanks and he were at work, and, as John Hanks tells the story, the man made a speech. "It was a bad one, and I said Abe could beat it. I turned down a box, and Abe made his speech. The other man was a candidate--Abe wasn't. Abe beat him to death, his subject being the navigation of the Sangamon River. The man, after Abe's speech was through, took him aside, and asked him where he had learned so much and how he could do so well. Abe replied, stating his manner and method of reading, what he had read. The man encouraged him to persevere."

He had found that people listened to him, that they quoted his opinions, and that his friends were already saying that he was able to fill any position. Offutt even declared the country over that "Abe knew more than any man in the United States," and "some day he would be President."

Under this stimulus Lincoln's ambition increased. "I have talked with great men," he told his fellow-clerk and friend, Greene, "and I do not see how they differ from others." He made up his mind to put himself before the public, and talked of his plans to his friends. In order to keep in practice in speaking he walked seven or eight miles to debating clubs. "Practising polemics" was what he called the exercise. He seems now for the first time to have begun to study subjects. Grammar was what he chose. He sought Mentor Graham, the schoolmaster, and asked his advice. "If you are going before the public," Mr. Graham told him, "you ought to do it." But where could he get a grammar? There was but one, said Mr. Graham, in the neighborhood, and that was six miles away. Without waiting further information the young man rose from the breakfast-table, walked immediately to the place, borrowed this rare copy of Kirkham's Grammar, and before night was deep into its mysteries. From that time on for weeks he gave every moment of his leisure to mastering the contents of the book. Frequently he asked his friend Greene to "hold the book" while he recited, and, when puzzled by a point, he would consult Mr. Graham.

Lincoln's eagerness to learn was such that the whole neighborhood became interested. The Greenes lent him books, the schoolmaster kept him in mind and helped him as he could, and even the village cooper let him come into his shop and keep up a fire of shavings sufficiently bright to read by at night. It was not long before the grammar was mastered. "Well," Lincoln said to his fellow-clerk, Greene, "if that's what they call a science, I think I'll go at another." He had made another discovery--that he could conquer subjects.

Before the winter was ended he had become the most popular man in New Salem. Although in February, 1832, he was but twenty-two years of age, had never been at school an entire year in his life, had never made a speech except in debating clubs and by the roadside, had read only the books he could pick up, and known only the men who made up the poor, out-of-the-way towns in which he had lived, "encouraged by his great popularity among his immediate neighbors," as he says himself, he decided to announce himself, in March, 1832, as a candidate for the General Assembly of the State.

A CANDIDATE FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

The only preliminary expected of a candidate for the legislature of Illinois at that date was an announcement stating his "sentiments with regard to local affairs." The circular in which Lincoln complied with this custom was a document of about two thousand words, in which he plunged at once into the subject he believed most interesting to his constituents--"the public utility of internal improvements."