The Life of Abraham Lincoln (Arnold)/Chapter I

by Isaac N. Arnold

History furnishes the record of few lives at once so eventful and important, and ending so tragically, as that of Abraham Lincoln. Poets and orators, artists and historians, have tried to depict his character and illustrate his career, but the great epic of his life has yet to be written. We are probably too near him in point of time fully to comprehend and appreciate his greatness, and the influence he is to exert upon his country and the world. The storms which marked his tempestuous career have scarcely yet fully subsided, and the shock of his dramatic death is still felt; but as the clouds of dust and smoke which filled the air during his life clear away, his character will stand out in bolder relief and more perfect outline. I write with the hope that I may contribute something which shall aid in forming a just estimate of his character, and a true appreciation of his services.

Abraham Lincoln was born to a very humble station in life, and his early surroundings were rude and rough, but his ancestors for generations had been of that tough fiber, and vigorous physical organization and mental energy, so often found among the pioneers on the frontier of American civilization. His forefathers removed from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, in the first half of the seventeenth century; and from Pennsylvania some members of the family moved to Virginia, and settled in the valley of the Shenandoah, in the county of Rockingham, whence his immediate ancestors came to Kentucky. For several generations they kept on the crest of the wave of Western settlement. The family were English, and came from Norfolk County, England, in about the year 1638, when they settled in Hingham, Massachusetts. Mordecai Lincoln, the English emigrant who thus settled in Massachusetts, removed afterwards to Pennsylvania, and was the great-great-grandfather of the President. His son John, who was the great-grandfather of the President, moved to Virginia, and had a son Abraham, the grandfather of the President. He and his son Thomas moved, in 1782, from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky.^[1] It was in the same year that General George Rogers Clark captured Kaskaskia, and on the 12th of September, 1782, Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, appointed John Todd commandant of the county of Illinois, then a part of Virginia. These ancestors of the President were rough, hardy, fearless men, and familiar with woodcraft; men who could endure the extremes of fatigue and exposure, who knew how to find food and shelter in the forest; brave, self-reliant, true and faithful to their friends, and dangerous to their enemies.

The grandfather of the President and his son Thomas emigrated to Kentucky in 1781 or 1782, and settled in Mercer county. This grandfather is named in the surveys of Daniel Boone as having purchased of the United States five hundred acres of land.^[2]

A year or two after this settlement in Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln, having erected a log cabin near "Bear Grass Fort," the site of the present city of Louisville, began to open up his farm. Shortly after this, he was one day, while at work in the field, waylaid, shot, and instantly killed, by a party of Indians. Thomas Lincoln, born in 1778, and the father of the President, was in the field with his father when he fell. Mordecai and Josiah, his elder brothers, were near by in the forest. Mordecai, startled by the shot, saw his father fall, and, running to the cabin, seized the loaded rifle, rushed to one of the loop-holes cut through the logs of the cabin, and saw the Indian who had fired; he had just caught the boy, Thomas, and was running towards the forest. Pointing the rifle through the logs, and aiming at a silver medal on the breast of the Indian, Mordecai fired. The Indian fell, and the boy, springing to his feet, ran to the open arms of his mother, at the cabin door. Meanwhile, Josiah, who had run to the fort for aid, returned with a party of settlers, who brought in the body of Abraham Lincoln, and the Indian who had been shot. From this time throughout his life, Mordecai was the mortal enemy of the Indians, and, it is said, sacrificed many in revenge for the murder of his father.

It was in the midst of such scenes that the ancestors of the President were nurtured. They were contemporaries of Daniel Boone, of Simon Kenton, and other border heroes and Indian fighters on the frontiers, and were often engaged in those desperate conflicts between the Indians and the settlers, which gave to Kentucky the suggestive name of "the dark and bloody ground."^[3]

These Kentucky hunters, of which the grandfather and the father of the President are types, were a very remarkable class of men. They were brave, sagacious, and self-reliant, ready in the hour of danger, frank, generous and hospitable. Tough and hardy, with his trusty rifle always in his hands or by his side, his long, keen knife always in his belt, and his faithful hunting-dog his constant companion, of greater endurance and of far superior intellect, the Kentucky hunter could outrun his Indian enemy, or whip him in a man to man fight. This man, who has driven away or killed the Indian, who has cleared the forests, broken up and reclaimed the wilderness, and whose type still survives in the pioneer, is one of the most picturesque figures in American history. From this sort of ancestry have sprung Andrew Jackson and David Crockett, Benton and Clay, Grant and Lincoln.

Thomas Lincoln was married on the 2d of September, 1806, to Nancy Hanks, she being twenty-three and he twenty-eight years of age. They were married by the Rev. Jesse Head, a Methodist clergyman, near Springfield, Kentucky. She has been described as a brunette, with dark hair, regular features, and soft, sparkling hazel eyes. Her ancestors were of English descent, and they, like the Lincolns, had emigrated from Virginia to Kentucky. Thomas and his wife settled on Rock Creek farm, in Hardin County; and here, on the 12th of February, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born. He was the second child, having an older sister, named Sarah. He had, besides, a younger brother, named Thomas, who died in infancy.

The ancestors of President Lincoln for several generations were farmers, and, as has already been stated, his grandfather purchased from the United States five hundred acres of land. His father, Thomas, on the 18th of October, 1817, entered a quarter-section of government land; and President Lincoln left, as a part of his estate, a quarter-section which he had received by patent from the United States for services rendered as a volunteer in the Black Hawk war. So that this humble pioneer family for three generations owned land, by direct grant from the government, and in that sense may be said to have belonged to "the landed gentry."

It is curious to note in this race of Lincolns many of the same strong and hardy traits of character which have marked the founders of influential historic families in older nations, and especially among the English. Had Abraham Lincoln been born in England or in Normandy, or on the Rhine, some centuries ago, he might have been the founder of a baronial family, perhaps of a royal dynasty. He could have wielded with ease the battle-axe of "Richard of the Lion Heart," or the two-handed sword of Guy, the first Earl of Warwick, some of whose characteristics were his also. Indeed, the difference between such men as Boone, and Kenton, and Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather of the President, on the one hand, and the early Warwicks, the Douglases and the Percys on the other, is that the Kentucky heroes were far better men and of a more advanced civilization.

In 1816, the year in which Indiana was admitted into the Union, the family of Lincoln removed from Kentucky to Spencer County, in the former state. It was a long, hard, weary journey. Many streams were to be forded, and a part of the way was through the primeval forest, where they were often compelled to cut their path with the axe. At the time of this removal the lad Abraham was in his eighth year, but tall, large and strong of his age. The first things he had learned to use were the axe and the rifle, and with these he was already able to render important assistance to his parents on the journey, and in building up their new home. The family settled near Gentryville, and built their log-cabin on the top of an eminence which sloped gently away on every side. The landscape was beautiful, the soil rich, and in a short time some land was cleared and a crop of corn and vegetables raised. The struggle for life and its few comforts was in this wilderness a very hard one, and none but those of the most vigorous constitution could succeed. The trials, privations, and hardships incident to clearing, breaking up, and subduing the soil and establishing a home, so far away from all the necessaries of life, taxed the strength and endurance of all to the utmost. Bears, deer and other sorts of wild game were abundant, and contributed largely to the support of the family.

Mrs. Lincoln, the mother of the President, is said to have been in her youth a woman of beauty. She was by nature refined, and of far more than ordinary intellect. Her friends spoke of her as being a person of marked and decided character. She was unusually intelligent, reading all the books she could obtain. She taught her husband, as well as her son Abraham, to read and write.^[4] She was a woman of deep religious feeling, of the most exemplary character, and most tenderly and affectionately devoted to her family. Her home indicated a degree of taste and a love of beauty exceptional in the wild settlement in which she lived, and, judging from her early death, it is probable that she was of a physique less hardy than that of most of those by whom she was surrounded. But in spite of this she had been reared where the very means of existence were to be obtained but by a constant struggle, and she had learned to use the rifle and the tools of the backwoods farmer, as well as the distaff, the cards, and the spinning wheel. She could not only kill the wild game of the woods, but she could also dress it, make of the skins, clothes for her family and prepare the flesh for food. Hers was a strong, self-reliant spirit, which commanded the respect as well as the love of the rugged people among whom she lived. She died on the 5th of October, 1818, aged thirty-five years. Two children, Abraham, and his sister, Sarah, alone survived her.

The country burying-ground where she was laid, half a mile from their log cabin home, had been selected perhaps by herself, and was situated on the top of a forest-covered hill. There, beneath the dark shade of the woods, and under a majestic sycamore, they dug the grave of the mother of Abraham Lincoln. The funeral ceremonies were very plain and simple, but solemn withal, for nowhere does death seem so deeply impressive as in such a solitude. At the time no clergyman could be found in or near the settlement to perform the usual religious rites. But this devoted mother had carefully instructed Abraham to read the Bible, and to, write; and perhaps the first practical use the boy made of the acquisition was to write a letter to David Elkin, a traveling preacher whom the family had known in Kentucky, begging him to come and perform religious services over his mother's grave. The preacher came, but not until some months afterwards, traveling many miles on horseback through the wild forest to reach their residence; and then the family, with a few friends and neighbors, gathered in the open air under the great sycamore beneath which they had laid the mother's remains. A funeral sermon was preached, hymns were sung, and such rude but sincere and impressive services were held as are usual among the pioneers of the frontier.

His mother's death and these sad and solemn rites made an impression on the mind of the son as lasting as life. She had found time amidst her weary toil and the hard struggle of her busy life, not only to teach him to read and to write, but to impress ineffaceably upon him that love of truth and justice, that perfect integrity and reverence for God, for which he was noted all his life. These virtues were ever associated in his mind with the most tender love and respect for his mother. "All that I am, or hope to be," he said, "I owe to my angel mother."

The common free schools which now so closely follow the heels of the pioneer and settler in the western portions of the republic had not then reached Indiana. An itinerant teacher sometimes "straggled" into a settlement, and if he could teach "readin', writin', and cipherin'" to the rule of three, he was deemed qualified to set up a school. With teachers thus qualified. Lincoln attended school at different times; in all about twelve months. An anecdote is told of an incident occurring at one of these schools, which indicates his kindness and his readiness of invention. A poor, diffident girl, who spelled definite with a y, was threatened and frightened by the rude teacher. Lincoln, with a significant look, putting one of his long fingers to his eye, enabled her to change the letter in time to escape punishment. He early manifested the most eager desire to learn. He acquired knowledge with great facility. What he learned he learned thoroughly, and everything he had once acquired was always at his command.

There were no libraries, and but few books, in the "back settlements" in which he lived. Among the few volumes which he found in the cabins of the illiterate families by which he was surrounded were the Bible, Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," Weems' "Life of Washington," and the poems of Robert Burns. These he read over and over again, until they became as familiar as the alphabet. The Bible has been at all times the one book in every home and cabin in the republic; yet it was truly said of Lincoln that no man, clergyman or otherwise, could be found so familiar with this book as he. This is apparent, both in his conversation and his writings. There is hardly a speech or state paper of his in which allusions and illustrations taken from the Bible do not appear. Burns he could quote from end to end. Long afterwards he wrote a most able lecture upon this, perhaps next to Shakspeare, his favorite poet.

His father afterwards married Mrs. Sally Johnson, of Kentucky, a widow with three children. She was a noble woman, sensible, affectionate, and tenderly attached to her step-son. She says of him: "He read diligently... He read everything he could lay his hands on, and when he came across a passage that struck him, he would write it down on boards, if he had no paper, and keep it until he had got paper. Then he would copy it, look at it, commit it to memory, and repeat it." He kept a scrap-book, into which he copied everything which particularly pleased him. His step-mother adds: "He never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused, in fact or appearance, to do anything I requested of him." He loved to study more than to hunt, although his skill with the rifle was well known, for while yet a boy he had brought down with his father's rifle, a wild turkey at which he had shot through an opening between the logs of the cabin.

The family consisted now of his father and step-mother, his sister Sarah, sometimes called Nancy, the three children of his step-mother, and himself. The names of Mrs. Johnson's children were John, Sarah, and Alexander. They all went to school together, sometimes walking four or five miles, and taking with them for their dinner, cakes made of the coarse meal of the Indian corn (maize), and known as "corn dodgers." The settlers used the phrase "corn dodgers and common doings," to indicate ordinary fare, as distinguished from the luxury of "white bread and chicken fixings." In these years he wore a cap made from the skin of the coon or squirrel, buckskin breeches, a hunting shirt of deerskin, or a linsey-woolsey shirt, and very coarse cowhide shoes. His food was the "corn dodger" and the game of the forests and prairies. The tools he most constantly used were the axe, the maul, the hoe and the plough. His life was one of constant and hard manual labor.

The settlers on the frontier, both in Indiana and Illinois, whose homes dotted the edges of the timber, or were pitched along the banks of streams, were so far apart at that time that they could rarely see the smoke from each other's cabins. The mother with her own hands carded and spun the rolls of flax and wool on her own spinning-wheel. She and her daughters wove the cloth, dyed it, and made up the garments her children wore. The utensils of the farm and the furniture of the cabin were rude, primitive, and often home-made. Pewter plates and wooden trenchers were used. The tea and coffee cups were made of japanned tin; these, and the shells of the gourd, were the usual drinking-vessels. In those days Lincoln ate his

"Milk and bread

With pewter spoon and bowl of wood,

On the door-stone, gray and rude."

The wild thorn and the acacia furnished a good substitute for pins. The axe, the rifle, the maul, and the plough were the farmer's tools and means of livelihood. Every child, boy or girl, was early trained to habits of industry. The people were kind and neighborly, always ready to help one another, and were frugal, industrious, and moral. There was a quick sense of justice among them. No gross wrong, fraud, or injustice, but was promptly punished, and, if too often repeated, the offender was expelled from the community.

Young Abraham borrowed of the neighbors and read every book he could hear of in the settlement within a wide circuit. If by chance he heard of a book that he had not read, he would walk many miles to borrow it. Among other volumes, he borrowed of one Crawford, Weems' "Life of Washington." Reading it with the greatest eagerness, he took it to bed with him in the loft of the cabin, and read on until his nubbin of tallow candle had burned out. Then he placed the book between the logs of the cabin, that it might be at hand as soon as there was light enough in the morning to enable him to read. But during the night a violent rain came on, and he awoke to find his book wet through and through. Drying it as well as he could, he went to Crawford and told him of the mishap, and, as he had no money to pay for it, offered to work out the value of the injured volume. Crawford fixed the price at three days' work, and the future President pulled corn three days, and thus became the owner of the fascinating book. He thought the labor well invested. He read, over and over again, this graphic and enthusiastic sketch of Washington's career, and no boy ever turned over the pages of Cooper's "Leather Stocking Tales" with more intense delight than that with which Lincoln read of the exploits and adventures and virtues of this American hero. Following his plough in breaking the prairie, he pondered over the story of Washington and longed to imitate him. Perhaps there is no biography in the language better calculated to exert a lasting influence on an ingenuous and ambitious boy, situated as he then was, than this of Weems'. Its enthusiasm was contagious, and Lincoln began to dream of being himself a doer of great deeds. Why might not he also be a soldier and a patriot? Bred in solitude, brooding and thoughtful, he began very early to study the means of success, and to prepare himself for a life which, as we shall see by and by, he early had a presentiment was to be an eventful one.

He now set himself resolutely to learn, to educate himself. It has been a matter of surprise that, with such meagre opportunities, he became a man of such general intelligence and culture. But when it is remembered that, united with an intense desire to learn, he had great facility in acquisition; that he early formed the important habit of learning thoroughly and going to the bottom of everything he studied; and that his memory was both ready and tenacious enough to enable him to retain forever what he had once learned; it will not seem so surprising. His habits of study, of constant investigation and acquisition, he retained up to the day of his death. He studied Euclid, Algebra, and Latin, when traveling the circuit as a lawyer. He began early to exercise himself in writing prose and in making speeches. One of the companions of his boyhood says: "He was always reading, writing, cyphering, writing poetry." "He would go to the store of an afternoon and evening, and his jokes and stories were so odd, so witty, so humorous, that all the people of the town would gather around him."^[5]... "He would sometimes keep his crowd until midnight."^[6] "He was a great reader, and a good talker."

In after life, when pronouncing a eulogy on Henry Clay, whose opportunities for education at schools were little better than his own, Lincoln said: "His example teaches us that one can scarcely be so poor, but that, if he will, he can acquire sufficient education to get through the world respectably."^[7] A truth of which he himself furnished a still more striking illustration.

In practicing his speeches on political and other subjects, he made them so amusing and attractive that his father had to forbid his speaking during working hours, "for," said he, "when Abe begins to speak, all the hands flock to hear him."

He attended court at Boonville, the county seat of Warwick County, to witness a trial for murder, at which one of the Breckenridges, from Kentucky, made a very eloquent speech for the defence. The boy was carried away with intense admiration, and was so enthusiastic, that, although a perfect stranger, he could not refrain from expressing his admiration to Breckenridge. He wished he could be a lawyer, and went home and dreamed of courts, and got up mock trials, at which he would defend imaginary prisoners. Several of his companions at this period of his life, as well as those who knew him after he went to Illinois, declare that he was often heard to say, not in joke, but seriously, as if he were deeply impressed, rather than elated with the idea: "I shall some day be President of the United States."^[8]

In March, 1826, Lincoln was seventeen years old. At that time, from specimens of his writing in the possession of the author, he wrote a clear, neat, legible hand, which is instantly and easily recognized as his by those familiar with Lincoln's handwriting when President. He was quick at figures, and could readily and accurately solve any and all problems of arithmetic up to, and including, the "rule of three."^[9] He studied, at about this time, the theory of surveying. Afterwards, and after his removal to Illinois, as we shall see, he became like Washington, a good practical surveyor.^[10]

In the spring of 1828, young Lincoln, in the employ of the proprietor of Gentryville, and in company with Allen, a son of Mr. Gentry, made a trip to New Orleans. They made the descent of the Mississippi in a flat-boat loaded with bacon and other farm produce. This was his first opportunity of seeing the world outside of the little settlement in which he lived. Having disposed very successfully of their cargo and boat, the young adventurers returned home by steamboat.

Living thus on the extreme frontier, mingling with the rude, hard-working, simple, honest backwoodsmen, while he soon became superior in knowledge to all around him, he was at the same time an expert in the use of every implement of agriculture and woodcraft. As an axe-man he was unequalled. He grew up strong in body, healthful in mind, with no bad habits, no stain of intemperance, profanity or vice. He used neither tobacco nor intoxicating drinks, and thus living, he grew to be six feet and four inches high, and a giant in strength. In all athletic sports he had no equal. His comrades say "he could strike the hardest blow with axe or maul, jump higher and further, run faster than any of his fellows, and there was no one, far or near, could lay him on his back."^[11]

Among these rough people he was always popular. He early developed that wonderful power of narration and storytelling, for which he was all his life distinguished. This, and his kindness and good-nature, made him a welcome guest at every fireside and in every cabin. A well authenticated incident illustrating his kindness occurred while he lived near Gentryville. Going home with a companion, late on a cold night, they found an acquaintance dead drunk in the road. Although his companion refused assistance, young Lincoln would not leave the drunken man, but, lifting him in his long, stalwart arms to his shoulders, he carried him a considerable distance to the cabin of Dennis Hanks, and there warmed him and brought him to consciousness. The poor fellow often afterwards declared: "Abe Lincoln's strength and kindness saved my life."

Footnotes

1. The following statement, of which a facsimile is now before me, was drawn up by Mr. Lincoln, at the request of J. W. Fell, of Bloomington, Illinois:
   I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My Parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families-- second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, and others in Macon Counties, Illinois. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or '2, where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name, ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like.
   
   My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he grew up literally without education. He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the state came into the Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin'" to the Rule of Three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.
   
   I was raised to farm work, which I continued until I was twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, and passed the first year in Macon County. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon, now in Menard County, where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store. Then came the Black Hawk war, and I was elected a Captain of Volunteers-- a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went [through] the campaign, was elated, ran for the Legislature the same year (1832), and was beaten-- the only time I have ever been beaten by the people. The next, and three succeeding biennial elections, I was elected to the Legislature. I was not a candidate afterwards. During this legislative period I had studied law, and removed to Springfield to practice it. In 1846 I was once elected to the Lower House of Congress. Was not a candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, both inclusive, practiced law more assiduously than ever before. Always a Whig in politics, and generally on the Whig electoral tickets, making active canvasses. I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.
   
   If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said, I am in height, six feet, four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair, and gray eyes. No other marks or bands recollected.
   
   Yours very truly,
   A. Lincoln.
2. "Abraham Lincoln enters 500 acres of land on a Treasury warrant on the south side of Licking Creek or River, in Kentucky." See the original Field Book of Daniel Boone, in possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society.
3. It is a curious fact that the grandfather of the President should have been a comrade of Daniel Boone in Kentucky, and that the President and a grandson of Boone should have been fellow soldiers in the Black Hawk war; both volunteers from Illinois. See Major Robert Anderson's manuscript sketch of the Black Hawk war (quoted hereafter), in possession of the Chicago Historical Society.
4. John Hanks.
5. Dennis Hanks.
6. "I would get tired, want to go home, curse him for staying."-- Dennis Hanks.
7. See Lincoln's Eulogy on Henry Clay, in July, 1852.
8. I have myself heard, from many of Lincoln's old friends, that he often said, while still an obscure man: "Some day I shall be President." He undoubtedly had, for years, some presentiment of this.-- Author.
9. I have in my possession, a few pages from his manuscript Book of Examples in Arithmetic". One of these is dated March 1 1826, and headed "Discount," and then follows in his careful handwriting, first; "A definition of Discount," second; "Rules for its computation," third; Proofs and Various Examples," worked out in figures etc.; then "Interest on money" is treated in the same way, all in his own handwriting. I doubt whether it would be easy to find among scholars of our common or high schools, or any school of boys of the age of seventeen, a better written specimen of this sort of work, or a better knowledge of figures than is indicated by this book of Lincoln's, written at the age of seventeen.-- Author.
10. I have also in my possession, the book from which he learned the art of surveying. It is entitled, "The Theory and Practice of Surveying, by Robert Gibson." It was published by Evert Duyckinck, New York, in 1814, as appears from the title page. Lincoln's name, in his own handwriting, appears in several places and on blank leaves of the book.-- Author.
11. "He could strike with an axe," says old Mr. Wood, "a heavier blow than any man... He could sink an axe deeper than any of his fellows."