The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln Part 1

The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln.

by Francis Fisher Browne.

FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE

_1843-1913_

The present revision of "The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln" was the last literary labor of its author. He had long wished to undertake the work, and had talked much of it for several years past. But favorable arrangements for the book's republication were not completed until about a year ago. Then, though by no means recovered from an attack of pneumonia late in the previous winter, he took up the task of revision and recasting with something of his old-time energy. It was a far heavier task than he had antic.i.p.ated, but he gave it practically his undivided attention until within three or four weeks of his death. Only when the last pages of ma.n.u.script had been despatched to the printer did he yield to the overwhelming physical suffering that had been upon him for a long time past. His death occurred at Santa Barbara, California, on May 11.

Francis Fisher Browne was born at South Halifax, Vermont, on December 1, 1843. His parentage, on both sides, was of the purest New England stock.

Early in his childhood, the family moved to Western Ma.s.sachusetts, where the boy went to school and learned the printing trade in his father's newspaper office at Chicopee. As a lad of eighteen, he left the high school in answer to the government's call for volunteers, serving for a year with the 46th Ma.s.sachusetts Regiment in North Carolina and with the Army of the Potomac. When the regiment was discharged, in 1863, he decided to take up the study of law. Removing to Rochester, N.Y., he entered a law office in that city; and a year or two later began a brief course in the law department of the University of Michigan. He was unable to continue in college, however, and returned to Rochester to follow his trade.

Immediately after his marriage, in 1867, he came to Chicago, with the definite intention of engaging in literary work. Here he became a.s.sociated with "The Western Monthly," which, with the fuller establishment of his control, he rechristened "The Lakeside Monthly."

The best writers throughout the West were gradually enlisted as contributors; and it was not long before the magazine was generally recognized as the most creditable and promising periodical west of the Atlantic seaboard. But along with this increasing prestige came a series of extraneous setbacks and calamities, culminating in a complete physical breakdown of its editor and owner, which made the magazine's suspension imperative.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANCIS F. BROWNE]

The six years immediately following, from 1874 to 1880, were largely spent in a search for health. During part of this time, however, Mr.

Browne acted as literary editor of "The Alliance," and as special editorial writer for some of the leading Chicago newspapers. But his mind was preoccupied with plans for a new periodical--this time a journal of literary criticism, modeled somewhat after such English publications as "The Athenaeum" and "The Academy." In the furtherance of this bold conception he was able to interest the publis.h.i.+ng firm of Jansen, McClurg & Co.; and under their imprint, in May, 1880, appeared the first issue of THE DIAL, "a monthly review and index of current literature." At about the same time he became literary adviser to the publis.h.i.+ng department of the house, and for twelve years thereafter toiled unremittingly at his double task-work. In 1892, negotiations were completed whereby he acquired Messrs. McClurg & Co.'s interest in the periodical. It was enlarged in scope, and made a semi-monthly; and from that time until his death it appeared uninterruptedly under his guidance and his control.

Besides his writings in THE DIAL and other periodicals, Mr. Browne is the author of a small volume of poems, "Volunteer Grain" (1895). He also compiled and edited several anthologies,--"Bugle Echoes," a collection of Civil War poems (1886); "Golden Poems by British and American Authors" (1881); "The Golden Treasury of Poetry and Prose" (1883); and seven volumes of "Laurel-Crowned Verse" (1891-2). He was one of the small group of men who, in 1874, founded the Chicago Literary Club; and for a number of years past he has been an honorary member of that organization, as well as of the Caxton Club (Chicago) and the Twilight Club (Pasadena, Cal.). During the summer of 1893 he served as Chairman of the Committee on the Congress of Authors of the World's Congress Auxiliary of the Columbian Exposition.

THE PUBLISHERS

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

The original edition of this book was published about twenty years after Lincoln's death at the close of the Civil War. At that time many of the men who had taken a prominent part in the affairs, military and civil, of that heroic period, many who had known Lincoln and had come in personal contact with him during the war or in his earlier years, were still living. It was a vivid conception of the value of the personal recollections of these men, gathered and recorded before it was too late, that led to the preparation of this book. It was intended to be, and in effect it was, largely an anecdotal Life of Lincoln built of material gathered from men still living who had known him personally.

The task was begun none too soon. Of the hundreds who responded to the requests for contributions of their memories of Lincoln there were few whose lives extended very far into the second quarter-century after his death, and few indeed survive after the lapse of nearly fifty years,--though in several instances the author has been so fortunate as to get valuable material directly from persons still living (1913). Of the more than five hundred friends and contemporaries of Lincoln to whom credit for material is given in the original edition, scarcely a dozen are living at the date of this second edition. Therefore, the value of these reminiscences increases with time. They were gathered largely at first hand. They can never be replaced, nor can they ever be very much extended.

This book brings Lincoln the man, not Lincoln the tradition, very near to us. Browning asked, "And did you once see Sh.e.l.ley plain? And did he stop and speak to you?" The men whose narratives make up a large part of this book all saw Lincoln plain, and here tell us what he spoke to them, and how he looked and seemed while saying it. The great events of Lincoln's life, and impressions of his character, are given in the actual words of those who knew him--his friends, neighbors, and daily a.s.sociates--rather than condensed and remolded into other form. While these utterances are in some cases rude and unstudied, they have often a power of delineation and a graphic force that more than compensate for any lack of literary quality.

In a work prepared on such a plan as this, some repet.i.tions are unavoidable; nor are they undesirable. An event or incident narrated by different observers is thereby brought out with greater fulness of detail; and phases of Lincoln's many-sided character are revealed more clearly by the varied impressions of numerous witnesses whose accounts thus correct or verify each other. Some inconsistencies and contradictions are inevitable,--but these relate usually to minor matters, seldom or never to the great essentials of Lincoln's life and personality. The author's desire is to present material from which the reader may form an opinion of Lincoln, rather than to present opinions and judgments of his own.

Lincoln literature has increased amazingly in the past twenty-five years. Mention of the princ.i.p.al biographies in existence at the time of the original edition was included in the Preface. Since then there have appeared, among the more formal biographies, the comprehensive and authoritative work by Nicolay and Hay, the subsequent work by Miss Ida Tarbell, and that by Herndon and Weik, besides many more or less fragmentary publications. Some additions, but not many, have been made to the present edition from these sources. The recently-published Diary of Gideon Welles, one of the most valuable commentaries on the Civil War period now available, has provided some material of exceptional interest concerning Lincoln's relations with the members of his Cabinet.

In re-writing the present work, it has been compressed into about two-thirds of its former compa.s.s, to render it more popular both in form and in price, and to give it in some places a greater measure of coherency and continuity as an outline narrative of the Civil War. But its chief appeal to the interest of its readers will remain substantially what it was in the beginning, as set forth in its t.i.tle, "The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Those Who Knew Him."

F.F.B.

SANTA BARBARA, CAL., _April, 1913._

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

This book aims to give a view, clearer and more complete than has been given before, of the personality of Abraham Lincoln. A life so full of incident and a character so many-sided as his can be understood only with the lapse of time. A sense of the exhaustless interest of that life and character, and the inadequacy of the ordinarily constructed biography to portray his many-sidedness, suggested the preparation of a work upon the novel plan here represented. Begun several years ago, the undertaking proved of such magnitude that its completion has been delayed beyond the antic.i.p.ated time. The extensive correspondence, the exploration of available sources of information in the books, pamphlets, magazines, and newspapers of a quarter of a century, and in the sc.r.a.ps and papers of historical collections, became an almost interminable task. The examination and sifting of this ma.s.s of material, its verification amidst often conflicting testimony, and its final molding into shape, involved time and labor that can be estimated only by those who have had similar experience.

To the many who have kindly furnished original contributions, to others who have aided the work by valuable suggestions and information, to earlier biographies of Lincoln--those of Raymond, Holland, Barrett, Lamon, Carpenter, and (the best and latest of all) that of Hon. I.N.

Arnold--hearty acknowledgment is made. Much that was offered could not be used. In the choice of material, from whatever source, the purpose has been to avoid mere opinions and eulogies of Lincoln and to give abundantly those actual experiences, incidents, anecdotes, and reminiscences which reveal the phases of his unique and striking personality.

It scarcely need be pointed out that this work does not attempt to give a connected history of the Civil War, but only to sketch briefly those episodes with which Lincoln is personally identified and of which some knowledge is essential to an understanding of his acts and character.

Others are brought into prominence only as they are a.s.sociated with the chief actor in the great drama. Many of them are disappearing,--fading into the smoky and lurid background. But that colossal central figure, playing one of the grandest roles ever set upon the stage of human life, becomes more impressive as the scenes recede.

F.F.B.

CHICAGO, _October, 1886._

CHAPTER I

Ancestry--The Lincolns in Kentucky--Death of Lincoln's Grandfather--Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks--Mordecai Lincoln--Birth of Abraham Lincoln--Removal to Indiana--Early Years--Dennis Hanks--Lincoln's Boyhood--Death of Nancy Hanks--Early School Days--Lincoln's First Dollar--Presentiments of Future Greatness--Down the Mississippi--Removal to Illinois--Lincoln's Father--Lincoln the Storekeeper--First Official Act--Lincoln's Short Sketch of His Own Life.

The year 1809--that year which gave William E. Gladstone to England--was in our country the birth-year of him who wears the most distinguished name that has yet been written on the pages of American history--ABRAHAM LINCOLN. In a rude cabin in a clearing, in the wilds of that section which was once the hunting-ground and later the battle-field of the Cherokees and other war-like tribes, and which the Indians themselves had named Kentucky because it was "dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground," the great War President of the United States, after whose name History has written the word "Emanc.i.p.ator," first saw the light. Born and nurtured in penury, inured to hards.h.i.+p, coa.r.s.e food, and scanty clothing,--the story of his youth is full of pathos. Small wonder that when asked in his later years to tell something of his early life, he replied by quoting a line from Gray's Elegy:

"The short and simple annals of the poor."

Lincoln's ancestry has been traced with tolerable certainty through five generations to Samuel Lincoln of Norfolk County, England. Not many years after the landing of the "Mayflower" at Plymouth--perhaps in the year 1638--Samuel Lincoln's son Mordecai had emigrated to Hingham, Ma.s.sachusetts. Perhaps because he was a Quaker, a then persecuted sect, he did not remain long at Hingham, but came westward as far as Berks County, Pennsylvania. His son, John Lincoln, went southward from Pennsylvania and settled in Rockingham County, Virginia. Later, in 1782, while the last events of the American Revolution were in progress, Abraham Lincoln, son of John and grandfather of President Lincoln, moved into Kentucky and took up a tract of government land in Mercer County.

In the Field Book of Daniel Boone, the Kentucky pioneer, (now in possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society), appears the following note of purchase:

"Abraham Lincoln enters five hundred acres of land on a Treasury warrant on the south side of Licking Creek or River, in Kentucky."

At this time Kentucky was included within the limits and jurisdiction of Virginia. In 1775 Daniel Boone had built a fort at Boonesborough, on the Kentucky river, and it was not far from this site that Abraham Lincoln, President Lincoln's grandfather, located his claim and put up a rude log hut for the shelter of his family. The pioneers of Kentucky cleared small s.p.a.ces and erected their humble dwellings. They had to contend not only with the wild forces of nature, and to defend themselves from the beasts of the forest,--more to be feared than either were the hostile Indians. The settlers were filled with terror of these stealthy foes. At home and abroad they kept their guns ready for instant use both night and day. Many a hard battle was fought between the Indian and the pioneer. Many an unguarded woodsman was shot down without warning while busy about his necessary work. Among these was Abraham Lincoln. The story of his death is related by Mr. I.N. Arnold. "Thomas Lincoln was with his father in the field when the savages suddenly fell upon them.

Mordecai and Josiah, his elder brothers, were near by in the forest.

Mordecai, startled by a 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 toward the forest. Pointing the rifle through the logs and aiming at a medal on the breast of the Indian, Mordecai fired. The Indian fell, and springing to his feet the boy 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. The bodies of Abraham Lincoln and the Indian who had been killed were brought in. From this time forth Mordecai Lincoln was the mortal enemy of the Indian, and it is said that he sacrificed many in revenge for the murder of his father."

In the presence of such dangers Thomas Lincoln spent his boyhood. He was born in 1778, and could not have been much more than four years old on that fatal day when in one swift moment his father lay dead beside him and vengeance had been exacted by his resolute boy brother. It was such experiences as these that made of the pioneers the st.u.r.dy men they were.

They acquired habits of heroism. Their sinews became wiry; their nerves turned to steel. Their senses became sharpened. They grew alert, steady, prompt and deft in every emergency.

Of Mordecai Lincoln, the boy who had exhibited such coolness and daring on the day of his father's death, many stories are told after he reached manhood. "He was naturally a man of considerable genius," says one who knew him. "He was a man of great drollery. It would almost make you laugh to look at him. I never saw but one other man who excited in me the same disposition to laugh, and that was Artemus Ward. Abe Lincoln had a very high opinion of his uncle, and on one occasion remarked that Uncle Mord had run off with all the talents of the family."

Thomas Lincoln was twenty-eight years old before he sought a wife. His choice fell upon a young woman of twenty-three whose name was Nancy Hanks. Like her husband, she was of English descent. Like his, her parents had followed in the path of emigration from Virginia to Kentucky. The couple were married by the Rev. Jesse Head, a Methodist minister located at Springfield, Was.h.i.+ngton County, Kentucky. They lived for a time in Elizabethtown, but after the birth of their first child, Sarah, they removed to Rock Spring farm, on Nolin Creek, in Hardin (afterward LaRue) County. In this desolate spot, a strange and unlikely place for the birth of one destined to play so memorable a part in the history of the world, on the twelfth day of February, 1809, Abraham Lincoln the President was born.

Of all the gross injustice ever done to the memory of woman, that which has been accorded to Nancy Hanks is the greatest. The story which cast a shadow upon her parentage, and on that of her ill.u.s.trious son as well, should be sternly relegated to the oblivion whence it came. Mr. Henry Watterson, in his brilliant address on Lincoln, refers to him as "that strange, incomparable man, _of whose parentage we neither know nor care_." In some localities, particularly in Kentucky and South Carolina, the rumor is definite and persistent that the President was not the son of Thomas Lincoln, the illiterate and thriftless, but of one Colonel Hardin for whom Hardin County was named; that Nancy Hanks was herself the victim of unlegalized motherhood, the natural daughter of an aristocratic, wealthy, and well-educated Virginia planter, and that this accounted for many of her son's characteristics. The story has long since been disproved. Efforts to verify it brought forth the fact that it sprang into being in the early days of the Civil War and was evidently a fabrication born of the bitter spirit of the hour.

It was not from his father, however, that Lincoln inherited any of his remarkable traits. The dark coa.r.s.e hair, the gray eyes, sallow complexion, and brawny strength, which were his, const.i.tuted his sole inheritance on the paternal side. But Nancy Hanks was gentle and refined, and would have adorned any station in life. She was beautiful in youth, with dark hair, regular features, and soft sparkling hazel eyes. She was unusually intelligent, and read all the books she could obtain. Says Mr. Arnold: "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 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 those among whom she lived. Hers was a strong, self-reliant spirit, which commanded the love and respect of the rugged people among whom she dwelt."

The tender and reverent spirit of Abraham Lincoln, and the pensive melancholy of his disposition, he no doubt inherited from his mother.

Amid the toil and struggle of her busy life she found time not only to teach him to read and write but to impress upon him ineffaceably that love of truth and justice, that perfect integrity and reverence for G.o.d, for which he was noted all his life. Lincoln always looked upon his mother with unspeakable affection, and never ceased to cherish the memory of her life and teaching.

A spirit of restlessness, a love of adventure, a longing for new scenes, and possibly the hope of improving his condition, led Thomas Lincoln to abandon the Rock Spring farm, in the fall of 1816, and begin life over again in the wilds of southern Indiana. The way thither lay through unbroken country and was beset with difficulties. Often the travellers were obliged to cut their road as they went. With the resolution of pioneers, however, they began the journey. At the end of several days they had gone but eighteen miles. Abraham Lincoln was then but seven years old, but was already accustomed to the use of axe and gun. He lent a willing hand, and bore his share in the labor and fatigue connected with the difficult journey. In after years he said that he had never pa.s.sed through a more trying experience than when he went from Thompson's Ferry to Spencer County, Indiana. On arriving, a shanty for immediate use was hastily erected. Three sides were enclosed, the fourth remaining open. This served as a home for several months, when a more comfortable cabin was built. On the eighteenth of October, 1817, Thomas Lincoln entered a quarter-section of government land eighteen miles north of the Ohio river and about a mile and a half from the present village of Gentryville. About a year later they were followed by the family of Thomas and Betsy Sparrow, relatives of Mrs. Lincoln and old-time neighbors on the Rock Spring farm in Kentucky. Dennis Hanks, a member of the Sparrow household and cousin of Abraham Lincoln, came also. He has furnished some recollections of the President's boyhood which are well worth recording. "Uncle Dennis," as he was familiarly called, was himself a striking character, a man of original manners and racy conversation. A sketch of him as he appeared to an observer in his later days is thus given: "Uncle Dennis is a typical Kentuckian, born in Hardin County in 1799. His face is sun-bronzed and ploughed with the furrows of time, but he has a resolute mouth, a firm grip of the jaws, and a broad forehead above a pair of piercing eyes. The eyes seem out of place in the weary, faded face, but they glow and flash like two diamond sparks set in ridges of dull gold. The face is a serious one, but the play of light in the eyes, unquenchable by time, betrays a nature of suns.h.i.+ne and elate with life. A glance at the profile shows a face strikingly Lincoln-like,--prominent cheek bones, temple, nose, and chin; but best of all is that twinkling drollery in the eye that flashed in the White House during the dark days of the Civil War."

Uncle Dennis's recollections go back to the birth of Abraham Lincoln. To use his own words: "I rikkilect I run all the way, over two miles, to see Nancy Hanks's boy baby. Her name was Nancy Hanks before she married Thomas Lincoln. 'Twas common for connections to gather in them days to see new babies. I held the wee one a minute. I was ten years old, and it tickled me to hold the pulpy, red little Lincoln. The family moved to Indiana," he went on, "when Abe was about nine. Mr. Lincoln moved first, and built a camp of brush in Spencer County. We came a year later, and he had then a cabin. So he gave us the shanty. Abe killed a turkey the day we got there, and couldn't get through tellin' about it. The name was p.r.o.nounced Linkhorn by the folks then. We was all uneducated. After a spell we learnt better. I was the only boy in the place all them years, and Abe and me was always together."