McClure's Magazine
January, 1896.
Vol. VI. No. 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Edited by Ida M. Tarbell.115
Lincoln's First Experiences in Illinois. 115
In Charge of Denton Offutt's Store. 115
The Clary's Grove Boys. 117
Lincoln Studies Grammar. 119
A Candidate for the General Assembly. 122
The Black Hawk War. 127
Lincoln a Captain. 129
The Black Hawk Campaign. 132
Electioneering for the General Assembly. 135
EUGENE FIELD AND HIS CHILD FRIENDS. By Cleveland Moffett.137
POEMS OF CHILDHOOD. By Eugene Field. 140
With Trumpet and Drum. 140
The Delectable Ballad of the Waller Lot. 140
The Rock-a-by Lady. 142
"Booh!" 142
The Duel. 143
The Ride to Bumpville. 143
So, So, Rock-a-by So! 144
Seein' Things. 144
A CENTURY OF PAINTING. By Will H. Low.145
THE DEFEAT OF BLAINE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. By Murat Halstead.159
THE NEW STATUE OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. By Frank B. Gessner.172
THE SILENT WITNESS. By Herbert D. Ward.175
THE SUN'S LIGHT. By Sir Robert Ball.187
CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.191
Life in Andover before the War. 191
THE WAGER OF THE MARQUIS DE MÉROSAILLES. By Anthony Hope.198
MISS TARBELL'S LIFE OF LINCOLN. 206
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.
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 ROME 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? IS THIS YOUR LAW?"
"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.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN 1861.—NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
From a photograph owned by Allen Jasper Conant, to whose courtesy we owe the right to reproduce it here. This photograph was taken in Springfield in the spring of 1861, by C.S. German.
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.
T 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 flatboat1. 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
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 KIRKHAM'S GRAMMAR USED BY LINCOLN AT NEW SALEM.—NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
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."
A CLARY'S GROVE LOG CABIN,—NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.
From a water-color by Miss Etta Ackermann, Springfield, Illinois. "Clary's Grove" was the name of a settlement five miles southwest of New Salem, deriving its name from a grove on the land of the Clarys. It was the headquarters of a daring and reckless set of young men living in the neighborhood and known as the "Clary's Grove Boys." This cabin was the residence of George Davis, one of the "Clary's Grove Boys," and grandfather of Miss Ackermann. It was built seventy-one years ago—in 1824—and is the only one left of the cluster of cabins which constituted the little community.
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
NANCY GREEN.
Nancy Green was the wife of "Squire" Bowling Green. Her maiden name was Nancy Potter. She was born in North Carolina in 1797, and married Bowling Green in 1818. She removed with him to New Salem in 1820, and lived in that vicinity until her death in 1864. Lincoln was a constant visitor in Nancy Green's home.
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.
DUTCH OVEN.
From a photograph made for this Magazine.
Owned by Mrs. Ott, of Petersburg, Illinois. These Dutch ovens were in many cases the only cooking utensils used by the early settlers. The meat, vegetable, or bread was put into the pot, which was then placed in a bed of coals, and coals heaped on the lid.
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 IN 1858.
After a photograph owned by Mrs. Harriet Chapman of Charleston, Illinois. Mrs. Chapman is a grand-daughter of Sarah Bush Lincoln, Lincoln's step-mother. Her son, Mr. R.N. Chapman of Charleston, Illinois, writes us: "In 1858 Lincoln and Douglas had a series of joint debates in this State, and this city was one place of meeting. Mr. Lincoln's step-mother was making her home with my father and mother at that time. Mr. Lincoln stopped at our house, and as he was going away my mother said to him: 'Uncle Abe, I want a picture of you.' He replied, 'Well, Harriet, when I get home I will have one taken for you and send it to you.' Soon after, mother received the photograph she still has, already framed, from Springfield, Illinois, with a letter from Mr. Lincoln, in which he said, 'This is not a very good-looking picture, but it's the best that could be produced from the poor subject.' He also said that he had it taken solely for my mother. The photograph is still in its original frame, and I am sure is the most perfect and best picture of Lincoln in existence. We suppose it must have been taken in Springfield, Illinois."
JOHN POTTER.
From a recent photograph. John Potter, born November 10, 1808, was a few months older than Lincoln. He is now living at Petersburg, Illinois. He settled in the country one and one-half miles from New Salem in 1820. Mr. Potter remembers Lincoln's first appearance in New Salem in July, 1831. He corroborates the stories told of his store, and of his popularity in the community, and of the general impression that he was an unusually promising young man.
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."
JOHN A. CLARY.
John A. Clary was one of the "Clary's Grove Boys." He was a son of John Clary, the head of the numerous Clary family which settled in the vicinity of New Salem in 1818. He was born in Tennessee in 1815 and died in 1880. He was an intimate associate of Lincoln during the latter's New Salem days.
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
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.
SITE OF DENTON OFFUTT'S STORE.
From a photograph taken for this Magazine.
The building in which Lincoln clerked for Denton Offutt was standing as late as 1836, and presumably stood until it rotted down. A slight depression in the earth, evidently once a cellar, is all that remains of Offutt's store. Out of this hole in the ground have grown three trees, a locust, an elm, and a sycamore, seeming to spring from the same roots, and curiously twined together; and high up on the sycamore some genius has chiselled the face of Lincoln.
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.
ZACHARY TAYLOR.
At the breaking out of the Black Hawk war, Zachary Taylor, afterwards general in the Mexican War, and finally President of the United States, was colonel of the First Infantry. He joined Atkinson at the beginning of the war, and was in active service until the end of the campaign.
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."
BOWLING GREEN'S HOUSE.
From a photograph taken for this Magazine.
Bowling Green's log cabin, half a mile north of New Salem, just under the bluff, still stands, but long since ceased to be a dwelling-house, and is now a tumble-down old stable. Here Lincoln was a frequent boarder, especially during the period of his closest application to the study of the law. Stretched out on the cellar door of his cabin, reading a book, he met for the first time "Dick" Yates, then a college student at Jacksonville, and destined to become the great "War Governor" of the State. Yates had come home with William G. Greene to spend his vacation, and Greene took him around to Bowling Green's house to introduce him to "his friend, Abe Lincoln." Unhappily there is nowhere in existence a picture of the original occupant of this humble cabin. Bowling Green was one of the leading citizens of the county. He was County Commissioner from 1826 to 1828; he was for many years a justice of the peace; he was a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity, and a very active and uncompromising Whig. The friendship between him and Lincoln, beginning at a very early day, continued until his death in 1842.—J. McCan Davis.
At that time the State of Illinois—as, indeed, the whole United States—was convinced that the future of the country depended on the opening of canals and railroads, and the clearing out of the rivers. In the Sangamon country the population felt that a quick way of getting to Beardstown on the Illinois River, to which point the steamer came from the Mississippi, was, as Lincoln puts it in his circular, "indispensably necessary." Of course a railroad was the dream of the settlers; but when it was considered seriously there was always, as Lincoln says, "a heart-appalling shock accompanying the amount of its cost, which forces us to shrink from our pleasing anticipations." Improvement of the Sangamon River he declared the most feasible plan. That it was possible, he argued from his experience on the river in April of the year before (1831), when he made his flatboat trip, and from his observations as manager of Offutt's saw-mill. He could not have advocated a measure more popular. At that moment the whole population of Sangamon was in a state of wild expectation. Some six weeks before Lincoln's circular appeared, a citizen of Springfield had advertised that as soon as the ice went off the river he would bring up a steamer, the "Talisman," from Cincinnati, and prove the Sangamon navigable. The announcement had aroused the entire country, speeches were made, and subscriptions taken. The merchants announced goods direct per steamship "Talisman" the country over, and every village from Beardstown to Springfield was laid off in town lots. When the circular appeared the excitement was at its height.