The Life of Abraham Lincoln Part 1

The Life of Abraham Lincoln.

by Henry Ketcham.

PREFACE.

The question will naturally be raised, Why should there be another Life of Lincoln? This may be met by a counter question, Will there ever be a time in the near future when there will _not_ be another Life of Lincoln? There is always a new cla.s.s of students and a new enrolment of citizens. Every year many thousands of young people pa.s.s from the Grammar to the High School grade of our public schools. Other thousands are growing up into manhood and womanhood. These are of a different const.i.tuency from their fathers and grandfathers who remember the civil war and were perhaps in it.

"To the younger generation," writes Carl Schurz, "Abraham Lincoln has already become a half mythical figure, which, in the haze of historic distance, grows to more and more heroic proportions, but also loses in distinctness of outline and figure." The last clause of this remark is painfully true. To the majority of people now living, his outline and figure are dim and vague. There are to-day professors and presidents of colleges, legislators of prominence, lawyers and judges, literary men, and successful business men, to whom Lincoln is a tradition. It cannot be expected that a person born after the year (say) 1855, could remember Lincoln more than as a name. Such an one's ideas are made up not from his remembrance and appreciation of events as they occurred, but from what he has read and heard about them in subsequent years.

The great mine of information concerning the facts of Lincoln's life is, and probably will always be, the History by his secretaries, Nicolay and Hay. This is worthily supplemented by the splendid volumes of Miss Tarbell. There are other biographies of great value. Special mention should be made of the essay by Carl Schurz, which is cla.s.sic.

The author has consulted freely all the books on the subject he could lay his hands on. In this volume there is no attempt to write a history of the times in which Lincoln lived and worked. Such historical events as have been narrated were selected solely because they ill.u.s.trated some phase of the character of Lincoln. In this biography the single purpose has been to present the living man with such distinctness of outline that the reader may have a sort of feeling of being acquainted with him. If the reader, finishing this volume, has a vivid realization of Lincoln as a man, the author will be fully repaid.

To achieve this purpose in brief compa.s.s, much has been omitted. Some of the material omitted has probably been of a value fully equal to some that has been inserted. This could not well be avoided. But if the reader shall here acquire interest enough in the subject to continue the study of this great, good man, this little book will have served its purpose.

H. K.

WESTFIELD, NEW JERSEY, February, 1901.

CHAPTER I.

THE WILD WEST.

At the beginning of the twentieth century there is, strictly speaking, no frontier to the United States. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the larger part of the country was frontier. In any portion of the country to-day, in the remotest villages and hamlets, on the enormous farms of the Dakotas or the vast ranches of California, one is certain to find some, if not many, of the modern appliances of civilization such as were not dreamed of one hundred years ago. Aladdin himself could not have commanded the glowing terms to write the prospectus of the closing years of the nineteenth century. So, too, it requires an extraordinary effort of the imagination to conceive of the condition of things in the opening years of that century.

The first quarter of the century closed with the year 1825. At that date Lincoln was nearly seventeen years old. The deepest impressions of life are apt to be received very early, and it is certain that the influences which are felt previous to seventeen years of age have much to do with the formation of the character. If, then, we go back to the period named, we can tell with sufficient accuracy what were the circ.u.mstances of Lincoln's early life. Though we cannot precisely tell what he had, we can confidently name many things, things which in this day we cla.s.s as the necessities of life, which he had to do without, for the simple reason that they had not then been invented or discovered.

In the first place, we must bear in mind that he lived in the woods.

The West of that day was not wild in the sense of being wicked, criminal, ruffian. Morally, and possibly intellectually, the people of that region would compare with the rest of the country of that day or of this day. There was little schooling and no literary training. But the woodsman has an education of his own. The region was wild in the sense that it was almost uninhabited and untilled. The forests, extending from the mountains in the East to the prairies in the West, were almost unbroken and were the abode of wild birds and wild beasts.

Bears, deer, wild-cats, racc.o.o.ns, wild turkeys, wild pigeons, wild ducks and similar creatures abounded on every hand.

Consider now the spa.r.s.eness of the population. Kentucky has an area of 40,000 square miles. One year after Lincoln's birth, the total population, white and colored, was 406,511, or an average of ten persons--say less than two families--to the square mile. Indiana has an area of 36,350 square miles. In 1810 its total population was 24,520, or an average of one person to one and one-half square miles; in 1820 it contained 147,173 inhabitants, or about four to the square mile; in 1825 the population was about 245,000, or less than seven to the square mile.

The capital city, Indianapolis, which is to-day of surpa.s.sing beauty, was not built nor thought of when the boy Lincoln moved into the State.

Illinois, with its more than 56,000 square miles of territory, harbored in 1810 only 12,282 people; in 1820, only 55,211, or less than one to the square mile; while in 1825 its population had grown a trifle over 100,000 or less than two to the square mile.

It will thus be seen that up to his youth, Lincoln dwelt only in the wildest of the wild woods, where the animals from the chipmunk to the bear were much more numerous, and probably more at home, than man.

There were few roads of any kind, and certainly none that could be called good. For the mud of Indiana and Illinois is very deep and very tenacious. There were good saddle-horses, a sufficient number of oxen, and carts that were rude and awkward. No locomotives, no bicycles, no automobiles. The first railway in Indiana was constructed in 1847, and it was, to say the least, a very primitive affair. As to carriages, there may have been some, but a good carriage would be only a waste on those roads and in that forest.

The only pen was the goose-quill, and the ink was home-made. Paper was scarce, expensive, and, while of good material, poorly made. Newspapers were unknown in that virgin forest, and books were like angels' visits, few and far between.

There were scythes and sickles, but of a grade that would not be salable to-day at any price. There were no self-binding harvesters, no mowing machines. There were no sewing or knitting machines, though there were needles of both kinds. In the woods thorns were used for pins.

Guns were flint-locks, tinder-boxes were used until the manufacture of the friction match. Artificial light came chiefly from the open fireplace, though the tallow dip was known and there were some housewives who had time to make them and the disposition to use them.

Illumination by means of molded candles, oil, gas, electricity, came later. That was long before the days of the telegraph.

In that locality there were no mills for weaving cotton, linen, or woolen fabrics. All spinning was done by means of the hand loom, and the common fabric of the region was linsey-woolsey, made of linen and woolen mixed, and usually not dyed.

Antiseptics were unknown, and a severe surgical operation was practically certain death to the patient. Nor was there ether, chloroform, or cocaine for the relief of pain.

As to food, wild game was abundant, but the kitchen garden was not developed and there were no importations. No oranges, lemons, bananas.

No canned goods. Crusts of rye bread were browned, ground, and boiled; this was coffee. Herbs of the woods were dried and steeped; this was tea. The root of the sa.s.safras furnished a different kind of tea, a subst.i.tute for the India and Ceylon teas now popular. Slippery elm bark soaked in cold water sufficed for lemonade. The milk-house, when there was one, was built over a spring when that was possible, and the milk vessels were kept carefully covered to keep out snakes and other creatures that like milk.

Whisky was almost universally used. Indeed, in spite of the const.i.tutional "sixteen-to-one," it was locally used as the standard of value. The luxury of quinine, which came to be in general use throughout that entire region, was of later date.

These details are few and meager. It is not easy for us, in the midst of the luxuries, comforts, and necessities of a later civilization, to realize the conditions of western life previous to 1825. But the situation must be understood if one is to know the life of the boy Lincoln.

Imagine this boy. Begin at the top and look down him--a long look, for he was tall and gaunt. His cap in winter was of c.o.o.n-skin, with the tail of the animal hanging down behind. In summer he wore a misshapen straw hat with no hat-band. His shirt was of linsey-woolsey, above described, and was of no color whatever, unless you call it "the color of dirt." His breeches were of deer-skin with the hair outside. In dry weather these were what you please, but when wet they hugged the skin with a clammy embrace, and the victim might sigh in vain for sanitary underwear. These breeches were held up by one suspender. The hunting shirt was likewise of deer-skin. The stockings,--there weren't any stockings. The shoes were cow-hide, though moccasins made by his mother were subst.i.tuted in dry weather. There was usually a s.p.a.ce of several inches between the breeches and the shoes, exposing a tanned and bluish skin. For about half the year he went barefoot.

There were schools, primitive and inadequate, indeed, as we shall presently see, but "the little red schoolhouse on the hill," with the stars and stripes floating proudly above it, was not of that day. There were itinerant preachers who went from one locality to another, holding "revival meetings." But church buildings were rare and, to say the least, not of artistic design. There were no regular means of travel, and even the "star route" of the post-office department was slow in reaching those secluded communities.

Into such circ.u.mstances and conditions Lincoln was born and grew into manhood.

CHAPTER II.

THE LINCOLN FAMILY.

When one becomes interested in a boy, one is almost certain to ask, Whose son is he? And when we study the character of a great man, it is natural and right that we should be interested in his family. Where did he come from? who were his parents? where did they come from? These questions will engage our attention in this chapter.

But it is well to be on our guard at the outset against the fascinations of any theory of heredity. Every thoughtful observer knows something of the seductions of this subject either from experience or from observation. In every subject of research there is danger of claiming too much in order to magnify the theory. This is emphatically true of this theory. Its devotees note the hits but not the misses. "It took five generations of cultured clergymen to produce an Emerson."

Undoubtedly; but what of the sixth and seventh generations? "Darwin's greatness came from his father and grandfather." Very true; but are there no more Darwins?

If Abraham Lincoln got his remarkable character from parents or grandparents, from whom did he get his physical stature? His father was a little above medium height, being five feet ten and one-half inches.

His mother was a little less than medium height, being five feet five inches. Their son was a giant, being no less than six feet four inches.

It is not safe to account too closely for his physical, mental, or moral greatness by his descent. The fact is that there are too many unexplored remainders in the factors of heredity to make it possible to apply the laws definitely.

The writer will therefore give a brief account of the Lincoln family simply as a matter of interest, and not as a means of proving or explaining any natural law.

The future president was descended from people of the middle cla.s.s.

There was nothing either in his family or his surroundings to attract the attention even of the closest observer, or to indicate any material difference between him and scores of other boys in the same general locality.

Lincoln is an old English name, and in 1638 a family of the name settled in Hingham, Ma.s.s., near Boston. Many years later we find the ancestors of the president living in Berks County, Pa. It is possible that this family came direct from England; but it is probable that they came from Hingham. Both in Hingham and in Berks County there is a frequent recurrence of certain scriptural names, such as Abraham, Mordecai, and Thomas, which seems to be more than a coincidence.

From Berks County certain of the family, who, by the way, were Quakers, moved to Rockingham County, Va. In 1769 Daniel Boone, the adventurous pioneer, opened up what is now the state of Kentucky, but was then a part of Virginia.

About twelve years later, in 1781, Abraham Lincoln, great-grandfather of the president, emigrated from Virginia into Kentucky. People have asked, in a puzzled manner, why did he leave the beautiful Shenandoah valley? One answer may be given: The Ohio valley also is beautiful.

During the major portion of the year, from the budding of the leaves in April until they pa.s.s away in the blaze of their autumn glory, the entire region is simply bewitching. No hills curve more gracefully, no atmosphere is more soft, no watercourses are more enticing. Into this region came the Virginian family, consisting, besides the parents, of three sons and two daughters.