the quick-witted backwoodsmen dressed in deerskin and Kentucky Jeans, (who, in imitation of an Indian custom, were in the habit of giving characteristic names,) the cognomen of "HONEST OLD ABE.' This man, issuing from among the class of poor whites, called by the slave-holding aristocracy, "poor, white trash," now came upon the arena, and threw all his energies into the contest between Liberty and Slavery. And he plead the side of freedom with an earnestness, a profound conviction, and, at the same time, with a moderation and discretion, which soon made him a prominent leader. His language possessed a plainness, quaintness, directness and clearness of illustration, a rugged, Anglo-Saxon style, wonderfully adapted to reach the sense and understanding of the common people. There never was a time when Lincoln, at the bar, in the log school-house, court-room or tavern, was not surrounded by a group of admiring listeners, to whom his speeches, anecdotes and conversation had an irresistible attraction. Hence the people, for miles, attended court and political meetings "to hear Lincoln." The training of the man, for the great part he was to act in the drama, was not in the schools; perhaps it was better: from childhood he had been accustomed to struggle with, and overcome difficulties; with the basis of perfect truth, candor, integrity, modesty and sobriety, he acquired self-control, self-reliance, and ability to use promptly a clear judgment and sound common sense. Noblest son of the Republic, he was transferred, with no change of manner, from the rude life of the frontier to the capital.

Here, before entering upon the story of the great civil war, and the great conflict of ideas which, under his leadership, was carried to a successful issue; in which liberty, law and nationality triumphed over slavery, anarchy, and disunion, let us pause in the narration of our great epic, and learn, from his youth and training, what manner of man this was, who, was now so modestly, yet so firmly, to grasp the helm, and conduct the Republic through the stormiest period of modern history.

Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin, now Larue county, Kentucky, on the 12th of February, 1809. The place was

about twenty miles south of the Ohio River, the dividing line between the slave state of Kentucky, and the free states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. His grandfather, who bore the name of Abraham, was among those hardy pioneers to the "dark and bloody ground," a descriptive phrase given to Kentucky on account of its deep forests and bloody Indian wars, of which he was a victim. He was shot by an Indian, while at work in his field, near his log cabin. Thomas Lincoln, the father of Abraham, was only six years of age when he was left an orphan. He married Nancy Hanks, a native of Virginia. The father and mother were plain, hard-working, religious, uneducated people, accustomed to hardship and toil. His mother died when he was only ten years of age, but she lived long enough to make a deep and lasting impression upon her son. He ever spoke of her with deep feeling and grateful affection. He said, with his eyes suffused with tears, "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."

Before Abraham was eight years old, the family moved to Spencer county, Indiana. This change, from a slave to a free state, was made by the parents of Lincoln, that their children might live where labor was respected, and where they might have a fair chance of acquiring a respectable position in life. It was a long, hard, weary journey; a portion of the way was through the primeval forests, where they were obliged to cut a road with the axe. Young Lincoln had little school education; his mother taught him to read the Bible and to write; and, perhaps, the first use the motherless boy made of this acquisition, was to write a letter to an old religious friend of his mother, a traveling preacher of Kentucky, begging him to come and perform religious services over her grave. She had died in 1818, when Abraham was in his tenth year. Mr. Elkins, the preacher, came; and, one year after her death, the family and neighbors gathered around the forest tree, beneath which they had laid her remains, and performed such rude, but sincere, impressive religious services, as are usual among the pioneers of the frontier. Lincoln's reverence, through life, for religion, his truthfulness and integrity, had their origin in his mother's

example and early teaching.

Her death, the affection he bore her, the sad and solemn rites of her burial, were never obliterated from his mind and heart.

He had, in all, about one year's schooling; but his mother stimulated his natural love of books, and he read everything he could find to read in the backwoods, seeking, by every possible means, to improve himself. He read the Bible, and committed a large portion of it to memory, Esop's Fables, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Weem's Life of Washington, a life of Henry Clay, and an odd volume of Burns' Poems. These books constituted his library, and these he read and reread, until large portions of them became indelibly fixed in his memory; thus laying the foundation of a character that became, in its maturity, the wonder and admiration of his country. Here, in the far backwoods, he toiled upon the farm, until he was nineteen years of age. Then he took charge of a flat-boat and cargo, down the rivers Ohio and Mississippi, to New Orleans. He had become a tall, athletic man, having attained the height of six feet four inches.

In readiness to extricate himself from a dilemma, to do promptly the wisest thing which could be done under the circumstances in which he might be placed, he was the equal of any Yankee in New England. A gentleman reports that the first time he ever saw Lincoln, he was "in the Sangamon river, his trowsers rolled up five feet more or less, trying to pilot a flat-boat over a mill dam. The boat was so full of water it was hard to manage. Lincoln got the scow partly over, bored a hole through the projecting part, and let the water run out."

In 1830, the Lincoln family removed to a place in Macon county, Illinois, near Decatur, and it was here that the powerful young man performed those wonderful feats in railsplitting, in aiding his father to fence his farm, which earned for him the sobriquet of "the rail-splitter." At this period of his life, he was a simple, hard working, rough, kindly, genial, studious laborer, with no bad habits nor vicious tastes, but striving, always, to improve himself; dressed in the homely domestic homespun cloth of the country, he was an ungainly giant, utterly unconscious of the great intellectual

powers, which were slowly, but surely, growing and maturing
in the silent solitude of his life. A friend of his, sketched
a picture of the future President, at this period of his life,
while pursuing his studies. He is represented as lying on a
trundle-bed, with one leg stretched out, rocking the cradle
containing the child of his hostess, while he, himself is ab-
sorbed in the study of English grammar. He pursued his
studies diligently, and whatever he undertook, he thoroughly
mastered. Most of his life, up to the period of his majority, 21
was passed in the solitude of the frontier. With few neigh-
bors, and these absorbed in the laborious struggle for sub-
sistence, he passed the years of his childhood and youth.
For the rest, as Bancroft says, "from day to day he lived the
life of the American people, walked in its light, reasoned
with its reason, thought, with its power of thought, felt the
beatings of its mighty heart, and so in every way was a child
of nature, a child of the West, and a child of America."
His character and intellect developed slowly. Indeed down
to the period of his death, Abraham Lincoln was, as facts
will prove, constantly growing in intellectual power, improv-
ing and perfecting his moral and religious nature; so that,
when he fell, he was a far more perfect man than at any pre-
vious period of his life. Solitude and self-culture and slow
growth are, for minds of high capacity, most favorable to
strong and full development. It is doubtful whether, with
all the teaching of the schools, Abraham Lincoln would have
been better adapted to his great mission, than by the teach-
ings of the life and circumstances in which he was reared.
Perhaps, as Byron says:

"Must such minds be nourished in the wild,
Deep in the unpruned forest, midst the roar
Of cataracts, where nursing nature smiled
On infant Washington."

But his education was, as yet, scarcely begun, and was to be fashioned by after events, the faintest glimmer of which had not yet dawned upon the simple hearted boy.

In 1832, difficulties between the Sac Indians, under their Chief, Black Hawk, and the whites occurred, known as the Black Hawk war. Volunteers were called for by Governor

Reynolds, of Illinois, and a company was raised in Menard county and neighborhood. Among the volunteers was Lincoln. He, and a man by the name of Kirkpatrick, were candidates for the position of Captain. The mode of election was for each candidate to take his position by himself, and the men were directed to arrange themselves in line, with the one they preferred for their leader. Lincoln's line was three times as long as Kirkpatrick's, and he was triumphantly elected. Speaking of this incident, when President, he said that he was more elated over this, his first triumph, than any other election in his life. He was very popular among the volunteers, on account of his great physical strength, and his ability to tell more and better stories than any other man in the little army. He served during the campaign, but had no opportunity of testing his prowess against the Indians. After the war, he held, for a short time, the office of Postmaster at New Salem.

mous.

On his return from the campaign of the Black Hawk war, Lincoln being twenty-three years of age, his neighbors brought him out as a candidate for the Legislature. The vote given for him by the people of New Salem was unaniThere were two candidates for Congress voted for, and their aggregate vote was 206, Mr. Lincoln received 207. This unanimous vote showed his personal popularity. The . people of New Salem asked and obtained for him the appointment of Postmaster. He accepted it, because it gave him an opportunity to read all the newspapers taken in the town. It was in relation to the funds received by him as Postmaster, that an incident occurred that gave a striking illustration of his scrupulous integrity. He had left New Salem, and had removed to Springfield, and was struggling with poverty; indeed he was so poor that he had difficulty in supplying the necessaries of life. After his removal to Springfield, and some years after he had ceased to be Postmaster, a draft was sent out for collection for the balance, $16.00, of Post-office money received by him. It was contrary to the regulations of the Post Office Department for him to pay this balance until it was drawn for. My informant, Dr. Henry, accompanied the agent with the draft, to Mr. Lincoln's office, where