Lincoln in the News
LINCOLN LORE IS THE BULLETIN OF THE William Galston in The Wall Streetjournal (November 23, ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY AND THE 2016) states: "America is not an ethno-state. As our greatest FRIENDS OF THE LINCOLN COLLECTION OF president, Abraham Lincoln, reminded us, it is a nation INDIANA 'conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.' It is a sign of our degraded times that it CONTRIBUTORS is necessary to restate what should be obvious to all." HON. RANDALL T. SHEPARD HON. FRANKJ. WILLIAMS DOUGLAS L. WILSON RICHARD CAMPANELLA
ACPL JANE GASTINEAU [email protected]
FRIENDS OF THE LINCOLN COLLECTION SARA GABBARD, EDITOR POST OFFICE ADDRESS BOX 11083 FORT WAYNE, INDIANA 46855 [email protected] N FO WWW.ACPL.INFO WWW.LINCOLNCOLLECTION.ORG WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/LINCOLNCOLLECTION Second Inaugural (LN-1588)
LINCOLN LORE <~> ISSN 0162-8615 On the Opinion Page of The Wall Street journal (November 10, UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED, ALL IMAGES 2016) there is a call to reflect upon Lincoln's Second Inaugural ARE HELD BY THE LINCOLN FINANCIAL in which he "appealed to his fellow-countrymen to work toward FOUNDATION COLLECTION (LFFC). reconciliation and domestic peace "with malice toward none, with charity for all."'
MEMBER DISCOUNT NewsWorks (October 11, 2016) carried a commentary by Richard Koenig which compared the debates of the 2016 election to MEMBERS OF THE FRIENDS OF THE LINCOLN the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The title of the piece is COLLECTION OF INDIANA RECEIVE A "Trump vs . Clinton is no Lincoln vs. Douglas." DISCOUNT FOR BOOKS PUBLISHED BY SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS. TO ORDER, CONTACT CHICAGO DISTRIBUTION ON THE COVER CENTER AT: Th is untitled oil painting by Fletcher C. Ransom (1870-1943) 1.800.621.2736 PHONE depicts a young Abraham Lincoln driving a team of oxen as 1.800.621.8476 FAX he and his father plow a field on their Indiana farm. The ORDER ONLINE AT WWW.SIUPRESS.COM painting is one of a series
USE PROMOTIONjCODE FLC25 TO RECEIVE of Lincoln paintings that A 25% DISCOUNT 0 YOUR ORDER. Ransom created for the Chicago and Illinois Midland THANKS TO ASHE~ J GENCY FOR DESIGNING Railroad Company beginning THE NEW FORMAT;fOR LINCOLN LORE. in 1930. The paintings THIS ISSUE OF LINCOLN LORE WAS MADE were reproduced on the POSSIBLE IN PART BY A GRANT FROM company's annual calendars. THE ABRAHAM LINCOLN BICENTENNIAL 71.2009.081.0703 FOUNDATION. BY HON. RANDALL T. SHEPARD What Indiana Civic Life Likely Taught Young Mr. Lincoln Editor's Note: At the 2016 Rolland Lecture, Randall Shepard was asked to describe Indiana during the Lincoln family's residence.
The year 1816 represented a seminal have influenced his political philosophy moment in Indiana, most widely and his approach to civic life. known as the year Congress Governor Otis Bowen was fond of saying, admitted us to the Union. Less "Indiana made Lincoln, and Lincoln widely known but surely important made Illinois." My objective here is to was the event that made tonight explore just what it was about Indiana possible. Thomas Lincoln and his public life that might have influenced family moved here from Kentucky the future career of a young man who late in the year, about the time fall lived here from 1816 to 1830. usually begins to turn to winter. To set the stage, recall a few fairly Newly arriving settlers always had obvious facts about the state and the a lot of work to do to establish the family. At the time of statehood, almost basics of their new lives on the all of Indiana's population lived within western frontier, but the Lincolns an easy horse ride of the Ohio River, would have found these challenges then the nation's superhighway for more difficult than expected, especially since there had hardly both commerce and migration. Most been a warm season that of Indiana's institutions were based year. Indeed, 1816 was often somewhere in population centers close called the "year there was no to the river-the seat of government was summer." at Vincennes, then at Corydon. The first newspapers were published in places Still, even as people wrestled like Vincennes and Brookville. And like with what was also labeled most other new residents during the "1800-and-froze-to-death," teens and twenties, the Lincoln family the public life of the put down stakes in the southern part state was very active, as of the state. They settled in what soon the whole nation worked became the northwest part of Spencer to move on from the County. It was not an easy trip from War of 1812, the recent their homestead to anywhere, but it conflict with Great Britain was within the range of these centers of often referred to as the culture, education, and politics. Second War for American Independence. And There were multiple themes in Indiana while it is certainly clear life that might have made an impression to anyone familiar with on a young person interested in the the life of ou r si xteenth world beyond the family farm. Three president that he achieved of those are/seem most important. One a monumental place in was a shared aspiration to build the the American history, bones necessary for a vigorous economy what has not been quite and to use government as an instrument so clear is how these towards that end, extending the years in Indiana might American system across the continent.
LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1914 W H AT IND I ANA C I VIC LIFE LIKELY TAUGHT YOUNG MR. LI N COLN
waterways in promoting commerce. The legislature of 1820 designated hundreds of miles along fifteen rivers and streams as navigable water, and it obliged those who operated mills on these waterways to provide locks so as not to block the passage of commerce.
Of course, a longer-range strategy had to - I do with travel over land, across various navigable waters. As early as 1818, the I legislature authorized various ferries and bridges. During the 1820s, it passed laws "encouraging ferry-keepers" and it offered multiple inducements to make this work more attractive.
. The real action was in creating roads . J:t fDJll:.!.'f.f~ - Appropriations for building state roads began as early as 1821, and they covered all parts of the state, including a special
Indiana, Young & Delleker (1821) 71200908520774 act for a road from Terre Haute to Fort Wayne passed in 1823. Some of this The second was a determination to the Wabash and Erie Canal got effort was financed by what people called create an educational system that under way at Fort Wayne, and in a the Three Percent Fund . It represented would provide young people with the neighborhood much closer to the proceeds from certain lands the federal foundation needed to thrive in that site of the Lincoln family home. To government gave the state for future development. That source was not nearly economy. The third was the struggle take full advantage of the usually sufficient, so the legislature decreed that against slavery. navigable Ohio, upon which so much commerce depended, the every able-bodied man age twenty-one The Ca mpaign for very first session of the General to fifty must work on building roads and Internal Improvements Assembly authorized creation of the highways "or pay an equivalent therefor" One of the signature events of jeffersonville Ohio Canal Company, in cash . This command for labor was nineteenth-century Indiana was the whose mission would be to build a structured like a progressive tax. Persons Internal Improvements Plan of 1836. canal on the Indiana side of the river who owned no real estate at all owed It launched a massive campaign to facing Louisville. The idea was to make three days labor each year, people who owned less than eighty acres owed four create roads, bridges, and canals, the Ohio more reliably navigable by days, and so on up to a maximum of ten financed by private money and state building a way to bypass the Falls of days. revenue-and debt that ultimately the Ohio when water was low and drove the state government to passage was perilous. Creating an The commitment to build new roads insolvency. This story is well known arrangement we now call public advanced vigorously through the 1820s to students of Indiana history, and it private partnerships, the legislature as Lincoln moved through his teenage was an experience that still influences contemplated that the state would years. Beyond mandated labor, the buy one-fourth of the company's our public life, even in the twenty-first legislature continued to appropriate stock. This project launched amid century. funds and expand the number of official great public celebration in May roads. In 1822, there were just twenty Of course, the ambitious act of 1836 1819, but it ultimately failed, and two of them; by 1831 , there were fifty. did not simply pop six years after the the state's money went with it, partly The federal government located the Lincolns left for Illinois. The debate because Kentucky was simply faster route for extending the National Road about building infrastructure in the on the uptake, building a canal on across Indiana in 1827, and in 1828 the wilderness was well under way when the Kentucky side of the river that state government launched its most they arrived. had the same objective. ambitious road project, the Michigan Indiana's experience with canals, for Still, this venture was but one story Road from Hanover to Michigan City. As ( example, began long before digging in a larger effort to take advantage of Governor james B. Ray left office in 1829,
4 SPRING 2017 HON, RANDALL T. !lEPARD
all too tolerant of slavery. activity. We know that as a young man These divisions would have been interested in law and government he was well informed about these plain to the eyes of a teenage Lincoln debates. Lincoln was an avid reader interested in public affairs. The 1828 of newspapers like the Western Sun, convention for Indiana's Democratic published at Vincennes, and scholars Republicans roundly supported agree that the first law book he ever jackson for President, and went out of read was the Revised Laws of Indiana, its way to argue that he was "consistent printed at Corydon in 1824. Moreover, • ., Tlltla 11011111 ,... friend of Internal Improvements his experience in flatboating to New and Domestic Manufactures." The Orleans would have provided insight National-Republican platform ...... into the importance of improving in Indiana insisted that no one fl8 OCCI-AI&.A'tfO.V ,,. ~\'t'F., TfTF. M ~ transportation and the accessibility of 'f'lll: .s.. 7'IK t:O.Nn'ITtTJUNVi'' THK lJT..lFI:. OFLVDLA.Y..I who favored energetic economic markets ...... development could support jackson W•NY ,.,._ IO('U...... c:ntiii'WTF.D W'ITfl TRC f'f'tfiTK'A.L ...... And of course, Lincoln ultimately 'Tft~ AIIDJT&TI;QFl'!IUI"-!JlA.i and taunted jackson supporters that there had not been an "explicit and joined up with the Clay supporters public declaration on his part" of his and eventually won his first public office running as a Whig for the Illinois support for active government and House of Representatives. One can the American system. certainly expect that Lincoln's decision Young Lincoln did not simply occupy to line up with the doers, the builders, the family cabin through all this was hardly an accident. He grew up Revised Laws of Indiana (7824) 7120090840064S
he propounded a vision of turnpikes radiating outward from the state capital to major population centers.
These projects, and others like planned railroads and toll roads, also reflected the philosophical differences between what evolved as the two political parties with which young Lincoln would have been familiar. The supporters of President John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay formed into what became known as the National Republicans. It was a party strongly committed to ambitious public projects by which the government sought to foster economic prosperity.
Their opponents, followers of Andrew jackson, were suspicious of growing government, and indeed were sometimes called advocates of "negative government." They opposed many of the devices created to promote development, like the
Bank of the United States. This THf l party and Jackson were thought to be The Rai/splitter by Lloyd Ostendorf(7960) 71 .2009.087.1178 LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1914 5 WHAT INOI'\NA CIVIC LIFE LIKELY TAUGHT YOUNG MR. LINCO L N in a state optimistic about the future, Indiana's new organic document Indianapolis was about to open, the one with a widespread commitment declared that it was the duty of the legislature specifically committed to collective effort at making progress. General Assembly to create a system money for a library in the new capital. of education extending from township It also created a state library, which One of the two most common schools to a state university, open to opened in 1826. images of Lincoln was that of him all and tuition-free. chopping wood as a young man. To The commitment to public be sure, this image was helpful in The legislature proceeded to provide education grew more solid as the political campaigns to portray him for township schools and took decades passed, and when the new as a common man. I suggest it also advantage of congressional land constitution was written in 1850- portrayed him as a builder, someone donations to finance them. It created 51, the people adopted an even creating farmland where there had a manual labor obligation for building sterner constitutional command that been forest and stacking the wood schools, just as it had for roads, and continues to be the foundation for for construction of the physical even authorized local tax levies for general education in the state in the improvements that could lead to education. The momentum towards twenty-first century. greater prosperity. expanding educational opportunities To be sure, the desire for education accelerated while the Lincolns were A Society Committed to Education that led to the image of Lincoln here. The legislature authorized what reading by the fire must have arisen The other historic image of Lincoln were called county seminaries, often from his family and from within has been that of a young man reading conceived as secondary institutions, his own bosom, but I suggest that books by the light of the fire. In and over the decades from the 1820s the atmosphere of the state and choosing a new place to live, the onward, seminaries opened in half of community in which Lincoln lived Lin coins could hardly have migrated to Indiana's counties. Following on from would have lent solid encouragement a state more committed to education a decision in 1806 by the territorial to his own aspiration for an education. than Indiana. government to sponsor what has Th e Fight Aga in st Slavery The constitution written in Corydon become Vincennes University, the contained a clause wholly unknown to legislature created what is now Other than his leadership in saving the Constitution of the United States. Indiana University, and it opened in the American union itself, President Lincoln's role in the abolition of Schools opened not slavery is likely his most famous far from the Lincoln achievement. As a youth, he would homestead while young have had knowledge of the struggle Lincoln was living there. in Indiana over slavery because Warrick County launched significant events in this drama a seminary in 1826 occurred within a short distance of and Clay Township in his residence. Spencer County, where From its earliest days, Indiana had the Lincolns lived, offered been declared a place free from a school as early as slavery. Indeed, the Northwest 1820. Indeed, scholars Ordinance provided that Indiana agree that Lincoln likely should be free even as a territory. attended not one but two The constitution of 1816 seemed schools while living in to make this plain enough, saying: Spencer County. "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in this state, Those who were running otherwise than for the punishment of the state in which Lincoln crimes .... " grew up also believed in libraries. The legislature Notwithstanding the directness of of 1824 authorized these declarations, the executive county libraries and and legislative branches of state committed funds from government periodically blew hot and Boyhood of Lincoln by Eastman johnson (1868) the sale of public lands cold on issues such as immigration 71.2009.081.1767 to support them. When and repatriation. By contrast, the 6 SPRING 2017 HON. RANDALL T. SHEPARD When he moved to Illinois, Lincoln would have observed that Indiana's judicial position on slavery was hardly the universal approach. To use a technical legal term, one might say that the Illinois Supreme Court dragged its feet. It didn't end slavery in Illinois until 1845. Conclusion suggest to you that a young man of character and ambition would have learned many encouraging lessons growing up in the political and moral environment that Indiana represented in the 1820s. This state's First Indiana Supreme Court Chamber, Corydon, Indiana determination to build a healthy economy, educate the young, and Indiana Supreme Court was almost attempted to retain their servants. end slavery represented ambitions always a place where the state's In a case brought soon after Lasselle, that have stood the test of time. The antislavery forces prevailed. one G.W. Johnson had executed judgment of history on these points just such an indenture with Mary Perhaps still the most famous case has been favorable. Indiana can Clark, a few weeks before the 1816 in the court's history was litigated take pride in what it demonstrated to constitution took effect. johnson just two years after the Lincolns Lincoln about living a useful life as a advanced a passable argument about arrived. General Hyacinthe Lasselle servant leader, committed to building the language of the constitution of Vincennes, who had commanded a safe, prosperous, and decent as applied to his particular case, society. Fort Harrison during the War of 1812, but the Supreme Court was not asserted in the trial court at Knox amused: "Such a performance, if County that he was entitled to own enforced by laws, would produce a Randall T. Shepard is a native of a young girl named Polly Strong by state of servitude as degrading and Lafayette, Indiana, and spent his virtue of his having purchased Polly's demoralizing in its consequences formative years in Evansville. He mother, legally, while Indiana was as a state of absolute slavery; and if graduated from Princeton University in still a part of Virginia. The trial court enforced under a government like 7969 and from the Yale Law School in agreed with Lasselle, saying: "As ours, which acknowledges personal 7972. He earned a Master of Laws degree far as it regards the situation of the equality, it would be productive of a from the University of Virginia School of mother of the present applicant, this state of feelings more discordant and Law in 1995. He was appointed the 99th is now a slave state." irritating than slavery itself." justice justice of the Indiana Supreme Court by Polly Strong appealed to the Indiana jesse Lynch Holman wrote these Gov. Robert Orr in 7985 and became the Supreme Court, then still sitting at words for the Supreme Court in 1821, Chief justice of Indiana in March 7987, Corydon. It reversed the trial judge's as the Lincolns finished their fifth year a position he held until retiring from decision, declaring: "The framers of in Indiana. the court in 2012. He has written and our constitution intended a total and lectured extensively on Indiana legal Thus, at the very moment that the history. entire prohibition of slavery in this nation's premier moral debate State; and we can conceive of no form focused on the expansion of slavery of words in which that intention could and on the Missouri Compromise have been more clearly expressed." of 1820, young Lincoln would have Of course, slavery was a resilient had a close look at what Indiana in stitution, both in la w and in practice. stood for. More than that, he would When legal prohibitions against have received an energizing lesson slavery held firm, as in the Lasselle about what good lawyers could do to case, indentured servitude was a vindicate the rights of persons who common tool by which slave owners deserved to be free. LINCOLN LO RE . NUMBER 1914 7 ~rahannLincoln: Indianan and the West BY HON. FRANKJ. WILLIAMS Editor's Note: 2016 marked the bicentennial of both statehood for Indiana and the Lincoln family's move from Kentucky to Southern Indiana. Frank Williams was asked to give the annual McMurtry Lecture in Fort Wayne on the topic of both the Westward movement of thousands offamilies such as the Lincolns and the experiences that Abraham Lincoln encountered and how they eventually affected his presidency. because of issues with land titles.4 The family's departure was also based on the issue of slavery - Thomas Lincoln was part of a Baptist sect that deplored slavery.5 Abraham inherit'€d his father's distaste for slavery early in life.6 1ndiana, as part of the Northwest Territory, specifically forbade slavery7 - which the Lincoln family valued as they looked to create a home.8 Lincoln wrote a poem, much later in 1846, inspired by the wild he traveled through with his family during that Lincoln the Rail Splitter by). L. G. Ferris (1909) 71 .2009.081.1764 time. It read : John Locke Scripps, President Lincoln was molded by the Westward When first my father settled here, Abraham Lincoln's 1860 campaign movement from his birth - from Twas then the frontier line; biographer, asked Abraham Lincoln his time in Kentucky, Indiana, and The panther's scream, filled night with about his early life. 1 Lincoln responded Illinois. As a product of the Westward fear "Why Scripps it is a great piece of folly movement, he was influenced by these And bears preyed on the swine. to attempt to make anything out of experiences when contemplating and But wo for Bruin's short lived fun, my early life. It can all be condensed completing his initiatives and policies When rose the squealing cry; into a single sentence ... you will find as the President of the United States. Now man and horse, with dog and gun, in Gray's Elegy: The short and simple For vengeance, at him fly. ..9 Lincoln had firsthand knowledge of annals of the poor."'2 a life of moving often. In December Linco ln lived a childhood as a true However, Lincoln's comments to 1816, at the age of seven, the Lincolns frontiersman. His father, Thomas, Scripps may not tell the whole story. moved to Indiana from Kentucky, 3 acquired property in Indiana, where 8 SPRING 2017 he built a cabin and traveled ninety miles away to make a quarter payment on the land, as he intended Ul that to be the family home.1o GEORGE WASHIXGTo~-; \IETII Carl Sandburg wrote that "[t]hey were crncon; ..l .VECD01'ES. 11 part of the American Frontier." They 1 -: Q L~LY lfOXOUl.\OLE 1'0 IJ.D l ~I : J. r, had moved to Indiana just as it had .\ .\U C\..C:IlPL.\RY T O l lf "\ Ol'.SC COl".XTfl\' \ IC.\. become a state in 1816.12 They, like many, moved to the state to find land, live on it and work it as farmers. From the ages of seven to twenty-one, Lincoln lived in the state of lndianaY Throughout his childhood, he faced much adversity: the death of his mother and sister, cramped quarters in a small log cabin, and the hard life of manuallabor.14 PDILJnCLPJl/.i : It was in Indiana that Abraham Lincoln PntXTl:u DY ~[\THEW C.uu:v. learned the value of education and reading. After the age of twelve, Lincoln was rarely seen without a book The Life of George Washington by M.L. Weems (1813) 71200908400748 in hand.15 Lincoln's step mother, Sarah Westward movement, as expressed was a simple story of perseverance, Bush johnston, who had married by Senator Henry Clay, and the spirit his father soon after the death of something that the si xteenth of those who were challenged by this 26 his mother, encouraged Lincoln's president displayed in abundance. 21 reading.16 Not only did she encourage new world. Senator Clay believed When Lincoln was ten years old, he his reading, but also his education at that the principles of representative was trying to drive a horse at the mill. blab schools- amounting to one year, democracy should unite the continent He kept yelling for the horse to "Git up, which is equivalent to a si xth grade and even if not unified, "the North you old hussy."27 He continued to yell education. 17 American continent should have one at the horse for some time as the horse homogeneous population provided stood obstinately.28 Lincoln yelled How did his experiences in Indiana by the United States." 22 "Git up" one too many times and the shape the way that he viewed policy horse kicked him in his head knocking making as President? There are many President Lincoln was the product of Lincoln to the ground, unconscious things to point to, but there are a few the challenges created and imposed and bleeding. 29 He was cleaned up points that clearly show a direct link by the new world. The challenges and laid in bed. Most thought that he between the genesis of the policy and faced on the frontier were challenges would not make it through the night.30 the reason for its implementation. that can shape the mind and destiny However, in the morning he came to, During his presidency, Lincoln of any man . President Lincoln signed into law the land grant commented to a biographer that his and amazingly finished his command, 31 college system, 18 legislation for the youth was filled with poverty - and saying "you old hussy." transcontinental railroad 19 and the President Lincoln was not wrong in The frontier taught a man 20 23 famous Homestead Act. These this assessment. His family was poor perseverance, but also respect and 24 legislative accomplishments can find as he grew up. They fed themselves discipline. Lincoln had once borrowed the genesis of the President's support by growing and trading what they Parson Weems' The Life of Washington, could. They slept nearly on top of one for them in the fourteen years he from a neighbor.32 Lincoln cited another in the log cabin they called grew up in the state of Indiana. this book when he addressed the "home."25 Lincoln's childhood can be seen as New jersey Senate on his way to the foundation on which his political There were other lessons and Washington, D.C. to be inaugurated in opinions and priorities were built, but attributes, gained on the frontier, 1861.33 He noted the noble deeds of this is not the whole story. President which served Lincoln well while he the Revolutionary War soldiers.34 He Lincoln was a product of the was in office. Not the least of which said to the New jersey Senate: LINCOLN LO RE . NUMBER 1914 9 I recollect thinking then, boy even Union's very existence.43 former states of the Confederacy though I was, that there must have after the war.53 The original bill was How did Lincoln become such a good been something more than common vetoed by President Buchanan, but storyteller? His father,44 Thomas that those men struggled for. I was again brought to Congress in Lincoln, would stay up late with his am exceedingly anxious that that 1862.54 Because those who had been neighbors telling tales, and young thing which they struggled for; that opposed had mostly relocated to the Lincoln would listen to these stories something even more than National Confederacy, the bill passed Congress and contemplate their meanings.45 Independence; that something that and Lincoln signed it into taw. 55 He would travel to Boonville, Indiana, held out a great promise to all the whenever he could, to listen to There is not much in terms of people of the world to all time to political speeches and observe historical record with regards to come; I am exceedingly an xious that court sess ions.46 In fact, many think President Lincoln's position on the this Union, the Constitution, and that the experience watching court bill. 56 Without that, it is hard to say the liberties of the people shall be proceedings was one reason that he what he thought particularly about perpetuated in accordance with the turned to the taw as a profession. each provision. He signed it- and that original idea for which that struggle Listening to political speeches was the can only demonstrate that he thought 35 was made ... genesis of his political career- which well of the bill. 57 And by delving into Lincoln not only developed a great was by all accounts his first toveY his background we can tell that he appreciation for President Washington Moreover, this began what can only va lued education from a young age .58 be called a love affair with learning - and the work of the Revolutionary Lincoln val ued education without and through that- education. War veterans through Parson Weems' having the traditional education that book, he learned another lesson as Abraham Lincoln started to develop most acquire today.59 Or, for that 36 well. After he had read the book, The the skills that he would use to hold matter, most of his contemporaries Life of Washington, it rained so heavily, the Union together in the future. It while he was President of the United 37 the book was soaked and ruined. was the fourteen years that he lived in States.60 During his youth, most Instead of shirking responsibility, Indiana- the frontier that it was at the schools in Kentucky and Indiana were Lincoln worked off the price, which time of his youth -where he learned subscription schools which required 61 his neighbor set much higher than the the skills and gained the attributes tuition to attend . As a frontiersman book's actual value, by "pulling fodder" that would truly shape him as a world with his father, Lincoln was not able or picking corn for three days until the changing leader: character, discipline, to afford those schools. 62 Instead, he field was completely clean.38 The debt the value of education, the importance educated himself through the power was paid. of agriculture, the development of the of books.63 He read everything he Life on the frontier was not easy for west, and forging a life for family on could from Pilgrim's Progress to Lessons 64 Lincoln. But the life truly developed the frontier. Indiana had just become in Elocution . What is so impressive him into the man he became. Through a state, and there were many things is that this young man had taught both perseverance and respect, he unknown about it. And these lessons himself almost all that he knew - he 65 acquired character for the rest of informed what eventually coincided was an autodidact. with several key Congressional agenda his life, and these attributes served The Morrill Act allowed for learning items that he signed into law. him we ll as the chief magistrate and in each state on colleges built for commander in chief of the United It is important to note that not agricultural education.66 Lincoln States military. everything that President Lincoln did once wrote about his feelings on involved war management. There education in March 1832 to the I think it is safe to assume that many, were several important laws that, people of Sangamo County, where he if not all, know how gifted an orator when passed, are considered, by was running for a seat in the Illinois President Lincoln was. 39 Storytelling, it 48 67 some historians, an early"New Deal." General Assembly . His words are a turns out, was a skill that truly unified During 1862, President Lincoln signed powerful view into his feelings on the all of his talents into one.40 His gift four important laws: the Department importance of education.5 8 He wrote: showed to the world his keen intellect, of Agriculture Act, 49 the Homestead his empathy and his passion for Upon the subject of education, not 51 Act, 5° the Pacific Railway Act and the individual rights. 41 Storytelling helped presuming to dictate any plan or Morrill Act. 52 Lincoln galvanize friends and foes to system respecting it, I can only say that his side. 42 His anecdotes united fierce The Morrill Act established land I view it as the most important subject political rivals into political allies who grant universities across the North, which we as a people can be engaged would work together to ensure the and eventually was expanded to the in. That every man may receive at least, 10 SPRING 2017 a moderate education, and thereby be enabled to read the histories of TRANSACTIONS his own and other countries, by which he may duly appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears to be WISCONSI ~ an object of vital importance, even A:\NUH .IDDHESS. on this account alone, to say nothing STATE \ GRTCULTffi1AL SOCIETY, D\' !l OS, .I.Dil.l.ll L/S('(ILS, Or ILLil'OII. of the advantages and satisfaction to be derived from all being able to J1lrmb t'rl oj tlu; A9ricultural Society and Citi:r111 of 1l7•- C0 1Uill: read the scriptures and other works, Asricultunl Fain nrc becoming nn in 11 tilntion of th e coun REPORTS OF COUNTY SOC IETIES. try: they urc useful in moro ~-:'IJI tlmn one: th ey brin; 11 11 to both of a religious and moral nature, gether, nnd tl1ercby mal.. OJ 111 bcu~r :~cqut~ in tctl, nnd better Cri cnd.t thrm we otLcrwite wo uhl be. From th ._. fir ~t nppl•aruncc for themselves . For my part, I desire J.~D tiXDlltD .\SSOCIATIO:'iS. of ma.n upon tLc euth. down to ,· c r~· r cc~· nt tim c111 . the word3 11 .trangu" and '' Cl'lnuy'' were •ptil.: o r afmo•t aync.>nymoul . to see the time when education, Long nftcrciviliz.tll nati onl'l ha•l Jcfine While he lost his first run for public Transactions of the Wisconsin State Agriculturol Society (7860) 71200908400534 office, he went on to serve four terms occupation rather than laborer.78 This father.86 The importance of agriculture in the Illinois legislature.70 There is no is what Gabor Bo ritt attributes to cannot be understated in Lincoln's question that the passage of the Morrill Lincoln as the "right to rise."79 Lincoln early life. In fact, this importance is Act, despite a lack of direct evidence, spo ke about the relationship between analogous with our nation as a whole. can find its roots in the soil in Indiana. Without Lincoln's self-made education labor and capital in that same speech Agriculture was the economic engine 87 on the frontier of Indiana, land grant in Milwaukee, saying "That labor can of our country. Lincoln needed colleges from Purdue University to the exist without capital, but that capital successful agriculture not only for University of Rhode Island would be could never have existed without the economy, but eventually for the 88 much different than they are today.71 labor. Hence they hold that labor is war effort. To this day, there is an the superior---greatly the superior---of Agriculture Department, the USDA. 89 Lincoln also signed the Department of capital."80 Upon creation of the Agriculture 72 Agriculture Act in 1862. Three yea rs Department, there was only a earlier, in 1859, Abraham Lincoln On December 3, 1861 , President commissioner as head, but today, Lincoln asked Congress to form a made a speech in Milwaukee before 90 81 there is a cabinet secretary. the Wisconsin State Agricultural Depa rtment of Agriculture. He Society where he praised agriculture wrote that it was "fortunate" that Lincoln needed shared knowledge to and its benefits.73 Lincoln said, agriculture had not yet needed to be continue agricultural production for "the chief use of agricultural fairs regulated by the government, but he the nation, and the department was a is to aid in improving the great asked Congress at that time to do so. 82 wa y to get this done.91 Lincoln added that annual reports calling of agriculture, in all it's [sic] Another important bill, passed in about agriculture would allow for departments, [and to] exchange ... 1862, that shaped the nation was "great practical value to the country." agricultural discovery, information, signed into law by a man shaped by 74 83 He pulled back on giving details, and knowledge." Indiana - the Homestead Act. 92 The believing that it was not the job of the While in Indiana, Lincoln's father used Homestead Act provided 160 acres President to prescribe Congressional to loan his services to other farmers of land to men who were willing to details. as a hired hand and collect the income farm it for little or no cost. 93 And the that he earned.75 Physical labor was President Lincoln had experience with roots of Abraham Lincoln's support difficult for Lincoln.76 He was good at agriculture.84 He worked the fields in are quite clear- his father had staked it, but he did not love it. 77 He was of an lndiana,85 toiling for many years to help out a claim on three separate lands early inclination to turn to some other provide for his family alongside his in Kentucky, but was forced to move LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1914 11 because of the poor record keeping I have to say that in so far as the supported the expansion of railroads and disputes with the status of land Government lands can be disposed to the other side of the country. titles - so much so that Thomas of, I am in favor of cutting up the wild Why? Henry Clay and Lincoln agreed Lincoln had to sell several properties lands into parcels, so that every poor that westward expansion meant for less than he had originally paid for man may have a home."1D6 more economic independence for them.94 both individual Americans, and for Abraham Lincoln saw the Homestead the economy of the United States In fact, Lincoln's lineage shows a group Act as a law to provide opportunities as a whole.118 He believed that a of men who were frontiersmen.95 This for all people to obtain a place to transcontinental railroad would branch of Lincoln's family started live.107 He wanted people to have help to support and supply not only in the Shenandoah mountains with the opportunity that his father had military bases on the frontier, but Shenandoah john and moved west been afforded, if not a greater one. 108 with Abraham Lincoln in the 1780s to These homesteads were open to also communities of Americans that 119 Kentucky. 96 There, Abraham Lincoln, women, immigrants, and by 1868 developed beyond the Mississippi. the future president's grandfather, African Americans.109 Eventually the According to Union Pacific, there were was a wealthy land holder, but after Homestead Act provided 270 million 7,000 western communities created he was killed in an Indian raid, the acres to settlers. 110 alongside the rails heading west to the Pacific. 120 first born brother Mordecai took Opportunity was an important possession of the property and ideal for Abraham Lincoln, one that As we know, Abraham Lincoln was Thomas Lincoln had to stake his own he thought was provided for all shaped by his years on the Indiana 97 claim. those who lived in America by the frontier. One thing that may have These events exemplify Henry Clay's Declaration of lndependence. 111 He made the idea of railroads so idea of westward expansion.98 Lincoln often cited the declaration and its appealing to him was not only their viewed Henry Clay with high esteem.99 wordingthatsaidthatall men have the ability to transport goods like food, He praised him during a debate with right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of clothing and building materials, but Stephen Douglas, saying "Henry happiness."112 Homesteads provided also their ability to transport of ideas, Clay, my beau ideal of a statesman, an opportunity for Americans to live books and newspapers.121 Before use the man for whom I fought all my their lives to the fullest. A progressive of the railroads, these services would humble life."100 Henry Clay believed ideal if ever there was one. be sporadic. 122 After, with the help of the telegraph, new ideas and the news in what he called the American Lincoln also realized the importance of the day would be easier to report System, a platform of which one of travel from one end of the United 1 1 and read .123 Reading and learning had plank was westward expansion. o States to the other. 113 Fo r years Clay and Lincoln were not in complete there had been debate about a trans kept Lincoln going as a frontiersman agreement about how to expand. American railway, but what often and had allowed him to educate 124 Clay believed that public land out became a sticking point was whether himself. He knew that by connecting west should be sold and not given the railway would go through the eastern states with the western away so that the country could use the South or the North.114 After states of California and Oregon the that funding for education and other the outbreak of the Civil War, the coasts would be bound together. internal improvements.102 He believed Republicans in Congress - no longer This connection would, pragmatically, that by moving west, agricultural burdened by the southern states connect the free state of California production and other production in their quest to build a southern with the other free northern states would expand so that imports would railroad route - passed the Pacific to create a stronger and united anti not be as necessary as they had been, Railroad Act, which laid the ground slavery block. thus allowing for some protection of 115 work for the northern route. Lincoln was a man shaped by the the American economy.103 He also It is said, but cannot be confirmed, frontier. He was shaped by the hard supported high tariffs, which would that while a lawyer, Abraham Lincoln work of agriculture and labor, by the encourage expansion to provide had been offered the general books he borrowed and carried with American-made products.104 counsel's job for the New York Central him every day, by the struggle of The Homestead Act was a law that Railroad. 116 He was elected President life on the frontier and the little joy provided what President Lincoln as a member of the party which had that the lifestyle could also bring.125 thought was a step up. 105 He said as an important plank the creation His experiences there created a in a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio that of the transcontinental railroad. 117 knowledge that his life was not "In regards to the Homestead Law, As a lawyer and a politician, Lincoln destined to be like his father, that he 12 SPRING 2017 Henry Smith Lane OC-7639 Caleb Blood Smith LFA-0326 Schuyler Colfax OC-7806 john P. Usher LN-7334 Oliver P. Morton LN-0880 George W. julian LN-2248 LINCOLN LO RE . NUMBER 1914 13 130 was not destined to be a farmer. 126 the party. He asked Congressman Lincoln's men had a plan for Lincoln to That instead, his experience created Colfax for his advice on how to attend be the anti-Seward candidate, and as 131 in him a deep knowledge of what he to these matters. Colfa x responded these states lined up behind Lincoln, loved and wanted for his life - a life in agreement and the two began to other state delegations came to the in both the law and politics. 127 It is work together towards that goal . fold to promote Lincoln as the true 140 amazing that the bills that President Lincoln made a speech two months anti-Seward candidate. Lincoln signed in 1862 paralleled his later that spoke of both his fondness By the end of the convention, Lincoln life in Indiana. This legislation would for Indiana and the politics of the day knew that he was indebted to Indiana. impact a world that Lincoln would - most importantly his support of the When he was elected, he returned the have known far better than most 132 exclusion of slavery in the territories. favor by making the first appointment of the men arguing about it down His future Treasury Secretary, Hugh of an Indianan as a presidential cabinet Pennsylvania Avenue in the Capitol McCulloch, an Indianan, spoke member.141 Despite the promise to building. 133 glowingly of the speech. The visit Smith, there were two names most He would have known that the power is credited as having started an often mentioned, the first being Caleb of education is incredibly important. association between Illinois and Smith and the other Congressman And that this power had carried a Indiana's Republican Parties. Illinois, Schuyler Colfa x. 142 In the end, Lincoln frontier lawyer to 1600 Pennsylvania at that time, had far fewer delegates, settled on Caleb Smith. 143 and even when they were completely Avenue. He would have known the Caleb Smith served as Secretary of importance of the Homestead Act, unified for Lincoln, they needed Indiana's block of 26 votes, for Lincoln the Interior until january 1, 1863 when how the provision of property would to be nominated as the Republican he was made a United States District have created fiscal security both for 144 candidate for president. On the judge for the District of lndiana. individual Americans and for the fiscal first, second and third ballot, Lincoln Lincoln eventuallychosejohn P. Usher, security of the country as a whole. He received 26 of the 26 votes from another Indianan, who would serve for would have known the value of the 145 lndiana.134 two years. Usher would accompany Department of Agriculture - known President Lincoln to Gettysburg when that a centralized governmental The lead supporters of Lincoln in the that most iconic speech was made. agency would support farmers across Indiana delegation to the convention the country so that the nation could in Chicago in May 1860 were Henry As for Congressman Schuyler Colfax, feed itself. And he would have known S. Lane and Caleb Smith.135 Henry S. he did not have to wait long to achieve that a railroad was a necessity to Lane, who was running for Governor a prestigious title that had eluded ensure that our country woulc:j survive of Indiana, said that he would quit him previously. In 1862, the Speaker as one, by uniting the east and west the race if William H. Seward was of the House lost his reelection bid as he hoped to reunite the North and nominated for the Presidency, and and Congressman Colfax ran for the 146 South. this affected the votes of many position and won. delegates.136 In fact. the Pennsylvania Indiana was never quite absent Another Indianan in Congress Republican Party believed fervently from Lincoln's life. Lincoln's with whom Lincoln would interact that had it not been for HenryS. Lane, accomplishments demonstrated the frequently was Congressman George Lincoln would never have received the W. julian, who headed the Committee important role that Indiana played nomination.137 on the Conduct of the War. 147 He was in the development of his political initially quite cautious in his criticism thought.128 Somehow, Indiana was Lincoln had made clear to his of President Lincoln. However, he as influential on his future political surrogates that there were to be no lambasted the administration in career, how he attained the presidency promises of patronage in return for February 1865 - so much so that and how he held onto it. votes, but there is evidence that this was not the case .138 Caleb Smith, of Carl Sandburg believes that he "set When beginning his run for the Indiana, was promised the post of the frame and laid the scene for a presidency, while trying to obtain 148 Secretary of the Interior. He was not possible impeachment of Lincoln." support from Republican Party the only person promised cabinet This obviously never came to fruition. members from neighboring states, level appointments by Lincoln's men. Indiana's Governor Oliver Morton Lincoln got in touch with Congressman Simon Cameron was guaranteed a was a strong supporter of Lincoln Schuyler Colfax of lndiana.129 cabinet position when Pennsylvania during the civil war. 149 He sent as Lincoln was afraid that if unchecked, promised to switch their votes to much as he could to the national state Republican conventions and Lincoln on the second ballot.139 government to support the war. After platforms could lead to division within 14 SPRING 2017 ·I . . '" i I( .. ,.., .... Abraham Lincoln to William T Sherman, September 19, 1864 77200908300 700 Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, men were for him, he asked General Democrats were elected to Indiana's William T. Sherman if he could permit Frank j. Williams is the retired Chief legislature, and Governor Morton Indiana's soldiers to go home to vote justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode 150 156 responded. The Republicans in the - if it would not endanger his army. Island. He is co-founder and chairman legislature withdrew so that there These are just some of the Indianans of The Lincoln Forum, author of Lincoln was no quorum.151 Governor Morton who helped President Lincoln as Hero and Judging Lincoln, and co financed state government through become the Sixteenth and most editor ofThe Mary Lincoln Enigma. private support and the federal admired President of the United government, and was reelected with a States. We see through these Republican legislature during the next (Endnotes) examples that Indiana was always round of elections. 152 1 DAVID HERBERT DONAL D, LIN COLN 19 (Simon & involved in Lincoln's life. Lincoln Schuster 1996). 2 I d. (citing Gray, Thomas (1716-1771 ), "Elegy Other Indianans affected Lincoln was a frontiersman, something Written in a Country Churchyard" (1751)). throughout his life. The case of Ex parte 3 ABRAHAM LINCOLN - LINCOLN HOME NATIONAL that affected his life's trajectory in HISTORIC SITE, 00f)S'I/WWW nP- S~gov/ liho/learo/ Milligan came from lndiana. 153 Milligan, ~ culture/alincolnbio htm (last visited june an important way. His poem called 27, 2016). an Indianan who denounced President 4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Autobiography Written "My Childhood Home I See Again," for john l. Sc ri pps, in 4 COLLECTED WORKS Of Lincoln, was arrested and charged ABRAHAM LINCOLN 61-62 (Roy P. Basler, ed . 1953) which quite literally means to Lincoln available at hlll:rllquod lib umich edu/l!lincoln/ in a military court for "1. conspiracy "Indiana I see again."157 Lincoln was (hereinafter COLLECTED WORKS). against the government of the United 5 Ed ward Steersjr., LINCOLN LEGENDS: MYTHS, HOAXES, an Indianan, and on this special AND CONFABULATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH OuR GREATEST States, 2. affording aid and comfort PRESIDENT 65 (The Univ. Press of Ky. 2007). occasion, the bicentennial of its 6 ld. to rebels against the authority of the 7 Paul Finkelman, SLAVERY AND THE FOUNDERS: RAC E statehood, everyone should take AND LI BERTY IN THE AGE Of j EFFERSON 88-89 (2nd ed. United States, 3. inciting insurrection, Routledge 1999). comfort in the fact that the state of 8 Steers, supra at 65. 4. disloyal practices, and 5. violation 9 ABRAHAM LI NCOLN, The Bear Hunt, 1 CoLLECTED Indiana played such an important WORKS 386-87. of the laws of war."154 That case is still 10 Louis A. Warren, LINCOLN's YouTH : INDIANA YEARS, role in Abraham Lincoln's evolution SEVE N TO TWENTY-O NE, 1816-1830 at 41 (Ind. cited today in enemy combatant cases Historica l Soc'y 1991 ). from boy to man and from politician 11 Carl Sandburg, ABRAHAM LI NCOLN: THE PRAIRIEYEARS arising from the War on Terror. AND THE WAR YEARS 11 (Harcourt Inc. 1939). to statesman. 12 ld. at 10. In 1864, Lincoln was locked in a tough 131d.at21. The author wishes to acknowledge 14 ld. at4-21. reelection campaign against General 15 ld. at 13. Andrew G. Blais for his assistance in 161d. at 12. George B. McCiellan. 155 And, knowing 17 1d. at 13. research for this speech. 18 THE MOR RILL ACT, http://morrill150.rutgers.edu that he needed to gain the votes of (last visited july 10, 2016). 19 Marc Levinson, How Abraham Lincoln Helped Indianans, and hoping the military Shape Modern U.S . Economy, Bloomberg Uuly LINCOLN LO RE . NUMBER 19 14 15 6, 2012), https://www.bloomberg.com/view/ 73 ABRAHAM LI NCOLN, Address before the Wisconsin Republican_Piatform_1860.html. a rticles/20 1 2-07 -06/ how-a bra ham-li nco In State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, 118 Magdalen Eichert, Henry Clay's Po licy of helped-shape-modern-u-s-economy. Wisconsin, 3 COLLECTED WORKS 472. Distribution of the Proceeds from Public 20 HOMESTEAD ACT- LIBRARY OF CoNGRESS, http://www. 741d. Land Sales, 52 REG ISTER OFTHE KE NTUCKY HISTORICAL loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Homestead. 75 Sandburg, supra at 19. SociETY 25 Uanuary, 1954). html (last visited july 10, 2016). 76 Cormac O'Brien, SEcRET LivEs oF THE C1v1L WAR: 119 ld . 21 Donald, supra at 222. WHAT YouR TEACHERS NEvER ToLD You ABOUT THE WAR 120 UNION PACIFIC: BuiLDING AMERICA, Co MMUN ITY 22 Ro BERT V. REMINI, HE NRY CLAY: STATESMAN FOR THE BETWEEN THE STATES 25 (Quirk Books 2007). INVOLVEMENT, https:l/www.up.com/aboutup/ UNION (Norton 1991 ). 77 Sandburg, supra at 14. environment/community/index.htm (last 23 Donald, supra at 19. 78 O'Brien, supra at 25. visited Aug. 8, 2016). 241d . 79 Gabor Boritt, THEG ETTYSBURG GOSPEL: THE LINCOLN 121 See generally, id. 25 Sandburg, supra at 4-21 . SPEECH THAT NOBODY KNOWS 14 (Simon & Schuster 122 See generally, id. 261d . at 12. 2008). 123 ABOUT.COM, THE INVENTION OF THE TE LEGRAPH (HANG ED 271d . 80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Address before the Wisconsin CoMMUNICATION FoREVER, http://history1800s. 28 ld. State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, a bout. co m / od/i nvention innov ation / a/ 291d. Wisconsin, 3 CO LLECTED WORKS 478. telegraph01.htm (last visited Aug. 8, 2016). 30 ld. 81 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Annual Message to Congress, 124 Carl Sandburg, ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE PRAIRIE 31 ld . 5 COLLECTED WORKS 35-53 . YEARS AND THE WAR YEARS 4-21 (Harcourt Inc. 321d. at 14. 82 ld. at SO. 1939). 33 ABRAHAM LIN COLN, AddreSS to the New jersey 83 I d. at 46. 125 ld . Senate at Trenton, New jersey, 4 CoLLECTED 84 Sandburg, supra at 10. 126 ld. WORKS 235-36. 85 ld . 1271d. 34 ld . 86 ld. 128 See generally, Louis A. Warren, LINCOLN's 35 ld . 87 Paul W. Gates, The Farmers Age: Agriculture, YOUTH: INDIANA YEAR S, SEVE NTO TwENTY-O NE, 1816- 36 Sandburg, supra at 14. 1815-1860 (1960). 1830 at 41 (Ind. Historical Soc'y 1991 ). 37 ld. 88 R. Douglas Hurt, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE DURING THE 129 ABRAHAM LINC OLN TO SCHUYLER COLFAX, https:/ / 38 ld. C1v 1L WAR at xiv (ABC-CLIO 2016). www.l oc.gov /teachers/ classroom mate ria Is/ 39 josiah Gilbert Holland, HOLLAND'S LI FE OF AB RAHAM 89 United States Department of Agriculture, primarysourcesets/lincoln/pdf/letter_ colfax. LINCO LN 206-12 (Bison Books 1998). http://www. usda .gov/wps/po rta 1/usd a/ pdf (last visited Aug. 8, 2016). 40 Sandburg, supra at 308. usda home (last visited july 11, 2016). 130 ld. 41 See, generally, Terry Sprouse, How ABRAHAM 90 7 u.s.c. §2202 131 ld. LINCOLN UsED STORIES TO ToucH HEARTS, MINDS, AND 91 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Address before the Wisconsin 132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S CLASSROOM, ABRAHAM FUNNY BONES (P ianeta Books 2014). State Agricultural Society, Milwau kee, LINCOLN AN D INDIANA, http://www. 42 1d. Wisconsin, 3 COLLE CTED WORKS 478. abraham I in co I nscl ass room. o rg/ abraham 431d . 92 HOMESTEAD ACT- LIBRARY OF CONGR ESS, http://www. lincoln-state-by-state/abraham-lincoln-and 44 1d. loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Homestead. indiana/ (last visited Aug. 8, 2016). 45 Sandburg, supra at 4. html (last visited july 10, 2016). 133 ld. 46 Gordon Leidner, Lincoln's Humor, 93 Eric Foner, FREE SOIL, FREE lABOR, FREE MEN: THE 134 PROCEEDINGS oF THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CoNVENTION GREAT AMERICAN HISTORY, http://www. IDEOLOGY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY BE FORE THE (IVIL HELD AT CHICAGO, MAY 16, 17 AND 18, 1860, greatamericanhistory.net/humor.htm (last WAR (Oxford, 19951970). RE PUBLICAN NATIONAL CoNvENTION, https://archive. visited july 10, 2016). 94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Autobiography Written for org/details/proceedingsofrepOOrepuiala (last 47 Sidney Blumenthal, A SELF-MA DE MAN: TH E john L. Scripps, 4 COLLECTED WORKS OF ABRAHAM visited Aug. 8, 2016). POLITICAL LI FE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN VOL. I, 1 809 - LINCOLN 61-62. 135 ABRAHAM LINCOLN's CLASSROOM, ABRAHAM 1849 at 14-16 (Simon & Schuster 2016). 95 Donald, supra at 20-21 . LINCOLN AND INDIANA, http://www. 48 Louis Bernard Schmidt, Abraham Lincoln's 96 ld. a braham I i nco I nsclassroom.org/a braham- New Deal for Agriculture, 3 ARIZON IANA 2, 9-16 97 ld. 1in coIn-state-by-state/ a bra ham-lin coIn-and (Summer 1962). 98 ROBERT v. REMINI, HE NRY CLAY : STATESMAN FOR THE indiana/ (last visited Aug. 8, 2016). 49 Wayne D. Rasmussen, United States UNION 225-26 (NOrtOn 1991 ). 136 ld. Department of Agriculture National 99 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, First Debate with Stephen A. 1371d. Agriculture Library, nttps://www.nal.usda. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858, 3 138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S CLASSROOM, PRESIDENT gov/lincolns-agricultural-legacy Uu ly 10, COLLECTED WORKS 29. LINCOLN AND PATRONAGE, http://www. 2016). 100 ROBERT v. REM INI, HENRY CLAY: STATESMAN FOR TH E abra ham I in coIn sc Iass room. o rg/ abraham- 50 HOMESTEAD ACT - LIBRARY OF CoNGRESS, http://www. UNION 225-26 (Norton 1991 ). 1i n coIn-in-de pth/ p reside nt-1 in co In-and loc.gov/ rr/program/ bib/ourdocs/Homestead. 101 Magdalen Eichert, Henry Clay's Policy of patronage/ (last visited Aug. 8, 2016). html (last visited july 10, 2016). Distribution of the Proceeds from Public 139 ABRAHAM LIN COLN'S CLASSROOM , ABRAHAM 51 Marc Levinson, How Abraham Lincoln Helped Land Sales, 52 REGISTER oF THE KENTUCKY LI NCOLN AND INDIANA, http://WWW. Shape Modern U.S. Economy, Bloomberg HISTORICAL SociETY 25 Uanuary, 1954). a bra ha ml i nco I nsclassroom .o rg/a braham Uuly 6, 2012), https://www.bloomberg.com/ 1021d. lincoln-state-by-state/abraham-lincoln-and view/arti cles/20 1 2-07 -06/how-a braham 103 ld . indiana/ (last visited Aug. 8, 2016). lincoln-helped-shape-modern-u-s-economy. 104 AB RAHAM LINCOLN, Speech tO Germans at 140 ld. 52 THE MORRI LL ACT, http://morrill150.rutgers.edu Cincinnati, Ohio, February 12, 1861, 4 141 ld. (last visited july 10, 2016). COLLECTED WORKS 202. 1421d. 53 David Herbert Donald, AB RAHAM LINCOLN: GREAT 105 ld . 1431d. AMERICAN HisTORIANS ON OuR SIXTE ENTH PRESIDENT 106 ld . 144 CALEB B. SMITH, MR. LIN COLN'S WH ITE HOUSE, http:// 36 (Brian Lamb, Susan Swain, eds., Perseus 1071d. www. m rl in co I nswh iteho use. org/ res ide nts Books Group 2008). 108 See, generally id. vis ito rs/ cab inet -vice-presidents/cabinet -vice 54 Roger D. Billings, The Homestead Act, Pacific 109 Was Homesteading Only for White presidents-caleb-b-smith-1 808-1864/ (last Railroad Act and Morrill Act, 39 N. Ky. L. Rev. People, Friends of Homestead National visited Aug. 8, 2016). 699, 713-14. Monument of America Uuly 22, 2001), 145 ABRAHAM LINCOLN's CLASsROOM, ABRAHAM 55 ld. http:/ / homestead congress. b I ogs pot. LINCOLN AND INDIANA, http://WWW. 56 See generally, COLLECTED WORKS. com/201 1/ 07 /was-homesteading-only-for abraham I i neal nsclassroo m .org/a bra ham 57 ld. white-people.html. li ncoln-state-by-state/abraham-lincoln-and 58 Sandburg, supra at 13. 110 Teaching With Documents: The Homestead indiana/ (last visited Aug. 8, 2016). 59 ld. at 4-21 . Act of 1862, National Archives, https:// 1461d. 60 See generally, Doris Kearns Goodwin, TEAM oF www .arch ives.gov/ed u cation/lessons/ 1471d. RI VALS (Simon & Schuster 2006). homestead-act/. 148 ld. 61 William E. Bartelt, THERE I GREW UP: REMEMBERING 111 ABRAH AM LINCOLN, Fragment on the Constitution 1491d. ABRAHAM LINCOLN's INDIANA You TH 25 (Ind . and the Union; c. january, 1861, 4 CoLLECTED 150 ld. Historical Soc'y 2008). WOR KS 168-69. 151 ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S CLASSROOM, ABRAHAM 62 Id . at 8. 112 THE DECLARATION OF IN DEPENDENCE para . 1 (U.S. LINCOLN AND INDIANA, http://www. 63 Sandburg, supra at 13. 1776). abraham li ncolnsclassroom .o rg/ a braham- 64 ld. at 14. 113 THE TRANSCONTIN ENTAL RAI LROAD, http://www.tcrr. 1i nco In-state-by-state/a bra ha m-1 i neal n-and 65 Autodidact, ME RRIAM -WEBSTER, http://www. com (last visited Aug. 8, 2015). indiana/ (last visited Aug. 8, 2016). merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autodidact 1141d. 152 ld . (last visited july 11, 2016). 115 COMPLETING THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAI LROAD, 153 Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. (4 Wal l. ) 2, 107, 18 66 Billings, supra at 713-14. 1869, EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY, http://wwW. L.Ed . 281, 291 (1866). 67 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Communication to the People eyewitnesstohistory. com/goldenspike.htm 1541d. of Sangamo County, 1 COLLECTED WORKS 8. (last vis ited Aug. 8, 2016). 155 ABRAHAM LINCOLN's CLASSROOM, ABRAHAM LINCOLN 68 ld . 116 j AM ES W. ELY, jR., INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AND THE ELECTION OF 1864, http://www. 69 ld. ABRAHAM LI NCOLN AS A RAILROAD ATI ORNEY, http:// abraham li nco I nsclassroom.org/a bra ham- 70 Donald, supra at 52-53. www. indiana history .o rg/o u r-servi ces/ 1in coIn-in-depth/ abraham -I i nco In-and-the 71 I d. at 53-54. boo ks-p u bl ications/ra i I road-symposia election-of-1864/ (last visited Aug. 8, 2016). 72 Wayne D. Rasmussen, United States essays-1 I Abe%20Lincol n%20as%20a%20 156 ld. Department of Agnculture National Railroad%20Attorney.pdf. 157 ABRAHAM LINCO LN, My Childhood Home 1 See Agriculture Library, nttps://www.nal.usda. 117 CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY Again, 1 CO LLECTED WORKS 365-70. gov/lincolns-agricultural-legacy Uuly 10, MU SEUM, RE PUBLICAN NATIONAL PLATFO RM, 1860, 2016). http://www.cp rr. org/M useu m/Ep hem era/ 16 SPRING 2017 SG: Why does the life of Abraham politician and statesman; he .did. write of a larger critique of the direction of Lincoln continue to enthrall us? some of the most recognized and American history, politics, or values. consequential words in American For insisting on a president's "war DLW: I think it begins with his unprec letters; and he did preside over the powers," and using them unapologet edented familiarity in American life. ordeal that resulted in the preserva ically, Lincoln has been depicted as a His name is everywhere- Or) schools, tion of the United States of America ruthless dictator. For his most recog places, and institutions- and his im and the abolition of slavery within its nized and most lauded achievement age is possibly the most recognized in borders. - presiding over the destruction of our country. In an age when American the institution of slavery in America - citizens are taught and know less and I would argue that over the years he was hated for destroying the eco less about their own history, Lincoln's Americans have not only tended nomic system and traditional way of story is a notable exception. The sto to embrace this story, but that as a life of a large segment of the nation. ry that is known is mostly a legend, consequence, Lincoln's example has For prosecuting the war between the and unfortunately some recurring helped shape the nation's sense of its states in a cautious and conciliatory elements thereof are conspicuously own identity. The country and its cul manner, refusing to demonize the wrong, as in the case of the aberrant ture came to be perceived as the en rebels, and offering generous peace notion that Lincoln owned slaves. But vironment that produced Abraham terms, he was and is still derided as most versions of the legend are rea Lincoln, a process that was fed by an ineffective leader whose inepti sonably historical. Lincoln li\LaS. born an international fascination with the tude prolonged the war and unnec in a backwater to poor and humble man and his words. But we do well essarily sacrificed tens of thousands parents; he .did. grow up with very lit to remember that there have always of lives. Seen by his contemporaries tle formal schooling; he .did. work hard been anti-Lincoln factions or points as a champion of the rights of black at educating himself; he .did. acquire of view in our midst that see him in people, he has been portrayed by quite early in his life a reputation for a very different and unflattering light, later generations as no more than a honesty and fairness; he .did. succeed for these, too, are instructive. Always white supremist. And so it goes. No in making a name for himself as a law of a minority and dissenting persua good deed has gone unpunished, but yer and in rising to great heights as a sion, they generally appear to be part this tells us volumes about the kind of LINCOLN LO RE . NUMBER 1914 17 LINCOLN THROUGH THE LENS OF HISTORY Nonetheless, a case can be To convince the skeptical Northern made for Lincoln's excep public that the Civil War was not a tional success in dealing partisan Republican war, Lincoln ap with certain very difficult pointed Democrats to federal judge problems that confront all ships, he made them generals in the political leaders. army, he got their progeny into West Point and Annapolis, he conferred ev For instance, Lincoln's ery favor within his power to win the chances for success de confidence and support of his political pended on somehow gain opponents. In so doing, he had to pay ing substantial support the price of dissension and back-bit from adherents of the op posing party, which was no ing resentment from members of his mean feat for a minority own party, who failed to see the wis president from a minority dom of sharing the spoils of political party, whose election had victory with their enemies. Few presi occurred because the ma dents have followed his example, and jority party became hope it throws light on the protests of suc lessly divided. But by the cessors like Bill Clinton, who claimed beginning of 1864, after he could have been more successful three grueling years of ef if he could only have had the benefit fort, Lincoln had effectively of a war. accomplished this seem SG: Which of our Founding Fathers ingly impossible task, as a does Linco ln most resemble in very doubtful and recalci views regarding the proper rol e trant Northern public was of the Federal Government? On by this time showing broad the same subject, which Founder's approval of his policies. vi ewp~int does he reject? Efforts by various party DLW: It is hard to see Lincoln as re Abraham Lincoln and George Washington LN- 11 09 leaders to head off his re nomination and replace him with a sembling any of the founding fathers very closely, virtually all of whom were country we inhabit. more militant candidate were going nowhere. Observers at the time, such men of wealth, cultivation, and prop SG : What lessons, if any, have polit as the well-connected Wall Street law erty. An important part of Lincoln's ica l leaders learned from Lincoln's yer, George Templeton Strong, asked continuing significance for Americans life? What lessons should they have themselves how this transformation has always been his humble origins learned? had come about. Strong wrote in his and his rising from poverty by virtue DLW: It is easier to point out the diary: "I think this great and blessed of his own efforts. Granted that this things that political leaders haven't revolution is due, in no small degree, is true of Benjamin Franklin, who is learned, but even those who presum to A. Lincoln's sagacious policy." This remembered for a similar feat, but ably have learned something from spoke to a result that was attribut he became a wealthy business man Lincoln's example tend to experience able, not only to Lincoln's cautious and leading citizen by middle age and great difficulty in putting it into prac and deliberate measures (his "saga thus cut a very different figure. That tice. While Lincoln had been an active cious policy"), but ultimately to his said about Lincoln and the founders political partisan most of his life, his belief that to be successful, any im generally, the question as stated re success as president is what put him portant government policy or direc lates more specifically to Lincoln's on a pedestal -this and his martyr tion must be accepted (or at least not "views regarding the proper role of dom - and this is something that is opposed) by the people at large. This the Federal Government." While he hard to separate from the unique set differs radically from the belief of oth frequently refers to the founders, of conditions that Lincoln faced. It is er political leaders, especially prom as was commonplace in the politics by no means clear that in different cir inent in the ranks of his own party's of his generation, he rarely speaks cumstances he would have met with leadership, that it was sufficient only of any of them in particular, except the same measure of success, much that important actions needed doing Washington, who was not associated less emerged as a great national hero. and were "right." with a distinctive political view in this 18 SPRING 2017 . DOUGLAS L. WILSON regard. Lincoln himself was perhaps DLW: The short answer, at least from oversimplifying things when he said at my prospective, is that his thinking Independence Hall that he had "never and example did reflect both the had a feeling politically that did not Enlightenment and Romanticism. spring from the sentiments embodied Like jefferson before him, he liked the in the Declaration of Independence." eighteenth-century so-called "pre-Ro It was also a way of putting things in mantic" poets, of which Robert Burns such a way as to avoid associating is the most noted example, and he himself with jefferson, which, in his was probably influenced by such eigh own time, was an association fraught teenth-century writers as Volney and with partisan meanings. Because of Thomas Paine. But he also embraced this, and because Herndon's letters such Romantic writers as Lord Byron tell us that Lincoln became disen and Edgar Allan Poe with enthusiasm. chanted with jefferson's moral char He had a strong rationalistic side, acter, I would be leery of naming which is shown by his keen interest jefferson as the founder whose view in mathematics, but he struggled as of the role of the Federal government a young man with surging emotions was closest to him. It is, however, that threatened, for a time, to over quite noteworthy that Lincoln always come him. In the realm of expression, seems to cite "equality" as the prima he lived in an age of orators, but he ry and most enduring element of the consciously rebelled against the flow founding philosophy. ery and ornamental language that was endemic to fashionable oratory Abraham Lincoln OC-0230 I don't see Lincoln as rejecting any and worked, instead, at developing a particular founder's viewpoint. Even rhetoric of clarity and plain language. of the presidency of Andrew jackson, the slaveholding founders, at least In this he seemed to follow the ideas a very strong-minded, domineering, the most prominent, were known to of Wordsworth and Coleridge, two wi llful leader, which is not what the be antislavery at heart. I think it is revolutionary Romantic writers he fair to say that Lincoln and his politi country was used to. Nor does it never mentions. In truth, his mature cal generation didn't tend to sort the seem, at least on the surface, to re style is such that he never seems to founders according to their differenc flect the kind of individualism that be following any particular models of es so much as lump them together. Tocqueville recognized as one of its expression but rather blazing his own It was convenient for all sides to use leading characteristics. The lesson trail. It is probably no accident that the founders as symbols of the unity here is perhaps that the American the most notable writers of his own or purity of the nation's initial formu public tended to respond to strong era- Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, lation, which could then be used as a leadership, both pro and con, and Melville, Whitman, Dickinson - were kind of legal fiction that showed the things happened. The same proved all following something of the same supposed errancy of the opposition. true with james K. Polk, and in both impulse. It is important, of course, to keep in cases Abraham Lincoln was moved to mind that the founders had a rele SG: Did the American public have work against the forceful pressure ex vance and an immediacy for Lincoln's different expectations for the pres erted by the presidency, because he era that has long been absent for suc idencyinthe1860sthantoday? belonged to the loyal opposition. ceeding generations. DLW: My sense of the American public In his own remarkable presidency, SG: If one subscribes to the concept in Lincoln's day is that it was so widely Lincoln gradually found ways to exert that there are "historical eras," diverse that it is hard to answer such his own leadership and make it effec Abraham Lincoln was born on the a question. Tocqueville is fascinating tive under extreme conditions. In his cusp between Enlightenment and to read precisely because he had an case, he had to find ways to shape Romanticism. Is there any evidence amazing ability to canvass the entire public opinion and bring a reluctant in his writing/speaking/ thought country, interviewing scores of differ public to accept conditions and ends that would support the concept ing types of people, but was then able that they had actively resisted. This that he reflected both "Ages" ... or to see their diversity as aspects of a was also true, at least to some extent, was his mind one that cannot be distinctive whole. And Tocqueville as regards members of Congress, but categorized? was gathering his data in the midst less so with the leadership of his own LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1914 19 ------ LINCOLN THROUGH THE LENS OF HISTORY party. letter. In this letter, he frankly admitted that SG: Are we indulging in unfair he had done things judgments if we criticize Lincoln GENE~AL ORDERS, } "~AR DEPAR T 1lE~T , as war measures that AD.Jt'"T.a. l'IT G&Nit._...Ltl Ornr~. for such war-time measures as the l\o. H I. IJ"(I-:Jltiugton J St1Jtnu/,rr 2;,, J.w-ti:!. would not have been suspension of habeas corpus? Or TilL' f4)l\l•WiH~ rro('1runnlion l•y tbc Prr·:.: it.lt'tll b vuLli ~ I JNl fnr !It· permissible in a time of i nft.trl lt[~ t iu u :md g•W('I'llllll'UL or ll.!(l An uy nnU. all Ct•uccrm:rl : are we correct to be cognizant of peace, but he argued U\" TilE l 1 nE !':IUE~'!' OF TilL r~aTED ~T.\TC:S (J I-' A:\ 11-:W l'.\. possible lega l precedents for future .~ l'TIOCLL.IL\.TIOX. convincingly that he presidents? "'nr:ur. \:-- ir k1.~ lt<' COJJll· Dl!Cl't-<: nry to cnll intf~ ::-crvicc 011t t.•uly had Constitutional war Y .Juulccrl'i hu t ulst• pt.•rltfllt!o of lLt· )Iiliria nC ll1 f· ~ltLit·:i by tlruft , it t DLW: In one sense, Lincoln makes it 11\"lh ·r to ~nppr<':=.s 1l w iu:.:nrn·di uu r:xi:o~tin~ in 1hc• l'nircd ~ll\ll~ . . n: •l rant for those actions. Jj .. J,, _,a11'l'r. .. ,.u:-- Ul'l' 11111 nt/•·rpmlc.: ly n·:-tr..tilll.J Uy (L t.· or,linnry pn w<· ~ ..... easy for us to judge according to our In ordinary times, one nf Jaw t'rl•l1l ltiu•lt•riug this IIH-11.-:uro anJ fruJ.U giving o, jd_ Ollll <'"illf•·H J:.a ,·.tril•ll ..: "·nys !1.• tltl' iu:-ourt"l·diL•U : own lights by forthrightly laying out might advocate freely, x .. w. tl u·n-l'ut\·. ht· it c•r\luttl- the arguments for suspending the writ F ir:.:(. Thnl aur iu~ th e c .x i.still~ iu surrt:(·lion. !llnl n:-. n 11 ('('(':' It)" but he makes the case 111 \·a;-.llH' fpr ~ ll(>!•rt.N·irr~ tlli.. ' so ru e. llB n.:Ucls uwl iu -.l trg-c·nt ~. tlu ·i r uid• r" at critical times. For his early resort for dealing harshly with U!Jd a iH"ttl t"f'. wiihiu dH· L"11it td ~mtcs. nnd nil l•t:r-..,us ll i!-l c~• nn t:;ll :: Y••lllld ('t• l' t:u ]i ~ll ll l' LL1:1. rt:l' i:o-! lllg' miJitioJ. lJruft..,. Ul' :;nJJt_r Of ntty t\ i:ol·•.· d to the writ in Maryland, he made the those advocating things l•l'ltl·tin·. tLtr.. rding n i ~.·l rnt•l Ct•lt Jfl•rt t ~.• rc:Lt-1 ~ ug 20 SPRING 2017 - . DOUGLAS L. WILSON Americans, so widely condemned af wa r effort in the 1940s, it was the with people who had known Lincoln ter the war, is a gauge of how alarm wickedness of the Axis leaders that as a small boy in Kentucky, a growing ing and disruptive the japanese attack constantly motivated and justified adolescent in Indiana, and a resident had been, even though it was not their commitment. of the village of New Salem in Illinois. unexpected. The difficulties Lincoln SG : As we have passed the 150'h Although this archive had been in the encountered in sustaining the strong anniversa ry of Abraham Lin coln's Library of Congress since 1941 and public response to Fort Sumter go death, what advice do you have available on microfilm a few years far to demonstrate the differences for those who hope to keep hi s later, its invaluable testimony about in the two cases, for the strong hand legacy strong? Lincoln's pre-presidential life and ca that Roosevelt was given after Pearl reer had never been systematically Harbor was virtually undiminished DLW: From the point of view of edited and published in a scholarly throughout the ensuing war. One scholars and historians, the answer edition until the turn of the present value of the comparison is that it has to be- continue to pursue seri century, less than twenty years ago. brings out how hard Lincoln and his ous inquiry and research . The public administration had to work to keep view of a much-studied subject like As a result, many biographical inci the Northern public on board; by the Abraham Lincoln is, and will proba dents, episodes, and details that had same token, it brings out how strong bly always be, that we already know had little or no exposure in Lincoln the anti-war sentiment remained in what there is to know about Lincoln, biography came rapidly into play. the North. And in al l of this - and which the serious schola r knows is Events such as Lincoln's love affair this is important - Lincoln resolute not the case . It is true that there is a with Ann Rutledge, which had been ly refused to demonize the South. By continual stream of new books about downgraded by scholars to the sta comparison, to the American public Lincoln, almost all of which have lit tus of a little more than a myth, took that energetically mobilized and lent tle to offer that is factually new or, on new life when so much of the their whole-hearted support to the as it is often put, that brea k no new pe rtinent evidence became readily ground. But as the world changes available and could be taken into ac -and it keeps changing faster count. That Lincoln had experienced and faster- important histor two serious mental breakdowns by ical figures and episodes ta ke the age of thirty had scarcely pene on a different appea rance and trated Lincoln biography before the suggest new meanings in the testimony of those who witnessed light of changing conditions. these incidents became widely avail Another way to think of this is able for examination. The details of to say that every generation the young Lincoln's difficulties with has to work out its own way of women constitute another important understanding the past. But in addition to this, the ongoing re aspect of Lincoln's development that search of Lincoln scholars con has come to the fore as a result of tinues to find new information, the publication of the testimony that to refine and correct old infor Herndon collected and preserved. mation, and to propose new These are only examples, but the flur insights into Lincoln's life, his ry of important new books on Lincoln career, or his era . in the recent past amply illustrates the proposition that the Lincoln theme is Here are a few examples of far from exhausted. new developments from the last twenty years of Lincoln Douglas Wilson is co-director of scholarship. the Lincoln Studies Center at Knox Much of what is known about College. He is the author of Lincoln's Lincoln's early life comes from Sword, Honor's Voice, and Lincoln the investigations of his last law Before Washington and co-editor of partner, William H. Herndon, Herndon's Informants, Herndon's who compiled an extensive ar- Lincoln, and The Lincoln-Douglas Abraham Lin coln LN-1012 chive of letters and interviews Debates. LINCOLN LO RE . NUMBER 1914 21 Lincoln's First Flatboat Trip to New Orleans: I BY RICHARD CAMPANELLA Reconsrrucred chronologi es of Lincoln's flarboar rrips ro New Orleans, from Indiana (7828) and Illinois (1837). Analysis and map by Richard Campanella Most Lincoln Lore readers know Lower South, and the closest he ever hoping to shed light on the nature the basic outlines of the story: that came to immersing himself in a for and impact of those experiences. Thomas Lincoln guided his family into eign culture. They also exposed the The three years of research I put into Indiana "in the autumn of 1816," as his youth, for the first and only time in Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 son Abraham would later recall, "on his life, to large-scale plantation slav Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in account of slavery [and] the difficulty ery and urban slave-trading, far more History (University of Louisiana Press, in land titles in K[entuck]y;" that the than he had ever seen in Kentucky, 201 0) were among the most reward family would establish a homestead and gave him first-hand experiences ing of my career, and readers inter at Pigeon Creek in Spencer Country; in everything from river navigation ested in my larger findings may con and that young Abe would come of to an early railroad (not to mention a sult the book for more detail. My pur age among these Indiana forests violent attack in Louisiana). The two pose in this article is to settle a simple and fields near the Ohio River. On its flatboat voyages represent transfor but key question of particular inter banks at Rockport Landing began a mational episodes in the least-known est to Hoosier Lincoln buffs: when key moment in the teenager's matu era of Lincoln's otherwise thoroughly exactly did Lincoln depart Indiana for ration, when nineteen-year-old Abe examined adult life, and they would Louisiana? gained employment from local mer influence the man, and the president, Figuring out when boat captain chant james Gentry to help his son he would become. Allen Gentry build and guide a flat Allen Gentry and his hired hand Abe boat down the Ohio and Mississippi Since my childhood I have been in launched their flatboat from Rockport rivers to New Orleans. trigued by those voyages. Decades was critical to my project because it later, as a historical geographer at would direct me to the proper time That trip, and a second one in 1831, Tulane University specializing in New window in which Lincoln would have would form the two longest journeys Orleans and the Mississippi River, I arrived in New Orleans, and thus en of Lincoln's life, his only visits to the decided to delve deeply into them, able me to reconstruct the daily life in 22 the city to which he might have been dence to a springtime launch, the Lincoln to New Orleans decades exposed. It was a mystery I simply strongest coming from the research earlier. 5 "My name is Mrs. Gentry had to resolve, and it took the form of William H. Herndon. As Lincoln's wife of Al len Gentry," she declared, of a binary: all evidence pointed to longtime Springfield la w partner and "with whom Mr Lincoln went to NO either (1) an early springtime (March close friend, Herndon looms large in for ja[me]s Gentry Sen[ior] in April or April) 1828 launch, or (2) a late-au the literature of Lincoln's early life, 1828 .. .." 6 Born around the same time tumn/early-winter (December) launch so some background on his work is as Lincoln and schooled with him, the later in the year 1828, with an arrival in order. widow Gentry continued: in New Orleans in 1829. Neither alter native can be proven by primary his A few months after the president's Speaking about the boat & the trip let torical documentation: there are no assassination in 1865, Herndon me say to you that I saw the boat surviving port registries, no manifests set out for Kentucky, Indiana, and was on it-saw it start and L[incoln] or receipts, no contracts, and certain Illinois to interview people who knew with it... .. They went down the Ohio & ly no journals nailing down the date. Lincoln in his early years. The result Mississippi ... they Came back in june 7 But other clues abound, and in this ar ing 250-plus transcripts and letters 1828. ticle, I triangulate among them, weigh have been described as "one of the Anna Gentry's clear personal memory them, and make my best judgment. In first extensive oral history projects is compelling evidence for a spring 3 the process, I hope Lincoln Lore read in American history." Herndon and time launch, particularly in light of her ers gain insights into everyday life in collaborator jesse W. Weik wove the relationship to the two men involved: southern Indiana 180 years ago, while information into narrative form and friend of Abe, wife of Allen. A danger sharing in the challenge of historical published it in 1889 as Herndon's ous meteorological anomaly made detective work. The findings, I hope, Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life. April 1828 particularly memorable: may also aid other researchers seek The effort earned criticism from both after months of spring-like weath ing to hammer out the chronology of general and scholarly readers. Some er, daytime temperatures suddenly Lincoln's Indiana life, a period of four rebuked Herndon for his occasionally plunged from 60° to 22° F and lower teen years (1816-1830) within which discomfiting portrayal of the immor at night. The hard freeze and light a lengthy and risky journey to a far talized president: his plebeian roots, snow killed seedling crops and turned away metropolis would have formed his apparent secularity, his bouts the balmy winter of 1828 into a long an unforgettable rite of passage from 8 with depression. Historians, for their rued "Fa lse Spring." Anna's 83-year boyhood to manhood. part, faulted Herndon for sloppy in old father Absolom Roby, who farmed terviewing methods and questioned that year, backed up his daughter's So when did Gentry and Lincoln the reliability of decades-old remi testimony when Herndon interviewed launch, spring or winter 1828? niscences. Nevertheless, Herndon's him on the same day in September Contextual evidence accommo body of material constitutes an un 1865. Roby affirmed, "[Lincoln] and dates the springtime hypothesis matched treasure trove of first-per Gentry did go to N.O. in April1828. as well. Warming temperatures, high son perspectives on Lincoln's youth. Said by my daughter ... I was often at swift-flowing rivers, lengthening day His dogged fieldwork and well-pre the landing from which Gentry & Abe light, and economic bustle in New served notes form the source of hun started to N.O ... ." But the elderly man Orleans all support the rationale of dreds of subsequent histories and bi later admitted, "my memory is gone & a springtime launch. Exceptional ly I myself am fast going."9 warm and wet weather in early 1828 ographies underlie much of what we caused extremely high waters in the think we know about Lincoln before Further substantiation of a spring Ohio and Mississippi, which might he stepped onto the national stage. launch comes from Herndon's in have prompted the river-savvy james Indeed, many of Herndon's critics terview with neighbors Nathaniel Gentry to organize a voyage to exploit are also Herndon citers. Scholars Grigsby, Silas Richardson, Nancy the swift current. ("The river is rising have recently begun to reassess Richardson, and john Romine on vary fast and appears to be pretty Herndon's unfavorable reputation, September 14, 1865. Romine stated 4 well lined with flatboats," observed and rightfully so. In 1998, historians that "Lincoln went to N.O. about '28 one navigator in 1835, indicating Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney 0. or '29 .... Boat Started out of the Ohio how rivermen "read" the river and Davis published Herndon's interview in the Spring-Abe about 20 years 1 notes and correspondences, provid 10 deployed accordingly. ) Lincoln him of age .... Gone about two months." self would set out from Illinois in the ing researchers convenient access to Thus we have corroboration of Anna month of April for his 1831 voyage the words of Lincoln's aging contem Gentry's recollection that the trip to New Orleans, while his own father poraries. Th rough these and other began in spring, and that it lasted Thomas had departed in March back way-points, gathered from shipping around two months. Romine, son-in in 1806, when he set sail for the same data, river reports, fellow rivermen's law of the man Uames Gentry) who destination. Port records show that journals, and other innovative sourc hired Lincoln to go to New Orleans, flatboat arrivals generally peaked es, we can reconstruct the basic makes three Gentry family members at New Orleans between late March chronology of Lincoln's voyage to (along with Anna and Absolom) who and early May, when eight to nine New Orleans-starting, of course, knew Lincoln personally, all concur flatboats registered daily. Given that with the all-important launch date. ring on a spring launch. the journey usually took three to four Among Herndon's September 1865 Armed with this evidence, Herndon weeks, this implies that upcountry inquiries was a va luable interview reported spring 1828 as the season departures peaked proportionately in with 57-year-old Anna Caroline of the flatboat launch in his 1889 bi March and April. 2 ("Katie") Gentry, whose now-de ography: "In March, 1828," he wrote, Secondary evidence adds further ere- ceased husband accompanied "james Gentry ... fitted out a boat with LINCOLN LORE . NUMBER 1914 23 a stock of grain and meat" for Allen Society, Bess Ehrmann interviewed grandmother pegged the departure and Abe to guide downriver. (It's un numerous Gentry descendants as date to April 1828, not December. clear why Herndon wrote March when part of the Southwestern Indiana Based on E. Grant Gentry's testimo his informant said April, but the im Historical Society's effort to write the ny, Van Natter, concurring with Bess portant thing for our purposes is that "missing chapter" of Lincoln's life. Ehrmann, judged the launch as taking Herndon felt it was a spring launch.) "Many flatboat men along the Ohio place "[m]idway between Christmas Widely cited, Herndon's March 1828 did make their trips in April," Ehrmann Day [1828] and New Year [1829]," judgment has since permeated much acknowledged, but the Gentry family and proceeded to reconstruct the trip subsequent literature.11 was always known to go in the late fall based on that chronology. 16 or early winter. There were other men Additional clues exist. On the 19th or The second hypothesis holds that who made their trips in winter, Mr. 20th of March 1828, Allen Gentry wed Gentry and Lincoln launched in late Louis Gentry[,] the grandson of Allen Anna Caroline Roby, thus confirm December 1828, and a fair amount of Gentry[,] told me. ing at the very least that Gentry and Lincoln literature cites this date-in I have known intimately many of the Lincoln were in Indiana on that date. 17 cluding at least one roadside histori grandchildren and great grandchil Anna became pregnant within a few cal marker in Spencer County. Setting dren of both james Gentry and Allen days. This information leaves only out in a raft during the cold short days a week for Herndon's March launch around the winter solstice, when the Gentry. All members of both families estimate to prove true, although river runs low and slow, might seem know that their ancestors, three gen it does no harm to Anna Gentry's needlessly risky. Incessant wind, frost, erations of them, made their flatboat April estimate. Nine months later, rain, fog, hail, and snow, for example, trips to New Orleans in the fall or win on December 18, 1828, Anna gave slowed one wintertime Indiana-to ter, after the hogs were butchered and the summer crops gathered and birth to james junior.18 The deliv New-Orleans flatboat voyage to near stored ready for marketing in New ery, according to Ehrmann, "had de ly twice the length of a typical spring Orleans. Ice did not come in the riv layed the southern trip as Allen had trip. The inclement conditions also refused to go until he knew all was made the navigator "very unwell. .. ers until late in the winter, and as Mr. Louis Gentry told me, "You must well at home. Many years later when with a bad cold [and] Ague [fever]. ... remember we were traveling south Lincoln became famous, the Gentrys The weather is fine for that disease."12 away from the cold ."14 were always to remember the date But wintertime flatboating was not of this particular flatboat trip from Francis Marion Van Natter interviewed 19 complete madness. An end-of-year the birthdate of the eldest son ." At Gentry family members around the launch delivered recently harvested least one modern-day Gentry fami same time (1936) and wove his find crops to market before they might ly descendant-Mrs. Barbara Dillon, ings into his book Lincoln's Boyhood: spoil. It aligned particularly well with whom I interviewed in 2008-con A Chronicle of His Indiana Years, pub tobacco cultivation, as leaves are cut curred with Ehrmann, sensing that lished posthumously in 1963. Van in August or September, staked to Allen Gentry (her great-great-great Natter's work is unusual in that it in dry, then braided in November and grandfather) would not have parted vents dialogue and imbues color into shipped in December. It also coincid with his bride once he learned of her boyhood vignettes, yet also contains 20 ed with the ideal season for exporting pregnancy. If Anna became preg scholarly apparatus such as footnotes hog meat, as the autumn·chill staved nant around March 21, Anna would and affidavit-backed interviews with off decay between slaughter and cur have realized it no later than around local informants. Van Natter worked ing.B Year-end launches supplied three weeks hence, based on men tirelessly and traveled extensively to foodstuffs to the New Orleans market strual cycles. Presuming she told her understand and reconstruct the flat just as demand rose vis-a-vis the city's husband promptly, Allen (and there boat trip, taking scrupulous notes and enlarged wintertime population. They fore Abraham) would have, under this donating his research materials to the also gave farmers something produc theory, stayed home until the late-De Lewis Library at Vincennes University, tive to do in the off-season, and freed cember birth. After a couple of days where I examined them. up the subsequent spring for plant of assuring the health of both mother ing. While temperatures might indeed Among Van Natter's archives is an af and baby, the theory goes, the duo 21 be frigid, they gradually warmed with fidavit signed by 72-year-old E. Grant would finally have departed. Van each southbound mile. Low water lev Gentry and notarized on September 5, Natter also acknowledged the signif els surely slowed progress, but they 1936. Regarding the flatboat trip, the icance of the birth, although he erro also reduced the risk of the flatboat affidavit states that Allen and Abe left neously dated it to December 28. spiraling out of control, something "some time between Christmas day But would Anna really have been bet that often happened to greenhorn pi 1828 and New Year's Day 1829," hav ter off with her husband disappearing lots in strong currents. ing "delayed leaving on the trip until into the wintry wilds as she nursed after the birth of his expected child ... The December launch hypothesis her newborn? One may reason that born on the 18th day of December, stems from Gentry family oral his the relatively low-risk early months of 1828 .... " Revealingly, E. Grant Gentry tory as recorded and interpreted by a pregnancy-balmy April, May, and also stated in the affidavit that his in two amateur historians working inde june, in this case-offered the ideal formation had been "related to him by pendently in the 1930s. Their names time for a husband and father-to-be his grandmother, Anna Caroline Roby to take care of out-of-town business. were Bess V. Ehrmann and Francis 15 Marion Van Natter. Gentry, more than fifty years ago." This would enable him to be home What he did not know, or perhaps during the more perilous months of An enthusiastic and multi-talented cu misremembered, was that, when in the late term, birth, and first weeks rator of the Spencer County Historical terviewed by Herndon in 1865, his of infancy, when an Indiana winter 24 SPRING 2017 would only make matters worse. : : .. I '. Both mother and child run far greater E,;dence for Snrinlrtime Dennrture E,;dence for Autumn/\Vinter Oenarture Nat\a rt< 1md StrcnJ.,-tla of Nu1U I'I;' 1md St:re1 lJ,rt:h of risks in the weeks after birth than in [ \ idcru.. -e(O · I -.calt") Ev id._· , ~(0 - 1 M"nl<.') the weeks after conception. Contrary c E'i dence ~ · § to Ehrmann's reasoning, the Gentry .§ ~- ~ - ~ - ';. ~ ~ 0 baby issue seems to buttress the April ~ -~ ·E @ ~ E "' ;... 0. "' ;... 8= launch hypothesis, and weaken the t'-'lariti me rcp01ts co nfi mling very high number offlatbo;lt :lrrivals to N.O. during time we case for a December launch. Gentry family asscointr Vlilliam .Jones contr-:-tcts e.'-pect Lincoln to lnnd according to spring 1.0 0.:.! fo r flatboat to be d elin~ red in December 1833 dep:Jrture h)1>0thesis. and \'ery low nttmber for As for Van Natter, he dramatically corn:-spo ngi ng LINCOLN LORE . NUMB ER 1914 25 Flatboat Traffic Arriving to New Orleans, 1828-29 arriving at New Orleans. The extreme Lincoln's p robable a rrival ly low water in the river at that time, 55 r ... according to the coupled with freezing temperatures, probably explains why the typically Springtime business New Orleans Bee sea.«on and extremely second-busiest flatboat season of the high river encourage year instead saw zero flatboat traffic. flatboat traffic 0 From Kentucky ("Water low in Ohio-and ice mak 0 From T c nn cs~ce ing," warned the Bee in mid-February; • From Alabama "Mississippi [is] closed at the mouth • From Ohio 0 From "the coontry," "the West" of Ohio; Tennessee and Cumberland o From Louisiana [rivers] low."33) These data prove that D From Virginia (W.V.) not only was spring 1828 far busier o Unspecified than winter 1829 in terms of flatboat arrivals, but that mid-May 1828, as Unusually low we shall see shortly, ranked by far as river suppresses the busiest flatboat period of the en wintertime rebound injlatboal traffic tire year, while january-February 1829 was among the slowest.34 This is key information. Taking stock of the above discussion, we have ample evidence in support Arrival Dates, Spring 1828 through \'\'inter 1829 of the spring hypothesis. Anna Gentry Analysis by Richard Campandln based on ~!\,laritimtw reports in New Orleans Bee said so clearly, and Absolom Roby When did Lincoln first set foot in New Or/eons? Documents from the Collector of Levee Dues and the and john Romine concurred. Lincoln Wharfinger, which recorded flatboat arrivals, do not survive for 7828. However, a focal newspaper reported this information in its Maritime News columns. When plotted from April 1, 1828, through March 37, 1829, himself left behind clues that buttress we see that farge numbers of flatboats arrived in spring 7828, but very few in early 7829. This, together the springtime launch, and said or with other evidence, strongly suggests that Lincoln first set foot in New Orleans in mid-May 7828, and not in phrased or implied nothing to contra winter 7829. dict it. Numerous strands of contextu the next paragraph with the words, 1852.32 When we plot out those exist al evidence lend additional support to "Four years afterward, on the first of ing records, we see that late-january a spring departure, as do the invitingly March, 1830, his father determined and early-February arrivals (boats that high river stages of spring 1828 and to emigrate once more ...for Illinois .. .. " would have left Indiana one month the extremely large number of Bee When Lincoln hand-edited the draft, earlier) made mid-winter the sec and Argus flatboat listings. Even Allen the presidential candidate crossed out ond-busiest flatboat season of those and Anna Gentry's baby situation ren the word "Four" and wrote in 'Two," years. However, the busiest flatboat ders a spring voyage more rational meaning that the March 1, 1830 emi season in New Orleans was spring than a risky winter trip. time, when arrival rates roughly dou gration date to Illinois postdated the What supports the December hypoth bled. This evidence, albeit contextual flatboat trip to New Orleans by two esis, on the other hand, is mostly a 31 and nowhere near the year 1828, adds years. This corrected chronology limited amount of tertiary evidence, some additional supportto the spring aligns neatly with the spring 1828 de reported by Bess V. Ehrmann and time hypothesis. parture hypothesis, and undermines Francis Marion Van Natter working a the late-autumn 1828 hypothesis, Despite the loss of the original flat full century after the launch. All other which Lincoln presumably would have boat records, we still have newspaper strands of December-hypothesis sup rounded off to "One year afterward ...." reports of that information. Perhaps port are contextual and less convinc Importantly, this piece of evidence po the most compelling piece of evidence ing compared to their spring counter sitions Lincoln personally in the role of supporting the springtime hypoth parts. Most troubling is the utter ab clarifying the timing of his flatboat trip esis may be found in the daily Ship sence of flatboat arrivals documented as spring 1828. News (Marine) columns of the bilin in the Bee Ship News listings during gual newspapers New Orleans Bee and the january-February 1829 time win It is greatly disappointing that both New Orleans Argus. They listed activity dow in which Gentry and Lincoln Thomas Lincoln's flatboat trip to New at the Port of New Orleans by vessel should have arrived, compared to Orleans in 1806 and Abraham Lincoln's type, origin or destination, and load. the boom we saw in spring. Nearly all two trips in 1828 and 1831 all fail to Flatboats (chalans in French) were list footnoted Lincoln books and articles appear in any primary documentary ed by their origin, load, and local client. reporting a December launch cite it to evidence surviving in New Orleans A survey of the Bee's columns from Ehrmann and Van Natter, who, with today. I searched local archives rigor April through june 1828-the arrival all due respect to their dedication and ously, and what I found was that the window for the spring hypothesis contributions, may have methodolog city's flatboat records-specifically uncovered more than 130 flatboats ically leaned too heavily on passed those of the Collector of Levee Dues landing at New Orleans. The Argus, down family memories. Van Natter's and the Wharfinger, stored on micro meanwhile, recorded around 140. An use of affidavits may have ensured film and in the New Orleans Public identical survey of arrivals in the Bee honesty on the part of his informants, Library's City Archives-survive only for january-February 1829-the equiv but guaranteed nothing in terms of for parts of 1806, 1818-1823, and for alent time window for the December accuracy. There is such a thing as be certain wharves from 1845 through hypothesis-found not a single flatboat ing honestly wrong. 26 SPRING 2017 Balancing all of the above, I judge posit that Allen Gentry and Abraham Francis Marion Van Natter Papers-Regional that the springtime 1828 departure Lincoln poled out of Rockport, Indiana, History Collection Number 136, Lewis Historical Library, Vincennes University. hypothesis enjoys a convincing pre a few days after Anna and Abe dis 16 Van Natter, Lincoln s Boyhood (1963), 56. ponderance of evidence. Assigning cussed the setting moon: around 17 The March 20 date comes from Marriage numerical values and weights to the Friday or Saturday, April 18 or 19, Records-Spencer County. indiana 181 8-1855, compiled by Christine Young, Ethel Smith, and various levels of evidence-a subjec 1828. Hazel M. Hyde (Thomson, Illinois: Heritage tive but nonetheless worthwhile ex House, 1974), 8; other sources state March 19. And that's when the adventure really ercise-suggests that the springtime 18 HistOI J' of Warrick. Spence1; and Peny Counties. began. Indiana (Chicago, Illinois: Goodspeed, Bros. & hypothesis is, conservatively speak Company, 1885), 452 ing, at least four to five times stron Richard Campanella is a geographer 19 Ehrmann, The Missing Chapter in the Life of ger than the wintertime scenario (see with the Tulane University School of Abraham Lincoln (1938), 8, 128-137. 20 Interview, Barbara Dillon, by Richard graphic). Architecture. He is the author of nine Campanella, December 5, 2008, Rockport, books about the New Orleans region Indiana. We must now attempt to refine ex and a two-time winner of the Louisiana 21 Ibid. actly when in spring 1828 Gentry and 22 Van Natter, Lincoln s Boyhood (1963), 57-58. Endowment for the Humanities Book Lincoln departed, and here again I 23 William Clark, "William Clark's Diary: May, of the Year Award. In 2016, the govern 1826-February, 1831, Part Two, 1828," edited evaluate and weigh the evidence. ment of France named him a Knight of by Louise Barry, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. March seems. too early: despite 16, No. 2 (May 1948), 171-172. Herndon's support, this month has, the Order of the Academic Palms. 24 john W. Monette, "The Mississippi Floods," as previously explained, a demon Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, (Endnotes) Vol. VII, edited by Franklin L. Riley (Oxford, strably small time window in which Mississippi: Mississippi Historical Society, to prove correct. Importantly, it gives 1 Asbury C. jacquess, "The journals of the Davy 1903), 464. Crockett commencing December 20th, 1834," 25 William Clark, "William Clark's Diary: May, Allen Gentry a limited time window Indiana Magaoine ofHistoly, 102 (March 2006), 20. 1826-February, 1831, Part Two, 1828," edited during which he could have impreg 2 Wharfinger Reports I New Orleans Collector by Louise Barry, Vol. of Levee Dues-Registers of Flatboats, Barges, Kansas Historical Quarterly, nated his wife Anna Gentry in time Rafts, and Steamboats in the Port of New 16, No. 2 (May 1948), 172. for her December 18 childbirth. May Orleans, 1818-23 and 1845-49. 26 New Orleans Price Current, january 11 and 3 Charles B. Strozier, as quoted by Douglas L. january 24, 1829, as quoted in Louisiana or june, on the other hand, are too Wilson and Rodney 0. Davis, editors, Herndon s Courier, january 13, 1829, p. 3, c. 1, and january late. This leaves April as the likeliest Informants: Lellers. Interviews. and Statemems A bow 26,1829, p.2, c. 5. launch month. Abraham Lincoln. Urbana and Chicago: University 27 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "River Velocities of Illinois Press, 1998, xiii. at New Orleans, LA. Related to the Carrollton 4 Douglas L. Wilson, "Herndon's Legacy," in Lincoln Gage," hnP-'1/www mvn usace arm~L When in April? A killer frost on April Before Washington: New Perspectives on the Illinois edhd/velo no asP- (visited December 1, 2008). 5-7 suddenly ended the "False Years. edited by Douglas L. Wilson (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 28 Daily National lntelligencer (Washington, D.C.), Spring" of 1828, plunging tempera 21-34. November 4, 1828, c. F. tures into the teens (F) "accompa 5 Interview, Nathaniel Grigsby, Silas and Nancy 29 Asbury C. jacquess, ''The journals of the Davy Richardson, and john Romine, by William H. Crockett commencing December 20th, 1834," nied with a light Snow." Presumably Herndon, September 14, 1865, in Wi lson and Indiana Magazine of HistOIJ', 102 (March 2006), the duo would have had the sense to Davis, Herndon)· Informants. 116. 8-24. 6 Interview, Anna Caroline Gentry, by Will iam H. wait out that wintry blast. By April 12, 30 Abraham Lincoln, "Autobiography Written for Herndon, September 17, 1865, in Wilson and john L. Scripps," june 1860, Collected Works. Vol. afternoon temperatures, incredibly, Davis, Herndon "s informants. 131. 7 Ibid., 131-132. IV, ed. Roy P. Basler (1953), 62. hit 80° ps Did they leave then? Anna 8 These temperatures were recorded by Wil liam 31 Wil liam Dean Howells, Life of Abraham Lincoln, Gentry drops a charming clue in her Clark in St. Lou is, Missouri, during April 2-5, facsimile edition of campaign biography 1828. Temperatures were probably similar in corrected by the hand of Abraham Lincoln interview with Herndon: Rockport, Indiana, offset by half-day or so, as (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1960), the system moved eastward. William Clark, 23. One Evening Abe & myself were "Wi lliam Clark's Diary: May, 1826-February, 32 Searches in al l other New Orleans archives, Sitting on the banks of the Ohio or 1831, Part Two, 1828," edited by Louise Barry, as wel l as in national databases of historical Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 2 (May documents at other institutions and in private on the [flat]boat Spoken of. I Said to 1948), 143. For vegetative impacts of the April hands, failed to uncover the missing reports. Abe that the Moon was going down. 1828 killing frost, see Cary j. Mock, jan Mojzisek, Michele McWaters, Michael Chenoweth, and 33 "Ship News," New Orleans Bee, February 16, He said, "Thats not so-it don't really David W. Stahle, "The Winter of 1827-1828 Over 1829, p. 3, c. 4. go down: it Seems So. The Earth turns Eastern North America," Climatic Change (2007), 34 Analysis by author, based on New Orleans 87-115. Bee, April 21-june 24, 1828, and january 15- from west to East and the revolution 9 Interview, Absolom Roby, by William H. February 20, 1829. Note: the 1828 editions of the Earth Carries us under, as it Herndon, September 17, 1865, in Wilson and contain shipping news only in Fre nch; by ear were: we do the sinking ... The moons Davis, Herndon "s Informants. 132. ly 1829, the column appeared in both French 10 William H. Herndon, citing john Romine, "A and English. sinking is only an appearance.36 Visit to the Lincoln Fa rm, September 14, 1865," in The Hidden Lincoln. From the Le11ers and Papers 35 William Clark, "Wi lliam Clark's Diary: May, 1826-February, 1831, Part Two, 1828," edit Only a young crescent moon sets in of William H Herndon, edited by Emanuel Hertz (New York: The Viking Press, 1938), 360. ed by Louise Barry, Kansas Historical Quarterly , the evening sky, one to three days 11 William H. Herndon and jesse William Weik, Vol. 16, No. 2 (May 1948), 143; Cary j . Mock, after the new moon. In April 1828, Herndon "s Lincoln: The True St01y of a Great Life, jan Mojzisek, Michele McWaters, Michael Vol. I (Chicago, New York, and San Francisco: Chenoweth, and David W. Stahle, ''The Winter the new moon occurred on April 14, Belford, Clarke & Company, 1889), 63. of 1827- 1828 Over Eastern North America," thus young crescents would have set 12 William S. Ward, Dimy [of Flatboat Trip Climatic Change (2007), 95-99. from New Albany, Indiana to New Orleans, 36 Interview, Anna Caroline Gentry, by William H. in the early evenings of April 15-17 Louisiana, 1839], The Historic New Orleans and a full moon would have occurred Collection, Accession Number 2009.0139, p. 1, Herndon, September 17, 1865, in Wilson and 27, 33, and 69. Ward departed New Albany on Davis, Herndon "s Informants. 132. on April 30, at the midpoint of the january 19, 1839, and arrived in New Orleans 37 U.S. Naval Observatory Astronomical long float to New Orleans.37 A waxing on March 11 , delayed mostly for weather Applications Department, "Phases of the reasons. Moon," http://aa.usno.navy.milldata/docs/ moon would have maximized the lu 13 Interview, jane Boultinghouse (great-great MoonPhase.php (visited December 1, 2008). nar illumination of the darkened river great-granddaughter of Allen Gentry and For further information on this moment, member of an Indiana tobacco-growing and see "Lincoln, Miss Roby, and Astronomy," and enabled nocturnal sailing, an op hog-raising family), by Richard Campanella, portunity flatboatmen often seized. December 5, 2008, Rockport, Indiana. Lincoln Lore: Bulletin of the Lincoln National Life 14 Bess V. Ehrmann, The lvfissing Chapter in the Life Foundation, edited by Louis A. Warren, Number In light of the above evidence and in ofAbraham Lincoln (1938), vii, 7. 1349, February 14, 1955 (single-page bulletin). the absence of any additional clues, I 15Affidavit, E. Grant Gentry, September 5, 1936, LINCOLN LO RE . NUMBER 1914 27