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ОглавлениеPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
The original edition of this book was published about twenty years after Lincoln's death at the close of the Civil War. At that time many of the men who had taken a prominent part in the affairs, military and civil, of that heroic period, many who had known Lincoln and had come in personal contact with him during the war or in his earlier years, were still living. It was a vivid conception of the value of the personal recollections of these men, gathered and recorded before it was too late, that led to the preparation of this book. It was intended to be, and in effect it was, largely an anecdotal Life of Lincoln built of material gathered from men still living who had known him personally. The task was begun none too soon. Of the hundreds who responded to the requests for contributions of their memories of Lincoln there were few whose lives extended very far into the second quarter-century after his death, and few indeed survive after the lapse of nearly fifty years—though in several instances the author has been so fortunate as to get valuable material directly from persons still living (1913). Of the more than five hundred friends and contemporaries of Lincoln to whom credit for material is given in the original edition, scarcely a dozen are living at the date of this second edition. Therefore, the value of these reminiscences increases with time. They were gathered largely at first hand. They can never be replaced, nor can they ever be very much extended.
This book brings Lincoln the man, not Lincoln the tradition, very near to us. Browning asked, "And did you once see Shelley plain? And did he stop and speak to you?" The men whose narratives make up a large part of this book all saw Lincoln plain, and here tell us what he spoke to them, and how he looked and seemed while saying it. The great events of Lincoln's life, and impressions of his character, are given in the actual words of those who knew him—his friends, neighbors, and daily associates—rather than condensed and remolded into other form. While these utterances are in some cases rude and unstudied, they have often a power of delineation and a graphic force that more than compensate for any lack of literary quality.
In a work prepared on such a plan as this, some repetitions are unavoidable; nor are they undesirable. An event or incident narrated by different observers is thereby brought out with greater fulness of detail; and phases of Lincoln's many-sided character are revealed more clearly by the varied impressions of numerous witnesses whose accounts thus correct or verify each other. Some inconsistencies and contradictions are inevitable—but these relate usually to minor matters, seldom or never to the great essentials of Lincoln's life and personality. The author's desire is to present material from which the reader may form an opinion of Lincoln, rather than to present opinions and judgments of his own.
Lincoln literature has increased amazingly in the past twenty-five years. Mention of the principal biographies in existence at the time of the original edition was included in the Preface. Since then there have appeared, among the more formal biographies, the comprehensive and authoritative work by Nicolay and Hay, the subsequent work by Miss Ida Tarbell, and that by Herndon and Weik, besides many more or less fragmentary publications. Some additions, but not many, have been made to the present edition from these sources. The recently-published Diary of Gideon Welles, one of the most valuable commentaries on the Civil War period now available, has provided some material of exceptional interest concerning Lincoln's relations with the members of his Cabinet.
In re-writing the present work, it has been compressed into about two-thirds of its former compass, to render it more popular both in form and in price, and to give it in some places a greater measure of coherency and continuity as an outline narrative of the Civil War. But its chief appeal to the interest of its readers will remain substantially what it was in the beginning, as set forth in its title, "The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Those Who Knew Him."
F.F.B.
SANTA BARBARA, CAL., April, 1913.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
This book aims to give a view, clearer and more complete than has been given before, of the personality of Abraham Lincoln. A life so full of incident and a character so many-sided as his can be understood only with the lapse of time. A sense of the exhaustless interest of that life and character, and the inadequacy of the ordinarily constructed biography to portray his many-sidedness, suggested the preparation of a work upon the novel plan here represented. Begun several years ago, the undertaking proved of such magnitude that its completion has been delayed beyond the anticipated time. The extensive correspondence, the exploration of available sources of information in the books, pamphlets, magazines, and newspapers of a quarter of a century, and in the scraps and papers of historical collections, became an almost interminable task. The examination and sifting of this mass of material, its verification amidst often conflicting testimony, and its final molding into shape, involved time and labor that can be estimated only by those who have had similar experience.
To the many who have kindly furnished original contributions, to others who have aided the work by valuable suggestions and information, to earlier biographies of Lincoln—those of Raymond, Holland, Barrett, Lamon, Carpenter, and (the best and latest of all) that of Hon. I.N. Arnold—hearty acknowledgment is made. Much that was offered could not be used. In the choice of material, from whatever source, the purpose has been to avoid mere opinions and eulogies of Lincoln and to give abundantly those actual experiences, incidents, anecdotes, and reminiscences which reveal the phases of his unique and striking personality.
It scarcely need be pointed out that this work does not attempt to give a connected history of the Civil War, but only to sketch briefly those episodes with which Lincoln is personally identified and of which some knowledge is essential to an understanding of his acts and character. Others are brought into prominence only as they are associated with the chief actor in the great drama. Many of them are disappearing—fading into the smoky and lurid background. But that colossal central figure, playing one of the grandest roles ever set upon the stage of human life, becomes more impressive as the scenes recede.
F.F.B.
CHICAGO, October, 1886.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Abraham Lincoln From an Original Drawing by J.N. Marble, never before published
Francis F. Browne
CHAPTER I
Ancestry—The Lincolns in Kentucky—Death of Lincoln's Grandfather—Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks—Mordecai Lincoln—Birth of Abraham Lincoln—Removal to Indiana—Early Years—Dennis Hanks—Lincoln's Boyhood—Death of Nancy Hanks—Early School Days—Lincoln's First Dollar—Presentiments of Future Greatness—Down the Mississippi—Removal to Illinois—Lincoln's Father—Lincoln the Storekeeper—First Official Act—Lincoln's Short Sketch of His Own Life.
The year 1809—that year which gave William E. Gladstone to England—was in our country the birth-year of him who wears the most distinguished name that has yet been written on the pages of American history—ABRAHAM LINCOLN. In a rude cabin in a clearing, in the wilds of that section which was once the hunting-ground and later the battle-field of the Cherokees and other war-like tribes, and which the Indians themselves had named Kentucky because it was "dark and bloody ground," the great War President of the United States, after whose name History has written the word "Emancipator," first saw the light. Born and nurtured in penury, inured to hardship, coarse food, and scanty clothing—the story of his youth is full of pathos. Small wonder that when asked in his later years to tell something of his early life, he replied by quoting a line from Gray's Elegy:
