Fort Pillow, at Memphis, and for successful
operations at other points in the waters of the
Mississippi River.
Commander John A. Dahlgren, for distin-
guished services in the line of his profession, im-
provements in ordnance, and zealous and efficient
labors in the ornance branch of the service.
Commander Stephen C. Rowan, for distin-
guished services in the waters of North Carolina,
and particularly in the capture of Newbern, be-
ing in chief command of the naval forces.
Commander David D. Porter, for distinguished
services in the conception and preparation of the
means used for the capture of the forts below
New Orleans, and for highly meritorious conduct
in the management of the mortar flotilla during
the bombardment of Forts Jackson and St.
Philip.
LEE, S. P. 209
Captain Silas H. Stringham, now on the re-
tired list, for distinguished services in the cap-*
ture of Forts Hatteras and Clark.
Abraham Lincoln.
Washington, D. C, July 11, 1862.
Lee, J. C.
[Confidential]
Springfield, Illinois, October 24, i860.
Dear Sir : Yours of the 14th was received some
days ago, and should have been answered sooner.
I never gave fifty dollars, nor one dollar, nor
one cent, for the object you mention, or any such
object.
I once subscribed twenty-five dollars, to be paid
whenever Judge Logan would decide it was
necessary to enable the people of Kansas to de-
fend themselves against any force coming against
them from without the Territory, and not by au-
thority of the United States. Logan never made
the decision, and I never paid a dollar on the sub-
scription. The whole of this can be seen in the
files of the "Illinois Journal," since the first of
June last. Yours truly,
A. Lincoln.
Lee, S. P.
[ Telegram. ]
Navy Department,
Washington, D. C, July 4, 1863.
Rear-Admiral S. P. Lee :
The request of A. H. Stephens is inadmissible.
The customary agents and channels are adequate
for all needful communication and conference
210 LETTERS
between the United States forces and the insur-
gents.
A. Lincoln.
Lewis, Alpheus.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, January 2$, 1864.
Alpheus Lewis, Esq.
My dear Sir : You have inquired how the gov-
ernment would regard and treat cases wherein
the owners of plantations, in Arkansas, for in-
stance, might fully recognize the freedom of
those formerly slaves, and by fair contracts of
hire with them, recommence the cultivation of
their plantations. I answer, I should regard such
cases with great favor, and should as a princi-
ple treat them precisely as I would treat the
same number of free white people in the same
relation and condition. Whether white or black,
reasonable effort should be made to give gov-
ernment protection. In neither case should the
giving of aid and comfort to the rebellion, or
other practices injurious to the government, be
allowed on such plantations ; and in either, the
government would claim the right to take, if
necessary, those of proper ages and conditions
into the military service. Such plan must not
be used to break up existing leases or arrange-
ments of abandoned plantations which the gov-
ernment may have made to give employment and
sustenance to the idle and destitute people. With
the foregoing qualifications, and explanations,
and in view of its tendency to advance freedom,
and restore peace and prosperity, such hiring
and employment of the freed people, would be
regarded by me with rather especial favor.
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM 2 1 1
To be more specific, I add that all the military,
and others acting by authority of the United
States, are to favor and facilitate the introduc-
tion and carrying forward, in good faith, the
free-labor system as above indicated, by allow-
ing the necessary supplies therefor to be pro-
cured and taken to the proper points, and by
doing and forbearing whatever will advance it,
providing that existing military and trade regula-
tions be not transcended thereby. I shall be glad
to learn that planters adopting this system shall
have, employed one so zealous and active as your-
self to act as an agent in relation thereto.
Yours truly,
A. Lincoln.
Lincoln, Abraham
Autobio graphical Data in "Dictionary of
Congress."
The compiler of the "Dictionary of Congress" states
that while preparing that work for publication in 1858,
he sent to Mr. Lincoln the usual request for a sketch
of his life, and received in June of that year the follow-
ing reply:
Born, February 12, 1809, in Hardin County,
Kentucky.
Education defective.
Profession, a lawyer.
Have been a captain of volunteers in Black
Hawk war.
Postmaster at a very small office.
Four times a member of the Illinois legislature,
and was a member of the lower house of Con-
gress. Yours, etc.,
A. Lincoln.
2 12 LETTERS
Short Autobiography Written in June, i860, at
the Request of a Friend to Use in Preparing a
Popular Campaign Biography,
Abraham Lincoln was born February [2, [809,
then in Hardin, now in the more recently formed
county of La Rue, Kentucky. His father,
Thomas, and grandfather, Abraham, were born
in Rockingham County, Virginia, whither their
ancestors had come from Berks County, Penn-
sylvania. His lineage has been traced no farther
back than this. The family were originally
Quakers, though in later times they have fallen
away from the peculiar habits of that people.
The grandfather, Abraham, had four brothers —
Isaac, Jacob, John, and Thomas. So far as
known, the descendants of Jacob and John are
still in Virginia. Isaac went to a place near
where Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee
join; and his descendants are in that region.
Thomas came to Kentucky, and after many years
died there, whence his descendants went to Mis-
souri. Abraham, grandfather of the subject of
this sketch, came to Kentucky, and was killed by
Indians about the year 1784. He left a widow,
three sons, and two daughters. The eldest son,
Mordecai, remained in Kentucky till late in life,
when he removed to Hancock County, Illinois,
where soon after he died, and where several of
his descendants still remain. The second son,
Josiah, removed at an early day to a place on
Blue River, now within Hancock County, In-
diana, hut no recent information of him or his
family has heen obtained. The eldest sister,
Mary, married Ralph Crume, and some of her
descendants are now known to be in Brecken-
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM 213
ridge County, Kentucky. The second sister,
Nancy, married William Brumfield, and her fam-
ily are not known to have left Kentucky, but
there is no recent information from them.
Thomas, the youngest son, and father of the
present subject, by the early death of his father,
and very narrow circumstances of his mother,
even in childhood was a wandering laboring-boy,
and grew up literally without education. He
never did more in the way of writing than to
bunglingly write his own name. Before he was
grown he passed one year as a hired hand with
his uncle Isaac on Watauga, a branch of the
Holston River. Getting back into Kentucky, and
having reached his twenty-eighth year, he mar-
ried Nancy Hanks — mother of the present sub-
ject — in the year 1806. She also was born in
Virginia ; and relatives of hers of the name of
Hanks, and of other names, now reside in Coles,
in Macon, and in Adams counties, Illinois, and
also in Iowa. The present subject has no brother
or sister of the whole or half blood. He had a
sister, older than himself, who was grown and
married, but died many years ago, leaving no
child ; also a brother, younger than himself, who
died in infancy. Before leaving Kentucky, he
and his sister were, sent, for short periods, to
ABC schools, the first kept by Zachariah Riney,
and the second by Caleb Hazel.
At this time his father resided on Knob
Creek, on the road from Bardstown, Kentucky,
to Nashville, Tennessee, at a point three or three
and a half miles south or southwest of Ather-
ton's Ferry, on the Rolling Fork. From this
place he removed to what is now Spencer Coun-
ty, Indiana, in the autumn of 1816, Abraham
214 LETTERS
then being in his eighth year. This removal
was partly on account of slavery, but chiefly on
account of the difficulty in land titles in Ken-
tucky. He settled in an unbroken forest, and
the clearing away of surplus wood was the great
task ahead. Abraham, though very young, was
large of his age, and had an ax put into his
hands at once; and from that till within his
twenty-third year he was almost constantly han-
dling that most useful instrument — less, of
course, in plowing and harvesting seasons. At this
place Abraham took an early start as a hunter,
which was never much improved afterward.
A few days before the completion of his eighth
year, in the absence of his father, a flock of wild
turkeys approached the new log cabin, and Abra-
ham with a rifle-gun, standing inside, shot
through a crack and killed one of them. He has
never since pulled a trigger on any larger game.
In the autumn of 1818 his mother died; and a
year afterward his father married Mrs. Sally
Johnston, at Elizabethtown, Kentucky, a widow
with three children of her first marriage. She
proved a good and kind mother to Abraham,
and is still living in Coles County, Illinois. There
were no children of this second marriage. His
father's residence continued at the same place
in Indiana till 1830. While here Abraham went
to A B C schools by littles, kept successively by
Andrew Crawford, Sweeney, and Azel W.
Dorsey. He does not remember any other. The
family of Mr. Dorsey now resides in Schuyler
County, Illinois. Abraham now thinks that the
aggregate of all his schooling did not amount to
one year. He was never in a college or acad-
emy as a student, and never inside of a college
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM 215
or academy building till since he had a law li-
cense. What he has in the way of education
he has picked up. After he was twenty-three
and had separated from his father, he studied
English grammar — imperfectly, of course, but
so as to speak and write as well as he now does.
He studied and nearly mastered the six books
of Euclid since he was a member of Congress.
He regrets his want of education, and does what
he can to supply the want. In his tenth year
he was kicked by a horse, and apparently killed
for a time. When he was nineteen, still resid-
ing in Indiana, he made his first trip upon a
flatboat to New Orleans. He was a hired hand
merely, and he and a son of the owner, with-
out other assistance, made the trip. The nature
of part of the "cargo-load," as it was called, made
it necessary for them to linger and trade along
the sugar-coast; and one night they were at-
tacked by seven negroes with intent to kill and
rob them. They were hurt some in the melee,
but succeeded in driving the negroes from the
boat, and then "cut cable," "weighed anchor,"
and left.
March 1, 1830, Abraham having just com-
pleted his twenty-first year, his father and family,
with the families of the two daughters and sons-
in-law of his stepmother, left the old homestead
in Indiana and came to Illinois. Their mode of
conveyance was wagons drawn by ox-teams, and
Abraham drove one of the teams. They reached
the county of Macon, and stopped there some
time within the same month of March. His
father and family settled a new place on the
north side of the Sangamon River, at the junc-
tion of the timberland and prairie, about ten
216 LETTERS
miles westerly from Decatur. Here they built a
log cabin, into which they removed, and made
sufficient of rails to fence ten acres of ground,
fenced and broke the ground, and raised a crop
of sown corn upon it the same year. These are,
or are supposed to be, the rails about which so
much is being said just now, though these are
far from being the first or only rails ever made
by Abraham.
The sons-in-law were temporarily settled in
other places in the county. In the autumn all
hands were greatly afflicted with ague and fever,
to which they had not been used, and by which
they were greatly discouraged, so much so that
they determined on leaving the county. They
remained, however, through the succeeding win-
ter, which was the winter of the very celebrated
"deep snow" of Illinois. During that winter
Abraham, together with his stepmother's son,
John D. Johnston, and John Hanks, yet residing
in Macon County, hired themselves to Denton
Offutt to take a flatboat from Beardstown, Illi-
nois, to New Orleans ; and for that purpose were
to join him — Offutt — at Springfield, Illinois, so
soon as the snow should go off. When it did
go off, which was about the first of March, 183 1,
the county was so flooded as to make traveling
by land impracticable ; to obviate which difficulty
they purchased a large canoe, and came down the
Sangamon River in it. This is the time and
the manner of Abraham's first entrance into
Sangamon County. They found Offutt at Spring-
field, but learned from him that he had failed
in getting a boat at Beardstown. This led to
their hiring themselves to him for twelve dollars
per month each, and getting the timber out of
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM 217
the trees and building a boat at Old Sangamon
town on the Sangamon River, seven miles north-
west of Springfield, which boat they took to
New Orleans, substantially upon the old con-
tract.
During this boat-enterprise acquaintance with
OfTutt, who was previously an entire stranger,
he conceived a liking for Abraham, and believ-
ing he could turn him to account, he contracted
with him to act as clerk for him, on his return
from New Orleans, in charge of a store and
mill at New Salem, then in Sangamon, now in
Menard County. Hanks had not gone to New
Orleans, but having a family, and being likely
to be detained from home longer than at first
expected, had turned back from St. Louis. He
is the same John Hanks who now engineers
the "rail enterprise" at Decatur, and is a first
cousin to Abraham's mother. Abraham's father,
with his own family and others mentioned, had,
in pursuance of their intention, removed from
Macon to Coles County. John D. Johnston, the
stepmother's son, went to them, and Abraham
stopped indefinitely and for the first time, as
it were, by himself at New Salem, before men-
tioned. This was in July, 1831. Here he rapidly
made acquaintances and friends. In less than
a year OrTutt's business was failing — had almost
failed — when the Black Hawk war of 1832 broke
out. Abraham joined a volunteer company, and,
to his own surprise, was elected captain of it.
He says he has not since had any success in life
which gave him so much satisfaction. He went
to the campaign, served near three months, met
the ordinary hardships of such an expedition,
but was in no battle. He now owns, in Iowa,
218 LETTERS
the land upon which his own warrants for the
service were located. Returning from the cam-
paign, and encouraged by his great popularity
among his immediate neighbors, he the same year
ran for the legislature, and was beaten, — his own
precinct, however, casting its votes 277 for and
7 against him — and that, too, while he was an
avowed Clay man, and the precinct the autumn
afterward giving a majority of 115 to General
Jackson over Mr. Clay. This was the only time
Abraham was ever beaten on a direct vote of
the people. He was now without means and
out of business, but was anxious to remain with
his friends who had treated him with so much
generosity, especially as he had nothing elsewhere
to go to. He studied what he should do — thought
of learning the blacksmith trade — thought of try-
ing to study law — rather thought he could not
succeed at that without a better education. Be-
fore long, strangely enough, a man offered to
sell, and did sell, to Abraham and another as
poor as himself, an old stock of goods, upon
credit. They opened as merchants ; and he says
that was the store. Of course they did nothing
but get deeper and deeper in debt. He was ap-
pointed postmaster at New Salem — the office be-
ing too insignificant to make his politics an ob-
jection. The store winked out. The surveyor
of Sangamon offered to depute to Abraham that
portion of his work which was within his part
of the county. He accepted, procured a com-
pass and chain, studied Flint and Gibson a little,
and went at it. This procured bread, and kept
soul and body together. The election of 1834
came, and he was then elected to the legislature
by the highest vote cast for any candidate. Major
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM 219
John T. Stuart, then in full practice of the law,
was also elected. During the canvass, in a pri-
vate conversation he encouraged Abraham [to]
study law. After the election he borrowed books
of Stuart, took them home with him, and went
at it in good earnest. He studied with nobody.
He still mixed in the surveying to pay board
and clothing bills. When the legislature met,
the law-books were dropped, but were taken up
again at the end of the session. He was reelected
in 1836, 1838, and 1840. In the autumn of 1836,
he obtained a law license, and on April 15, 1837,
removed to Springfield, and commenced the prac-
tice — his old friend Stuart taking him into part-
nership. March 3, 1837, by a protest entered
upon the "Illinois House Journal" of that date,
at pages 817 and 818, Abraham, with Dan Stone,
another representative of Sangamon, briefly de-
fined his position on the slavery question; and
so far as it goes, it was then the same that it is
now. The protest is as follows :
Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery hav-
ing passed both branches of the General Assembly at
its present session, the undersigned hereby protest
against the passage of the same.
They believe that the institution of slavery is founded
on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulga-
tion of Abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than
abate its evils.
They believe that the Congress of the United States
has no power under the Constitution to interfere with
the institution of slavery in the different States.
They believe that the Congress of the United States
has the power, under the Constitution, to abolish slavery
in the District of Columbia, but that the power ought
not to be exercised unless at the request of the people
of the District.
The difference between these opinions and those con-
220
LETTERS
tained in the above resolutions is their reason for enter-
ing this protest.
Dan Stone,
A. Lincoln,
Representatives from the County of Sangamon.
In 1838 and 1840, Mr. Lincoln's party voted
for him as Speaker, but being in the minority
he was not elected. After 1840 he declined a
reelection to the legislature. He was on the
Harrison electoral ticket in 1840, and on that of
Clay in 1844, and spent much time and labor in
both those canvasses. In November, 1842, he
was married to Mary, daughter of Robert S.
Todd, of Lexington, Kentucky. They have three
living children, all sons, one born in 1843, one
in 1850, and one in 1853. They lost one, who
was born in 1846.
In 1846 he was elected to the lower House
of Congress, and served one term only, com-
mencing in December, 1847, an d ending with the
inauguration of General Taylor, in March, 1849.
All the battles of the Mexican war had been
fought before Mr. Lincoln took his seat in Con-
gress, but the American army was still in Mex-
ico, and the treaty of peace was not fully and
formally ratified till the June afterward. Much
has been said of his course in Congress in regard
to this war. A careful examination of the "Jour-
nal" and "Congressional Globe" shows that he
voted for all the supply measures that came up,
and for all the measures in any way favorable
to the officers, soldiers, and their families, who
conducted the war through : with the exception
that some of these measures passed without yeas
and nays, leaving no record as to how particular
men voted. The "Journal" and "Globe" also
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM 221
show him voting that the war was unnecessarily
and unconstitutionally begun by the President of
the United States. This is the language of Mr.
Ashmun's amendment, for which Mr. Lincoln
and nearly or quite all other Whigs of the House
of Representatives voted.
Mr. Lincoln's reasons for the opinion expressed
by this vote were briefly that the President had.
sent General Taylor into an inhabited part of
the country belonging to Mexico, and not to the
United States, and thereby had provoked the
first act of hostility, in fact the commencement of
the war ; that the place being the country border-
ing on the east bank of the Rio Grande, was
inhabited by native Mexicans, born there under
the Mexican government, and had never sub-
mitted to, nor been conquered by, Texas or the
United States, nor transferred to either by treaty ;
that although Texas claimed the Rio Grande as
her boundary, Mexico had never recognized it,
and neither Texas nor the United States had
ever enforced it; that there was a broad desert
between that and the country over which Texas
had actual control; that the country where hos-
tilities commenced, having once belonged to Mex-
ico, must remain so until it was somehow legally
transferred, which had never been done.
Mr. Lincoln thought the act of sending an
armed force among the Mexicans was unneces-
sary, inasmuch as Mexico was in no way mo-
lesting or menacing the United States or the
people thereof; and that it was unconstitutional,
because the power of levying war is vested in
Congress, and not in the President. He thought
the principal motive for the act was to divert
public attention from the surrender of "Fifty-
2 22
LETTERS
four, forty, or fight" to Great Britain, on the
Oregon boundary question.
Mr. Lincoln was not a candidate for reelection.
This was determined upon and declared before
he went to Washington, in accordance with an
understanding among Whig friends, by which
Colonel Hardin and Colonel Baker had each pre-
viously served a single term in this same district.
In 1848, during his term in Congress, he ad-
vocated General Taylor's nomination for the
presidency, in opposition to all others, and also
took an active part for his election after his nom-
ination, speaking a few times in Maryland, near
Washington, several times in Massachusetts, and
canvassing quite fully his own district in Illinois,
which was followed by a majority in the district
of over 1500 for General Taylor.
Upon his return from Congress he went to the
practice of the law with greater earnestness than
ever before. In 1852 he was upon the Scott
electoral ticket, and did something in the way
of canvassing, but owing to the hopelessness of
the cause in Illinois he did less than in previous
presidential canvasses.
In 1854 his profession had almost superseded
the thought of politics in his mind, when the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused him
as he had never been before.
In the autumn of that year he took the stump
with no broader practical aim or object than to
secure, if possible, the reelection of Hon. Richard
Yates to Congress. His speeches at once at-
tracted a more marked attention than they had
ever before done. As the canvass proceeded he
was drawn to different parts of the State out-
side of Mr. Yates's district. He did not abandon
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM
223,
the law, but gave his attention by turns to that
and politics. The State agricultural fair was at
Springfield that year, and Douglas was an-
nounced to speak there.
In the canvass of 1856 Mr. Lincoln made over
fifty speeches, no one of which, so far as he
remembers, was put in print. One of them was
made at Galena, but Mr. Lincoln has no recol-
lection of any part of it being printed; nor does
he remember whether in that speech he said any-
thing about a Supreme Court decision. He may
have spoken upon that subject, and some of the
newspapers may have reported him as saying
what is now ascribed to him; but he thinks he
could not have expressed himself as represented.
[For other autobiographies, see Lincoln, David; Lin-
coln, Jesse; Chrisman, John; Fell, Jesse W., Dec.
20, 1859; Haycraft, Samuel, May 28 and June 4,
i860; and Hicks, Thomas, June 14, i860.]
[Poems by Abraham Lincoln. See Johnston, Wil-
liam.]
[Memorandum.']
Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 23, 1864.
This morning, as for some days past, it seems
exceedingly probable that this administration will
not be reelected. Then it will be my duty to
so cooperate with the President-elect as to save
the Union between the election and the inaugu-
ration ; as he will have secured his election on