John G. Nicolay - A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln

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[Illustration: PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND HIS SON "TAD."]

A SHORT LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

CONDENSED FROM NICOLAY & HAY'S
ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A HISTORY

BY

JOHN G. NICOLAY

NEW YORK
The Century Co.
1904

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_Published October, 1902_

THE DEVINNE PRESS.

CONTENTS

I

Ancestry--Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks--Rock Spring Farm--Lincoln's
Birth--Kentucky Schools--The Journey to Indiana--Pigeon Creek
Settlement--Indiana Schools--Sally Bush Lincoln--Gentryville--Work and
Books--Satires and Sermons--Flatboat Voyage to New Orleans--The Journey
to Illinois

II

Flatboat--New Salem--Election Clerk--Store and Mill--Kirkham's
"Grammar"--"Sangamo Journal"--The Talisman--Lincoln's Address, March 9,
1832--Black Hawk War--Lincoln Elected Captain--Mustered out May 27,
1832--Re-enlisted in Independent Spy Battalion--Finally Mustered out,
June 16, 1832--Defeated for the Legislature--Blacksmith or Lawyer?--The
Lincoln-Berry Store--Appointed Postmaster, May 7, 1833--National
Politics

III

Appointed Deputy Surveyor--Elected to Legislature in 1834--Campaign
Issues--Begins Study of Law--Internal Improvement System--The
Lincoln-Stone Protest--Candidate for Speaker in 1838 and 1840

IV

Law Practice--Rules for a Lawyer--Law and Politics: Twin
Occupations--The Springfield Coterie--Friendly Help--Anne Rutledge--Mary
Owens

V

Springfield Society--Miss Mary Todd--Lincoln's Engagement--His Deep
Despondency--Visit to Kentucky--Letters to Speed--The Shields
Duel--Marriage--Law Partnership with Logan--Hardin Nominated for
Congress, 1843--Baker Nominated for Congress, 1844--Lincoln Nominated
and Elected, 1846

VI

First Session of the Thirtieth Congress--Mexican War--"Wilmot
Proviso"--Campaign of 1848--Letters to Herndon about Young Men in
Politics--Speech in Congress on the Mexican War--Second Session of the
Thirtieth Congress--Bill to Prohibit Slavery in the District of
Columbia--Lincoln's Recommendations of Office-Seekers--Letters to
Speed--Commissioner of the General Land Office--Declines Governorship of
Oregon

VII

Repeal of the Missouri Compromise--State Fair Debate--Peoria
Debate--Trumbull Elected--Letter to Robinson--The Know-Nothings--Decatur
Meeting--Bloomington Convention--Philadelphia Convention--Lincoln's Vote
for Vice-President--Fremont and Dayton--Lincoln's Campaign
Speeches--Chicago Banquet Speech

VIII

Buchanan Elected President--The Dred Scott Decision--Douglas's
Springfield Speech, 1857--Lincoln's Answering Speech--Criticism of Dred
Scott Decision--Kansas Civil War--Buchanan Appoints Walker--Walker's
Letter on Kansas--The Lecompton Constitution--Revolt of Douglas

IX

The Senatorial Contest in Illinois--"House Divided against Itself"
Speech--The Lincoln-Douglas Debates--The Freeport Doctrine--Douglas
Deposed from Chairmanship of Committee on Territories--Benjamin on
Douglas--Lincoln's Popular Majority--Douglas Gains Legislature--Greeley,
Crittenden _et al._--"The Fight Must Go On"--Douglas's Southern
Speeches--Senator Brown's Questions--Lincoln's Warning against Popular
Sovereignty--The War of Pamphlets--Lincoln's Ohio Speeches--The John
Brown Raid--Lincoln's Comment

X

Lincoln's Kansas Speeches--The Cooper Institute Speech--New England
Speeches--The Democratic Schism--Senator Brown's Resolutions--Jefferson
Davis's Resolutions--The Charleston Convention--Majority and Minority
Reports--Cotton State Delegations Secede--Charleston Convention
Adjourns--Democratic Baltimore Convention Splits--Breckinridge
Nominated--Douglas Nominated--Bell Nominated by Union Constitutional
Convention--Chicago Convention--Lincoln's Letters to Pickett and
Judd--The Pivotal States--Lincoln Nominated

XI

Candidates and Platforms--The Political Chances--Decatur Lincoln
Resolution--John Hanks and the Lincoln Rails--The Rail-Splitter
Candidate--The Wide-Awakes--Douglas's Southern Tour--Jefferson Davis's
Address--Fusion--Lincoln at the State House--The Election Result

XII

Lincoln's Cabinet Program--Members from the South--Questions and
Answers--Correspondence with Stephens--Action of Congress--Peace
Convention--Preparation of the Inaugural--Lincoln's Farewell
Address--The Journey to Washington--Lincoln's Midnight Journey

XIII

The Secession Movement--South Carolina Secession--Buchanan's
Neglect--Disloyal Cabinet Members--Washington Central Cabal--Anderson's
Transfer to Sumter--Star of the West--Montgomery Rebellion--Davis and
Stephens--Corner-stone Theory--Lincoln Inaugurated--His Inaugural
Address--Lincoln's Cabinet--The Question of Sumter--Seward's
Memorandum--Lincoln's Answer--Bombardment of Sumter--Anderson's
Capitulation

XIV

President's Proclamation Calling for Seventy-five Regiments--Responses of
the Governors--Maryland and Virginia--The Baltimore Riot--Washington
Isolated--Lincoln Takes the Responsibility--Robert E. Lee--Arrival of the
New York Seventh--Suspension of Habeas Corpus--The Annapolis Route--Butler
in Baltimore--Taney on the Merryman Case--Kentucky--Missouri--Lyon
Captures Camp Jackson--Boonville Skirmish--The Missouri Convention--Gamble
made Governor--The Border States

XV

Davis's Proclamation for Privateers--Lincoln's Proclamation of
Blockade--The Call for Three Years' Volunteers--Southern Military
Preparations--Rebel Capital Moved to Richmond--Virginia, North Carolina,
Tennessee, and Arkansas Admitted to Confederate States--Desertion of
Army and Navy Officers--Union Troops Fortify Virginia Shore of the
Potomac--Concentration at Harper's Ferry--Concentration at Fortress
Monroe and Cairo--English Neutrality--Seward's 21st-of-May
Despatch--Lincoln's Corrections--Preliminary Skirmishes--Forward to
Richmond--Plan of McDowell's Campaign

XVI

Congress--The President's Message--Men and Money Voted--The
Contraband--Dennison Appoints McClellan--Rich Mountain--McDowell--Bull
Run--Patterson's Failure--McClellan at Washington

XVII

General Scott's Plans--Criticized as the "Anaconda"--The Three Fields of
Conflict--Fremont Appointed Major-General--His Military Failures--Battle
of Wilson's Creek--Hunter Ordered to Fremont--Fremont's
Proclamation--President Revokes Fremont's Proclamation--Lincoln's Letter
to Browning--Surrender of Lexington--Fremont Takes the Field--Cameron's
Visit to Fremont--Fremont's Removal

XVIII

Blockade--Hatteras Inlet--Port Royal Captured--The Trent Affair--Lincoln
Suggests Arbitration--Seward's Despatch--McClellan at Washington--Army
of the Potomac--McClellan's Quarrel with Scott--Retirement of
Scott--Lincoln's Memorandum--"All Quiet on the Potomac"--Conditions in
Kentucky--Cameron's Visit to Sherman--East Tennessee--Instructions to
Buell--Buell's Neglect--Halleck in Missouri

XIX

Lincoln Directs Cooeperation--Halleck and Buell--Ulysses S.
Grant--Grant's Demonstration--Victory at Mill River--Fort Henry--Fort
Donelson--Buell's Tardiness--Halleck's Activity--Victory of Pea
Ridge--Halleck Receives General Command--Pittsburg Landing--Island No.
10--Halleck's Corinth Campaign--Halleck's Mistakes

XX

The Blockade--Hatteras Inlet--Roanoke Island--Fort Pulaski--_Merrimac_
and _Monitor_--The _Cumberland_ Sunk--The _Congress_ Burned--Battle of
the Ironclads--Flag-Officer Farragut--Forts Jackson and St. Philip--New
Orleans Captured--Farragut at Vicksburg--Farragut's Second Expedition to
Vicksburg--Return to New Orleans

XXI

McClellan's Illness--Lincoln Consults McDowell and Franklin--President's
Plan against Manassas--McClellan's Plan against Richmond--Cameron and
Stanton--President's War Order No. 1--Lincoln's Questions to
McClellan--News from the West--Death of Willie Lincoln--The Harper's
Ferry Fiasco--President's War Order No. 3--The News from Hampton
Roads--Manassas Evacuated--Movement to the Peninsula--Yorktown--The
Peninsula Campaign--Seven Days' Battles--Retreat to Harrison's Landing

XXII

Jackson's Valley Campaign--Lincoln's Visit to Scott--Pope Assigned to
Command--Lee's Attack on McClellan--Retreat to Harrison's
Landing--Seward Sent to New York--Lincoln's Letter to Seward--Lincoln's
Letter to McClellan--Lincoln's Visit to McClellan--Halleck Made
General-in-Chief--Halleck's Visit to McClellan--Withdrawal from
Harrison's Landing--Pope Assumes Command--Second Battle of Bull Run--The
Cabinet Protest--McClellan Ordered to Defend Washington--The Maryland
Campaign--Battle of Antietam--Lincoln visits Antietam--Lincoln's Letter
to McClellan--McClellan Removed from Command

XXIII

Cameron's Report--Lincoln's Letter to Bancroft--Annual Message on
Slavery--The Delaware Experiment--Joint Resolution on Compensated
Abolishment--First Border State Interview--Stevens's Comment--District
of Columbia Abolishment--Committee on Abolishment--Hunter's Order
Revoked--Antislavery Measures of Congress--Second Border State
Interview--Emancipation Proposed and Postponed

XXIV

Criticism of the President for his Action on Slavery--Lincoln's Letters
to Louisiana Friends--Greeley's Open Letter--Mr. Lincoln's
Reply--Chicago Clergymen Urge Emancipation--Lincoln's Answer--Lincoln
Issues Preliminary Proclamation--President Proposes Constitutional
Amendment--Cabinet Considers Final Proclamation--Cabinet Discusses
Admission of West Virginia--Lincoln Signs Edict of Freedom--Lincoln's
Letter to Hodges

XXV

Negro Soldiers--Fort Pillow--Retaliation--Draft--Northern
Democrats--Governor Seymour's Attitude--Draft Riots in New
York--Vallandigham--Lincoln on his Authority to Suspend Writ of Habeas
Corpus--Knights of the Golden Circle--Jacob Thompson in Canada

XXVI

Burnside--Fredericksburg--A Tangle of Cross-Purposes--Hooker Succeeds
Burnside--Lincoln to Hooker--Chancellorsville--Lee's Second
Invasion--Lincoln's Criticisms of Hooker's Plans--Hooker
Relieved--Meade--Gettysburg--Lee's Retreat--Lincoln's Letter to
Meade--Lincoln's Gettysburg Address--Autumn Strategy--The Armies go into
Winter Quarters

XXVII

Buell and Bragg--Perryville--Rosecrans and Murfreesboro--Grant's
Vicksburg Experiments--Grant's May Battles--Siege and Surrender of
Vicksburg--Lincoln to Grant--Rosecrans's March to Chattanooga--Battle of
Chickamauga--Grant at Chattanooga--Battle of Chattanooga--Burnside at
Knoxville--Burnside Repulses Longstreet

XXVIII

Grant Lieutenant-General--Interview with Lincoln--Grant Visits
Sherman--Plan of Campaigns--Lincoln to Grant--From the Wilderness to
Cold Harbor--The Move to City Point--Siege of Petersburg--Early Menaces
Washington--Lincoln under Fire--Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley

XXIX

Sherman's Meridian Expedition--Capture of Atlanta--Hood Supersedes
Johnston--Hood's Invasion of Tennessee--Franklin and Nashville--Sherman's
March to the Sea--Capture of Savannah--Sherman to Lincoln--Lincoln to
Sherman--Sherman's March through the Carolinas--The Burning of Charleston
and Columbia--Arrival at Goldsboro--Junction with Schofield--Visit to
Grant

XXX

Military Governors--Lincoln's Theory of Reconstruction--Congressional
Election in Louisiana--Letter to Military Governors--Letter to
Shepley--Amnesty Proclamation, December 8, 1863--Instructions to
Banks--Banks's Action in Louisiana--Louisiana Abolishes
Slavery--Arkansas Abolishes Slavery--Reconstruction in
Tennessee--Missouri Emancipation--Lincoln's Letter to Drake--Missouri
Abolishes Slavery--Emancipation in Maryland--Maryland Abolishes Slavery

XXXI

Shaping of the Presidential Campaign--Criticisms of Mr. Lincoln--Chase's
Presidential Ambitions--The Pomeroy Circular--Cleveland
Convention--Attempt to Nominate Grant--Meeting of Baltimore
Convention--Lincoln's Letter to Schurz--Platform of Republican
Convention--Lincoln Renominated--Refuses to Indicate Preference for
Vice-President--Johnson Nominated for Vice-President--Lincoln's Speech
to Committee of Notification--Reference to Mexico in his Letter of
Acceptance--The French in Mexico

XXXII

The Bogus Proclamation--The Wade-Davis Manifesto--Resignation of Mr.
Chase--Fessenden Succeeds Him--The Greeley Peace
Conference--Jaquess-Gilmore Mission--Letter of Raymond--Bad Outlook for
the Election--Mr. Lincoln on the Issues of the Campaign--President's
Secret Memorandum--Meeting of Democratic National Convention--McClellan
Nominated--His Letter of Acceptance--Lincoln Reelected--His Speech on
Night of Election--The Electoral Vote--Annual Message of December 6,
1864--Resignation of McClellan from the Army

XXXIII

The Thirteenth Amendment--The President's Speech on its Adoption--The
Two Constitutional Amendments of Lincoln's Term--Lincoln on Peace and
Slavery in his Annual Message of December 6, 1864--Blair's Mexican
Project--The Hampton Roads Conference

XXXIV

Blair--Chase Chief Justice--Speed Succeeds Bates--McCulloch Succeeds
Fessenden--Resignation of Mr. Usher--Lincoln's Offer of
$400,000,000--The Second Inaugural--Lincoln's Literary Rank--His Last
Speech

XXXV

Depreciation of Confederate Currency--Rigor of
Conscription--Dissatisfaction with the Confederate Government--Lee
General-in-Chief--J.E. Johnston Reappointed to Oppose Sherman's
March--Value of Slave Property Gone in Richmond--Davis's Recommendation
of Emancipation--Benjamin's Last Despatch to Slidell--Condition of the
Army when Lee took Command--Lee Attempts Negotiations with
Grant--Lincoln's Directions--Lee and Davis Agree upon Line of
Retreat--Assault on Fort Stedman--Five Forks--Evacuation of
Petersburg--Surrender of Richmond--Pursuit of Lee--Surrender of
Lee--Burning of Richmond--Lincoln in Richmond

XXXVI

Lincoln's Interviews with Campbell--Withdraws Authority for Meeting of
Virginia Legislature--Conference of Davis and Johnston at
Greensboro--Johnston Asks for an Armistice--Meeting of Sherman and
Johnston--Their Agreement--Rejected at Washington--Surrender of
Johnston--Surrender of other Confederate Forces--End of the Rebel
Navy--Capture of Jefferson Davis--Surrender of E. Kirby Smith--Number of
Confederates Surrendered and Exchanged--Reduction of Federal Army to a
Peace Footing--Grand Review of the Army

XXXVII

The 14th of April--Celebration at Fort Sumter--Last Cabinet
Meeting--Lincoln's Attitude toward Threats of Assassination--Booth's
Plot--Ford's Theater--Fate of the Assassins--The Mourning Pageant

XXXVIII

Lincoln's Early Environment--Its Effect on his Character--His Attitude
toward Slavery and the Slaveholder--His Schooling in Disappointment--His
Seeming Failures--His Real Successes--The Final Trial--His
Achievements--His Place in History

Index

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I

Ancestry--Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks--Rock Spring Farm--Lincoln's
Birth--Kentucky Schools--The Journey to Indiana--Pigeon Creek
Settlement--Indiana Schools--Sally Bush Lincoln--Gentryville--Work and
Books--Satires and Sermons--Flatboat Voyage to New Orleans--The Journey
to Illinois

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States, was born
in a log cabin in the backwoods of Kentucky on the 12th day of February
1809. His father, Thomas Lincoln, was sixth in direct line of descent
from Samuel Lincoln, who emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1638.
Following the prevailing drift of American settlement, these descendants
had, during a century and a half, successively moved from Massachusetts
to New Jersey, from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, from Pennsylvania to
Virginia, and from Virginia to Kentucky; while collateral branches of the
family eventually made homes in other parts of the West. In Pennsylvania
and Virginia some of them had acquired considerable property and local
prominence.

In the year 1780, Abraham Lincoln, the President's grandfather, was able
to pay into the public treasury of Virginia "one hundred and sixty
pounds, current money," for which he received a warrant, directed to the
"Principal Surveyor of any County within the commonwealth of Virginia,"
to lay off in one or more surveys for Abraham Linkhorn, his heirs or
assigns, the quantity of four hundred acres of land. The error in
spelling the name was a blunder of the clerk who made out the warrant.

With this warrant and his family of five children--Mordecai, Josiah,
Mary, Nancy, and Thomas--he moved to Kentucky, then still a county of
Virginia, in 1780, and began opening a farm. Four years later, while at
work with his three boys in the edge of his clearing, a party of
Indians, concealed in the brush, shot and killed him. Josiah, the second
son, ran to a neighboring fort for assistance; Mordecai, the eldest,
hurried to the cabin for his gun, leaving Thomas, youngest of the
family, a child of six years, by his father. Mordecai had just taken
down his rifle from its convenient resting-place over the door of the
cabin when, turning, he saw an Indian in his war-paint stooping to seize
the child. He took quick aim through a loop-hole, shot, and killed the
savage, at which the little boy also ran to the house, and from this
citadel Mordecai continued firing at the Indians until Josiah brought
help from the fort.

It was doubtless this misfortune which rapidly changed the circumstances
of the family.[1] Kentucky was yet a wild, new country. As compared with
later periods of emigration, settlement was slow and pioneer life a hard
struggle. So it was probably under the stress of poverty, as well as by
the marriage of the older children, that the home was gradually broken
up, and Thomas Lincoln became "even in childhood ... a wandering
laboring boy, and grew up literally without education.... Before he was
grown he passed one year as a hired hand with his uncle Isaac on
Watauga, a branch of the Holston River." Later, he seems to have
undertaken to learn the trade of carpenter in the shop of Joseph Hanks
in Elizabethtown.

[Footnote 1: By the law of primogeniture, which at that date was
still unrepealed in Virginia, the family estate went to Mordecai,
the eldest son.]

When Thomas Lincoln was about twenty-eight years old he married Nancy
Hanks, a niece of his employer, near Beechland, in Washington County.
She was a good-looking young woman of twenty-three, also from Virginia,
and so far superior to her husband in education that she could read and
write, and taught him how to sign his name. Neither one of the young
couple had any money or property; but in those days living was not
expensive, and they doubtless considered his trade a sufficient
provision for the future. He brought her to a little house in
Elizabethtown, where a daughter was born to them the following year.

During the next twelvemonth Thomas Lincoln either grew tired of his
carpenter work, or found the wages he was able to earn insufficient to
meet his growing household expenses. He therefore bought a little farm
on the Big South Fork of Nolin Creek, in what was then Hardin and is now
La Rue County, three miles from Hodgensville, and thirteen miles from
Elizabethtown. Having no means, he of course bought the place on credit,
a transaction not so difficult when we remember that in that early day
there was plenty of land to be bought for mere promises to pay; under
the disadvantage, however, that farms to be had on these terms were
usually of a very poor quality, on which energetic or forehanded men did
not care to waste their labor. It was a kind of land generally known in
the West as "barrens"--rolling upland, with very thin, unproductive
soil. Its momentary usefulness was that it was partly cleared and
cultivated, that an indifferent cabin stood on it ready to be occupied,
and that it had one specially attractive as well as useful feature--a
fine spring of water, prettily situated amid a graceful clump of
foliage, because of which the place was called Rock Spring Farm. The
change of abode was perhaps in some respects an improvement upon
Elizabethtown. To pioneer families in deep poverty, a little farm
offered many more resources than a town lot--space, wood, water, greens
in the spring, berries in the summer, nuts in the autumn, small game
everywhere--and they were fully accustomed to the loss of
companionship. On this farm, and in this cabin, the future President of
the United States was born, on the 12th of February, 1809, and here the
first four years of his childhood were spent.

When Abraham was about four years old the Lincoln home was changed to a
much better farm of two hundred and thirty-eight acres on Knob Creek,
six miles from Hodgensville, bought by Thomas Lincoln, again on credit,
for the promise to pay one hundred and eighteen pounds. A year later he
conveyed two hundred acres of it by deed to a new purchaser. In this new
home the family spent four years more, and while here Abraham and his
sister Sarah began going to A B C schools. Their first teacher was
Zachariah Riney, who taught near the Lincoln cabin; the next, Caleb
Hazel, at a distance of about four miles.

Thomas Lincoln was evidently one of those easy-going, good-natured men
who carry the virtue of contentment to an extreme. He appears never to
have exerted himself much beyond the attainment of a necessary
subsistence. By a little farming and occasional jobs at his trade, he
seems to have supplied his family with food and clothes. There is no
record that he made any payment on either of his farms. The fever of
westward emigration was in the air, and, listening to glowing accounts
of rich lands and newer settlements in Indiana, he had neither valuable
possessions nor cheerful associations to restrain the natural impulse of
every frontiersman to "move." In this determination his carpenter's
skill served him a good purpose, and made the enterprise not only
feasible but reasonably cheap. In the fall of 1816 he built himself a
small flatboat, which he launched at the mouth of Knob Creek, half a
mile from his cabin, on the waters of the Rolling Fork. This stream
would float him to Salt River, and Salt River to the Ohio. He also
thought to combine a little speculation with his undertaking. Part of
his personal property he traded for four hundred gallons of whisky;
then, loading the rest on his boat with his carpenter's tools and the
whisky, he made the voyage, with the help of the current, down the
Rolling Fork to Salt River, down Salt River to the Ohio, and down the
Ohio to Thompson's Ferry, in Perry County, on the Indiana shore. The
boat capsized once on the way, but he saved most of the cargo.

Sixteen miles out from the river he found a location in the forest which
suited him. Since his boat would not float up-stream, he sold it, left
his property with a settler, and trudged back home to Kentucky, all the
way on foot, to bring his wife and the two children--Sarah, nine years
old, and Abraham, seven. Another son had been born to them some years
before, but had died when only three days old. This time the trip to
Indiana was made with the aid of two horses, used by the wife and
children for riding and to carry their little equipage for camping at
night by the way. In a straight line, the distance is about fifty miles;
but it was probably doubled by the very few roads it was possible to
follow.

Having reached the Ohio and crossed to where he had left his goods on
the Indiana side, he hired a wagon, which carried them and his family
the remaining sixteen miles through the forest to the spot he had
chosen, which in due time became the Lincoln farm. It was a piece of
heavily timbered land, one and a half miles east of what has since
become the village of Gentryville, in Spencer County. The lateness of
the autumn compelled him to provide a shelter as quickly as possible,
and he built what is known on the frontier as a half-faced camp, about
fourteen feet square. This structure differed from a cabin in that it
was closed on only three sides, and open to the weather on the fourth.
It was usual to build the fire in front of the open side, and the
necessity of providing a chimney was thus avoided. He doubtless intended
it for a mere temporary shelter, and as such it would have sufficed for
good weather in the summer season. But it was a rude provision for the
winds and snows of an Indiana winter. It illustrates Thomas Lincoln's
want of energy, that the family remained housed in this primitive camp
for nearly a whole year. He must, however, not be too hastily blamed for
his dilatory improvement. It is not likely that he remained altogether
idle. A more substantial cabin was probably begun, and, besides, there
was the heavy work of clearing away the timber--that is, cutting down
the large trees, chopping them into suitable lengths, and rolling them
together into great log-heaps to be burned, or splitting them into rails
to fence the small field upon which he managed to raise a patch of corn
and other things during the ensuing summer.

Thomas Lincoln's arrival was in the autumn of 1816. That same winter
Indiana was admitted to the Union as a State. There were as yet no roads
worthy of the name to or from the settlement formed by himself and seven
or eight neighbors at various distances. The village of Gentryville was
not even begun. There was no sawmill to saw lumber. Breadstuff could be
had only by sending young Abraham, on horseback, seven miles, with a bag
of corn to be ground on a hand grist-mill. In the course of two or three
years a road from Corydon to Evansville was laid out, running past the
Lincoln farm; and perhaps two or three years afterward another from
Rockport to Bloomington crossing the former. This gave rise to
Gentryville. James Gentry entered the land at the cross-roads. Gideon
Romine opened a small store, and their joint efforts succeeded in
getting a post-office established from which the village gradually grew.
For a year after his arrival Thomas Lincoln remained a mere squatter.
Then he entered the quarter-section (one hundred and sixty acres) on
which he opened his farm, and made some payments on his entry, but only
enough in eleven years to obtain a patent for one half of it.