The Black Hawk War Including a Review of Black Hawk's Life
perhaps–that spirit might have been modified; but the times were
essentially of the open air order.
An atmosphere of politics likewise pervaded and the majority of
candidates affected that spirit of contempt for the little amenities
of life and comfort. When, therefore, those young spirits did not
like a command, the first impulse was not to obey it, and in point
of fact very few commands were obeyed, at least to the letter.[285]
To attempt enforcement generally meant disaster, whether the officer
was General or Second Lieutenant. Some scheme was usually found to
counteract the order, if at all distasteful to the volunteers.
While Mr. Lincoln was as stalwart as his generation, he was
self-possessed and handled his headstrong company with consummate
skill and was thoroughly beloved by his men. His known honesty,
fearlessness and prowess and willingness to back the same made it
possible to control his men, and from the most unmanageable in the
army they became at his request tractable. These characteristics
then made him a leader where others failed by swagger and vulgarity.
On the march and in camp stories were told; but Mr. Lincoln’s
stories were not ribald recitals, told only to express a vicious
conclusion. They were droll, quaint, homely perhaps, but full of
humor; new and invariably to the point.
When men congregate it is natural to seek entertainment; the best
adapted to surroundings, story-telling always finding the most
favor, consequently the best story-tellers were soon discovered and
courted. Thus in the camps in Beardstown and Rushville and on the
march to Yellow Banks, the genius of Mr. Lincoln was discovered and
quickly popularized.
At each resting-place diversion was sought in wrestling matches,
horse racing, foot racing and other kindred sports, and quickly
enough came Mr. Lincoln’s reputation as a champion in the manly
sports of the day, notably wrestling, which then, as now in new and
small villages, was made to measure a man’s standing. No one was
above a “match.” If he was, his presence in that locality soon
became a reminiscence. Add, then, the two accomplishments of Captain
Lincoln, and no imagination is required to account for his
tremendous popularity in the army.
At New Salem Mr. Lincoln adapted himself to his surroundings by
accepting the first challenge for a match that Mr. Offutt
unwittingly caused to be sent him by John Armstrong, and
notwithstanding the threatened interference by the “Clary’s Grove
Boys,” he asserted his strength and bravery to such advantage that
he became from that hour a respected leader, and the following year
that same Armstrong became his First Sergeant, while William and
Royal Clary became privates in his company. During the annual muster
in the fall of 1831 those same influences elected him captain of the
militia.
Being “out of a job” in the spring of 1832, the Black Hawk war
offered him employment which was at once accepted. On April 21st
sixty-eight men volunteered[286] to serve the state from “Richland,
Sangamon County,” and at the election which followed for captain Mr.
Lincoln was chosen by more than three-fourths of the men. Another,
one William Kirkpatrick, aspired to the same position. He was
pretentious, assumed a prominence in the neighborhood, questioned at
times, but never severely challenged, and when he announced a desire
for the office, he expected to get it. The two candidates were
placed a short distance away and the men were requested to fall in
behind the man they preferred for their captain. The proceeding was
simple, brief and overwhelmingly in favor of Mr. Lincoln, and he was
hilariously declared elected. Enrolling his company for sixty days’
service, he marched at its head to Beardstown to be mustered in.
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Captain Lincoln owned no horse and to make that march he was forced
to borrow, a not very difficult matter in those days; but on that
borrowed horse, at the head of his men, he marched into Beardstown,
“forty miles from the place of enrollment,” the proudest man in the
state. On April 28th the company was mustered into the service of
the state of Illinois by Col. John J. Hardin, Inspector-General of
the state and Mustering Officer. Two muster rolls were made out, one
by Colonel Hardin and one by Captain Lincoln, both of which are in
existence and one reproduced herein.
At Beardstown Captain Lincoln’s company was assigned to the Fourth
Regiment, of which his First Lieutenant, Samuel M. Thompson, was
elected Colonel April 30th, and William Kirkpatrick, late candidate
for captain, was made Quartermaster’s Sergeant, both quoted as
coming from “Richland Creek.”
On the 30th the last of the army, including Captain Lincoln’s
company, left Beardstown and encamped four miles north of Rushville.
On Tuesday, May 1st, the march for Yellow Banks, seventy or
seventy-five miles distant, was resumed and about twenty-five miles
covered, the army camping at a point on Crooked Creek in McDonough
County. On Wednesday, the 2d, another distance was made and the army
encamped in a large prairie, two miles from timber or water. The
night was cold and tempestuous.
At about 12 o’clock of Thursday, the 3d, the Henderson River was
reached and crossed, and before night the Yellow Banks in Warren
County was reached, where the army again encamped.[287] There, by
reason of delay in the arrival of the boat with provisions, the army
was compelled to remain the 4th, 5th and 6th, on which last-named
day the provisions arrived. On the morning of the 7th the army moved
for the mouth of Rock River, reaching that point about nightfall.
About Beardstown Captain Lincoln absorbed all the information to be
found concerning tactics and imparted the same to his company to the
best of his ability by frequent drills, stories of which have caused
many a hearty laugh. The best version of one of those celebrated
drills has been told by Ben. Perley Poore and is to be found on page
218 of “Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln”: “I remember his narrating
his first experience in drilling his company. He was marching with a
front of over twenty men across a field when he desired to pass
through a gateway into the next enclosure.
“‘I could not for the life of me,’ said he, ‘remember the proper
word of command for getting my company endwise so that it could get
through the gate, so as we came near the gate I shouted: “This
company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again on
the other side of the gate!”’” The story was told to picture the
position of someone in debate who could find no tactful way out of a
dilemma he had worked himself into. But Captain Lincoln was proud of
his company and expressed his pride on many occasions. Leonard Swett
obtained the story of that company direct from the lips of the
captain and it is to be found in the book last quoted, on page 465:
“Together with the talk of organizing a company in New Salem began
the talk of making Lincoln captain of it. His characteristics as an
athlete had made something of a hero of him. Turning to me with a
smile at the time, he said: ‘I cannot tell you how much the idea of
being the captain of that company pleased me.’
“But when the day of organization arrived a man who had been captain
of a real company arrived in uniform and assumed the organization of
the company. The mode of it was as follows: A line of two was formed
by the company, with the parties who intended to be candidates for
officers standing in front. The candidate then made a speech to the
men, telling them what a gallant man he was, in what wars he had
fought, bled and died, and how he was ready again, for the glory of
his country, to lead them; then another candidate, and when the
speech-making was ended they commanded those who would vote for this
man, or that, to form in line behind their favorite. Thus there were
one, two or three lines behind the different candidates, and then
they counted back, and the fellow who had the longest tail to his
kite was the real captain. It was a good way. There was no chance
for ballot-box stuffing or a false count.
“When the real captain with his regimentals came and assumed the
control, Lincoln’s heart failed him. He formed in the line with the
boys, and after the speech was made they began to form behind the
old captain; but the boys seized Lincoln and pushed him out of the
line and began to form behind him, and cried, ‘Form behind Abe,’ and
in a moment of irresolution he marched ahead, and when they counted
back he had two more[288] than the other captain.”
The lawlessness of the troops in camp and on the march caused
Governor Reynolds much annoyance and chagrin. When Major Long’s
battalion was ordered down the river the troops were especially
charged not to fire their guns aboard the boat, a charge unnecessary
with most men. So prevalent had that amusement become that the
celebrated order of April 30th was issued just as the little army
was taking up its march for the Yellow Banks. At the Henderson River
a crossing was effected only after great labor and more
inconvenience in the way of wet clothing, and probably to celebrate
so successful an event the firing was resumed, this time by Captain
Lincoln himself, which promptly brought upon his head his first
disgrace by being reprimanded and, as is generally conceded, by
being compelled to wear a wooden sword. That punishment was accepted
in good spirit, but no more firing was charged to his account during
the campaign; in fact, it made him more punctilious and watchful and
more insistent with his men. When off duty, however, he allowed
himself and his men the harmless diversions of camp life without
restraint.
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Captain Lincoln was magnetic and his men were drawn toward him from
admiration, and not alone because they knew he was a man of courage
and strength. That magnetism drew not only his immediate
acquaintances at New Salem, but his superior officers, and as he
advanced in life, it drew about him the men of influence and power
who later made a new and powerful political party. It attracted John
T. Stuart to invite him to his office to read law; it attracted the
voters of his district to beat Peter Cartwright, then the best-known
man in Illinois probably, for the legislature. That discipline kept
Captain Lincoln vigilant until the mouth of Rock River was reached,
and even the affair there was not one of commission.
During the night of May 9th one Royal P. Green, of the company of
Capt. Thomas McDow of Greene county, entered the officers’ quarters
and, with the assistance of a tomahawk, four buckets and some of
Lincoln’s command, secured enough liquor to enjoy a comfortable lark
and place a large number of Captain Lincoln’s men _hors de combat_.
On the morning of the 10th, the date fixed to begin the march up
Rock River, few were able to answer the roll call and few indeed
were able to take up the march for the Prophet’s town. For this
offense, which had been committed without the knowledge of the
Captain, and to his great surprise and mortification, that officer