Lincoln | Page 4

XXVII THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE XXVIII APPARENT
ASCENDENCY XXIX CATASTROPHE XXX THE PRESIDENT
VERSUS THE VINDICTIVES
VICTORY XXXI A MENACING PAUSE XXXII THE AUGUST
CONSPIRACY XXXIII THE RALLY TO THE PRESIDENT XXXIV
"FATHER ABRAHAM" XXXV THE MASTER OF THE MOMENT
XXXVI PREPARING A DIFFERENT WAR XXXVII FATE
INTERPOSES

BIBLIOGRAPHY
NOTES
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author and publisher make grateful acknowledgement to Ginn and
Company, Boston, for the photograph of St. Gaudens' Statue; to The
Century Company of New York for the Earliest Portrait of Lincoln,
which is from an engraving by Johnson after a daguerreotype in the
possession of the Honorable Robert T. Lincoln; and for Lincoln and
Tad, which is from the famous photograph by Brady; to The Macmillan
Company of New York for the portrait of Mrs. Lincoln and also for
The Review of the Army of the Potomac, both of which were originally
reproduced in Ida M. Tarbell's Life of Abraham Lincoln. For the rare
and interesting portrait entitled The Last Phase of Lincoln
acknowledgment is made to Robert Bruce, Esquire, Clinton, Oneida
County, New York. This photograph was taken by Alexander Gardner,
April 9, 1865, the glass plate of which is now in Mr. Bruce's collection.

I. THE CHILD OF THE FOREST
Of first importance in the making of the American people is that great
forest which once extended its mysterious labyrinth from tide-water to
the prairies when the earliest colonists entered warily its sea-worn
edges a portion of the European race came again under a spell it had
forgotten centuries before, the spell of that untamed nature which
created primitive man. All the dim memories that lay deep in
subconsciousness; all the vague shadows hovering at the back of the
civilized mind; the sense of encompassing natural power, the need to
struggle single-handed against it; the danger lurking in the darkness of
the forest; the brilliant treachery of the forest sunshine glinted through
leafy secrecies; the Strange voices in its illimitable murmur; the ghostly
shimmer of its glades at night; the lovely beauty of the great gold moon;
all the thousand wondering dreams that evolved the elder gods, Pan,
Cybele, Thor; all this waked again in the soul of the Anglo-Saxon

penetrating the great forest. And it was intensified by the way he
came,--singly, or with but wife and child, or at best in very small
company, a mere handful. And the surrounding presences were not
only of the spiritual world. Human enemies who were soon as well
armed as he, quicker of foot and eye, more perfectly noiseless in their
tread even than the wild beasts of the shadowy coverts, the ruthless
Indians whom he came to expel, these invisible presences were
watching him, in a fierce silence he knew not whence. Like as not the
first signs of that menace which was everywhere would be the hiss of
the Indian arrow, or the crack of the Indian rifle, and sharp and sudden
death.
Under these conditions he learned much and forgot much. His deadly
need made him both more and less individual than he had been,
released him from the dictation of his fellows in daily life while it
enforced relentlessly a uniform method of self-preservation. Though
the unseen world became more and more real, the understanding of it
faded. It became chiefly a matter of emotional perception, scarcely at
all a matter of philosophy. The morals of the forest Americans were
those of audacious, visionary beings loosely hound together by a
comradeship in peril. Courage, cautiousness, swiftness, endurance,
faithfulness, secrecy,--these were the forest virtues. Dreaming,
companionship, humor,--these were the forest luxuries.
From the first, all sorts and conditions were ensnared by that silent land,
where the trails they followed, their rifles in their hands, had been
trodden hard generation after generation by the feet of the Indian
warriors. The best and the worst of England went into that illimitable
resolvent, lost themselves, found themselves, and issued from its
shadows, or their children did, changed both for good and ill,
Americans. Meanwhile the great forest, during two hundred years, was
slowly vanishing. This parent of a new people gave its life to its
offspring and passed away. In the early nineteenth century it had
withered backward far from the coast; had lost its identity all along the
north end of the eastern mountains; had frayed out toward the sunset
into lingering tentacles, into broken minor forests, into shreds and
patches.

Curiously, by a queer sort of natural selection, its people had
congregated into life communities not all of one pattern. There were
places as early as the beginning of the century where distinction had
appeared. At other places life was as rude and rough as could be
imagined. There were innumerable farms that were still mere
"clearings," walled by the forest. But there were other regions