The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln | Page 6

of the Amendment Prohibiting Slavery--Lincoln and the Southern Peace Commissioners--The Meeting in Hampton Roads--Lincoln's Impression of A.H. Stephens--The Second Inauguration--Second Inaugural Address--"With Malice toward None, with Charity for All"--An Auspicious Omen

CHAPTER XXVIII
Close of the Civil War--Last Acts in the Great Tragedy--Lincoln at the Front--A Memorable Meeting--Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and Porter--Life on Shipboard--Visit to Petersburg--Lincoln and the Prisoners--Lincoln in Richmond--The Negroes Welcoming Their "Great Messiah"--A Warm Reception--Lee's Surrender--Lincoln Receives the News--Universal Rejoicing--Lincoln's Last Speech to the Public--His Feelings and Intentions toward the South--His Desire for Reconciliation

CHAPTER XXIX
The Last of Earth--Events of the Last Day of Lincoln's Life--The Last Cabinet Meeting--The Last Drive with Mrs. Lincoln--Incidents of the Afternoon--Riddance to Jacob Thompson--A Final Act of Pardon--The Fatal Evening--The Visit to the Theatre--The Assassin's Shot--A Scene of Horror--Particulars of the Crime--The Dying President--A Nation's Grief--Funeral Obsequies--The Return to Illinois--At Rest in Oak Ridge Cemetery
INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS
Abraham Lincoln _From an Original Drawing by J.N. Marble, never before published_
Francis F. Browne
Abraham Lincoln

[Illustration: A. Lincoln]

THE EVERY-DAY LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

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:
"The short and simple annals of the poor."
Lincoln's ancestry has been traced with tolerable certainty through five generations to Samuel Lincoln of Norfolk County, England. Not many years after the landing of the "Mayflower" at Plymouth--perhaps in the year 1638--Samuel Lincoln's son Mordecai had emigrated to Hingham, Massachusetts. Perhaps because he was a Quaker, a then persecuted sect, he did not remain long at Hingham, but came westward as far as Berks County, Pennsylvania. His son, John Lincoln, went southward from Pennsylvania and settled in Rockingham County, Virginia. Later, in 1782, while the last events of the American Revolution were in progress, Abraham Lincoln, son of John and grandfather of President Lincoln, moved into Kentucky and took up a tract of government land in Mercer County. In the Field Book of Daniel Boone, the Kentucky pioneer, (now in possession of the Wisconsin Historical Society), appears the following note of purchase:
"Abraham Lincoln enters five hundred acres of land on a Treasury warrant on the south side of Licking Creek or River, in Kentucky."
At this time Kentucky was included within the limits and jurisdiction of Virginia. In 1775 Daniel Boone had built a fort at Boonesborough, on the Kentucky river, and it was not far from this site that Abraham Lincoln, President Lincoln's grandfather, located his claim and put up a rude log hut for the shelter of his family. The pioneers of Kentucky cleared small spaces and erected their humble dwellings. They had to contend not only with the wild forces of nature, and to defend themselves from the beasts of the forest,--more to be feared than either were the hostile Indians. The settlers were filled with terror of these stealthy foes. At home and abroad they kept their guns ready for instant use both night and day. Many a hard battle was fought between the Indian and the pioneer. Many an unguarded woodsman was shot down without warning while busy about his necessary work. Among these was Abraham Lincoln. The story of his death is related by Mr. I.N. Arnold. "Thomas Lincoln was with his father in the field when the savages suddenly fell upon them. Mordecai and Josiah, his elder brothers, were near by in the forest. Mordecai, startled by a shot, saw his father fall, and running to the cabin seized the loaded rifle, rushed to one of the loop-holes cut through the logs of the cabin, and saw the Indian who had fired. He had just caught the boy, Thomas, and was running toward the forest. Pointing the rifle through the logs and aiming at a medal on the breast of the Indian, Mordecai fired. The Indian fell, and springing to his feet the boy