The Life of Abraham Lincoln | Page 2

times in which Lincoln lived and worked. Such historical events as
have been narrated were selected solely because they illustrated some
phase of the character of Lincoln. In this biography the single purpose
has been to present the living man with such distinctness of outline that
the reader may have a sort of feeling of being acquainted with him. If
the reader, finishing this volume, has a vivid realization of Lincoln as a
man, the author will be fully repaid.
To achieve this purpose in brief compass, much has been omitted.
Some of the material omitted has probably been of a value fully equal
to some that has been inserted. This could not well be avoided. But if
the reader shall here acquire interest enough in the subject to continue
the study of this great, good man, this little book will have served its
purpose.
H. K. WESTFIELD, NEW JERSEY, February, 1901.
CHAPTER I.
THE WILD WEST.
At the beginning of the twentieth century there is, strictly speaking, no
frontier to the United States. At the beginning of the nineteenth century,
the larger part of the country was frontier. In any portion of the country
to-day, in the remotest villages and hamlets, on the enormous farms of
the Dakotas or the vast ranches of California, one is certain to find
some, if not many, of the modern appliances of civilization such as
were not dreamed of one hundred years ago. Aladdin himself could not
have commanded the glowing terms to write the prospectus of the
closing years of the nineteenth century. So, too, it requires an

extraordinary effort of the imagination to conceive of the condition of
things in the opening years of that century.
The first quarter of the century closed with the year 1825. At that date
Lincoln was nearly seventeen years old. The deepest impressions of life
are apt to be received very early, and it is certain that the influences
which are felt previous to seventeen years of age have much to do with
the formation of the character. If, then, we go back to the period named,
we can tell with sufficient accuracy what were the circumstances of
Lincoln's early life. Though we cannot precisely tell what he had, we
can confidently name many things, things which in this day we class as
the necessities of life, which he had to do without, for the simple reason
that they had not then been invented or discovered.
In the first place, we must bear in mind that he lived in the woods. The
West of that day was not wild in the sense of being wicked, criminal,
ruffian. Morally, and possibly intellectually, the people of that region
would compare with the rest of the country of that day or of this day.
There was little schooling and no literary training. But the woodsman
has an education of his own. The region was wild in the sense that it
was almost uninhabited and untilled. The forests, extending from the
mountains in the East to the prairies in the West, were almost unbroken
and were the abode of wild birds and wild beasts. Bears, deer, wild-cats,
raccoons, wild turkeys, wild pigeons, wild ducks and similar creatures
abounded on every hand.
Consider now the sparseness of the population. Kentucky has an area of
40,000 square miles. One year after Lincoln's birth, the total population,
white and colored, was 406,511, or an average of ten persons--say less
than two families--to the square mile. Indiana has an area of 36,350
square miles. In 1810 its total population was 24,520, or an average of
one person to one and one-half square miles; in 1820 it contained
147,173 inhabitants, or about four to the square mile; in 1825 the
population was about 245,000, or less than seven to the square mile.
The capital city, Indianapolis, which is to-day of surpassing beauty,
was not built nor thought of when the boy Lincoln moved into the
State.

Illinois, with its more than 56,000 square miles of territory, harbored in
1810 only 12,282 people; in 1820, only 55,211, or less than one to the
square mile; while in 1825 its population had grown a trifle over
100,000 or less than two to the square mile.
It will thus be seen that up to his youth, Lincoln dwelt only in the
wildest of the wild woods, where the animals from the chipmunk to the
bear were much more numerous, and probably more at home, than
man.
There were few roads of any kind, and certainly none that could be
called good. For the mud of Indiana and Illinois is very deep and very
tenacious. There were good saddle-horses, a sufficient number of oxen,
and carts that were rude and awkward. No locomotives, no bicycles, no
automobiles. The first railway