Book Description

Excerpt from A Reporter's Lincoln These recollections of Lincoln were assembled in newspaper goings and comings. They are plain tales told by men and women "who knew Lincoln." In degree of acquaintance they range from a single, perhaps casual, meeting, to years of intimacy. In respect to time, they relate to Lincoln, the clerk at New Salem; to Lincoln, the president; and to Lincoln at stages of his career between the clerkship and the presidency. New Salem, the settlement that was promising when Lincoln went there to begin his manhood life, passed away long ago. When the site was visited by the reporter not a building was left. But living in and about Petersburg, the thrifty little city which succeeded New Salem, were men and women, advanced in years, who remembered "when nobody along the Sangamon could put Abe Lincoln on his back." They told, from personal observation, how Lincoln took the death of Ann Rutledge. They described the wrestling match between Lincoln and Jack Armstrong, the neighborhood champion. They heard Lincoln read his argument about the Bible and saw his employer take the paper from him and burn it. They recalled how Lincoln saved Duff Armstrong with an almanac, in a murder trial, and Duff Armstrong, in the flesh, reformed and a church member, was there to stoutly assert that the almanac was not faked. After Lincoln the wrestler and clerk, Lincoln the surveyor and legislator, came Lincoln the lawyer and Lincoln the politician. Lincoln rode the eighth circuit. Half a century afterwards his trail was followed by his lawsuits, his stories, his homely sayings. At the court towns on the circuit, people told of Lincoln from personal recollections. Of Lincoln sitting on the log with the editors and framing the first platform of the Republican movement in Illinois; of Lincoln going fishing with a carryall full of boys; of Lincoln dropping from the statehouse window in Vandalia to break a quorum, - of such were the recollections. The Bloomington speech was "lost," but perhaps more vivid than the forgotten words were the impressions which listeners received and which they described. Robert R. Hitt, many years Member of Congress from the Freeport, III., district, took the speeches of the Douglas-Lineoln joint debate for the Chicago Tribune. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.