connection with all the events of the war for the preservation of American nationality, are in the archives of the War Department; and they are there retained, only to be revealed when the present generation shall have passed away. The Life of Washington, even though it was written by a Marshall, with the abundant access to unpublished documents which his position enabled him to command, or which it was the policy of the government to afford him, waited half a century for Irving, to give it symmetry and completeness. The humbler biographers of Mr. Lincoln, though they satisfy an immediate want, and gather much which would otherwise be forever lost, can hardly hope to be more than tributaries to that better and completer biography which the next, or some succeeding generation, will be sure to produce and possess.
I have no opportunity, except that which this page affords me, to acknowledge my indebtedness to those who have assisted me in the collection of unpublished materials for this volume. I have been indebted specially to William H. Herndon, Esq., of Springfield, Illinois, for many years Mr. Lincoln's law partner, who has manifested, from the first, the kindest interest in my book; to Newton Bateman, Esq., Superintendent of Public Instruction in Illinois; to James Q. Howard, Esq., United States Consul at St. John, New Brunswick; to Hon. John D. Defrees, Superintendent of Public Printing in Washington; to Hon. Henry L. Dawes, of Massachusetts; to Horace White, Esq., of the Chicago Tribune; to U. F. Linder, Esq., of Chicago; to J. F. Speed, Esq., of Louisville, Ken
