be ere-long realized by the Indiana emigrants. Scarcely two years had passed, in this changed climate, and in these rougher forest experiences, before the mother of young Abraham was called to a last seperation from those she had so tenderly loved. She died in 1818, leaving as her sole surviving children, a daughter less than twelve years old, and a son two years younger, of whose future distinction, the humble son probably never had the remotest dream. A year later, Thomas Lincoln married another wife, a Mrs. Johnston. This person was a widow with three children, all of whom were adopted by their step-father and became members of the family.

Abraham's life upon his return from New Orleans, and was before the life of a farm boy, laborious and eventless.

Thus it was that he grew up to the verge of manhood; he led no idle or enervating existence. Accus tomed to steady labor, no one of all the workingmen with with whom he came in contact was a better sample of his class than he. He had now become a Saul among the pioneers, having reached the height of nearly six feet and four inches, and with a comparatively slender yet uncommonly strong, and muscular frame.

In the spring of 1830, Thomas Lincoln resolved to emigrate once more. His brother had previously removed to more northern locations in Indiana. This, and his fondness for change, and the hope of better fortune, induced him to leave the hills of Indiana for the flat prairie lands of Illinois. Mordecai had died in Hancock County. Josiah still lived in Hamilton County.

The journey was accomplished in fifteen days. The spot selected was on the north side of Sangamon River. Illinois had but just begun to be occupied, and only along the banks of the principle streams, in order to secure the advantages of wood and water, with both of which the interior of the State is but poorly supplied.

Assisted by a man name John Hunter, Abraham was deputed to split the rails for fencing the new farm. These are the rails about which so much was said in the late

Presidential campaign. "Their existence," says Mr. Scripps," was brought to the public attention during the sitting of the Republican State Convention, at Decatur, on which occasio:: a banner, attached to two of these rails, and bearing an appropriate inscription was brought into the assemblage and formally presented to that body, amid a scene of unparalleled enthusiasm. After that they were in demand in every State of the Union in which free labor is honored, where they were borne in processions of the people, and hailed by hundreds of thousands of freemen, as a symbol of triumph, and as a glorious vindication of freedom, and of the rights and the dignity of free labor. These, however, were far from being the first or only rails made by Lincoln. He was a practised hand at the business. His first lessons were taken while yet a boy in Indiana.

For some unexplained reason, the family did not remain on this place but a single year. Abraham was now of age, and when, in the spring of 1831, his father set out for Coles county, sixty or seventy miles to the eastward, on the npper waters of the Kaskaskia and Embarras, a separ

ation took place, the son for the first time assuming his independence, and commencing life on his own account. The scene of these labors he has not since visited. His father was soon after comfortably settled in the place to which he had turned his course, and spent the remainder of his adventurous days there, arriving at a good old age. He died in Coles county, on the 17th day of January, 1851, being in his seventy-third year. The farm on the Sangamon subsequently came into the possession of a man named Whitley, who also erected a mill in the vicinity.

While there was snow on the ground, at the close of the year 1830 or early in 1831, a man came to that part of Macon county where young Lincoln was living, in pursuit of hands to aid him in a flat-boat voyage down the Mississippi. The fact was known that the youth had once made such a trip, and his services were sought for the occasion. As one who had his own subsistence to earn, with no capital but his hands, and with no immediate opportunities for commencing professional study, if his thoughts had as yet been turned in that direction, he accepted the proposition made him. Perhaps there was something of his inherited and acquired fondness for exciting adventure, impelling him to this decision. With him, were also employed, his former fellow-laborer, John Hanks, and a son of his step-mother, named John Johnson. In the spring of 1831, Lincoln set out to fulfill his engagement. The floods had so swollen the streams that the Sangamon country was a vast sea before. His first entrance into that country was over these wide-spread waters, in a canoe. The time had come to join his em

ployer on his journey to New Orleans, but the latter had been disappointed by another person on whom he relied to furnish him a boat, on the Illinois river. Accordingly, all hands set to work and themselves built a boat, on that river for their purposes. This done, they set out on their long trip, making a successful voyage to New Orleans and back. It is reported by his friends, that Mr. Lincoln refers with much pleasant humor to this early experience' so relating some of its incidents as to afford abundant amusement to his auditors. In truth, he was a youth who could adapt himself to this or any other honest work, which his circumstances required of him, and with a cheerfulness and alacrity-a certain practical humorrarely equalled. He could turn off the hardest labor as a mere pastime; and his manly presence, to other laborers, was as a constant' inspiration and a charm to lighten their burdens.

It was midsummer when the flat-boatman returned from this, his second and last trip, in that capacity. The man who had commanded this little expedition now undertook to establish himself in business at New Salem, twenty miles below Springfield, in Menard county-a place of more relative consequence then than now-two miles from Petersburg, the county seat. He had found young Lincoln a person of such sort that he was anxious to secure his services in the new enterprise he was about to embark in. He opened a store at New Salem, and also a mill for flouring grain. For want of other immediate employment, and in the same spirit which had heretofore actuated him, Abraham Lincoln now entered upon the

duties of a clerk, having an eye to both branches of the business carried on by his employer. This connection. lasted for nearly a year, all the duties of his position being faithfully and cheerfully performed.

Some how or other this country grocer did not succeed, and the Black Hawk War breaking out about this time, young Lincoln, always ready for adventure, left the shop, and volunteered for service against the Indians.

He is

Breaking out of the Black Hawk War. Lincoln volunteers. chosen Captain. Vicisitudes of the campaign. Battle of the Bad-Axe. End of the volunteers first campaign.

IN the spring of 1831, Black Hawk, unmindful of his treaty to remain west of the Mississippi, and charging bad faith upon the whites, re-crossed the river with all his tribe, the women and children included, and sought to return to his old hunting-grounds in the Rock river coun try. He was assisted by allies from the Kickapoo and Pottawatomie tribes. These, with the Sacs, made up a force of some three hundred fighting men.

At this time Abraham Lincoln was clerking it in the store" în Menard county.

In response to the representations of Gov. Reynolds, to whom the settlers applied for protection, Gen. Gaines, commander of the United States forces in that quarter, took prompt and decisive measures to expel these invaders