XI.

BENJAMIN PERLEY POORE.

'HE election of Abraham Lincoln as President

THE

was very acceptable to the older W Washington correspondents. They remembered him well in the XXXth Congress, when, as the Representative from the Sangamon district, he was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation, then but seven in number. In the drawing for seats his name had been one of the last called, and he had been obliged to content himself with a desk in the very outer row, about midway on the Speaker's left hand, where he had on one side of him Harmon S. Conger, of New York, and on the other John Gayle, of Alabama. There he used to sit patiently listening to the eloquence of John Quincy Adams, Robert Toombs, David M. Barringer, Andrew Johnson, and others whose genius and learning adorned the old Hall, and to the verbose platitudes of those less gifted. His own

voice was never heard unless when he voted "

aye"

During the Christmas holidays Mr. Lincoln found his way into the small room used as the post-office

of the House, where a few jovial raconteurs used to meet almost every morning, after the mail had been distributed into the members' boxes, to exchange such new stories as any of them might have acquired since they had last met. After modestly standing at the door for several days, Mr. Lincoln was "reminded" of a story, and by New Year's he was recognized as the champion story-teller of the Capitol. His favorite seat was at the left of the open fire-place, tilted back in his chair, with his long legs reaching over to the chimney jamb. He never told a story twice, but appeared to have an endless repertoire of them, always ready, like the successive charges in a magazine gun, and always pertinently adapted to some passing event.

It was refreshing to us correspondents, compelled as we were to listen to so much that was prosy and tedious, to hear this bright specimen of Western genius tell his inimitable stories, especially his reminiscences of the Black Hawk War, in which he had commanded a company, which was mustered into the United States service by Jefferson Davis, then second lieutenant of dragoons.

I remember his narrating his first experience in drilling his company. He was marching with a front of over twenty men across a field, when he desired to pass through a gateway into the next inclosure.

"I could not for the life of me," said he, "remem

ber the proper word of command for getting my company endwise so that it could get through the gate, so as we came near the gate I shouted: 'This company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again on the other side of the gate!'"

When the laugh which the description of these novel tactics caused had subsided, Mr. Lincoln added:

"And I sometimes think here, that gentlemen in yonder who get into a tight place in debate, would like to dismiss the House until the next day and then take a fair start."

Mr. Lincoln used to narrate his exploits in wrestling during this campaign, when he was regarded as the champion of Northern Illinois. One day the champion of the Southern companies in the expedition challenged him.

He was at least two inches taller than I was,' said Mr. Lincoln, "and somewhat heavier, but I reckoned that I was the most wiry, and soon after I had tackled him I gave him a hug, lifted him off the ground, and threw him flat on his back. That settled his hash."

Soon after the Presidential campaign of 1848 was opened, Alfred Iverson, a Democratic Representative from Georgia, made a political speech, in which he accused the Whigs of having deserted their financial and tariff principles, and of having "taken shelter under