CHAPTER VI.

How Lincoln Learned all about Volunteers-From Captain to Private-Mustered Out-A Long Canoe Voyage-Reaching Home on Foot-Running for the Legislature-A First and Last Defeat.

CAPTAIN LINCOLN'S company of volunteers marched to the appointed rendezvous at Beardstown, and there became part of the Fourth Illinois Regiment, commanded by Colonel Samuel Thompson. The regimental organization was completed at Richland, Sangamon County, on April 21st, 1832. On the 27th a march began toward the mouth of Rock River, the entire force mustered for the campaign-about two thousand men-being commanded by General Whiteside and accompanied by Governor Reynolds in person. There were no roads, and the improvised army was only one degree better than a very brave mob. Of discipline, training, or any knowledge of military regulations, not to speak of military science, the officers were for the greater part as ignorant as the men. All the turbulent, uncontrollable characters of a frontier population had been gathered, without any Jackson or Harrison to take them in hand, and it was said that Lincoln's company was exceptionally in need of a captain capable of whipping any ruffian it contained.

On the third day the troops came to Henderson River, only fifty yards wide, but swollen with rain and running swiftly between high banks. The back

woodsmen were not soldiers, but they knew how to handle axes, and before the next morning a bridge had been constructed over which the army passed, with only the loss of a wagon or two, that slipped into the water, horses and all, while going down the bluff to reach the causeway. Governor Reynolds afterward asserted that his men built that bridge in three hours, and other historians have calmly copied him. They were probably very long hours.

There is a story, authentic or not, that while at Henderson River Captain Lincoln got himself put under arrest for one day by violating the order forbidding the discharge of firearms within ten paces of the camp limits.

The march was resumed, and Yellow Banks, on the Mississippi, was reached. Provision boats had been expected to meet the army here, but they had not arrived, and there were three days of famine, for all supplies had been consumed upon the way. The blame was laid by the hungry troops upon their patriotic governor, whose quartermasters had failed to obey his orders. They had been sufficiently restless and insubordinate before that, and were all the more outspoken now. Captain Lincoln is described as having fallen into disgrace with his superior officers on account of the drunkenness and semi-mutinous conduct of his own men, although he had been in nowise to blame.

On May 6th a supply steamer made its appearance,

and the hungry troops were fed. The advance was continued to the mouth of Rock River, and thence by a forced march up that stream about ninety miles to Dixon, where the volunteers were to wait for a detachment of United States regular troops under General Atkinson.

The new

Two battalions of mounted riflemen, under Majors Stillman and Bailey, had reached Dixon before the volunteers, and were boiling over with eagerness for a brush with Black Hawk and. his warriors. comers had exhausted their own enthusiasm, for they had left behind their baggage train and had wasted their rations as if more could be had for the asking. Weary and hungry, they went into camp at Dixon, while Governor Reynolds imprudently granted the request of Stillman's and Bailey's men, and permitted them to ride out and see if they could find any Indians.

The self-confident horsemen succeeded only too well. They found but a few at first, near a stream known as Old Man's Creek to that time, and afterward as Stillman's Run. A disorderly rush was made, and two or three red men were caught and killed, but the noise made aroused Black Hawk in his camp, and he came out with a stronger body of warriors to see what was the matter. The scattered palefaces were almost at his mercy, and the only military advantage left them was that of being well mounted. Of this they made so good a use, in the sudden panic which seized them, that only eleven of them were actually killed and scalped, but the affair made a very deep impression upon the volun

teers. They called it Stillman's Defeat, as if there had been a battle and a severe disaster, and they felt hungrier and more weary of war than ever. They were marched out next day all over the land around Old Man's Creek, but Black Hawk and his braves were already far away, and the volunteers went back to their camp.

Every effort to turn the campaign into a grand military picnic had failed, excepting as to drinking and disorder. There had been wrestling matches among other rough amusements, and in one of these Captain Lincoln was said to have met his matchthat is, he had found a man who failed to throw him, but whom he could not throw.

There was absolutely no glory to be gained by that army, and its term of enlistment came with a sort of homesick welcome to the great majority. The war was not ended, but the men had ceased to take any interest in it, and most of them went home, although the governor was again calling for volunteers. Among those who promptly responded, however, was Captain Abraham Lincoln. He was mustered out on May 27th, 1832, and at once, as did many other volunteer officers, including General Whiteside, re-enlisted as a private soldier. He was now a member of a mounted company called the Independent Spy Battalion, commanded by Captain Elijah Iles. Perhaps it might best be described as a company of scouts and despatch carriers. There was enough of hard work for them, with some exposure and much possible peril, but they did no actual fighting and their service was remarkably

brief. On June 16th, 1832, Captain Iles's company, with others of the Illinois volunteers, were mustered out at Whitewater, Wis. The discharge given to private Abraham Lincoln was signed by Lieutenant Robert Anderson of the regular army. It was a very important document at that time, and there was no prophet to tell either of them of another, in which the position of the names was to be reversed, and Robert Anderson would be named a brigadiergeneral by Abraham Lincoln, for good conduct at Fort Sumter, S. C., in 1861.

The discharged volunteers were to find their way home as best they might, and the means of transportation for private Lincoln and his next friend, George W. Harrison, had been wickedly diminished by some horse thieves. Both lost their horses in the same night, and they set out on foot together, in high spirits, nevertheless, at their escape from the fatigues and discomforts of the Black Hawk War. To the end of his life Lincoln knew more about volunteers and their management, and more about the regular army and its opinions concerning volunteers, than he could have done but for his severe schooling in that memorably mismanaged campaign.

He and Harrison reached Peoria, Ill., on foot. Here they bought a canoe, for which Lincoln whittled out a paddle, and another long stage of their homeward journey was made with less fatigue, if less rapidly. The first good cooked dinner which they had eaten for several days was obtained on a log raft, with which they caught up as they went down the winding river. When they reached the village