XXI.
JOHN A. LOGAN.
IT was on the 9th of February, 1826, that John A. Logan was born, at Murphysborough, Ill., a little town among the hills that hem in the Mississippi River. He was the eldest of eleven children.
His father was a physician, and came to America from Ireland three years before, while his mother, Elizabeth Jenkins, was from a family that lived in Tennessee.
He grew up, strong and powerful in youth, amid the exciting scenes of purely western life. It was a life that appealed to courage, placed a premium upon all of manly energy and exertion, and infused into him, with every breath, that best of robust health which, like bank-stock drawing a high rate of interest, has met every demand made upon it for over half a century.
His advantages of education in early youth were of a slender character, except as he derived instruction from the teaching of his father and at his mother’s knee; for no regular schools existed in the settlement, except at a log school-house, where an itinerant teacher presided, under whose tuition only the quickest and aptest boy or girl would make advancement.
One who knows him well says that when eighteen years old he was sent to the nearest school, called Shiloh Academy, under the jurisdiction of the Methodist Church, and graduated from it into the Mexican war. He had breathed an atmosphere of war from childhood. In his youth the stories of the war of 1812 and of the Revolution were fresh in the memories and constantly in the mouths of those about him, many of whom had been actual participants. The Seminole and Black-Hawk wars had occurred in his youth, and personal acquaintance with many who had participated in them kindled in him the glow and fervor of adventure. He enlisted in the First Illinois Regiment, and went to Mexico.
Though among the youngest of the men, he came at once into prominence by his energy and bearing, and the quick activity of his mind, and the great fearlessness with which he occupied and held each post of danger to which he was assigned.
There was about him such an utter abandonment to the work of battle, that his strong marks of leadership were quickly recognized, and he was made lieutenant, then adjutant, and finally quartermaster, a position of grave responsibility in the enemy’s country.
After the war he studies at college, and then reads law with his uncle, Alexander M. Jenkins, who was a great man in southern Illinois. He had at one time been lieutenant-governor of the state, and was a Jacksonian Democrat.