My Dear Friend: Being recently in New York City on business, and finding myself one day in the neighborhood of General Anderson’s residence, it occurred to me to call, and, partly on your account and partly on my own, make his acquaintance. I did so, and as soon as I told the General that I had lived eight years in Dixon, and I mentioned your name, he expressed himself greatly pleased to see me. He entered immediatly upon a minute and interesting detail of his experiences in Illinois and confirmed the statement which I had heard from you of his meeting Davis and Lincoln at your house at “Dixon’s Ferry.” He was very glad to hear that you were living and inquired affectionately after your health and the condition of your family. He seemed distressed to learn of your bereavements, and showed himself a man of true feeling.
He is, as you know, very much broken down in health. * * *
On parting from him the General says: “Tell my old friend, Mr. Dixon, that I shall probably not see him in this life again, but I hope to meet him in Heaven.” * * *
Yours truly,
W.W. Harsha.
To John Dixon, Dixon, Illinois.
Isaac N. Arnold, Lincoln’s friend and biographer, specifically recalls a conversation with Lincoln, wherein the latter remembers and mentions the presence of Mr. Davis in that campaign.
Ben Perley Poore frequently heard Lincoln tell of Davis’ presence in that campaign, and he has particularly told us so on page 218 of “Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln.”
After leaving Dixon’s Ferry to march up the left bank of Rock River, the route became one of privation and hardship, particularly after reaching the bogs and swamps about Lake Koshkonong, where men fell ill by the score, and where others became so exhausted that they were sent back to the Ferry, to be later discharged. In many cases, detachments sent out among the swamps to chase the phantom Indian or guard some particular settlement against apprehended attack had nothing but pickled pork and a course dough for subsistence. The rains made the streams impassable, and many times, as at the Wisconsin, just before the battle of that name, the entire army, after making wearisome forced marches without sleep, were compelled to remain standing all night long before the battle, in a drenching rain, awaiting the hour in the morning when the attack might be made. Thus, day after day, the troops marched in clothing soaked with water, many falling by the wayside, to be carried to the rude hospitals improvised for the occasion, and even so rugged and powerful a man as General Henry, who won both the battle of the Wisconsin and the Bad Axe, sickened and died from the exposures of that campaign.[[298]]
Through all these vicissitudes Davis and Anderson and Johnston and Eaton were cheerful and buoyed up the men with encouraging words until back once more at Fort Crawford, where a more fearful enemy than exposure was met–the Asiatic cholera. Anderson and Johnston were stricken and suffered a long time the frightful agonies of that dread disease. There at his old and familiar quarters, Lieutenant Davis performed the duty demanded of him, of formally reporting himself back with his regiment for duty, August 16th, 1832.