His friend Greene gave another reason than ambition to explain his desire for the captaincy. One of the “odd jobs” which Lincoln had taken since coming into Illinois was working in a saw-mill for a man named Kirkpatrick. In hiring Lincoln, Kirkpatrick had promised to buy him a cant-hook with which to move heavy logs. Lincoln had proposed, if Kirkpatrick would give him the two dollars which the cant-hook would cost, to move the logs with a common hand-spike. This the proprietor had agreed to, but when payday came he refused to keep his word. When the Sangamon company of volunteers was formed, Kirkpatrick aspired to the captaincy, and Lincoln, knowing it, said to Greene: “Bill, I believe I can now make Kirkpatrick pay that two dollars he owes me on the cant-hook. I’ll run against him for captain;” and he became a candidate. The vote was taken in a field, by directing the men at the command “march” to assemble around the one they wanted for captain. When the order was given, three-fourths of the men gathered around Lincoln.[[14]] In Lincoln’s curious third-person autobiography he says he was elected, “to his own surprise;” and adds, “He says he has not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction.”
The company was a motley crowd of men. Each had secured for his outfit what he could get, and no two were equipped alike. Buckskin breeches prevailed, and there was a sprinkling of coonskin caps. Each man had a blanket of the coarsest texture. Flint-lock rifles were the usual arms, though here and there a man had a Cramer. Over the shoulder of each was slung a powder-horn. The men had, as a rule, as little regard for discipline as for appearances, and when the new captain gave an order were as likely to jeer at it as to obey it. To drive the Indians out was their mission, and any orders which did not bear directly on that point were little respected. Lincoln himself was not familiar with military tactics, and made many blunders, of which he used to tell afterwards with relish. One of his early experiences in handling his company is particularly amusing. 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, “remember 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!’”
Nor was it only his ignorance of the manual which caused him trouble. He was so unfamiliar with camp discipline that he once had his sword taken from him for shooting within limits. Another disgrace he suffered was on account of his disorderly company. The men, unknown to him, stole a quantity of liquor one night, and the next morning were too drunk to fall in when the order was given to march. For their lawlessness Lincoln wore a wooden sword two days.
VIEW OF THE SANGAMON RIVER NEAR NEW SALEM.
The town lay along the ridge marked by the star.
But none of these small difficulties injured his standing with the company. Lincoln was tactful, and he joined his men in sports as well as duties. They soon grew so proud of his quick wit and great strength that they obeyed him because they admired him. No amount of military tactics could have secured from the volunteers the cheerful following he won by his personal qualities.
SITE OF DENTON OFFUTT’S STORE.
From a photograph taken for this work. The building in which Lincoln clerked for Denton Offutt was standing as late as 1836, and presumably stood until it rotted down. A slight depression in the earth, evidently once a cellar, is all that remains of Offutt’s store. Out of this hole in the ground have grown three trees, a locust, an elm, and a sycamore, seeming to spring from the same roots, and curiously twined together. High up on the sycamore some genius has chiselled the face of Lincoln.
