Footnote 6:[ (return) ]
There were many prominent Americans in the Black Hawk War, with some of whom Lincoln became acquainted. Among the best known were General Robert Anderson; Colonel Zachary Taylor; General Scott, afterwards candidate for President, and Lieut.-General; Henry Dodge, Governor of the Territory of Wisconsin and United States Senator; Hon. William L.D. Ewing and Hon. Sidney Breese, both United States Senators from Illinois; William S. Hamilton, a son of Alexander Hamilton; Colonel Nathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone; Lieutenant Albert Sydney Johnston, afterwards a Confederate general. Jefferson Davis was not in the war, as has been so often stated.]
Footnote 7:[ (return) ]
In the New Salem precinct, at the August election of 1832, exactly three hundred votes were cast. Of these Lincoln received 277. The facts upon this point are here stated for the first time. The biographers as a rule have agreed that Lincoln received all of the votes cast in the New Salem precinct except three. Mr. Herndon places the total vote at 208; Nicolay and Hay, at 277; and Mr. Lincoln himself, in his autobiography, has said that he received all but seven of a total of 277 votes, basing his statement, no doubt, upon memory. An examination of the official poll-book in the County Clerk's office at Springfield shows that all of these figures are erroneous. The fact remains, however—and it is a fact which has been commented upon by several of the biographers as showing his phenomenal popularity—that the vote for Lincoln was far in excess of that given any other candidate. The twelve candidates, with the number of votes of each were: Abraham Lincoln, 277; John T. Stewart, 182; William Carpenter, 136; John Dawson, 105; E.D. Taylor, 88; Archer G. Herndon, 84; Peter Cartwright, 62; Achilles Morris, 27; Thomas M. Neal, 21; Edward Robeson, 15; Zachariah Peters, 4; Richard Dunston, 4.
Of the twenty-three who did not vote for Lincoln, ten refrained from voting for Representative at all, thus leaving only thirteen votes actually cast against Lincoln. Lincoln is not recorded as voting. The judges were Bowling Green, Pollard Simmons, and William Clary, and the clerks were John Ritter and Mentor Graham.—J. McCan Davis.
EUGENE FIELD TELLING A STORY TO "SISSY" KNOTT AND 'LISBETH AND MARTHA WINSLOW.
EUGENE FIELD AND HIS CHILD FRIENDS.[8]
By Cleveland Moffett.
The form of the expressions of regard and regret called out on all sides by the untimely death of Eugene Field, at his home in Chicago, on November 4, 1895, makes clear that the character in which the public at large knew and loved Mr. Field best was that of the poet of child life. What gives his child-poems their unequalled hold on the popular heart is their simplicity, warmth, and genuineness; and these qualities they owe to the fact that Field himself lived in the closest and fondest intimacy with children, had troops of them for his friends, and wrote his poems directly under their suggestion and inspiration. Mr. T.A. Van Laun of Chicago, who was one of Mr. Field's closest friends, has kindly given me many reminiscences, and helped me to much material, illustrating all sides of Mr. Field's life, among others this fine relation with the children. A characteristic incident occurred on Field's marriage day. The hour of the ceremony was all but at hand, and the bridal party was waiting at the church for the bridegroom to appear. But he did not come; and, after an anxious delay, some of his friends went in search of him. They found him a short distance away, engaged in settling a dispute that had arisen among some street gamins over a game of marbles. There he was, down on his knees in the mud, listening to the various accounts of the origin of the quarrel; and it was only on the arrival of his friends that he suddenly recollected his more pressing and more pleasant duties.
One day, as was often happening, Field received a letter written in the scrawling hand of a child, which told him how the writer, a little girl, had read most of his poems, spoke of the pleasure they had given her, and said that when she grew up she intended to be just such a writer as he was. Following his usual kindly custom, Field answered this letter, telling the child of the beauties of nature that surrounded him, of the twittering birds, and the lovely flowers he had in sight from his window, and concluding: "Now I must go out and shoot a buffalo for breakfast."