"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether this is true or not, I can say for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed. I am young and unknown to many of you. I was born, and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of the country; and, if elected, they will have conferred a favor on me for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate. But if the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined."
"CAPTAIN LINCOLN"
Lincoln had hardly launched in his first political venture when, in April, 1832, a messenger arrived in New Salem with the announcement from Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, that the Sacs and other hostile tribes, led by Black Hawk, had invaded the northern part of the State, spreading terror among the white settlers in that region. The governor called upon those who were willing to help in driving back the Indians to report at Beardstown, on the Illinois River, within a week.
Lincoln and other Sangamon County men went at once to Richmond where a company was formed. The principal candidate for captain was a man named Kirkpatrick, who had treated Lincoln shabbily when Abe, in one of the odd jobs he had done in that region, worked in Kirkpatrick's sawmill. The employer had agreed to buy his hired man a cant-hook for handling the heavy logs. As there was a delay in doing this, Lincoln told him he would handle the logs without the cant-hook if Kirkpatrick would pay him the two dollars that implement would cost. The employer promised to do this, but never gave him the money.
So when Lincoln saw that Kirkpatrick was a candidate for the captaincy, he said to Greene, who had worked with him in Offutt's store:
"Bill, I believe I can make Kirkpatrick pay me that two dollars he owes me on the cant-hook now. I guess I'll run against him for captain."
Therefore Abe Lincoln announced himself as a candidate. The vote was taken in an odd way. It was announced that when the men heard the command to march, each should go and stand by the man he wished to have for captain. The command was given. At the word, "March," three-fourths of the company rallied round Abe Lincoln. More than twenty-five years afterward, when Lincoln was a candidate for the presidency of the United States, he referred to himself in the third person in describing this incident, saying that he was elected "to his own surprise," and "he says he has not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction."
IGNORANCE OF MILITARY TACTICS
But Lincoln was a "raw hand" at military tactics. He used to enjoy telling of his ignorance and the expedients adopted in giving his commands to the company. Once when he was marching, twenty men abreast, across a field it became necessary to pass through a narrow gateway into the next field. He said:
"I could not, for the life of me, remember the word for getting the company endwise so that it could go 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 fence.'"