"Me good Injun," he kept saying, "white war chief say me good Injun. Look—talking paper—see!"
"Get out! It's a forgery! Shoot him! String him up!" shouted the soldiers angrily.
This noise brought Captain Lincoln out of his tent. At a glance he saw what they were about to do. He jumped in among them, shouting indignantly:
"Stand back, all of you! For shame! I'll fight you all, one after the other, just as you come. Take it out on me if you can, but you shan't hurt this poor old Indian. When a man comes to me for help, he's going to get it, if I have to lick all Sangamon County to give it to him."
The three months for which the men were enlisted soon expired, and Lincoln's captaincy also ended. But he re-enlisted as a private, and remained in the ranks until the end of the war, which found him in Wisconsin, hundreds of miles from New Salem. He and a few companions walked home, as there were not many horses to be had. Lincoln enlivened the long tramp with his fund of stories and jokes.
It is sometimes asserted that Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis met at this early day, as officers in the Black Hawk War, but this statement is not founded on fact, for young Lieutenant Davis was absent on a furlough and could not have encountered the tall captain from the Sangamon then, as many would like to believe.
Lincoln always referred to the Black Hawk War as a humorous adventure. He made a funny speech in Congress describing some of his experiences in this campaign in which he did not take part in a battle, nor did he even catch sight of a hostile Indian.
AGAIN A RIVER PILOT
Abe was still out of work. Just before he enlisted he piloted the Talisman, a steamboat which had come up the Sangamon on a trial trip, in which the speed of the boat averaged four miles an hour. At that time the wildest excitement prevailed. The coming of the Talisman up their little river was hailed with grand demonstrations and much speech-making. Every one expected the Government to spend millions of dollars to make the Sangamon navigable, and even New Salem (which is not now to be found on the map) was to become a flourishing city, in the hopeful imaginings of its few inhabitants. Lincoln, being a candidate, naturally "took the fever," and shared the delirium that prevailed. He could hardly have done otherwise, even if he had been so disposed. This was before the days of railroads, and the commerce and prosperity of the country depended on making the smaller streams navigable. Lincoln received forty dollars, however, for his services as pilot. The Talisman, instead of establishing a river connection with the Mississippi River cities, never came back. She was burned at the wharf in St. Louis, and the navigation of the poor little Sangamon, which was only a shallow creek, was soon forgotten.
LINCOLN'S ONLY DEFEAT BY A DIRECT VOTE