"How beautiful to see
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed. Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, Not lured by any cheat of birth,
But by his clear-grained human worth, And brave old wisdom of sincerity! They knew that outward grace is dust; They could not choose but trust
In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, And supple-tempered will
That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust.
His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind, Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars,
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind; Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, Fruitful and friendly for all human kind,
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars.
"Great captains, with their guns and drums,
Disturb our judgment for the hour,
But at last silence comes;
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, Our children shall behold his fame,
The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New birth of our new soil, the first American." JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
FROM AN UNPUBLISHED ORIGINAL DRAWING BY JOHN NELSON MARBLE
THE EVERY-DAY LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
A NARRATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE BIOGRAPHY WITH PEN-PICTURES AND PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM
BY FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE
Compiler of "Golden Poems," "Bugle Echoes, Pose of the Civil War," "Laurel-Crowned Verse," etc. NEW AND THOROUGHLY REVISED EDITION, FROM NEW PLATES, WITH AN ENTIRELY NEW PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN, FROM A CHARCOAL STUDY BY J.K. MARBLE CHICAGO BROWNE & HOWELL COMPANY 1913 vFRANCIS FISHER BROWNE 1843-1913 1 The present revision of "The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln" was the last literary labor of its author. He had long wished to undertake the work, and had talked much of it for several years past. But favorable arrangements for the book's republication were not completed until about a year ago. Then, though by no means recovered from an attack of pneumonia late in the previous winter, he took up the task of revision and recasting with something of his old-time energy. It was a far heavier task than he had anticipated, but he gave it practically his undivided attention until within three or four weeks of his death. Only when the last pages of manuscript had been despatched to the printer did he yield to the overwhelming physical suffering that had been upon him for a long time past. His death occurred at Santa Barbara, California, on May 11. Francis Fisher Browne was born at South Halifax, Vermont, on December 1, 1843. His parentage, on both sides, was of the purest New England stock. Early in his childhood, the family moved to Western Massachusetts, where the boy went to school and learned the printing trade in his father's newspaper office at Chicopee. As a lad of eighteen, he left the high school in answer to the government's call for volunteers, serving for a year with the 46th Massachusetts Regiment in North Carolina and with the Army of the Potomac. When the regiment was discharged, in 1863, he decided to take up the study of vilaw. Removing to Rochester, N.Y., he entered a law office in that city; and a year or two later began a brief course in the law department of the University of Michigan. He was unable to continue in college, however, and returned to Rochester to follow his trade. Immediately after his marriage, in 1867, he came to Chicago, with the definite intention of engaging in literary work. Here he became associated with "The Western Monthly," which, with the fuller establishment of his control, he rechristened "The Lakeside Monthly." The best writers throughout the West were gradually enlisted as contributors; and it was not long before the magazine was generally recognized as the most creditable and promising periodical west of the Atlantic seaboard. But along with this increasing prestige came a series of extraneous setbacks and calamities, culminating in a complete physical breakdown of its editor and owner, which made the magazine's suspension imperative. FRANCIS F. BROWNE The six years immediately following, from 1874 to 1880, were largely spent in a search for health. During part of this time, however, Mr. Browne acted as literary editor of "The Alliance," and as special editorial writer for some of the leading Chicago newspapers. But his mind was preoccupied with plans for a new periodical--this time a journal of literary criticism, modeled somewhat after such English publications as "The Athenaeum" and "The Academy." In the furtherance of this bold conception he was able to interest the publishing firm of Jansen, McClurg & Co.; and under their imprint, in May, 1880, appeared the first issue of THE DIAL, "a monthly review and index of current literature." At about the same time he became literary adviser to the publishing department of the house, and for twelve years thereafter toiled unremittingly at his double task-work. In 1892, negotiations were completed whereby he acquired Messrs. McClurg & Co.'s interest in the periodical. It was enlarged in vii scope, and made a semi-monthly; and from that time until his death it appeared uninterruptedly under his guidance and his control. Besides his writings in THE DIAL and other periodicals, Mr. Browne is the author of a small volume of poems, "Volunteer Grain" (1895). He also compiled and edited several anthologies,--"Bugle Echoes," a collection of Civil War poems (1886); "Golden Poems by British and American Authors" (1881); "The Golden Treasury of Poetry and Prose" (1883); and seven volumes of "Laurel-Crowned Verse" (1891-2). He was one of the small group of men who, in 1874, founded the Chicago Literary Club; and for a num-ber of years past he has been an honorary member of that organization, as well as of the Caxton Club (Chicago) and the Twilight Club (Pasadena, Cal.). During the summer of 1893 he served as Chairman of the Committee on the Congress of Authors of the World's Congress Auxiliary of the Columbian Exposition. THE PUBLISHERS ix PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The original edition of this book was published about twenty years after Lincoln's death at the close of the Civil War. At that time many of the men who had taken a prominent part in the affairs, military and civil, of that heroic period, many who had known Lincoln and had come in personal contact with him during the war or in his earlier years, were still living. It was a vivid conception of the value of the personal recollections of these men, gathered and recorded before it was too late, that led to the preparation of this book. It was intended to be, and in effect it was, largely an anecdotal Life of Lincoln built of material gathered from men still living who had known him personally. The task was begun none too soon. Of the hundreds who responded to the requests for contributions of their memories of Lincoln there were few whose lives extended very far into the second quarter-century after his death, and few indeed survive after the lapse of nearly fifty years,--though in several instances the author has been so fortunate as to get 2 valuable material directly from persons still living (1913). Of the more than five hundred friends and contemporaries of Lincoln to whom credit for material is given in the original edition, scarcely a dozen are living at the date of this second edition. Therefore, the value of these reminiscences increases with time. They were gathered largely at first hand. They can never be replaced, nor can they ever be very much extended. This book brings Lincoln the man, not Lincoln the tradition, very near to us. Browning asked, "And did x you once see Shelley plain? And did he stop and speak to you?" The men whose narratives make up a large part of this book all saw Lincoln plain, and here tell us what he spoke to them, and how he looked and seemed while saying it. The great events of Lincoln's life, and impressions of his character, are given in the actual words of those who knew him--his friends, neighbors, and daily associates--rather than condensed and remolded into other form. While these utterances are in some cases rude and unstudied, they have often a power of delineation and a graphic force that more than compensate for any lack of literary quality. In a work prepared on such a plan as this, some repetitions are unavoidable; nor are they undesirable. An event or incident narrated by different observers is thereby brought out with greater fulness of detail; and phases of Lincoln's many-sided character are revealed more clearly by the varied impressions of numerous witnesses whose accounts thus correct or verify each other. Some inconsistencies and contradictions are inevitable,--but these relate usually to minor matters, seldom or never to the great essentials of Lincoln's life and personality. The author's desire is to present material from which the reader may form an opinion of Lincoln, rather than to present opinions and judgments of his own. Lincoln literature has increased amazingly in the past twenty-five years. Mention of the principal biographies in existence at the time of the original