Counties.

Counties.   Buchanan.    Fremont.    Fillmore. 
Bond ............ 607      153      659
Madison ......... 1451     1111     1658
Montgomery ...... 992      162      686
——­     ——­     ——­
3050     1426     3003

By this you will see, if you go through the calculation, that if they get one quarter of the Fillmore votes, and you three quarters, they will beat you 125 votes.  If they get one fifth, and you four fifths, you beat them 179.  In Madison, alone, if our friends get 1000 of the Fillmore votes, and their opponents the remainder, 658, we win by just two votes.

This shows the whole field, on the basis of the election of 1856.

Whether, since then, any Buchanan, or Fremonters, have shifted ground, and how the majority of new votes will go, you can judge better than I.

Of course you, on the ground, can better determine your line of tactics than any one off the ground; but it behooves you to be wide awake and actively working.

Don’t neglect it; and write me at your first leisure.  Yours as ever,

A. Lincoln.

TO JOHN MATHERS, JACKSONVILLE, ILL.

Springfield, July 20, 1858.

JNO.  Mathers, Esq.

My dear sir:—­Your kind and interesting letter of the 19th was duly received.  Your suggestions as to placing one’s self on the offensive rather than the defensive are certainly correct.  That is a point which I shall not disregard.  I spoke here on Saturday night.  The speech, not very well reported, appears in the State journal of this morning.  You doubtless will see it; and I hope that you will perceive in it that I am already improving.  I would mail you a copy now, but have not one [at] hand.  I thank you for your letter and shall be pleased to hear from you again.

Yours very truly,

A. Lincoln.

TO JOSEPH GILLESPIE.

Springfield, July 25, 1858.

Hon.  J. Gillespie.

My dear sir:—­Your doleful letter of the 8th was received on my return from Chicago last night.  I do hope you are worse scared than hurt, though you ought to know best.  We must not lose the district.  We must make a job of it, and save it.  Lay hold of the proper agencies, and secure all the Americans you can, at once.  I do hope, on closer inspection, you will find they are not half gone.  Make a little test.  Run down one of the poll-books of the Edwardsville precinct, and take the first hundred known American names.  Then quietly ascertain how many of them are actually going for Douglas.  I think you will find less than fifty.  But even if you find fifty, make sure of the other fifty, that is, make sure of all you can, at all events.  We will set other agencies to work which shall compensate for the loss of a good many Americans.  Don’t fail to check the stampede at once.  Trumbull, I think, will be with you before long.