weather and floating ice, was faithfully recorded,
until at last the party with long-handled axes went
down to Beardstown to welcome her. It is needless
to state that Lincoln was one of the party. His
standing as a scientific citizen of New Salem would
have been enough to insure his selection even if he
had not been known as a bold navigator. He piloted
the Talisman safely through the windings of
the Sangamon, and Springfield gave itself up to extravagant
gayety on the event that proved she “could no
longer be considered an inland town.” Captain
Bogue announced “fresh and seasonable goods just
received per steamboat Talisman,” and
the local poets illuminated the columns of the “Journal”
with odes on her advent. The joy was short-lived.
The Talisman met the natural fate of steamboats
a few months later, being burned at the St. Louis
wharf. Neither State nor nation has ever removed
the snags from the Sangamon, and no subsequent navigator
of its waters has been found to eclipse the fame of
the earliest one.
CHAPTER V
LINCOLN IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR
[Sidenote: 1832.]
A new period in the life of Lincoln begins with the
summer of 1832. He then obtained his first public
recognition, and entered upon the course of life which
was to lead him to a position of prominence and great
usefulness.
The business of Offutt had gone to pieces, and his
clerk was out of employment, when Governor Reynolds
issued his call for volunteers to move the tribe of
Black Hawk across the Mississippi. For several
years the raids of the old Sac chieftain upon that
portion of his patrimony which he had ceded to the
United States had kept the settlers in the neighborhood
of Rock Island in terror, and menaced the peace of
the frontier. In the spring of 1831 he came over
to the east side of the river with a considerable
band of warriors, having been encouraged by secret
promises of cooperation from several other tribes.
These failed him, however, when the time of trial
arrived, and an improvised force of State volunteers,
assisted by General E. P. Gaines and his detachment,
had little difficulty in compelling the Indians to
re-cross the Mississippi, and to enter into a solemn
treaty on the 30th of June by which the former treaties
were ratified and Black Hawk and his leading warriors
bound themselves never again to set foot on the east
side of the river, without express permission from
the President or the Governor of Illinois.
[Sidenote: Reynolds, “Life and Times,”
p. 325.]
[Sidenote: Ford, “History of Illinois,”
p. 110.]
Copyrights
Abraham Lincoln: a History — Volume 01 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
