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Letter to William Herndon (July 10, 1848)
Washington, July 10, 1848
Dear William:
Your letter covering the newspaper slips, was received last night. The subject of that letter is exceedingly painful to me; and I can not but think there is some mistake in your impression of the motives of the old men. I suppose I am now one of the old men—and I declare on my veracity, which I think is good with you, that nothing could afford me more satisfaction than to learn that you and others of my young friends at home, were doing battle in the contest, and endearing themselves to the people, and taking a stand far above any I have ever been able to reach, in their admiration. I can not conceive that other old men feel differently. Of course I can not demonstrate what I say; but I was young once, and I am sure I was never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly know what to say. The way for a young man to rise, is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that any body wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you, that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if this feeling has not injured every person you have ever known to fall into it.
Now, in what I have said, I am sure you will suspect nothing but sincere friendship. I would save you from a fatal error. You have been a laborious, studious young man. You are far better informed on almost all subjects than I have ever been. You can not fail in any laudable object, unless you allow your mind to be improperly directed. I have some the advantage of you in the world’s experience, merely by being older; and it is this that induces me to advise….
Your friend, as ever
A. LINCOLN
Letter to John Johnston (December 24, 1848)
Washington, December 24, 1848
Dear Johnston:
Your request for eighty dollars, I do not think it best, to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little, you have said to me “We can get along very well now” but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether since I saw you, you have done a good whole day’s work in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work; and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of uselessly wasting time, is the whole difficulty; and it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children that you should break this habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it; easier than they can get out after they are in.
You are now in need of some ready money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, “tooth and nails” for some body who will give you money [for] it. Let father and your boys take charge of things at home-prepare for a crop, and make the crop; and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get. And to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of next May, get for your own labor, either in money, or in your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire yourself at ten dolla[rs] a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this, I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines, in Calif[ornia,] but I [mean for you to go at it for the best wages you] can get close to home [in] Coles county. Now if you will do this, you will soon be out of debt, and what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But if I should now clear you out, next year you will be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in Heaven for $70 or $80. Then you value your place in Heaven very cheaply for I am sure you can with the offer I make you get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months work. You say if I furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and, if you dont pay the money back, you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you cant now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have always been [kind] to me, and I do not now mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eight times eighty dollars to you.
Affectionately Your brother
A. Lincoln.
In this simple letter, Lincoln reaches an altitude of tone which he will hardly transcend in the finest of his great political speeches. He says not a word which can affront the lazybones, who is a mar- ried man with a family ; nor does he adopt a paternal note (like that in the previous letter), in order to deliver a homily on the blessing of labor. When these two brothers talk about places in heaven, they do it in the spirit of farmers, and not in the vein of the pious.
Johnston is shrewd. He knows that Abraham Lincoln has a kindly heart. It will be all right to mortgage the land to brother Abraham, who will never claim the pledge. But at bottom, Lincoln is the shrewder of the two. Kind-hearted though he be, he does not pro- pose to go on throwing money into a yawning hole in the ground. Eighty dollars? Oh, yes, John Johnston shall have eighty dollars, but in the course of eight months, in which he must earn eighty for himself. Lincoln, wishing both to teach the other and to avoid promising too much, limits his offer as regards time, though not as regards amount. Herein we have Lincoln, the practical idealist, the philanthropist who wants to do his best for every one, but only on a realistic basis ; the man in whose temperament heart and brain exercise a joint control.
By Emil Ludwig,”Abraham Lincoln: And the Times that Tried His Soul” Ludwig-148-10
Read Grant
Persons acquainted with the Academy know that the corps of cadets is divided into four companies for the purpose of military exercises. These companies are officered from the cadets, the superintendent and commandant selecting the officers for their military bearing and qualifications. The adjutant, quartermaster, four captains and twelve lieutenants are taken from the first, or Senior class; the sergeants from the second, or Junior class; and the corporals from the third, or Sophomore class. I had not been “called out” as a corporal, but when I returned from furlough I found myself the last but one-about my standing in all the tactics-of eighteen sergeants. The promotion was too much for me. That year my standing in the class-as shown by the number of demerits of the year-was about the same as it was among the sergeants, and I was dropped, and served the fourth year as a private.
–The Autobiography of General Ulysses S Grant: Memoirs of the Civil War, by Ulysses S. Grant，Grant 2-11
Emil Ludwig
PREFACE
The art of portraying human characters cannot be achieved by merely studying historical documents: it is practiced and learned in a never-ending study of living men and women. But we want the inspiring light of a great character to make documents breathe with the vividness and veracity of to-day.
I am sure that my American friends are not expecting me to give them a new Lincoln, or to open up fresh and undiscovered material, but rather to present Lincoln in a new historical method.
Consequently, I have made no effort to cover the history of slavery and of the great Civil War, but only to paint a picture of Abraham Lincoln. Excepting the English, Europeans, even intelligent and scholarly men and women, know far less about American history than Americans about the story of Europe, so I consider it one of the happiest privileges of my career to be able to present this greatest of American characters to the Old World.
In the New World, a number of American specialists, particularly Miss Ida M. Tarbell and Mr. Frazier Hunt, have earned my thanks by their advice and cooperation. I have no doubt, however, that many of my American readers will find faults in my story, and I can only beg them to consider the portrait as a whole and not to be too critical of minute parts. Lincoln’s career, more than that of any other man in history, is so grandly conceived by Fate that the first act is illuminated by the last, and every scene is bound together by dramatic destiny.
I see him like one of Shakespeare’s characters, absolutely original, comparable to none, immemorably unique. He has fascinated me for years, and if some good may be found in this effort of mine, it has sprung from a personal sympathy which I have never felt so strongly for any other great man of history.
E. L.
By Emil Ludwig,”Abraham Lincoln: And the Times that Tried His Soul”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Badeau, Adam. Grant in Peace. Hartford, 1887.
Baker, Gen. La Fayette C. History of the United States Secret Service. L. C. Baker, Philadelphia, 1867.
Barton, William E. The Life of Abraham Lincoln. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1925.
Barton, William E. Lincoln at Gettysburg. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1930.
Barton, William E. The Women Lincoln Loved. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1927.
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. The Century Co., New York, 1887; 4 vols.
Beveridge, Albert J. Abraham Lincoln. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1928.
Browne, Francis F. The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln. Brown & Howell Company, Chicago, 1913.
Carpenter, F. B. Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln. Hurd & Houghton, New York, 1867.
Charnwood, Lord. Abraham Lincoln. Henry Holt & Company, New York, 1917.
Coggeshall, E. W. The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. W. M. Hill, Chicago, 1920.
Columbia Historical Society Records.
Dewitt, D. M. The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and Its Expiation. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1909.
Garland, Hamlin. Ulysses S. Grant, His Life and Character. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1898, 1920.
Grant, U. S. Personal Memoirs. The Century Co., New York, 1885, 1895; 2 vols.
Herndon, William H, and Weik, Jesse W. The History and Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln. The Herndon’s Lincoln Publishing Company, Springfield, Illinois, 1888; 3 vols.
Keckley, Elizabeth. Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House. G. W. Carleton & Co., New York, 1868.
Lamon, Ward H. Life of Abraham Lincoln. Boston, 1872.
Lamon, Ward H. Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, J 847-1 865.
Edited by Dorothy Lamon Teillard. Teillard, Washington, D. C, 1911.
Lewis, Lloyd. Myths after Lincoln. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1929.
Macartney, Clarence E. Lincoln and His Cabinet. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1931.
Macartney, Clarence E. Lincoln and His Generals. Dorrance and Company, Philadelphia, 1925.
Magazine of History.
Morrow, Honore Willsie. Mary Todd Lincoln, an Appreciation of the Wife of Abraham Lincoln. William Morrow & Company, New York, 1928.
Nicolay, Helen. Personal Traits of Abraham Lincoln. The Century Co., New York, 1919.
Nicolay, John G., and Hay, John. Abraham Lincoln: A History. The Century Co., New York, 1890; 12 vols.
Oldroyd, Osborn H. The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Oldroyd, Washington, D. C, 1901.
Power, John C. History of an Attempt to Steal the Body of Abraham Lincoln. H. W. Rokker Printing and Publishing House, Springfield, Illinois, 1890.
Rhodes, James Ford. History of the Civil War, 1861-1865. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1917.
Rothschild, Alonzo. Lincoln, Master of Men. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1912.
Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln, the Prairie Years. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1926.
Tarbell, Ida M. The Life of Abraham Lincoln. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1917.
Townsend, George A. The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth. Dick & Fitzgerald, New York, 1865.
Townsend, William H. Lincoln and His Wife’s Home Town. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1929.
Weik, Jesse W. The Real Lincoln. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1922.
Wilson, Francis. John Wilkes Booth; Fact and Fiction of Lincoln’s Assassination. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York.
Woodward, William E. Meet General Grant. Literary Guild of America, New York, 1928.
By Dale Carnegie，“Lincoln, the Unknown”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Badeau, Adam. Grant in Peace. Hartford, 1887.
Baker, Gen. La Fayette C. History of the United States Secret Service. L. C. Baker, Philadelphia, 1867.
Barton, William E. The Life of Abraham Lincoln. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1925.
Barton, William E. Lincoln at Gettysburg. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1930.
Barton, William E. The Women Lincoln Loved. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1927.
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. The Century Co., New York, 1887; 4 vols.
Beveridge, Albert J. Abraham Lincoln. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1928.
Browne, Francis F. The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln. Brown & Howell Company, Chicago, 1913.
Carpenter, F. B. Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln. Hurd & Houghton, New York, 1867.
Charnwood, Lord. Abraham Lincoln. Henry Holt & Company, New York, 1917.
Coggeshall, E. W. The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. W. M. Hill, Chicago, 1920.
Columbia Historical Society Records.
Dewitt, D. M. The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and Its Expiation. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1909.
Garland, Hamlin. Ulysses S. Grant, His Life and Character. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1898, 1920.
Grant, U. S. Personal Memoirs. The Century Co., New York, 1885, 1895; 2 vols.
Herndon, William H, and Weik, Jesse W. The History and Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln. The Herndon’s Lincoln Publishing Company, Springfield, Illinois, 1888; 3 vols.
Keckley, Elizabeth. Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House. G. W. Carleton & Co., New York, 1868.
Lamon, Ward H. Life of Abraham Lincoln. Boston, 1872.
Lamon, Ward H. Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, J 847-1 865.
Edited by Dorothy Lamon Teillard. Teillard, Washington, D. C, 1911.
Lewis, Lloyd. Myths after Lincoln. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1929.
Macartney, Clarence E. Lincoln and His Cabinet. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1931.
Macartney, Clarence E. Lincoln and His Generals. Dorrance and Company, Philadelphia, 1925.
Magazine of History.
Morrow, Honore Willsie. Mary Todd Lincoln, an Appreciation of the Wife of Abraham Lincoln. William Morrow & Company, New York, 1928.
Nicolay, Helen. Personal Traits of Abraham Lincoln. The Century Co., New York, 1919.
Nicolay, John G., and Hay, John. Abraham Lincoln: A History. The Century Co., New York, 1890; 12 vols.
Oldroyd, Osborn H. The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Oldroyd, Washington, D. C, 1901.
Power, John C. History of an Attempt to Steal the Body of Abraham Lincoln. H. W. Rokker Printing and Publishing House, Springfield, Illinois, 1890.
Rhodes, James Ford. History of the Civil War, 1861-1865. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1917.
Rothschild, Alonzo. Lincoln, Master of Men. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1912.
Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln, the Prairie Years. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1926.
Tarbell, Ida M. The Life of Abraham Lincoln. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1917.
Townsend, George A. The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth. Dick & Fitzgerald, New York, 1865.
Townsend, William H. Lincoln and His Wife’s Home Town. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1929.
Weik, Jesse W. The Real Lincoln. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1922.
Wilson, Francis. John Wilkes Booth; Fact and Fiction of Lincoln’s Assassination. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York.
Woodward, William E. Meet General Grant. Literary Guild of America, New York, 1928.
By Dale Carnegie，“Lincoln, the Unknown”
Dale Carnegie
HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN AND WHY
One spring day, some years ago, I was breakfasting in the Hotel Dysart, London; and, as usual, I was trying to winnow a bit of American news from the columns of the “Morning Post.” Ordinarily I found none, but on that fortunate morning I made a strike rich and unexpected.
The late T. P. O’Connor, reputed “Father of the House of Commons,” conducted in those days a column in the “Morning Post” entitled “Men and Memories.” On that particular morning, and for several mornings following, “Tay Pay’s” column was devoted to Abraham Lincoln not to his political activi- ties but to the personal side of his career: to his sorrows, his repeated failures, his poverty, his great love for Ann Rutledge, and his tragic marriage to Mary Todd. I read the series with profound interest-and surprise. I had spent the first twenty years of my life in the Middle West, not far from the Lincoln country; and, in addition to that, I had always been keenly interested in United States history. I should have said that of course I knew Lincoln’s life-story; but I soon discovered that I didn’t. The fact is that I, an American, had had to come to London and read a series of articles written by an Irishman, in an English newspaper, before I realized that the story of Lincoln’s career was one of the most fascinating tales in all the annals of mankind.
Was this lamentable ignorance peculiar to me? I wondered. But I didn’t wonder long, for I soon discussed the subject with a number of my fellow-countrymen, and I discovered that they were in the same boat, that about all they knew about Lincoln was this: that he had been born in a log cabin, had walked miles to borrow books and then read them at night, stretched out on the floor in front of the fireplace; that he split rails, be- came a lawyer, told funny stories, said that a man’s legs ought to be long enough to reach the ground, was called “Honest Abe,” debated with Judge Douglas, was elected President of the United States, wore a silk hat, freed the slaves, spoke at Gettysburg, declared that he wished he knew what brand of whisky Grant drank so he could send a barrel of it to his other generals, and was shot by Booth in a theater in Washington.
Aroused by these articles in the “Morning Post,”I went over to the British Museum library and read a number of Lincoln books; and the more I read, the more fascinated I became. Finally I caught on fire and I determined to write a book about Lincoln, myself. I knew that I had not the urge, temperament, training, or ability necessary to produce a learned treatise for the benefit of scholars and historians. Besides, I felt there was little need for another book of that kind, for many excellent ones are already in existence. However, after reading many Lincoln volumes, I did feel that there was a genuine need for a short biography that would tell the most interesting facts about his career briefly and tersely for the average busy and hurried citizen of today. I have tried to write such a book.
I began the work in Europe, and labored over it for a year there and then for two years in New York. Finally I tore up all that I had written and tossed it into the wastebasket. I then went out to Illinois, to write of Lincoln on the very ground where he himself had dreamed and toiled. For months I lived among people whose fathers had helped Lincoln survey land and build fences and drive hogs to market. For months I delved among old books and letters and speeches and half-forgotten newspapers and musty court records, trying to understand Lincoln. I spent one summer in the little town of Petersburg. I went there because it is only a mile away from the restored village of New Salem, where Lincoln spent the happiest and most formative years of his life. There he ran a mill and a grocery store, studied law, worked as a blacksmith, refereed cock-fights and horse-races, fell in love, and had his heart broken. Even in the heydey of its glory New Salem never had more than a hundred inhabitants, and its entire existence covered a span of about ten years. Shortly after Lincoln left the village it was abandoned; bats and swallows nested in the decaying cabins, and for more than half a century cows grazed over the spot. A few years ago, however, the State of Illinois secured the site, made it a public park, and built replicas of the log cabins that had stood there a hundred years before. So today the deserted village of New Salem looks much as it did in Lincoln’s tims. The same white oaks under which Lincoln studied and wrestled and made love are still standing. Every morning I used to take my typewriter and motor up there from Petersburg, and half of the chapters of this book were written under those trees. What a lovely spot in which to work! In front of me flowed the winding Sangamon, and all about me the woods and the hay-fields were musical with the call of the bob-white; and through the trees flashed the color of the blue jay, the yellowhammer, and the redbird. I felt Lincoln there. I often used to go there alone on summer nights when the whip-poor-wills were crying in the woods along the banks of the Sangamon, when the moonlight outlined Rutledge’s tavern against the sky; and it stirred me to realize that on just such nights, about a hundred years ago, young Abe Lincoln and Ann Rutledge had walked over this same ground arm in arm in the moonlight, listening to the night-birds and dreaming ec- static dreams that were destined never to come true. Yet I am convinced that Lincoln found here at New Salem the only su- preme happiness that he ever knew. When I came to write the chapter dealing with the death of Lincoln’s sweetheart, I put a little folding table and a typewriter in a car and drove out over country roads and through a hog lot and a cow pasture until I reached the quiet, secluded spot where Ann Rutledge lies buried. It is utterly abandoned now, and overgrown. To get near her grave, it was necessary to mow down the weeds and brush and vines. And there, where Lincoln came to weep, was set down the story of his grief. Many of the chapters were written in Springfield. Some in the sitting-room of the old home where Lincoln lived for sixteen unhappy years, some at the desk where he composed his first inaugural address, and others above the spot where he came to court and quarrel with Mary Todd.
By Dale Carnegie，“Lincoln, the Unknown”
This book truly is a testament to old-style writing, hard work, exceptional research, and a smooth writing style. While some might find the book too short, lacking in detail, or difficult to read because of the 1930’s writing, you will find the book enrapturing, well-researched, interesting, and a quick, enthralling read. Dale Carnegie knew his facts nearly impeccably, and he wrote a very informative story. For anyone interested in the life of Abraham Lincoln, this will provide you with an excellent sketch of most of the main details of his life, in an easy-to-read manner.
Copyright 1932
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adorers
Dale Carnegie
Emil Ludwig
Carl Sandburg
Benjamin P. Thomas
David Herbert Donald
Brian R. Dirck
Thomas Keneally
“If They Do Kill Me I Shall Never Die Again”
Before removing to the turmoil of Washington, Lincoln is drawn to the quiet places of his early youth. He rides about in that old country, meets the surviving members of the Hanks and Johnston families, orders the neglected grave of his father to be cared for.They laugh when they see him, recalling his funny stories; the graybeards remember the stalwart young fellow who drove oxen. Only his good stepmother is silent and at parting seems to have warned him of his enemies. Also old Hannah Armstrong. He reassured her with a jest, “Hannah, if they do kill me I shall never die again.”
Ludwig-244-06
“Act from a Favorite Child”
There was one night when Mr. Lincoln came alone, and invited me to sit for a while. After half an hour, Mr. Stanton, who had followed in pursuit, entered the box unannounced, and seated himself, giving me a glance that might have been construed as a suggestion that I was in the way. Mr. Lincoln introduced me to the Secretary, and after an interchange of courtesies, I was about to withdraw, when Mr. Lincoln asked me impressively to remain. Inferring that my presence might be useful to him, I sat slightly behind them and in the center, leaving the President in front nearest the stage, and the Secretary beside him and slightly to his left. Now this of itself would scarcely deserve chronicling, but the incident illustrates the masterful, somewhat aggressive methods of the Secretary, and the gracious, forbearing nature of the President, who, with ever polite tenacity, insisted on having hie own way .
Mr. Stanton immediately began a conversation in a low tone of voice, the nature of which I made it my business not to hear. Mr. Lincoln responded in a short sentence and let his eyes drift away to the stage. Mr, Stanton resumed in a longer statement. Mr. Lincoln turned quietly, nodded two or three times gently, and again his eyes sought the stage. This was repeated, Mr. Stanton’s speeches, always low, as both were in sight of the audience, growing in length, and Mr. Lincoln listening, nodding in an affable manner that said neither yes nor no, and then turning to the stage. This continued for some minutes until Mr. Lincoln’s nods grew more infrequent, till finally he would do the nodding while his face wae turned away, and he was apparently occupied with the performance. Then Mr. Stanton twice deliberately reached out, grasped Mr. Lincoln by the lapel of his coat, slowly pulled him round face to face, and continued the conversation. Mr. Lincoln responded to this brusque act with all the smiling geniality that one might bestow on a similar act from a favorite child, but soon again turned his eyes to the stage.
I had pushed myself a little to the rear, to indicate that I was not listening, and in fact, I don’t think I heard a word from first to last. I imagined that Mr. Stanton might be pursuing a subject that Mr. Lincoln had come away from the White House to avoid, and that Mr. Lincoln was not so much interested in the play, as desirous that Mr. Stanton should think he was.
Finally, impressed with the futility of his efforts, Mr.Stanton arose, said good-night and withdrew. Mr. Lincoln vouchsafed no explanatoin to me, but appeared to get much satisfaction out of the play.
Quoted in Leonard Grover,“Lincoln’s Interest in the Theater,” Century (1909), pp. 946, 944-45.