34 "fairer before me": Carpenter, Six Months, pp. 9798.

34 "'weighed anchor and left": CW, 4: 62.

35 "felt miffed-insulted": William Wood, statement to WHH, Sept. 15, 1865, HWC.

35 "The Chronicles of Reuben": Herndon's Lincoln, 1:4548, gives a detailed account. Howard M. Feinstein, "The Chronicles of Reuben: A Psychological Test of Authenticity," American Quarterly 18 (Winter 1966): 637654, makes a striking case for Lincoln's authorship.

35 at the match: HL, pp. 286287.

35 "than Watts hymns": William Wood, statement to WHH, Sept. 15, 1865, HWC.

35 "want a start": Ibid.

36 "and saved him": Peter Smith to J. Warren Keifer, July 17, 1860, MS in private hands (copy through the courtesy of Glenn L. Carle).

36 as an elector: CW, 1:2.

37 future of Illinois: Howells, Life of Abraham Lincoln, p. 28; Jane Martin Johns, Personal Recollections of Early Decatur, Abraham Lincoln, Richard J. Oglesby and the Civil War, ed. Howard C. Schaub (Decatur, 111.: Decatur Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution, 1912), pp. 6061.

37 another Thomas Lincoln: This interpretation is similar to that offered by Jean H. Baker, in "Not Much of Me": Abraham Lincoln as a Typical American (Fort Wayne, Ind.: Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum, 1988), from which I have learned much.

CHAPTER TWO: A PIECE OF FLOATING DRIFTWOOD

The basic source for Lincoln's New Salem years is William H. Herndon's collection of letters and statements by Lincoln's friends and a.s.sociates, mostly written shortly after the President's death. The originals are in the Herndon-Weik Collection of the Library of Congress, and copies are in the Herndon-Lamon MSS at the Huntington Library. Ward Hill Lamon, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1872), was the first biography to draw on this material, but the most frequently used secondary account is William H. Herndon and Jesse E. Weik, Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life (Chicago: Belford-Clarke Co., 1890). Because all subsequent accounts necessarily have drawn on Herndon and his sources, there is inevitably a considerable amount of repet.i.tion in the biographies, the best of which for this period is Albert J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln, 18091858 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1928).

In addition to the Herndon-Weik Collection, this chapter rests heavily on several excellent secondary works. Benjamin P. Thomas, Lincoln's New Salem (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1954), is an indispensable study, both charming and informative. It can be supplemented at points by John Mack Faragher, Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986), a model study of another community in the Sangamon valley, some forty miles from New Salem. William E. Baringer, Lincoln's Vandalia: A Pioneer Portrait (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1949), offers a vigorous, entertaining account of life in the state capital. The authoritative work on Lincoln's years in the legislature is Paul Simon, Lincoln's Preparation for Greatness: The Illinois Legislative Years (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971).

38 "of floating driftwood": Herndon's Lincoln, 1:79.

39 "on the boat": Day by Day, 1:14.

39 "were, by himself": CW, 4:64.

39 was perfectly suited: See, in addition to Benjamin P. Thomas's admirable Lincoln's New Salem, Thomas P. Reep, Lincoln at New Salem (Petersburg, Ill.: Old Salem Lincoln League, 1927).

39 "done with the Bible": Herndon's Lincoln, 1:7980.

40 "of Genl Washington": A. Y. Ellis, undated statement to WHH, HWC.

40 no special point: See Benjamin P. Thomas, "Lincoln's Humor: An a.n.a.lysis," Abraham Lincoln a.s.sociation Papers, 1935 (Springfield, III.: Abraham Lincoln a.s.sociation, 1936), pp. 6183.

40 "to take part": Robert L. Wilson to WHH, Feb. 10, 1866, HWC.

40 and the invalid: Herndon's Lincoln, 1:82.

40 "wooling and pulling": Henry McHenry, statement to WHH, Oct. 10, 1866, HWC.

41 "all were amazed": HL, p. 314.