68 "of woman's happiness": Herndon's Lincoln, 1:148; WHH, interview with Johnson G. Green, [1866], Lamon MSS.

68 "or forty years": CW, 1:117118. Lincoln was probably referring to his stepmother, Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln, not to Nancy Hanks Lincoln, of whose appearance he could have had only a vague memory since she died when he was nine years old.

68 "so dry and stupid": CW, 1:55.

69 "you now immagine": CW, 1:78.

69 "to your happiness": CW, 1:9495.

69 "to have me": CW, 1:118119.

69 "in my life": CW, 1:78.

69 his close companion: The only biography, which includes the Lincoln-Speed correspondence, is Robert L Kincaid. Joshua Fry Speed: Lincoln's Most Intimate Friend (Harrogate, Tenn.: Lincoln Memorial University, 1943).

70 above Speed's store: See the sensible comment on this point in Charles B. Strozier, Lincoln's Quest for Union: Public and Private Meanings (New York: Basic Books, 1982), p. 43.

70 all other subjects: Herndon's Lincoln, 1:187189.

71 "for a desk": Ibid., p. 148.

71 Justice Clemment's hearing: Stuart & Lincoln Fee Book, ISHL.

71 over land and timber: Robert Davidson v. lsham Reavis, Morgan County Circuit Court, July 1836, photostat, Lincoln Legal Papers.

71 procedures of litigation: The following paragraphs lean heavily on an illuminating unpublished study, "The Common-Law Forms of Action and Rules of Pleading in Lincoln's Illinois," by Eric T. Freyfogle (1991). See also Abraham Caruthers, History of a Lawsuit; or a Treatise on the Practice in Suits and Proceedings of Every Description (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1866).

72 "the said plaintiffs....".: Atwood & Co. v. Shinn & Vittum, Fulton County Circuit Court, May 1838, photostat, Lincoln Legal Papers.

73 of the agreement: Rufus R. Wilson, ed., Uncollected Works of Abraham Lincoln (Elmira, N.Y.: Primavera Press, 1947), 1:147148, 150152.

73 also surpa.s.sed them: Beveridge, l:211212n. For slightly different figures, see Duff, A. Lincoln: Prairie Lawyer, p. 46.

73 central Illinois counties: These and numerous other engagements are recorded in Day by Day, vol. I. See also Paul M. Angle, "Abraham Lincoln: Circuit Lawyer," Lincoln Centennial Papers, 1928 (Springfield, III.: Lincoln Centennial a.s.sociation, 1928), pp. 1941.

73 a fee book: Stuart & Lincoln Fee Book, ISHL.

73 "hawk billed yankee": CW, 1:158159.

74 six hundred acres: Kent L. Walgren, "James Adams: Early Springfield Mormon and Freemason," JISHS 75 (1982): 121136, and Wayne C. Temple, "An Aftermath of 'Sampson's Ghost': A New Lincoln Doc.u.ment," LH 91 (Summer 1989): 4248.

74 "Sampson's Ghost": For these letters, see Wilson, Uncollected Works, 1:153161. The editors of the Collected Works excluded these letters because "internal evidence... does not determine Lincoln's handiwork." CW, 1:89n.

75 "all his slanderers": CW, 1:105106.

75 "nothing but lice": CW, 1:244.

75 to a duel: Usher F. Linder, Reminiscences of the Early Bench and Bar of Illinois (Chicago: Chicago Legal News Co., 1879), pp. 6263.