Table of Contents
- 0. Dedication
- 1. The Wild West
- 2. The Lincoln Family
- 3. Early Years
- 4. In Indiana
- 5. Second Journey to New Orl...
- 6. Desultory Employments
- 7. Entering Politics
- 8. Entering the Law
- 9. On the Circuit
- 10. Social Life and Marriage
- 11. The Encroachments of Slavery
- 12. The Awakening of the Lion
- 13. Two Things That Lincoln M...
- 14. The Birth of the Republic...
- 15. The Battle of the Giants
- 16. Growing Audacity of the S...
- 17. The Backwoodsman at the C...
- 18. The Nomination of 1860
- 19. The Election
- 20. Four Long Months
- 21. Journey to Washington
- 22. The Inauguration
- 23. Lincoln His Own President
- 24. Fort Sumter
- 25. The Outburst of Patriotism
- 26. The War Here to Stay
- 27. The Darkest Hour of the War
- 28. Lincoln and Fremont
- 29. Lincoln and McClellan
- 30. Lincoln and Greeley
- 31. Emancipation
- 32. Discouragements
- 33. New Hopes
- 34. Lincoln and Grant
- 35. Literary Characteristics
- 36. Second Election
- 37. Close of the War
- 38. Assassination
- 39. A Nation’s Sorrow
- 40. The Measure of a Man
- 41. Testimonies
Dedication
To my two older brothers, John Lewis Ketcham, and William Alexander Ketcham, who under Abraham Lincoln as Commander-in-Chief Loyally served their country in the war for the perpetuation of the Union and the destruction of slavery, this book is affectionately dedicated. Preface
The question will naturally be raised, Why should there be another Life of Lincoln? This may be met by a counter question, Will there ever be a time in the near future when there will not be another Life of Lincoln? There is always a new class of students and a new enrollment of citizens. Every year many thousands of young people pass from the Grammar to the High School grade of our public schools. Other thousands are growing up into manhood and womanhood. These are of a different constituency from their fathers and grandfathers who remember the civil war and were perhaps in it.
“To the younger generation,” writes Carl Schurz, “Abraham Lincoln has already become a half mythical figure, which, in the haze of historic distance, grows to more and more heroic proportions, but also loses in distinctness of outline and figure.” The last clause of this remark is painfully true. To the majority of people now living, his outline and figure are dim and vague. There are to-day professors and presidents of colleges, legislators of prominence, lawyers and judges, literary men, and successful business men, to whom Lincoln is a tradition. It cannot be expected that a person born after the year (say) 1855, could remember Lincoln more than as a name. Such an one’s ideas are made up not from his remembrance and appreciation of events as they occurred, but from what he has read and heard about them in subsequent years.
The great mine of information concerning the facts of Lincoln’s life is, and probably will always be, the History by his secretaries, Nicolay and Hay. This is worthily supplemented by the splendid volumes of Miss Tarbell. There are other biographies of great value. Special mention should be made of the essay by Carl Schurz, which is classic.
The author has consulted freely all the books on the subject he could lay his hands on. In this volume there is no attempt to write a history of the times in which Lincoln lived and worked. Such historical events as have been narrated were selected solely because they illustrated some phase of the character of Lincoln. In this biography the single purpose has been to present the living man with such distinctness of outline that the reader may have a sort of feeling of being acquainted with him. If the reader, finishing this volume, has a vivid realization of Lincoln as a man, the author will be fully repaid.
To achieve this purpose in brief compass, much has been omitted. Some of the material omitted has probably been of a value fully equal to some that has been inserted. This could not well be avoided. But if the reader shall here acquire interest enough in the subject to continue the study of this great, good man, this little book will have served its purpose.
H. K. WESTFIELD, NEW JERSEY, February, 1901.
