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CHAPTER VII.

WINNING HIS WAY.

His First Love Affair-A Disappointment-Dark Days-The LincolnShields "Duel"-Good Advice on the Subject of QuarrellingLincoln and Van Buren-A Roadside Symposium-Congressional Expectations.

HILE Lincoln was living in New Salem, he

WHILE became tenderly attached to a young lady of

that village, Miss Ann Rutledge. It is not known that the pair were ever engaged to be married, but it is known that a very cordial affection existed between the twain. At that time, Lincoln, who was ever looking on the dark and practical side of life, was in no condition to marry; he was not only poor, but was burdened with debts, and with a very uncertain future before him. It is hardly likely that he would have engaged himself to marry while his prospects in life were so very dim and discouraging. But Miss Rutledge died suddenly, and while yet in the bloom of youth. This sad event impressed Lincoln with the deepest melancholy, and it is said that he never was as cheerful afterwards. To the day of his death, it is likely, the taking out of life of Ann Rutledge, who seems to have been cut down most untimely, was to Lincoln a forcible lesson of the vanity of human

expectations. It was at this time, so far as we know, that an old poem, beginning with the line

"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?"

greatly impressed him with its sadness and pathetic reminders of death, decay, and disappointment. The poem sunk insensibly into his memory, and it was a favorite with him ever after.

It does not appear that Lincoln was ever what is called "a lady's man." He delighted in the society and conversation of cultivated and sprightly women, always, but he was not greatly addicted to such society when a young man making his way in the world. He was obliged to live laborious days, and sit up far into the night pursuing his studies, his reading, his course of thought. But in 1840 there came to Springfield from Kentucky his destiny in the person of Miss Mary Todd. She was a daughter of Robert Todd. It was one of her relatives, John Todd, who gave name to Lexington, Kentucky. When, at the breaking out of the Revolution, John Todd was encamped hard by the site of the present city, he heard from the far East the news of the battle of Lexington, and he bestowed on the settlement yet unborn the title it wears unto this day. The Todd family was one of ancient and honorable standing in Kentucky. Mary Todd's sister was the wife of Ninian W. Edwards, a man of substance in Springfield, and it was to visit her that Miss Todd had reached the Illinois capital.

Mary Todd was courted and flattered by the young men of Springfield, and as the young ladies of those

Im

days were more interested in politics than many of the present age, she soon made the acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln, then regarded as a rising man. It will never be known just how a matrimonial engagement between Lincoln and Miss Todd became settled and then unsettled. It may be sufficient for us to know that after the engagement was fixed there was a misunderstanding betwixt the two, and that Lincoln released the young lady from the engagement, and that she declined to be released. mediately after, he fell into a state of the most profound melancholy. He was tortured with the idea that he might have been bound by other obligations, or that he was not wholly a free man. Certain it is that he was so affected by what seems to have been a needless remorse, that his mind was in danger of being unsettled. In this pitiable plight, his friend Joshua F. Speed, who had closed out his business in Springfield, returned to Kentucky, taking Lincoln with him. There, in the restful quiet of the Speed mansion, Lincoln recovered his mental health and vigor, and then returned to Springfield.

At that time a well-known character in the city was James Shields, a brisk and hot-headed young man from the County Tyrone, Ireland. Shields was an active Democrat, ever dipping into all sorts of adventures, and he had lately been elected State Auditor, an office of some importance, with a good income attached to it. Lincoln anonymously printed in the Sangamon Journal a witty letter purporting to come from "The Lost Townships," in which the writer, who pretended to be a widow with political

ideas in her head, bewailed the hard times and the evil results of Democratic rule. In that letter some satirical allusions were made to the heady young Democratic Auditor, who was a fair mark for ridicule, as he was most sensitive, as well as of a fiery disposition. Shields was frantic with rage. He vapored through the town, threatening death and destruction to the unknown author of the satire. The shot was followed by another, in which the widow of "The Lost Townships" offered to square matters by marrying Shields. These two letters, which were the talk of the town, so tickled the fancy of Miss Todd and another young lady that they concocted a series of lampoons, verses, and skits, all of which, like the little barbed weapons flung by a bullfighter, were designed to infuriate the rearing and plunging Shields. In a rage, he went to the editor of the journal, and demanded to know the name of the author of these attacks. The editor, in great distress of mind, applied to Lincoln for advice. Shields would fight. The editor would not fight. Lincoln told him to say that Abraham Lincoln was responsible for the whole business from first to last. Being so informed, Shields challenged Lincoln to mortal combat. Lincoln accepted.

In those days, and in those regions, duelling was not only common, but it was very highly thought of as a means of setting a man right when his honor had been assailed before the community. It seems strange, now, to think that Lincoln could have accepted a challenge to fight a duel. But it was the custom of the country, although contrary to the

laws. And perhaps Lincoln felt that there would be no duel. Shields was a famous boaster. He and his friends made great ado about the coming duel, so that the affair was very widely advertised. Lincoln, being the challenged party, had the choice of weapons and he chose "cavalry broadswords of the largest size." If he had really desired to hew down Shields, he might have done so, for, in his stout hands and with his long arms, he could have mowed down any man of ordinary build before he could have got near Lincoln. But the fight did not come off. At the last moment, Shields was ready to accept from Lincoln the explanation that the letters from "The Lost Townships" were only intended for political effect and not to reflect on the personal character of Mr. Shields. Lincoln was no wrangler, and it is very likely that he was greatly disturbed by this unseemly quarrel, the first and the last of the sort that he ever had; and, if he could have escaped from the duel without degradation, he would have done so. It ended without humiliation to him except so far as he felt humbled by having been drawn into a silly fracas in which nobody could gain any credit to himself. Curiously enough, the seconds in this bloodless affair fell into a wordy quarrel, and a vigorous correspondence, which at one time threatened to result in a real duel, was kept up for several weeks after the famous "Lincoln and Shields duel" was declared "off." But nothing serious came of this after-clap. Years after, when he was President of the republic, Lincoln had occasion to reprimand a young officer of the army who had been brought before a court

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