Lincoln's Early Boyhood.

Abraham Lincoln spent his boyhood in three places and in three states. He was born at Nolan's Creek in Kentucky and lived there until he was eight. Then his father moved to Pidgeon Creek near Gentryville, Southwestern Indiana. Here young Lincoln lived until he was twenty, a grown man when the family moved again to Sangamon Creek, Illinois. All his homes were log cabins, and he was, for all intents and purposes, a true pioneer boy.

No boy ever began life under less promising auspices than young Abraham Lincoln. The family was very poor! his father was a shiftless man who never succeeded in getting ahead in life. Their home was a mere log cabin of the roughest and poorest sort known to backwoods people. The rude chimney was built on the outside, and the only floor was the hardened earth. It was not as good or as comfortable as some Indian wigwams. Of course, the food, clothes and beds of a family living this way were miserable. 

The family lived as did most pioneer families in the backwoods of Indiana. Their bread was made of corn meal. Their meat was chiefly the flesh of wild game shot or trapped in the woods. Pewter plates and wooden trenchers were used on the table. The drinking cups were of tin. There was no stove, and all the cooking was done over the fire of the big fireplace. Abe's bed was simply a couch of leaves freshly gathered every two or three weeks. 

At that time, Indiana was still part of the wilderness. It had just been admitted to the Union as a state. Primeval woods grew up close to the settlement at Pidgeon Creek, and not far away were roving bands of Indians and also wild animals; bears, wildcats and panthers. The settlers hunted these animals and made use of them for food and clothing. Young Abe and his brothers and sisters spent the larger part of their time out of doors. They hunted and fished, learned the habits of the wild creatures, and explored the far recesses of the woods. The forest lore Abe never forgot, and the life and training made him vigorous and tough and able to endure after days the troubles and trials that would have broken down many a weaker man. 

Lincoln was fortunate in his mothers. His mother died when he was eight, but she had done her best to start her boy in the world. Once she said to him: "Abe, learn all you can and grow up to be of some account. You've got just as good Virginian blood in you as George Washington had." Abe never forgot this. Years afterward, he said, "All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my blessed mother." His stepmother, Sarah Bush, was a kind-hearted, excellent woman and did all she could to make the poor, ragged barefooted boy happy. She was always ready to listen when he read, to help him with his lessons, and to encourage him. After he had grown up and become famous, she said of him: "Abe never gave me a cross word or look and never refused to do anything I asked of him. Abe is the best boy I ever knew." 

There was a backwoods schoolhouse quite a distance away, which Abe attended for a short time. These log schoolhouses in Lincoln's day had large fireplaces in which there was a great blazing fire in the winter. The boys of the school had to chop and bring in the wood for the fire. The floor of such a schoolhouse was of rough boards hewn out with axes. The schoolmasters were generally harsh, rough men who didn't know much themselves. 

Abe soon learned to read and write, however, and after a while, he found a new teacher, and that was himself. When the rest of the family had gone to bed, he would sit up and write and cipher by the light of the great blazing logs heaped up on the open fireplace. So poor were this pioneer family that they had no means of procuring paper or pencil for the struggling student. Abe used to take the back of the broad wooden fire shovel to write on and a piece of charcoal for a pencil. When he had covered the shovel with words or with sums in arithmetic, he would shave it off clean and begin over again. If his father complained that the shovel was getting thin, Abe would go out into the woods and make a new one. As long as the woods lasted, fire shovels and furniture were cheap.

There were few books to read in that frontier cabin. Poor Abe had not more than a dozen in all. These were Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's Fables, the Bible, and a small United States history book. The boy read these books over and over till he knew a great deal of them by heart and could repeat whole pages from them.

One book that made a great impression on him was "The Life of Washington" by Mason L. Weems (pub:1837). He borrowed this book from a neighbor, who loaned it to him on the condition of returning it in as good a condition as he received it. And this the young student intends to do. But one night, there was a great storm, and it rained down in the cabin and seriously injured the precious volume. Lincoln was very much troubled and informed the neighbor of what had happened. The surly old man told him that he must give him three days' work shucking corn and that then he might keep the book for his own. It was the first book that Lincoln ever owned. No one knows how many times he read it through. Washington was his ideal hero, the one great man whom he admired above all others. How little he could have dreamed that in the years to come, his own name would be coupled with that of the Father of his Country by admiring countrymen. 

By the time the lad was seventeen, he could write a good hand, do hard examples in arithmetic, and spell better than anyone else in the country. Once in a while, he would write a little piece of his own about something which interested him. Sometimes he would read what he had written to the neighbors, and they would clap their hands and exclaim: "It beats the world what Abe writes!"

So Lincoln was all the time learning something and trying to use what he knew. Perhaps the great success of his life lay in the fact that he always did his best in whatever position he was placed. The time when the boy could no longer stay in the small surroundings of Pidgeon Creek came. He tried life on one of the river steamboats, then he served as a clerk in a store at New Salem, where he began at odd moments to study law. In a short time, he was practicing his profession, and people in the West were talking of the tall, lank young lawyer and of what a future he had before him.

Such was the humble boyhood of Abraham Lincoln, but its simplicity and the hardships he endured and overcame made him a strong, successful man. Later, when he came to be President and the leader of a Nation through a great civil war, we find that it was these same qualities of perseverance and courage and fidelity which enabled him to triumph over difficulties and become the savior of a Great Republic. His life is a lesson and an inspiration to all aspiring boys. 

Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Library of Congress ─ Evangelical Messenger (weekly, 1848-1946), February 12, 1913.

At The Lincoln's Table.

Perhaps the greatest American of the Civil War period was Abraham Lincoln, but how did he appear to the people who ate with him and cooked for him? Well, it was easy to prepare meals for Lincoln because he never complained about the fare. But, on the other hand, he never praised a dish either.

Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, Abraham's stepmother, declared that "Abe was a moderate eater ... he sat down and ate what was set before him, making no complaint; he seemed careless about this." Isaac N. Arnold, a close friend in Illinois, later learned from Lincoln that he had eaten very plain food in childhood. On the frontier, he was fed cakes made from coarse corn meal and are called "corn dodgers." Wild game supplied the necessary protein in his diet. 

In 1831 Lincoln moved to New Salem, a small community on the Sangamon River. During part of his stay at this village, he boarded at the Rutledge Tavern, where the beautiful Ann Rutledge worked as a waitress. The meals were plain, and Lincoln was served the usual fare: cornbread, bacon and eggs. At times the Railsplitter took his meals with other families in the neighborhood. Mrs. Jack Armstrong said that he ate mush, cornbread and milk in her home, and if Lincoln had a delicacy that he enjoyed then, it was honey. N.W. Brandon of Petersburg recalled that he "was very fond" of sweet honey. Lincoln's favorite dessert was Mary's Gingerbread with Apple and Brown Sugar topping.

As soon as Lincoln was admitted to the bar, he went to Springfield, where he became the partner of John Todd Stuart. But much of his law practice was on the Eighth Judicial Circuit. For many weeks each year, he rode hundreds of miles and lived where the food was poor, and the accommodations were primitive. A fellow lawyer on these trips, Leonard Swett, observed that Lincoln was very temperate in his eating habits. "He ate," said Swett, "simply because it was necessary and not for enjoyment. Indeed, it might almost be doubted whether eating furnished him enjoyment or that he knew the difference between what was good and what was not. ... I never, in the ten years of circuit life I knew him, heard him complain of a hard bed or a bad meal of victuals. We would go out, for instance, at Mrs. Scott's, at Danville, and be sumptuously entertained, and nobody would enjoy it more than he. but I never heard him say the food we got was any better than that which was furnished at the tavern." 

William H. Herndon, Lincoln's last law partner, remembered that what he ate made no difference to Lincoln. At mealtime, he took his place at the table involuntarily, said nothing, neither abused the food nor praised it, and asked no questions. No complaints ever passed his lips while on the circuit. Herndon also stated that Lincoln "had a good appetite and good digestion, ate mechanically, never asking why such a thing was not on the table nor why it was on it, if so; he filled up, and that is all."

If he had a favorite light meal, it was "apples & fruits generally," but sometimes he would come down to the Lincoln & Herndon law office in the morning and have breakfast of cheese, bologna sausage and crackers.

C.C. Brown, a young law student in Springfield, was examined for admission to the bar by Lincoln and Herndon. After a silly and routine question, Brown "passed the bar" and took his examiners to Charles Chatterton's Restaurant on the west side of the public square for a treat. It is not known who picked the menu, but Lincoln partook of it: fried oysters and pickled pig's feet! Evidently, it was a happy occasion for Lincoln because Brown recalled that he ate very heartily and told stories, some of which "would scarcely do for a Sunday paper." 

On November 4, 1842, Lincoln married the lovely and talented Mary Todd of Lexington, Kentucky. She had been raised in the beautiful Blue Grass region, where gracious living and savory cooking were famous. It is said that Mary was a good cook; her parties were known for their variety of fine foods. Isaac N. Arnold wrote that "her table was famed for the excellence of its rare Kentucky dishes, and in season was loaded with venison, wild turkeys, prairie chicken, quails, and other game, which in those early days was abundant." However, Billy Herndon disagreed with Arnold. He stoutly declared, after reading Arnold's book, that Mrs. Lincoln "kept or set a poor table" for the daily meals and only splurged when guests were present. If this statement is true, Mary was either saving money for other household expenses or had learned the folly of spending long hours in the kitchen when her husband never praised her Kentucky recipes.

Mrs. Lincoln surprised Abe with a home remodeling project, adding a second story in 1856, while Abraham was out of town on the Eighth Judicial Circuit for nearly six months.

It must have been exasperating to cook for Lincoln. His sister-in-law, Mrs. Ninian Wirt Edwards, recounted that he "ate mechanically. I have seen him sit down at the table, and never unless recalled to his senses would he think of food." But at times, Lincoln did express a preference: he loved a "good hot cup of black coffee." And he liked meat as well as vegetables. Although the tall Sangamon lawyer was absent-minded while eating, he certainly kept his thoughts on food when he himself visited the market. His neighbors often saw him buying beefsteak downtown. For 10¢, Lincoln could purchase enough steak for a meal, and he carried the brown-paper package home himself instead of having it delivered. These episodes prove that Lincoln enjoyed the usual choice of a Midwestern man—beefsteak.

At times, perhaps, Lincoln did pay attention to fancy dishes, but he rarely commented upon them. Once, when speaking at Springfield, Illinois, on July 17, 1858, he hinted that he had once tasted some excellent French cuisine. While making fun of Douglas's pet theory of Popular Sovereignty, Lincoln declared that "it is to be dished up in as many varieties as a French cook can produce soups from potatoes." Perhaps the former Railsplitter recalled a meal that he had eaten in his favorite Chicago hotel, the Tremont Hotel III. 

Tremont House at the S.E. corner of Lake and Dearborn Streets, Chicago. c.1865

When Lincoln was elected President of the United States, he journeyed to Washington, D. C. to assume the most difficult task of his life. With weighty problems of state on his mind, the tired President neglected his meals even more than he had in Springfield. Dr. Henry Whitney Bellows of the Sanitary Commission remarked to Lincoln one day: "Mr. President, I am here at almost every hour of the day or night, and I never saw you at the table; do you ever eat?" "I try to," replied Lincoln. "I manage to browse about pretty much as I can get it." One day, while F. B. Carpenter was living with the Lincolns at the White House and painting "The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation before the Cabinet," the clock struck 12 noon. Lincoln listened to the chiming and exclaimed, "I believe, by the by, that I have not yet had my breakfast ─ this business has been so absorbing that it has crowded everything else out of my mind." 

Noah Brooks, an old friend from Illinois and a Sacramento (California) Daily Union correspondent, testified that Lincoln was "never very attentive to the demands or the attractions of the table." "When Mrs. Lincoln, whom he always addressed by the old-fashioned title of 'Mother,' was absent from the home," Brooks revealed, "the President would appear to forget that food and drink were needful for his existence, unless he were persistently followed up by some of the servants, or were finally reminded of his needs by the actual pangs of hunger. On one such occasion, I remember, he asked me to come in and take breakfast with him, as he had some questions to ask. He was evidently eating without noting what he ate, and when I remarked that he was different from most Western men in his preference for milk at breakfast, he said, eyeing his glass of milk with surprise, as if he had not before noticed what he was drinking, 'Well, I do prefer black coffee in the morning, but they don't seem to have sent me any.'"

Yes, early in the morning, Lincoln wanted a cup of coffee. After this steaming aromatic beverage, the President might not find time for breakfast until 9 or 10 a.m. One of Lincoln's private secretaries, John Hay, often ate with the President. He remarked that Lincoln ate a frugal breakfast, "an egg, a piece of toast, coffee, etc." Sometimes the two men consumed a single egg apiece and plodded off to work. At noon Lincoln "took a little lunch—a biscuit, a glass of milk in winter, some fruit or grapes in summer." He "ate less than anyone I know," declared Hay. Carpenter, too, often witnessed Lincoln eating a "solitary lunch" when his family was gone. "It was often a matter of surprise to me," wrote Carpenter, "how the President sustained life; for it seemed, some weeks, as though he neither ate nor slept." When the hour for lunch arrived, a servant generally carried "a simple meal upon a tray" to Lincoln's second-floor office. Sometimes the Chief Executive would not examine the contents of the tray for several hours. Then, he would sample them in a "most unceremonious manner."

If the Commander-in-Chief ever had time for a full and pleasant meal, it was generally in the evening when dinner was served at the White House. At this hour, guests were often present, and Lincoln made a formal appearance to welcome them. On such occasions, Mrs. Lincoln had the food prepared in the White House kitchen or served it by a caterer. If Lincoln were hungry, he certainly could eat his fill of excellent food at this time.

There has been much debate about whether or not Lincoln ever drank liquor. Billy Herndon admitted that he "drank when he thought it would do him good." Leonard Swett remembered that Lincoln did drink wine upon occasion and that in the White House, "he used to drink a glass of champagne with his dinner, but I believe that was prescribed for him." Perhaps his physicians decided that the hard-working President sometimes needed a sleep aid. William Howard Russell of the London (England) Times ate with the Lincolns on March 28, 1861, and noted in his diary that wine was served at the dinner. But certainly, it was a rare occasion when Lincoln tasted alcohol. He had once joined a temperance society, although his account at the Corneau & Diller Drug Store in Springfield shows a few purchases of brandy by the bottle. Yet there is no positive proof that it was Lincoln who consumed this brandy. It is safe to say that Lincoln was temperate in his drinking. And the word temperance means "moderation or self-restraint in action, statement, etc."

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.