[15] Lamon, 32. But see Herndon, 13. [16] N. and H. 23; Herndon, 5; but see Lamon, 10. [17] For instance, see the pages of the first chapter of the Life by Arnold, a book which becomes excellent after the author has got free from the fancied necessities of creating an appropriate background for the origin and childhood of the hero. So, more briefly, Raymond, who gives no authority to support the faith which is in him. [18] For description of him, see Lamon, 8, 9; Herndon, 11. [19] Herndon, 19; Lamon, 16; Holland, 25. [20] Herndon, 25-28; Lamon, 26-28. [21] Herndon, 34-37, 41; Lamon, 34-36; Holland, 28. [22] Mr. Herndon did this ill deed; 50-54. Lamon prefers to say that most of this literature is "too indecent for publication," 63. [23] Thomas Lincoln died January 17, 1851. [24] Herndon, 75, 76; Lamon, 82; Arnold, 30; N. and H. i. 72. [25] N. and H. i. 74. [26] Lamon, 92, 93, has the best account of this famous encounter. [27] Ford, _Hist. of Illinois_, 88. [28] Ford, _Hist. of Illinois_, 81. [29] See anecdote in _The Good Old Times in McLean County_, 48. [30] "The jerks" was the graphic name of an attack not uncommon at these religious meetings. [31] See Herndon, 104, 118; Holland has some singular remarks on this subject, p. 83; N. and H., i. 121, say that Lincoln was "clean of speech,"--an agreeable statement, for which one would like to have some authority. [32] Ford, _Hist. of Illinois_, 82-86. [33] Ford, _Hist. of Illinois_, 55, 86, 88,104; Herndon, 103; N. and H. i. 107; Lamon, 124, 230. CHAPTER II THE START IN LIFE In Illinois during the years of Lincoln's boyhood the red man was retiring sullenly before the fatal advance of the white man's frontier. Shooting, scalping, and plundering forays still occurred, and in the self-complaisant reminiscences of the old settlers of that day the merciless and mysterious savage is apt to lend to the narrative the lively coloring of mortal danger.[34] In the spring of 1832 a noted chief of the Sacs led a campaign of such importance that it lives in history under the dignified title of "the Black Hawk war." The Indians gathered in numbers so formidable that Governor Reynolds issued a call for volunteers to aid the national forces. Lincoln, left unemployed by the failure of Offut, at once enlisted. The custom then was, so soon as there were enough recruits for a company, to elect a captain by vote. The method was simple: each candidate stood at some point in the field and the men went over to one or another according to their several preferences. Three fourths of the company to which Lincoln belonged ranged themselves with him, and long afterward he used to say that no other success in life had given him such pleasure as did this one.