From the original now on file in the County Clerk's office, Springfield, Illinois. The first civil office Lincoln ever held was that of election clerk, and the return made by him, of which a facsimile is here presented, was his first official document. The New Salem election of September 20, 1832, has the added interest of having been held at "the house of John McNeil," the young merchant who was then already in love with Ann Rutledge, the young girl to whom Lincoln afterwards became engaged. All the men whose names appear on this election return are now dead except William McNeely, now residing at Petersburg. John Clary lived at Clary's Grove; John R. Herndon was "Row" Herndon, whose store Berry and Lincoln purchased, and at whose house Lincoln for a time boarded; Baxter Berry was a relative of Lincoln's partner in the grocery business, and Edmund Greer was a school-teacher, and afterward a justice of the peace and a surveyor. James Rutledge was the keeper of the Rutledge tavern and the father of Ann Rutledge; Hugh Armstrong was the head of the numerous Armstrong family; "Uncle Jimmy" White lived on a farm five miles from New Salem, and died about thirty years ago in the eightieth year of his age; William Green (spelled by the later members of the family with a final "e") was the father of William G. Greene, Lincoln's associate in Offutt's store; and as to Bowling Green, more is said elsewhere. In the following three or four years, very few elections were held at which Lincoln was not a clerk. It is a somewhat singular fact that Lincoln, though clerk of this election, is not recorded as voting.--_J. McCan Davis._] The march in pursuit of the Indians led the army to Ottawa, where the volunteers became so dissatisfied that on May 27th and 28th Governor Reynolds mustered them out. But a force in the field was essential until a new levy was raised; and a few of the men were patriotic enough to offer their services, among them Lincoln, who on May 29th was mustered in at the mouth of the Fox River by a man in whom, thirty years later, he was to have a keen interest--General Robert Anderson, commander at Fort Sumter in 1861. Lincoln became a private in Captain Elijah Iles's company of Independent Rangers, not brigaded--a company made up, says Captain Iles in his "Footsteps and Wanderings," of "generals, colonels, captains, and distinguished men from the disbanded army." General Anderson says that at this muster Lincoln's arms were valued at forty dollars, his horse and equipment at one hundred and twenty dollars. The Independent Rangers were a favored body, used to carry messages and to spy on the enemy. They had no camp duties, and "drew rations as often as they pleased." So that as a private Lincoln was really better off than as a captain.[C]