He agreed to do so, and issued a circular addressed to the "People of Sangamon County." In it he took up all the leading questions of the day: railroads, river navigation, internal improvements, and usury. He dwelled particularly on the matter of public education, alluding to it as the most important subject before the people. The closing paragraph was so constructed as to appeal to the chivalrous sentiments of Clary Grove. "I was born and have ever remained," he said, "in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy or popular relatives or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of the county; and if elected they will have conferred a favor upon me for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate. But if," he concluded, "the people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined." A little after this the wonderful news was announced that a steamboat, already on the Sangamon River, was to pass New Salem. The captain had sent word that he wanted one of the representative men of the place to help him bring the boat to the village. Abe Lincoln was the man selected. A company of boys and young men also got together and with long-handled axes set out on horseback to go along the bank ahead of the boat and clear tree branches out of the way. It was a time of great excitement and pregnant with meaning, for here already were signs that Lincoln's dream of river traffic might be brought to pass. Hours before the appointed time the villagers were out, looking up at the sun to count the passing of time, or gazing down the river between the green branches. Speculation was rife, and there were those who boldly declared they never expected to lay eyes on a real steamboat, owing to their peculiar habit of blowing themselves up. Almost to a minute of the announced time, as the sun stood, a shrill whistle sounded over the woods and fields and river--a strange sound for the quiet of the new country. Then came the distant shouts of the branch-cutters as they came riding down the banks swinging their long-handled axes. Comment hushed to an occasional whisper as every head was turned and every eye strained to catch a first glimpse of the first steamboat that ever sailed the Sangamon. Ann Rutledge was there. She was looking for a man as well as for a boat--a man she had first seen scarce a year before. The plums had been in blossom then. It was too early for them now. But she had her bonnet ready to wave. As the boat came in sight a great cheer went up from New Salem on the bank. It was answered by the ringing voice of a man on board the steamer, a taller man than any of the others, who waved his hat and shouted across the water: "Hurrah for the Sangamon!" There were other messages, and then a loud, long cheer from the bank: "Hurrah for Abe Lincoln!"