rous men of our company walked and rode by turns with
us, and we fared about equal with the rest. But for this generosity our
legs would have had to do the better work; for in that day this dreary
route furnished no horses to buy or to steal, and, whether on horse or
afoot, we always had company, for many of the horses' backs were too
sore for riding."

Lincoln must have reached home about August 1, for the election was to
occur in the second week of that month, and this left him but ten days
in which to push his claims for popular indorsement. His friends,
however had been doing manful duty for him during his three months'
absence, and he lost nothing in public estimation by his prompt
enlistment to defend the frontier. Successive announcements in the
"Journal" had by this time swelled the list of candidates to thirteen.
But Sangamon County was entitled to only four representatives and when
the returns came in Lincoln was among those defeated. Nevertheless, he
made a very respectable showing in the race. The list of successful and
unsuccessful aspirants and their votes was as follows:

E.D. Taylor................ 1127
John T. Stuart.............. 991
Achilles Morris............. 945
Peter Cartwright............ 815

Under the plurality rule, these four had been elected. The unsuccessful
candidates were:

A.G. Herndon.............. 806
W. Carpenter............... 774
J. Dawson.................. 717
A. Lincoln................. 657
T.M. Neale................ 571
R. Quinton................. 485
Z. Peter................... 214
E. Robinson................ 169
---- Kirkpatrick........... 44

The returns show that the total vote of the county was about twenty-one
hundred and sixty-eight. Comparing this with the vote cast for Lincoln,
we see that he received nearly one third of the total county vote,
notwithstanding his absence from the canvass, notwithstanding the fact
that his acquaintanceship was limited to the neighborhood of New Salem,
notwithstanding the sharp competition. Indeed, his talent and fitness
for active practical politics were demonstrated beyond question by the
result in his home precinct of New Salem, which, though he ran as a
Whig, gave two hundred and seventy-seven votes for him and only three
against him. Three months later it gave one hundred and eighty-five for
the Jackson and only seventy for the Clay electors, pr