d
fatigue, and some incidents occurred to illustrate his courage and power
over men."

Many years afterward--in fact, while Lincoln was President--he referred
to those early scenes in a way that illustrates his wonderful memory and
his power of recalling the minutest incidents of his past life. Meeting
an old Illinois friend, he naturally fell to talking of Illinois, and
related several stories of his early life in that region. Particularly
he remembered his share in the Black Hawk War. He referred to his part
of the campaign lightly, and said that he saw but very little fighting.
But he remembered coming on a camp of white scouts one morning just as
the sun was rising. The Indians had surprised the camp and killed and
scalped every man. "I remember just how those men looked," said Lincoln,
"as we rode up the little hill where their camp was. The red light of
the morning sun was streaming upon them as they lay, heads toward us, on
the ground, and every man had a round red spot on the top of his head,
about as big as a dollar, where the redskins had taken his scalp. It was
frightful, but it was grotesque, and the red sunlight seemed to paint
everything all over." Lincoln paused as if recalling the vivid picture,
and added, somewhat irrelevantly, "I remember that one man had buckskin
breeches on."

Lincoln also told a good story of his first experience in drilling raw
troops during the Black Hawk War. He was crossing a field with a front
of twenty men when he came to a gate through which it was necessary to
pass. In describing the incident he said: "I could not, for the life of
me, remember the proper word of command for getting my company
_endwise_, so that it could pass through the gate. So, as we came near
the gate, I shouted, 'Halt! this company is dismissed for two minutes,
when it will fall in again on the other side of the gate.'" The
manoeuvre was successfully executed.

During this campaign an incident occurred which well serves to show
Lincoln's keen sense of justice, his great common sense, and his
resoluteness when aroused. One day there came to the camp an old Indian,
footsore and hungry. He was provided with a letter of safe-conduct from
General Cass; but there was a feeling of great irritation against the
Indians, and the men objected strongly to receiving him. They pronounced
him a spy and his passport a forgery, and were rushing upon the
defenseless Indian to kill him, when the tall figure of their cap