Note (return) — ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

His friend Greene gave another reason than ambition to explain his desire for the captaincy. One of the "odd jobs" which Lincoln had taken since coming into Illinois was working in a saw-mill for a man named Kirkpatrick. In hiring Lincoln, Kirkpatrick had promised to buy him a cant-hook to move heavy logs. Lincoln had proposed, if Kirkpatrick would give him two dollars, to move the logs with a common hand-spike. This the proprietor had agreed to, but when pay day came he refused to keep his word. When the Sangamon company of volunteers was formed, Kirkpatrick aspired to the captaincy; and Lincoln, knowing it, said to Greene: "Bill, I believe I can now pay Kirkpatrick for that two dollars he owes me on the cant-hook. I'll run against him for captain;" and he became a candidate. The vote was taken in a field, by directing the men at the command "march" to assemble around the man they wanted for captain. When the order was given, three-fourths of the men gathered around Lincoln2. In Lincoln's curious third-person autobiography he says he was elected "to his own surprise;" and adds, "He says he has not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction."