Note 15 — Chapter XII · LINCOLN AN INDEPENDENT RANGER.—MAJOR ILES’S REMINISCENCES OF THE CAMPAIGN.—END OF THE-BLACK HAWK WAR.

William Cullen Bryant, who was in Illinois in 1832, at the time of the Black Hawk War, used to tell of meeting in his travels in the State a company of Illinois volunteers, commanded by a “raw youth” of “quaint and pleasant” speech, who, he learned afterwards, was Abraham Lincoln. As Lincoln’s captaincy ended on May 27th, and Mr. Bryant did not reach Illinois until June 12th, and as he never came nearer than fifty miles to the Rapids of the Illinois, where the body of rangers to which Lincoln belonged was encamped, it is evident that the “raw youth” could not have been Lincoln, much as one would like to believe that it was.