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were all ripe and his allies fast and true.
Although warned by General Atkinson, then in command of Fort Armstrong, against this aggression, and ordered to return, he proudly refused, claiming that he had “come to plant corn.”
On being informed of the movement of Black Hawk Governor Reynolds called for a thousand mounted volunteers to co-operate with the United States forces under command of General Atkinson, and drive the wily Indian back across the Mississippi.
The response to the governor's call was prompt and energetic.
In the company from Sangamon county Lincoln enlisted, and now for the first time entered on the vicissitudinous and dangerous life of a soldier.
That he in fact regarded the campaign after the Indians as a sort of holiday affair and chicken-stealing expedition is clearly shown in a speech he afterwards made in Congress in exposure of the military pretensions of General Cass.
However, in grim, soldierly severity he marched with the Sangamon county contingent to Rushville,1 in Schuyler county, where, much to his surprise, he was elected
1 While at the rendezvous at Rushville and on the march to the front Lincoln of course drilled his men, and gave them such meager instruction in military tactics as he could impart. Some of the most grotesque things he ever related were descriptions of these drills. In marching one morning at the head of the company, who were following in lines of twenty abreast, it became necessary to pass through a gate much narrower than the lines. The captain could not remember the proper command to turn the company end-wise, and the situation was becoming decidedly embarrassing, when one of those thoughts born of the depths of despair came to his rescue. Facing the lines he shouted: “Halt! This company will break ranks for two minutes and form again on the other side of the gate.” The manoeuvre was successfully executed.
The Herndon's Lincoln Pubishing Company, Springfield, Ill., 1888.
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