John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

So much, the newspapers, campaign documents, and stump speakers had told the country. The remainder, which his intimate Illinois neighbors could have related, the people half divined from what they heard. That he had risen from obscurity to fame, from ignorance to eloquence, from want to rulership, uncontaminated by vice, undefiled by temptation, without schools, without family influence, without wealth; championed by no clique, fraternity, or sect; clinging to no skirt of corporation, interest, or combination; conspicuous without affectation, winning popularity without art, and receiving consideration without parade; rendering his party not only every service it requested, but, by his talent, leading it from despondency to success, and from success to renown; meanwhile, at every stage of his career, walking among his fellow-men with such irreproachable personal conduct, that his very name grew into a proverb of integrity, and passed among the people of his entire State as the genuine coin-current and recognized token of social. moral, and political uprightness.

Malicious gossip and friendly jest had both, during the campaign, described the “railsplitter” candidate as possessing great personal ugliness; this was now seen to be an utter mistake. The people beheld in the new President a man six feet four inches in height, a stature which of itself would be hailed in any assemblage as one of the outward signs of leadership; joined to this was a spare but muscular frame, and large and strongly marked features corresponding to his unusual stature. Quiet in demeanor, but erect in bearing, his face even in repose was not unattractive; and when lit up by his open, genial smile, or illuminated in the utterance of a strong or stirring thought, his countenance was positively