Lincoln, the unknown

118 • LINCOLN THE UNKNOWNthan their weight in gold and platinum. Everything that Lincolntouched intimately has now taken on value and glory. The blackwalnut rocking-chair in which he sat when Booth shot him, soldin 1929 for two thousand five hundred dollars. And a letter thathe wrote appointing Major-General Hooker Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Potomac recently sold at public auctionfor ten thousand dollars, while a collection of four hundredand eighty-five telegrams that he sent during the war, nowowned by Brown University, are valued at a quarter of a milliondollars. An unsigned manuscript of one of his unimportant talkswas recently purchased for eighteen thousand dollars, and acopy of the Gettysburg address in Lincoln's handwriting broughthundreds of thousands.The people of Springfield in 1861 little realized what caliberof man Lincoln was, and what he was destined to become.For years the future great President had been walking downtheir streets almost every morning with a market-basket overhis arm, a shawl about his neck, going to the grocery store andbutcher's shop and carrying home his provisions. For years hehad been going out each evening to a pasture on the edgeof town and cutting out his cow from the rest of the herd anddriving her home and milking her, grooming his horse, cleaningthe stable, and cutting the firewood and carrying it in forthe kitchen stove.Three weeks before he leftfor Washington, Lincoln beganthe preparation of his first inaugural address. Wanting solitudeand seclusion, he locked himself in an upstairs room over ageneral store and set to work. He owned very few books himself;but his law partner had something of a library, and Lincolnasked Herndon to bring him a copy of the Constitution, AndrewJackson's Proclamation against Nullification, Henry Clay's greatspeech of 1850, and Webster's Reply to Hayne. And so amidsta lot of plunder in dingy, dusty surroundings, Lincoln wrote thefamous speech ending with this beautiful plea to the SouthernStates:I am loath to close. We are not enemies but friends. Wemust not be enemies. Though passion may have strained,it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chordsof memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot'sgrave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this