The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1896-07-11
WHOLE NO.. 293.
there We're no lady members i'll the So
ciety:
Whatever spiteful fools may say,
Each jealous. ranting yelper,
No woman ever went astray
Without man to help her.


Whatever spiteful fools may say,
Each jealous ranting yelper,
No woman ever went astray
Without man to help her.
But notwithstanding these diversions
Lincolns star was now in the ascend
ant His Legislative career, his signal
victory in the debate AT the Presbyterian
church, when he measured swords with
Douglas, Lamborn and Calhoun and
his marked success at the bar gave him
a prominence not easily earned in the
growing society Of the state capital En-
dowcd with the same arirition which
any other young man would have pos
sessed had he flourishcd amid the same
environments, we are prepared to learn
that he now began to contemplate with
true philosophic reasoning the value
and propriety Of marriage Anne Rut-
ledge was in her grave, the Irritation
with discreet Mary Owens had passed,
and fate now leads him suitor for the
hand Of Mary Todd! OF this tempestu-
Gus and reactionary courtship, and of
its importance as a factor III Mr.. Lin
coins fortunes but little is left for me
to say. What Mr. Herndon, whose
knowledge and sources Of information
have been unchallenged, has omitted to
say on that subject has, it occurs to me,
been fully supplied 10y the late Adam
Badenu and certain others who have al
ready testified. The strange commin-
Cling of passion and pathos, the uneaten
wedding supper, the surprised and dis
appointed guests, the melancholy groom
wandering half demented through the
woods at midnight the proud, broken
hearted, cxpectant bride led in tears to
her chamber These all constitute ii
drama scarcely paralleled anywhere in
/ history.
| l might have shed some light on the
hitherto unexplained features Of this
courtShip myself, for / located some
time ago most important witness-a
participant, in fact, III the drama, who
had outlivcd all the others-but she was
a woman, and, with woman's deter
mination, refused to testify. She proved
invincibc alike to coercion and en-
! treaty, and although, for time, /
hoped the knowledge of the good she
might do history would ultimately in
duce her to unseal her lips, yet / was
obliged ut last to give up in despair.
She was the widow of Simeon Francis,
who for years was the editor of The San
CANON Journal. Her tact and diploma
cy brought together under her own roof
Lincoln and Mary Todd in the summer
of 1912, after their unfortunate estrange-
ment and thus effected reconciliation.
Perhaps if Mrs. Francis had never Civ
ell her party and had not brought these
cf,. l,n.. li.,1
reintroduction they might have contin-
ued in their paths, then so far diver
gent and never have met again, and if
things had so happened, according to
the reasoning IF Herndon Matheny
and Others, Lincoln never would have
been president. Indeed the marriage,
Notwithstanding this meeting might
not have taken place when it did but
for the intervention If what is known as
the duel with James Shields.
This seriocOmic, if not grotesque, af-
fair has been so CLOSED over by most Of
Mr.. Lincoln's biographers, only two Of
whom give any Of the correspondence,
one might almost believe 1t IL myth.
Time and place forbid the narrative in
detail here, but / cannot refrain, in
] VIC" III ltN III
with other peculiarly human episodes
i'll Mr.. Lincoln's life, from giving it
something more than Il passing notice.
The following extract from one of the
letters published in The Sangamon Jour
nal will serve to indicate the general
character of the publications which
aroused Mr.. Shields ire and led at last
to the challenge. The letter is signed
''Rcbecca, and is supposed to be the
lament of 4 poor widow in Lost town
ship who, unable to meet her taxes, is
disposed to criticise the so called extrav-
agance of the Democratic state govern
mcnt The most conspicuous figure in
the political horizon at Springfield then
was James Shields, the auditor, on
whose head she lays all the blame for
her depressed financial condition.
Il seed him when was down in
Springfield last winter" she writes.
They had a sort Of Ratherin there one
night among the grandees they called II
fair. All the gals about town was there,
and all the handsome widows and mar
ried women finickin about tryin to look
like gals, tied as tight in the middle
!. and puffcd out at both ends like bundles
of fodder that hadn't been stacked yet
but wanted stackin pretty bad. And
they had tables all around the house
kivered over with caps and pincushions
and $50, 600 such little knickknacks
tryin to sell 'em to the fellows that
was bowin and scrapin and kungeerin
about 'em. They wouldn't let no Dem
. ocrats i'll for fear they'd disgust the Ia
: dies or scare the little girls or dirty the
floor / looked in at the window, and
,. there was this same fellow Shields float-
in about in the air without heft or
earthly substance, just like a lot of cat
fur where cats had been fightin. y =
: And the sweet distress he seemed to be
in! His very features in the ecstatic
agony Of his soul spoke audibly and dis
tinctly: Dear girls. it is distressin,
but l cannot marry you all Too well l
: know how much you suffer, but do, do
remember il is not my fault that l am
: so handsome and interestin. As this
! I last was expressed by a most exquisite
Il contortion of the face, he seized one Of
their hands and squeezed and held on
: to it about a quarter Of an hour"