If General Cass went ahead of me in picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon the wild onions.

If he saw any live fighting Indians, it is more than I did, but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitos, and although I never fainted from loss of blood I can truly say that I was often very hungry.

Mr.Speaker, if I should ever conclude to doff whatever our Democratic friends may suppose there is in me of black-cockade Federalism, and thereupon they shall take me up as their candidate for the Presidency, I protest they shall not make fun of me as they have of General Cass by attempting to write me into a military hero." Lincoln's popularity among his comrades in the field was so great that at the close of his military service, which had lasted three months, he was nominated as a candidate for the State Legislature.

"His first appearance on the stump in the course of the canvass was at Pappsville, about eleven miles west of Springfield, upon the occasion of a public sale.

The sale over, speech-making was about to begin, when Lincoln observed some strong symptoms of inattention in his audience which had taken that particular moment to engage in a a general fight.