Speaking of this affair when President, he said that he was more gratified with this his first success than with any other election of his life.

Neither Lincoln nor his company was in any engagement during the campaign, but there was plenty of hardships and fatigue, and some incidents occurred to illustrate his courage and power over men." Many years afterward--in fact, while Lincoln was President--he referred to those early scenes in a way that illustrates his wonderful memory and his power of recalling the minutest incidents of his past life.

Meeting an old Illinois friend, he naturally fell to talking of Illinois, and related several stories of his early life in that region.

Particularly he remembered his share in the Black Hawk War.

He referred to his part of the campaign lightly, and said that he saw but very little fighting.
But he remembered coming on a camp of white scouts one morning just as the sun was rising.