A Story He Never Finished

A month before he departed for Washington in February 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln made the journey to Charleston, Illinois, to bid a final farewell to his stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln. She was still living on a modest farm near Charleston, a quiet link to the frontier life from which he had come.

While staying at the home of an acquaintance, Lincoln received two visitors: an old friend and fellow lawyer, Colonel A.P. Dunbar, and a younger lawyer, James A. Connolly. Years later, Connolly recalled the encounter to biographer Jesse Weik.

“I confess I was not favorably impressed,” Connolly admitted. “His awkward, if not ungainly figure and his appearance generally, failed to attract me. But this was doubtless due to the fact that I was a great admirer of Douglas…”

But that initial discomfort melted quickly. When Lincoln spotted Dunbar, he burst into a broad grin and called out, “Lord A’mighty, Aleck, how glad I am to see you!” The three men soon found themselves seated around a fire, the future president relaxed and in full storytelling form. He was animated, cheerful, full of memory and mirth. According to Connolly:

“There was a flood of stories, one following another, each invariably funnier than its predecessor… I certainly never heard anything like it.”

Then came the moment Connolly cherished most. Lincoln leaned forward and announced he had saved the strangest and most amusing incident he had ever witnessed for last.

“‘One day,’ said Mr. Lincoln, ‘a girl was riding home bareback after retrieving the family cow. Suddenly, the horse was startled—perhaps by a dog—and made a wild dash forward, the girl still astride when suddenly—’”

A knock at the door.

Lincoln rose to greet the new visitors, just as he had done for Dunbar and Connolly. Four people entered. More followed.

The story was never finished.

As Dunbar and Connolly made their way back through town, Dunbar—knowing Connolly’s loyalty to Stephen Douglas—asked, “Now that you’ve met the long-legged fellow our friend Douglas beat for Senate, what do you think of him?”

Connolly would confess to Weik years later:

“He was a marvel—a charming storyteller and, in other respects, one of the most remarkable men I ever listened to. But he was guilty of one thing I shall never cease to regret. He failed to relate the closing chapter of that last story.”

In that suspended sentence—“suddenly—”—we find a strange kind of metaphor. Not just for Lincoln's storytelling, but for Lincoln himself: A life so rich with wit, insight, and humanity, interrupted before his "closing chapter".

Another tale from Abe Lincoln, Storyteller. And the one story he never finished.

Mac

Works Cited

[1] Weik, Jesse W. (1922). The Real Lincoln: A Portrait. Boston, MA:Houghton-Mifflin. pp.294-297.