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| Abraham Lincoln in Court (a Lloyd Ostendorf print) |
🕵️ A Suspicion of Murder
In the summer of 1841, Springfield thought it had a murder on its hands. Archibald Fisher vanished, suspicion fell on three brothers, and Abraham Lincoln—then a young lawyer—stepped in to defend them.
Lincoln later recounted the affair in a letter to his closest friend, Joshua Speed—a performance of wit and exaggeration that shows Lincoln the Storyteller at his sharpest, turning a supposed murder into comic theater and a frontier dramedy of rumor, hysteria, and courtroom spectacle.
👥 “The Chief Personages in the Drama”
Lincoln began with understatement: “We have had the highest state of excitement here for a week past that our community has ever witnessed.” He added that the affair was “verry” mysterious—stretching the word for comic effect.
The cast:
Archibald Fisher — the supposed victim
Archibald, Henry, and William Trailor — three brothers suspected of killing him
Arch lived in Springfield, Henry in Clary’s Grove, and William in Warren County—where Fisher also lodged.
🔍 The Disappearance
The story begins on Saturday evening, May 29, 1841. Archibald Fisher and William Trailor arrived at the home of William’s brother Henry. They stayed through Sunday, and on Monday all three traveled to Springfield, where they met their other brother, Archibald Trailor.
By supper that evening, Fisher had vanished. The next morning, a search was attempted but proved fruitless. On Tuesday at 1 p.m., William and Henry Trailor left Springfield without Fisher. Within days, Henry returned with neighbors from Clary’s Grove to search again, even placing a notice in the local paper announcing Fisher’s disappearance.
What began as a missing‑person case was about to ignite the town into frenzy.
🔥 Rumor Sparks a Frenzy
On June 10, a letter from the Warren County postmaster claimed William Trailor told a “verry mysterious” story about Fisher. The effect was electric. Springfield was “agog,” crowds searched for a body, and sheriffs arrested the brothers.
Henry hinted Fisher was dead, naming Arch and William as killers, and even pointed to Spring Creek as the burial site.
🕵️ The Evidence
Lincoln paints the scene of this scramble to find the corpse with similes, metaphors, and even a dash of Latin:
“Away the People swept like a herd of buffaloes, and cut down Hickox’s mill dam nolens volens [*], to draw the water out of the pond, and then went up and down, and down and up the creek, fishing and raking, and ducking and diving for two days.”
Two days—no body, but plenty of “evidence”:
Scuffled ground: A disturbed patch of brush suggested a fight had taken place.
Drag marks: Signs of something man‑sized being dragged to the edge of the thicket.
Carriage tracks: Ruts from a small wheeled carriage, drawn by one horse, from the thicket toward Spring Creek.
Whiskers: Dr. Merryman, one of the local doctors, found two hairs at the scuffle ground. Lincoln relished the pseudo‑science delivered with such mock precision. After “scientific examination,” Merryman pronounced them “triangular human hairs”—likely whiskers "because the ends were cut, showing that they had flourished in the neighbourhood of the razor’s operations.”
A jumble of circumstantial clues was enough to convince townspeople they were on the trail of a murder. Rumors spread like wildfire and the town began reaching their verdicts—Fisher was dead, the Trailors were guilty.
⚖️ The Trial
On Friday, a legal examination was held before two Justices on the charge of murder against William and Archibald Trailor. Henry was introduced as a witness for the prosecution, and the cast was set: Prosecutor Lamborn on one side, and on the other, Logan, Baker, and “your humble servant,” Abraham Lincoln.
Witnesses repeated the evidence of scuffle ground, drag marks, and whiskers. Then Henry Trailor took the stand against his own brothers, claiming he had seen them lift Fisher’s body into a carriage and later confess to killing him.
It was the kind of testimony that could hang a man—if only there had been a body.
😲 The Twist
Just as the prosecution seemed to have its case nailed down, the defense called Dr. Gilmore, an old acquaintance of Fisher. His testimony upended everything.
On the very Tuesday that William Trailor was arrested, Fisher was alive—NOT dead—lying in bed at his house and “apparantly verry unwell”. (Again, Lincoln draws out this word.)
Gilmore testified that he had known Fisher for years. He explained that Fisher suffered a head injury several years earlier and often endured poor health and bouts of mental confusion. Fisher’s own muddled account of where he had been only reinforced the impression.
Remembering the arrest, Gilmore immediately set off for Springfield to deliver the startling news.
To back up Gilmore, the prosecution introduced several of his Warren County neighbors—including the very postmaster who had sparked the hysteria.
The effect was devastating for the prosecution's case. The supposed murder victim was alive. Henry’s dramatic confession collapsed under the weight of Gilmore’s testimony.
😂 The Aftermath
With Dr. Gilmore’s testimony, the prosecution's case collapsed. The Trailors were discharged, Archibald and William said they were confident Fisher would be found alive, while their brother Henry stubbornly insisted no power on earth could ever show Fisher living.
Lincoln delighted in describing the townspeople’s faces for Speed: some quizzical, some furious, others wo‑begone. Hart, the drayman, Lincoln wrote, grumbled it was “too damned bad…no hanging after all.”
Lincoln’s comic eye made tragedy dissolve into farce. No corpse, no drama—only Springfield blushing at its bloodthirsty frenzy built on whiskers and wagon tracks.
Four years after escaping the hangman’s noose, William Trailor died quietly at home—still owing Lincoln his fee. The lawyer who had saved his life was left to sue the estate for his $100 fee. [2]
Another tale from the archives of Abraham Lincoln, Storyteller.
Mac
[*] nolens volens is Latin for "willing" or "not willing"; in this case it basically means without permission.
📚 Works Cited
[1] "Letter to Joshua F. Speed, June 19, 1841." Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 1 [1824-Aug. 28, 1848]. In the digital collection Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed November 20, 2025.
[2] Sandburg, Carl (1926) Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie Years. New York, Harcourt, Brace. p. 293.
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