45 the time as well as I understood yours afterward, by the aid you would have given me I should have sailed through clear; but that does not now afford me sufficient confidence to begin that or the like of that again.

You make a kind of acknowledgment of your obligations to me for your present happiness. I am pleased with that acknowledgment. But a thousand times more am I pleased to know that you enjoy a degree of happiness worthy of an acknowledgment. The truth is, I am not sure that there was any merit with me in the part I took in your difficulty: I was drawn to it by a fate. If I would, I could not have done less than I did. I was always superstitious: I believe God made me one of the instruments of bringing your Fanny and you together, which union I have no doubt He had foreordained. Whatever He designs He will do for me yet. "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord" is my text just now. If, as you say, you have told Fanny all, I should have no objection to her seeing this letter, but for its reference to our friend here: let her seeing it depend upon whether she has ever known anything of my affairs; and if she has not, do not let her.

I do not think I can come to Kentucky this season. I am so poor and make so little headway in the world that I drop back in a month of idleness as much as I gain in a year's sowing. I should like to visit you again. I should like to see that "sis" of yours that was absent when I was there, though I suppose she would run away again if she were to hear I was coming.

Though meditating a recovery of relations that may lead to matrimony, his fees are still painfully slight.

14th.

(To Samuel D. Marshall.) Yours of the 15th June, relative to the suit of Grable vs. Margrave was duly received, and I have delayed answering it till now, when I can

announce the result of the case. The judgment is affirmed. So soon as the clerk has leisure to make a copy of the mandate of the court, I will get him to do so, and send it to you, by force of which your clerk will issue an execution.

As to the fee, if you are agreed, let it be as follows. Give me credit for two years subscription to your paper and send me five dollars, in good money or the equivalent of it in our Illinois paper.

A reconciliation with Mary Todd is somehow effected though neither discloses quite how it was done and gossiping tongues wag more busily than ever. Speedily Lincoln has an opportunity to defend the lady. Satirical letters signed "Rebeccah" appear in the Springfield Journal lampooning a local politician, James Shields; some of these are written by Lincoln, one by Mary Todd and a girl friend. When Shields becomes enraged over the sauciness of the "Rebeccah" letters, Lincoln assumes responsibility for them. Shields challenges him to a duel, Lincoln replies:

September 17th. (To Jas. Shields, Esq.) Your note of to-day was handed me by General Whitesides. In that note you say you have been informed, through the medium of the editor of the Journal, that I am the author of certain articles in that paper which you deem personally abusive of you; and without stopping to inquire whether I really am the author, or to point out what is offensive in them, you demand an unqualified retraction of all that is offensive, and then proceed to hint at consequences.

Now, sir, there is in this so much assumption of facts and so much of menace as to consequences, that I can not submit to answer that note any further than I have, and to add that the consequences to which I suppose you allude would be matter of as great regret to me as it possibly could to you.

19th. (Memorandum of Instructions to E. H. Merryman, Lincoln's Second.) In case Whitesides shall signify a wish to adjust this affair without further difficulty, let him know that if the present papers be withdrawn, and a note from Mr. Shields asking to know if I am the author of the articles of which he complains, and asking that I shall make him gentlemanly satisfaction if I am the author, and this without menace of dictation as to what that satisfaction shall be, a pledge is made that the following answer shall be given :

"I did write the 'Lost Townships' letter which appeared in the Journal of the 2d instant, but had no participation in any form in any other article alluding to you. I wrote that wholly for political effect. I had no intention of injuring your personal or private character or standing as a man or a gentleman; and I did not then think, and do not now think, that that article could produce or has produced that effect against you; and had I anticipated such an effect I would have forborne to write it. And I will add, that your conduct toward me, so far as I know, had always been gentlemanly; and that I had no personal pique against you, and no cause for any."

If this should be done, I leave it with you to arrange what shall and what shall not be published.

If nothing like this is done, the preliminaries of the fight are to be:

Ist. Weapons:-Cavalry broadswords of the largest size, precisely equal in all respects, and such as now used by the cavalry company at Jacksonville.

2d. Position: A plank ten feet long, and from nine to twelve inches broad, to be firmly fixed on edge, on the ground, as the line between us, which neither is to pass his foot over upon forfeit of his life. Next a line drawn on the ground on either side of said plank and parallel with it, each at the distance of the whole length of the sword and three feet additional from the plank; and the passing of his own such line by either

party during the fight shall be deemed a surrender of the

contest.

3d. Time-On Thursday evening at 5 o'clock, if you can get it so; but in no case to be at a greater distance of time than Friday evening at 5 o'clock.

4th. Place: Within three miles of Alton, on the opposite side of the river, the particular spot to be agreed on by you.

Any preliminary details coming within the above rules you are at liberty to make at your discretion; but you are in no case to swerve from these rules, or to pass beyond their limits.

Quarrel with Shields patched up by friends after the duelists have taken their places.

October 4th. (To Joshua F. Speed.) You have heard of my duel with Shields, and I have now to inform you that the dueling business still rages in this city. Day before yesterday Shields challenged Butler, who accepted, and proposed fighting next morning at sunrise in Bob Allen's meadow, one hundred yards' distance, with rifles. To this Whitesides, Shields' second, said "no" because of the law. Thus ended duel No. 2. Yesterday Whitesides chose to consider himself insulted by Doctor Merryman, so sent him a kind of quasi-challenge, inviting him to meet him at the Planter's House in St. Louis on the next Friday, to settle their difficulty. Merryman made me his friend, and sent a note, inquiring to know if he meant his note as a challenge, and if so, that he would, according to the law in such case made and provided, prescribe the terms of the meeting. Whitesides returned for answer that if Merryman would meet him at the Planter's House as desired, he would challenge him. M. replied in a note that he denied W.'s right to dictate time and place, but that he (M.) would waive the question of time, and meet him in Louisiana, Missouri. Upon my presenting this note to W. and stating verbally its

contents, he declined receiving it, saying he had business in St. Louis, and it was as near as Louisiana. Merryman then directed me to notify Whitesides that he should publish the correspondence between them with such comments as he thought fit. This I did. Thus it stood at bedtime last night. This morning Whitesides, by his friend Shields, is praying for a new trial, on the ground that he was mistaken in Merryman's proposition to meet him at Louisiana, Missouri, thinking it was the State of Louisiana. This Merryman hoots at, and is preparing his publication; while the town is in a ferment, and a street fight somewhat anticipated.

October. (To his cousin, John Hanks.) Dear John-I am to be married on the 4th of next month to Miss Todd. I hope you will come over. Be sure to be on deck by early candle-light.

November 4, 1842, married to Mary Todd.

November 11th. Nothing new here [Springfield] except my marrying, which to me is matter of profound wonder.