There are many reminiscences of this great celebration, and Lincoln's
part in it, still afloat in Illinois. General T.J. Henderson writes,
in the entertaining reminiscences of Lincoln prepared for this
biography:
"The first time I remember to have seen Abraham Lincoln was during the
memorable campaign of 1840, when I was a boy fifteen years of age. It
was at an immense Whig mass-meeting held at Springfield, Illinois, in
the month of June of that year. The Whigs attended this meeting from
all parts of the State in large numbers, and it was estimated that
from forty to fifty thousand people were present. They came in
carriages and wagons, on horseback and on foot. They came with log
cabins drawn on wheels by oxen, and with coons, coon-skins, and hard
cider. They came with music and banners; and thousands of them came
from long distances. It was the first political meeting I had ever
attended, and it made a very strong impression upon my youthful mind.
"My father, William H. Henderson, then a resident of Stark County,
Illinois, was an ardent Whig; and having served under General William
Henry Harrison, the then Whig candidate for President, in the war of
1812-1815, he felt a deep interest in his election. And although
he lived about a hundred miles from Springfield, he went with a
delegation from Stark County to this political meeting, and took
me along with him.
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