school-teacher, and afterward a justice of the peace and a surveyor.
James Rutledge was the keeper of the Rutledge tavern and the father
of Ann Rutledge; Hugh Armstrong was the head of the numerous Armstrong
family; "Uncle Jimmy" White lived on a farm five miles from New Salem,
and died about thirty years ago in the eightieth year of his age;
William Green (spelled by the later members of the family with a
final "e") was the father of William G. Greene, Lincoln's associate
in Offutt's store; and as to Bowling Green, more is said elsewhere.
In the following three or four years, very few elections were held
at which Lincoln was not a clerk. It is a somewhat singular fact
that Lincoln, though clerk of this election, is not recorded as
voting.--_J. McCan Davis._]

The march in pursuit of the Indians led the army to Ottawa, where the
volunteers became so dissatisfied that on May 27th and 28th Governor
Reynolds mustered them out. But a force in the field was essential
until a new levy was raised; and a few of the men were patriotic
enough to offer their services, among them Lincoln, who on May 29th
was mustered in at the mouth of the Fox River by a man in whom, thirty
years later, he was to have a keen interest--General Robert Anderson,
commander at Fort Sumter in 1861. Lincoln became a private in Captain
Elijah Iles's company of Independent Rangers, not brigaded--a company
made up, says Captain Iles in his "Footsteps and Wanderings,"
of "generals, colonels, captains, and distinguished men from the
disbanded army." General Anderson says that at this muster Lincoln's
arms were valued at forty dollars, his horse and equipment at one
hundred and twenty dollars. The Independent Rangers were a favored
body, used to carry messages and to spy on the enemy. They had no
camp duties, and "drew rations as often as they pleased." So that as a
private Lincoln was really better off than as a captain.[C]