The spring of 1832 brought a new turn in Lincoln’s career.  The year had been one of great advancement in many respects.  He had made new and valuable acquaintances, read many books, mastered the grammar of his own tongue, won a multitude of friends.  Those who could appreciate intelligence and character respected him, and those whose highest ideas of a man related to his physical prowess were devoted to him.  Everyone trusted him.  He was judge, arbitrator, referee, authority in all disputes, games, and matches whether of man-flesh or horse-flesh.  He was the peacemaker in all quarrels.  He was everybody’s friend—­the best-natured, most sensible, best-informed, most modest, unassuming, kindest, gentlest, roughest, strongest, best young fellow in all New Salem or the region about.  But Mr. Offutt’s trading enterprises ended disastrously in the year 1832.  The store was closed, the mill was shut down, and Lincoln was out of business.

At the very moment, however, that he found himself adrift Illinois was filled with excitement over the Black Hawk War.  The centre of alarm was in the Rock Valley, in the northern part of the State, which had been formerly the home of the Sac tribe of Indians.  Discontented with their life on the reservation west of the Mississippi, to which they had been removed, the Sacs, with several other tribes, resolved to recover their old hunting-grounds.  The warlike chief, Black Hawk, was at the head of the revolt, and his march toward the Rock river was signalized by a number of massacres.  Governor Reynolds of Illinois issued a proclamation calling for volunteers to aid the regular troops in the emergency.  Lincoln was one of the first to answer the call, the brave “Clary Grove Boys” also coming promptly to the rescue.  “The volunteers gathered,” writes Mr. Arnold, “at Rushville, in Schuyler County, at which place they were to be organized, and elected officers.  Lincoln was a candidate for the place of captain, and in opposition to him was one William Kirkpatrick.  The mode of election was novel.  By agreement, each candidate walked off to some distance and took position by himself.  The men were then to form, and those who voted for Kirkpatrick were to range on a line with their candidate.  When the lines were formed, Lincoln’s was three times as long as that of Kirkpatrick, and so Lincoln was declared elected.  Speaking of this affair when President, he said that he was more gratified with this his first success than with any other election of his life.  Neither Lincoln nor his company was in any engagement during the campaign, but there was plenty of hardships and fatigue, and some incidents occurred to illustrate his courage and power over men.”