One day during the Black Hawk War there were in the camp on Rock river four men afterward famed in the history of the country.  It was while Lincoln was a member of the company under command of Captain Iles.  These men were Lieutenant Colonel Zachary Taylor, Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, Lieutenant Robert Anderson, and Private Abraham Lincoln.  Lincoln and Anderson did not meet again until 1861, after the latter had evacuated Fort Sumter.  Major Anderson then visited Washington and called at the White House to pay his respects to the President.  After having expressed his thanks to Anderson for his conduct in South Carolina, Lincoln said, “Major, do you remember ever meeting me before?” “No, Mr. President, I do not remember having had the pleasure before,” said Anderson.  “Well,” said Lincoln, “my memory is better than yours.  You mustered me into the service of the United States in 1832 at Dixon’s Ferry, during the Black Hawk War.”

Lincoln displayed the same courage and fidelity in performing the duties of a soldier that had marked his conduct in all other relations of life.  Father Dixon, the guide who was attached to Captain Iles’s company of mounted rangers, remarks that in their marches when scouts were sent forward to examine thickets and ravines in which it was thought the enemy might be lurking it often became necessary for many of the men to dismount and attend to their riding gear.  Whenever Lincoln was detailed for such service, however, his saddle was always in order.

During the contest between General Lewis Cass and General Zachary Taylor for the Presidency, in the year 1848, Lincoln made a speech in Congress in which he referred to his services in the Black Hawk War with characteristic humor: 

“By the way, Mr. Speaker,” he said, “did you know that I am a military hero?  Yes, sir.  In the days of the Black Hawk War I fought, bled, and came away.  Speaking of General Cass’s career reminds me of my own.  I was not at Stillman’s defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass was to Hull’s surrender, and, like him, I saw the place very soon afterwards.  It is quite certain that I did not break my sword, for I had none to break.  But I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion.  If Cass broke his sword the idea is that he broke it in desperation.  I bent my musket by accident.  If General Cass went ahead of me in picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon the wild onions.  If he saw any live fighting Indians, it is more than I did, but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitos, and although I never fainted from loss of blood I can truly say that I was often very hungry.  Mr. Speaker, if I should ever conclude to doff whatever our Democratic friends may suppose there is in me of black-cockade Federalism, and thereupon they shall take me up as their candidate for the Presidency, I protest they shall not make fun of me as they have of General Cass by attempting to write me into a military hero.”