Mr. John T. Stuart, Lincoln’s first law-partner, says of him that his accounts were correctly kept, but in a manner peculiar to himself.  Soon after their law-partnership was formed, Mr. Stuart was elected to Congress, thereafter spending much of his time in Washington.  Lincoln conducted the business of the firm in his absence.  When Mr. Stuart reached home, at the close of the first session of Congress, Lincoln proceeded to give him an account of the earnings of the office during his absence.  The charges for fees and entry of receipts of money were not in an account book, but stowed away in a drawer in Lincoln’s desk, among the papers in each case.  He proceeded to lay the papers before Mr. Stuart, taking up each case by itself.  The account would run in this way: 

Fees charged in this case................$
Amount collected.........................$
Stuart’s half............................$

The half that belonged to Mr. Stuart would invariably accompany the papers in the case.  Lincoln had the reputation of being very moderate in his charges.  He was never grasping, and seemed incapable of believing that his services could be worth much to anyone.

One of the most famous cases in which Lincoln engaged was that of William D. Armstrong, son of Jack and Hannah Armstrong of New Salem, the child whom Lincoln had rocked in the cradle while Mrs. Armstrong attended to other household duties.  Jack Armstrong, it will be remembered, was an early friend of Lincoln’s, whom he had beaten in a wrestling-match on his first arrival in New Salem.  He and his wife had from that time treated the youth with the utmost kindness, giving him a home when he was out of work, and showing him every kindness it was in their power to offer.  Lincoln never forgot his debt of gratitude to them; and when Hannah, now a widow, wrote to him of the peril her boy was in, and besought him to help them in their extremity, he replied promptly that he would do what he could.  The circumstances were these:  “In the summer of 1857, at a camp-meeting in Mason County, one Metzgar was most brutally murdered.  The affray took place about half a mile from the place of worship, near some wagons loaded with liquor and provisions.  Two men, James H. Norris and William D. Armstrong, were indicted for the crime.  Norris was tried in Mason County, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to the penitentiary for a term of eight years.  The popular feeling being very high against Armstrong in Mason County, he took a change of venue to Cass County, and was there tried (at Beardstown) in the spring of 1858.  Hitherto Armstrong had had the services of two able counsellors; but now their efforts were supplemented by those of a most determined and zealous volunteer.  The case was so clear against the accused that defense seemed almost useless.  The strongest evidence was that of a man who swore that at eleven o’clock at night he saw Armstrong strike the deceased on the head;