In the memoranda which Mr. Lincoln furnished for a campaign biography, he thus relates what followed the call for troops: 

“Abraham joined a volunteer company, and, to his own surprise, was elected captain of it.  He says he has not since had any success in life which gave him so much satisfaction.  He went to the campaign, served near three months, met the ordinary hardships of such an expedition, but was in no battle.”  Official documents furnish some further interesting details.  As already said, the call was printed in the “Sangamo Journal” of April 19.  On April 21 the company was organized at Richland, Sangamon County, and on April 28 was inspected and mustered into service at Beardstown and attached to Colonel Samuel Thompson’s regiment, the Fourth Illinois Mounted Volunteers.  They marched at once to the hostile frontier.  As the campaign shaped itself, it probably became evident to the company that they were not likely to meet any serious fighting, and, not having been enlisted for any stated period, they became clamorous to return home.  The governor therefore had them and other companies mustered out of service, at the mouth of Fox River, on May 27.  Not, however, wishing to weaken his forces before the arrival of new levies already on the way, he called for volunteers to remain twenty days longer.  Lincoln had gone to the frontier to perform real service, not merely to enjoy military rank or reap military glory.  On the same day, therefore, on which he was mustered out as captain, he reenlisted, and became Private Lincoln in Captain Iles’s company of mounted volunteers, organized apparently principally for scouting service, and sometimes called the Independent Spy Battalion.  Among the other officers who imitated this patriotic example were General Whiteside and Major John T. Stuart, Lincoln’s later law partner.  The Independent Spy Battalion, having faithfully performed its new term of service, was finally mustered out on June 16, 1832.  Lincoln and his messmate, George M. Harrison, had the misfortune to have their horses stolen the day before, but Harrison relates: 

“I laughed at our fate and he joked at it, and we all started off merrily.  The generous men of our company walked and rode by turns with us, and we fared about equal with the rest.  But for this generosity our legs would have had to do the better work; for in that day this dreary route furnished no horses to buy or to steal, and, whether on horse or afoot, we always had company, for many of the horses’ backs were too sore for riding.”

Lincoln must have reached home about August 1, for the election was to occur in the second week of that month, and this left him but ten days in which to push his claims for popular indorsement.  His friends, however had been doing manful duty for him during his three months’ absence, and he lost nothing in public estimation by his prompt enlistment to defend the frontier.  Successive announcements in the “Journal” had by this time swelled the list of candidates to thirteen.  But Sangamon County was entitled to only four representatives and when the returns came in Lincoln was among those defeated.  Nevertheless, he made a very respectable showing in the race.  The list of successful and unsuccessful aspirants and their votes was as follows: