nstitute speech, a score or two of
active Republicans in the city of Hartford appeared in close and
orderly ranks, wearing each a cap and large cape of oil-cloth, and
bearing over their shoulders a long staff, on the end of which blazed
a brilliant torch-light. This first "Wide Awake" [3] Club, as it
called itself, marching with soldierly step, and military music,
escorted Mr. Lincoln, on the evening of March 5, from the hall where he
addressed the people, to his hotel. The device was so simple and yet
so strikingly effective that it immediately became the pattern for
other cities. After the campaign opened, there was scarcely a county
or village in the North without its organized and drilled association
of "Wide Awakes," immensely captivating to the popular eye, and
forming everywhere a vigilant corps to spread the fame of, and solicit
votes for, the Republican Presidential candidate. On several occasions
twenty to thirty thousand "Wide Awakes" met in the larger cities and
marched in monster torch-light processions through the principal
streets.

His nomination also made necessary some slight changes in Mr. Lincoln's
daily life. His law practice was transferred entirely to his partner,
and instead of the small dingy office so long occupied by him, he was
now given the use of the Governor's room in the State-house, which was
not needed for official business during the absence of the Legislature.
This also was a room of modest proportions, with scanty and plain
furniture. Here Mr. Lincoln, attended only by his private secretary,
Mr. Nicolay, passed the long summer days of the campaign, receiving the
constant stream of visitors anxious to look upon a real Presidential
candidate. There was free access to him; not even an usher stood at the
door; any one might knock and enter. His immediate personal friends
from Sangamon County and central Illinois availed themselves largely
of this opportunity. With men who had known him in field and forest
he talked over the incidents of their common pioneer experience with
unaffected sympathy and interest, as though he were yet the flat-boatman,
surveyor, or village lawyer of the early days. The letters which came
to him by hundreds, the newspapers, and the conversation of friends,
kept him sufficiently informed of the progress of the campaign, in
which personally he took a very slight part. He made no addresses,
wrote no public letters, held no conferences. Political leaders several
ti