Saturday forenoon to obtaining full-length photographs to serve me
for the proposed statue. On Saturday evening, the committee appointed by
the convention to notify Mr. Lincoln formally of his nomination, headed
by Mr. Ashmun of Massachusetts, reached Springfield by special train,
bearing a large number of people, two or three hundred of whom carried
rails on their shoulders, marching in military style from the train to
the old State House Hall of Representatives, where they stacked them
like muskets. The evening was beautiful and clear, and the entire
population was astir. The bells pealed, flags waved, and cannon
thundered forth the triumphant nomination of Springfield's distinguished
citizen. The bonfires blazed brightly, and especially in front of that
prim-looking white house on Eighth street. The committee and the vast
crowd following it passed in at the front door, and made their exit
through the kitchen door in the rear, Mr. Lincoln giving them all a
hearty shake of the hand as they passed him in the parlor. By
appointment, I was to cast Mr. Lincoln's hands on the Sunday following
this memorable Saturday, at nine A.M. I found him ready, but he looked
more grave and serious than he had appeared on the previous days. I
wished him to hold something in his right hand, and he looked for a
piece of pasteboard, but could find none. I told him a round stick would
do as well as anything. Thereupon he went to the wood-shed, and I heard
the saw go, and he soon returned to the dining-room (where I did the
work), whittling off the end of a piece of broom-handle. I remarked to
him that he need not whittle off the edges. 'Oh, well,' said he, 'I
thought I would like to have it nice.' When I had successfully cast the
mould of the right hand, I began the left, pausing a few moments to hear
Mr. Lincoln tell me about a scar on the thumb. 'You have heard that they
call me a rail-splitter, and you saw them carrying rails in the
procession Saturday evening; well, it is true that I did split rails,
and one day, while I was sharpening a wedge on a log, the axe glanced
and nearly took my thumb off, and there is the scar, you see.' The right
hand appeared swollen as compared with the left, on account of excessive
hand-shaking the evening before; this difference is distinctly shown in
the cast. That Sunday evening I returned to Chicago with the moulds of
his hands, three photographic negatives of him, the identical black
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