Abraham Lincoln and the Eighth Judicial Circuit

[LincolnToddFan]

Hi Roger-here is what I have read on the issue of the Eighth Circuit and AL's visits home. I am quoting directly from "Legends That Libel Lincoln" pgs 132-134:

..[We are told that Lincoln, when traveling the circuit, would not go home at weekends to visit his family, as his fellow attorneys did, and how the impression was that this was because of his unhappy home life.Yet we know that Lincoln adored his boys. He loved to play and romp with them; he could find no fault in them; and indulged them in every way he could. Even that love, we are asked to believe, could not lure him home. Apparently it did not occur to his fellow lawyers that perhaps he was gloomy, when he saw them leaving for their homes, because it was often physically impossible for him to go to his family. The Eighth Judicial Circuit was originally about 150 miles long and nearly as wide. At it's largest extent, and when transportation was poorest, it covered approximately 11,000 square miles. There were no railroads in this circuit until about 1853 or 1854. The roads were wretched, particularly in the spring of the year. Travel by horseback or by horse and buggy was slow and arduous. Lincoln was one of the very few attorneys, some say he was the only one, who traveled the entire circuit. Let us see what Paul Angle has to say about this: "Prior to the '50's when the main lines of most of the present railroad system of Illinois were constructed, Lincoln could have had little opportunity to return to his home on weekends. While most of the lawyers of the circuit practiced only in the counties adjacent to their own, he made the entire round. Since courts were held on both Saturday and Monday, distance prevented him from returning to Springfield except at long intervals, though other attorneys, living much nearer, might visit their families almost every week. As a matter of fact as transportation facilities improved Lincoln's absences became shorter and shorter....as early as 1854 Lincoln could-and did-leave Springfield for Clinton on a Tuesday morning, arrive there that afternoon, spend three days in court, and return home again on Friday night."]

Author sources Paul Angle's "Abraham Lincoln:Circuit Lawyer" and Herndon/Weik's "Life of Lincoln"