An "out-of-character" moment for Lincoln?

[Lewis Gannett]

(03-17-2013 07:06 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  Roger, I'm like you-not sure it was true-probably not. Think about it for a second: Lincoln was wearing new clothing-which for him in those days must have been expensive. He then rode on past the pig two miles. Two miles is a long way in those days-on horseback. Then it is said he turned around and rode back the two miles to rescue the creature. I have my doubts!

Mary Owens told Herndon that Lincoln himself had told her the "hog mired down" story: "In many things he was sensitive almost to a fault. He told me of an incident; that he was crossing a prairie one day, and saw before him a hog mired down, to use his own language; he was rather fixed up [dressed well] and he resolved that he would pass on without looking towards the shoat, after he had gone by, he said, the feeling was so eresistable and he had to look back, and the poor thing seemed to say so wistfully--There now! my last hope is gone; that he deliberately got down and relieved it from its difficulty." Herndon's Informants, 262. It's a judgment made without hard proof, but I very much doubt that Mrs. Mary (Owens) Vineyard invented this story, or that she would have repeated it had she heard it from someone other than Lincoln.