Where was Lincoln?

[David Lockmiller]

Thank you, one and all, for your efforts to locate the source of this quote.

I became interested in this topic and recently purchased a book on the subject. But I had trouble reading the book to find the specific information I was seeking.

I then hit on the idea of Professor Michael Burlingame and his two volume work, Abraham Lincoln: A Life. I hardly ever read anything in Volume One because I was most interested in Lincoln's life as President and the Civil War.

But then I thought since the book was written in chronological order as a general rule, I would make the research effort in Volume One. I began with "Ann Rutledge" as the search term.

This led me to a section of the book at page 97 with the subtitle "Romance." (A very good read on this subject from pages 97-101.) The section begins as follows:

In Illinois, as in Indiana, the bashful Lincoln paid little attention to young women. (In middle age, he admitted that "women are the only things that cannot hurt me that I am afraid of.") [footnote 72. Fred R. Jeliff, "The Lincoln-Douglas Debate," Galesburg Republican-Register, 10 Oct. 1896.]

So, it would appear that the source of Mr. Jeliff's quote is indeterminate. My apology.