Abraham Lincoln to the Editor of the Sangamo Journal, [4] October 18421
Upon presenting this note2 to Gen. Whiteside, and stating verbally that it was an agreement to meet him at the time he mentioned,
at Louisiana, Missouri, he replied:—
“Lincoln, I can not accept any thing from him now. I have business at St. Louis: and it is as near as Louisiana.
A. LINCOLN.Dr. Merryman requests me, as he understands you are going away, to give you notice, that he will
publish the correspondence which has passed between you and him, with such comments
as he shall think proper.
Upon making the above statement verbally to Gen. Whiteside, he replied— “I am going away when it suits my convenience: but I expect Dr. Merryman, as an honorable
man, to meet me at St. Louis. We then shall be untrammeled by the laws of this State.”3
A. LINCOLN.1On October 7, 1842, the Sangamo Journal printed a long communication from John D. Whiteside, giving his account of the narrowly-averted
duel between Abraham Lincoln and James Shields. Whiteside and Dr. Elias Merryman, acting as “seconds” for Shields and Lincoln respectively,
became embroiled in their own disagreement that escalated to a challenge to a duel.
In the next column, the Journal then printed Merryman’s account, which includes these passages reported by Lincoln.
2On October 4, 1842, Lincoln delivered a note from Merryman to Whiteside in which Merryman
offered to meet at Louisiana, Missouri, on the following Friday.
3Whiteside later claimed that he understood Merryman to be proposing to meet in the
state of Louisiana. Merryman and Whiteside continued to bicker about the genesis of their disagreement
and about the site for the duel.
Abraham Lincoln to Joshua F. Speed; Sangamo Journal (Springfield, IL), 14 October 1842, 2:3-5.
Printed Document, 1 page(s), Sangamo Journal (Springfield, IL), 7 October 1842, 2:6.