set up, or swords were drawn, mutual friends took the matter out
of the hands of the seconds, and declared a settlement of the
difficulty.

The affair created much talk and merriment in Springfield, but
Lincoln found in it more than comedy. By means of it he and Miss
Todd were again brought together in friendly interviews, and on
November 4, they were married at the house of Mr. Edwards. Four
children were born of this marriage: Robert Todd Lincoln, August
1, 1843; Edward Baker Lincoln, March 10, 1846; William Wallace
Lincoln, December 21, 1850; and Thomas Lincoln, April 4, 1853.
Edward died while a baby; William, in the White House, February
20, 1862; Thomas in Chicago, July 15, 1871; and the mother, Mary
Lincoln, in Springfield, July 16, 1882. Robert Lincoln was
graduated from Harvard during the Civil War, serving afterward on
the staff of General Grant. He has since been Secretary of War
and Minister to England, and has held many other important
positions of trust.

His wedding over, Lincoln took up again the practical routine of
daily life. He and his bride were so poor that they could not
make the visit to Kentucky that both would so much have enjoyed.
They could not even set up a little home of their own. "We are
not keeping house," he wrote to a friend, "but boarding at the
Globe Tavern," where, he added, their room and board only cost
them four dollars a week. His "National Debt" of the old New
Salem days was not yet all paid off, and patiently and resolutely
he went on practising the economy he had learned in the hard
school of experience.