[Some time before he leaves Kentucky, Mrs. Lucy G. Speed presents Lincoln with Oxford Bible. On October 3, 1861, Lincoln sent Mrs. Speed his photograph with inscription: "For Mrs. Lucy G. Speed, from whose pious hand I accepted the present of an Oxford Bible twenty years ago."Photocopy.]

Lincoln and Speed leave Louisville at noon on steamboat Lebanon for St. Louis.Abraham Lincoln to Mary Speed, 27 September 1841, CW, 1:259-61.

"Nothing of interest happened during the passage," wrote Lincoln, "except the vexatious delays occasioned by the sand bars be thought interesting." He did, however, find interest in a dozen Negroes chained together "like so many fish upon a trot-line." On August 24, 1855 he wrote Joshua F. Speed: "That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio."Abraham Lincoln to Mary Speed, 27 September 1841, CW, 1:259-61; Abraham Lincoln to Joshua F. Speed, 24 August 1855, CW, 2:320-23.

[McLean County Circuit Court opened yesterday, and remains in session all week.]****Should there be 2 September 8th days?

In his letter to Mary Speed September 27, 1841 Lincoln writes: "reached St. Louis the next monday at 8 P.M." Missouri Republican, 14 September 1841; Abraham Lincoln to Mary Speed, 27 September 1841, CW, 1:259-61.

[Two-day stage journey took passengers from St. Louis to Springfield. Fall courts opened at Tremont September 16, 1841. It is assumed that Lincoln was anxious to attend Tazewell Court where he had a good practice and therefore came to Springfield by stage rather than by boat up Illinois River.]

Lincoln writes to his friend, Mary Speed, of Louisville, Kentucky. Lincoln recalls his recent visit to Kentucky as a guest of Joshua F. Speed, Mary's half brother. Lincoln describes a scene he witnessed while on board a steamboat-leg of the journey back to Springfield, Illinois. He writes, "A gentleman had purchased twelve negroes in different parts of Kentucky and was taking them to a farm in the South. They were chained six and six together. A small iron clevis was around the left wrist of each, and this fastened to the main chain by a shorter one at a convenient distance from, the others; so that the negroes were strung together precisely like so many fish upon a trot-line." He recounts, "Do you remember my going to the city while I was in Kentucky, to have a tooth extracted, and making a failure of it? Well, that same old tooth got to paining me so much, that about a week since I had it torn out, bringing with it a bit of the jawbone; the consequence of which is that my mouth is now so sore that I can neither talk, nor eat. I am litterally 'subsisting on savoury remembrances'—that is, bring unable to eat, I am living upon the remembrance of the delicious dishes of peaches and cream we used to have at your house." Abraham Lincoln to Mary Speed, 27 September 1841, CW, 1:259-61.