Excerpt from Legacy of Fun In 1832, when the Black Hawk War broke out, he joined a company of Volunteer Rifles; and such was his popularity that he was almost immediately unanimously chosen captain by his comrades - an unexpected piece of good fortune which he often said gave him greater pleasure than any subsequent success in life. Here he served for three months only, when he was pro posed as a candidate for the Legislature of Illinois, but his Opponents being in a majority he was defeated. Soon after this he was appointed post-master of New Salem; and now, having a little leisure time on his hands, he began to study law, borrowing of an evening books from a neighbouring lawyer, and returning them the next morning. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.