The charge that Hardin, Baker, and Lincoln tried to ruin one another in this contest for Congress has often been denied by their associates, and never more emphatically than by Judge Gillespie, an influential politician of the State. In an unpublished letter Judge Gillespie says: "Hardin was one of the most unflinching and unfaltering Whigs that ever drew the breath of life. He was a mirror of chivalry, and so was Baker. Lincoln had boundless respect for, and confidence in, them both. He knew they would sacrifice themselves rather than do an act that could savor in the slightest degree of meanness or dishonor. Those men, Lincoln, Hardin, and Baker, were bosom friends, to my certain knowledge.... Lincoln felt that they could be actuated by nothing but the most honorable sentiments towards him. For although they were rivals, they were all three men of the most punctilious honor, and devoted friends. I knew them intimately, and can say confidently that there never was a particle of envy on the part of one towards the other. The rivalry between them was of the most honorable and friendly character, and when Hardin and Baker were killed (Hardin in Mexico, and Baker at Ball's Bluff) Lincoln felt that in the death of each he had lost a dear and true friend[11]."
[Footnote 11: From an unpublished letter by Joseph Gillespie, owned by Mrs. Ellen Hardin Walworth of New York City.]
[Illustration: COURTHOUSE AT PETERSBURG, MENARD COUNTY, WHERE LINCOLN WAS NOMINATED FOR CONGRESS.]
After Hardin's withdrawal, Lincoln went about in his characteristic way trying to soothe his and Hardin's friends. "Previous to General Hardin's withdrawal," he wrote one of his correspondents,[12] "some of his friends and some of mine had become a little warm; and I felt ... that for them now to meet face to face and converse together was the best way to efface any remnant of unpleasant feeling, if any such existed. I did not suppose that General Hardin's friends were in any greater need of having their feelings corrected than mine were."
[Footnote 12: From an unpublished letter to Judge James Berdan of Jacksonville, Illinois, dated April 26, 1846. The original is now owned by Mrs. Mary Berdan Tiffany of Springfield, Illinois.]