Lincoln and cheated him out of two dollars in wages. Lincoln afterward wrote that no other success in life ever gave him so much satisfaction.
He did not make a great record as a military man. In after-life he used to tell how he got his men through a gateway into a field: "I could not for the life of me remember the right word of command for getting my company endwise, so that it could get through the gate; so when we came near I shouted, 'This company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again on the other side of the gate.'"
Lincoln did not win much glory in this campaign, but at some risk to himself he saved the life of a helpless old Indian whom his men wished to kill.
When he came back to New Salem, in partnership with a man named Berry he opened a store, giving his notes in payment for the stock. Berry ran the business heavily into debt and died. Instead of going through bankruptcy Lincoln sold out, shouldered the burden for fifteen years, and paid off every dollar of the debt with interest.
Later on he became the postmaster at New Salem. Most of the letters he carried around in his hat and delivered to his neighbors at their cabins on his way to work—one of the earliest systems on record of rural free-delivery.
