Abraham Lincoln was somewhere between Jonesboro and Charleston, Illinois 168 years ago today. The day before, he had spent three hours debating Stephen A. Douglas in Jonesboro. Two days later, they would do it all over again at Charleston. But the campaign did not stop between the debates. On September 16, 1858, Lincoln reached Centralia around noon, where the Illinois State Fair was underway. Douglas was there too. Crowds gathered whenever either man appeared, but neither delivered a formal speech. Lincoln retreated to the office of an Illinois Central Railroad superintendent and began writing letters. One letter concerned political damage control from the previous day. Lincoln was worried that something he had said at Jonesboro about fellow Republican Martin Sweet would be blown out of proportion by the Democratic press. Lincoln wrote Sweet immediately to assure him that no disrespect had been intended. papersofabrahamlincoln.org/d… He wrote two other political letters that afternoon: one to Republican Congressman Elihu Washburne, asking whether it was true that Washburne opposed admitting any more slave states to the Union, as Douglas had alleged during the debate the day before. papersofabrahamlincoln.org/d… Lincoln dashed off a final letter to fellow Republican Joseph Gillespie. By this point, he appears to have been out of paper, so he borrowed a sheet of letterhead from the superintendent. He also seems to have been in a hurry—his handwriting is noticeably less careful than usual. (Judge for yourself; I’ll attach the letter to this post.) In the letter, Lincoln was alarmed to see news from New York that Republicans and the American Party had failed to unite and instead nominated separate candidates. He feared that something similar could happen in Madison County, Illinois, and urged Gillespie to do whatever he could to keep the various anti-slavery factions together. papersofabrahamlincoln.org/d… It’s a small letter, but a revealing one. Even between two of the most famous debates in American history, Lincoln was thinking about local party organization—coalitions, discipline, and votes. It’s exactly the sort of behind-the-scenes political work Matthew Pinsker brings to the foreground throughout Boss Lincoln. That evening, Lincoln boarded another train and continued toward Charleston. He reached Mattoon early the next morning and spent the following day preparing for the fourth debate, set for September 18. We often remember the Lincoln-Douglas Debates as seven momentous encounters. And they were. But the campaign of 1858 was relentless: trains, speeches, fairs, newspaper coverage, letters, political organizing, damage control—and then another debate. The debates were the main events, but the campaign happened in all the miles between them. And it never really stopped. It had to be exhausting. #LincolnToday