Apache Indians, all made a powerful impression upon young Logan. But his military duties left him little time for observation. He had been detailed as quartermaster of his regiment, and it was no easy task to procure the necessary supplies, and on issuing them to secure the proper vouchers and receipts. But when the war was over, and the regiment returned home by the way of Fort Leavenworth, Quartermaster Logan's accounts were all found to be in perfect order. Subsequently they passed the careful scrutiny of the auditing officials at the Treasury Department, where they are now on file, balanced to a cent.

CHAPTER II.

THE STUDENT-THE LAWYER-THE LEGISLATOR.

R

ETURNING home in October, 1848, young

Logan commenced the study of law in

the office of his uncle, Alexander M. Jenkins, formerly Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois. Robust and weather-bronzed, the young veteran of New Mexico was the hero of his neighborhood, and he soon took the lead among the young men in their sports, while he entertained them with his reminiscences of army life and with many good stories which he had heard at the camp fires. His manner was dramatic, his command of his features was wonderful, and his voice was exquisitely modulated.

Soon after young Logan's return home, several valuable horses were stolen from the neighborhood by a member of an organized band of thieves who had come over from Missouri, where his comrades had hiding-places almost inaccessible in the swamps. As these marauders were desperate characters and always went armed, there was some hesitation about following the thief, but young Logan, taking two young men with him, started in pursuit. The second day

afterward the pursuers returned, bringing the horses which had been stolen, but no one ever knew what had become of the thief.

In November, 1849, he was elected county clerk of Jackson County, and held the office a year, during which time, while discharging his duties in the most creditable manner, he pursued his legal studies. He also attended a course of law lectures at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, which was then regarded as the foremost institution of legal learning west of the Allegheny Mountains. Applying himself with his wonted industry and perseverance, he received his diploma in 1851. Admitted to the practice of the law, Mr. Logan entered into partnership with his uncle. Governor Jenkins was a legal bookworm, and would hunt up all the authorities bearing upon their clients' cases, which his young partner would use in the trial, examining the witnesses, and addressing the jury in his forcible and convincing style of oratory. His practical mind, vigorous intellect, popular manners, and rare abilities as a public speaker won him a foremost place in public esteem, and in 1852 he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of the then Third Judicial Circuit of Illinois.

In 1852, Mr. Logan removed to the town of Benton, where he continued his law practice, and very largely increased his circle of personal and political friends. At the fall election of 1851, he

544

was elected to represent Jackson and Benton Counties in the Illinois State Legislature. He entered at once upon a successful legislative career, and was recognized as a young man of unusual promise, alike formidable as a foe and valuable as a friend. Candid in his presentation of facts, logical in his mode of reasoning, and skillful in arousing emotion, he had few superiors as a popular speaker. Shaking off the trammels of routine, he was progressive and aggressive in opposing monopolies and in widening the paths of industry. Politically, he was an uncompromising Democrat, always voting with his party.

He was married on the 27th of November, 1855, at Shawneetown, to Miss Mary S. Cunningham, daughter of John W. Cunningham, formerly Register of the United States Land Office at that place. She is the great-granddaughter of Robert Cunningham, an Irish immigrant to Virginia, who fought for his adopted country in the Revolutionary War, after which he removed to Tennessee, thence to Alabama, and thence to Illinois, at that time a territory, where he emancipated several slaves which he had previously acquired. Her father, Captain John M. Cunningham, served in the Black Hawk Indian War, and also in the war with Mexico, and was a member of the Legislature of Illinois in 1845 and 1846. Her mother was Miss Elizabeth Fontaine, one of a family of French immigrants to Louisiana when under the rule of

France, but which had afterward ascended the Mississippi and located in Missouri, settling at Petersburg in Boone County. There she was married to John M. Cunningham, and their oldest child, Mary Simmerson, was born on the 15th of August, 1838. When she was but a year old, her parents crossed the Mississippi and settled at Marion, in Williamson County, Illinois, where she was reared amid the hardships and dangers of frontier life. When Captain Cunningham went to meet the hostile Indians in the northern part of his own State, and later to fight the battles of his country in the land of the Montezumas, his brave and dutiful little daughter relieved her mother all in her power in household duties, and stood by her nobly when the father again left home to seek a fortune in the pollen streams

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