The package contained a piece of
white oak wood. It was part of a rail that Abe had split when he was
sixteen years old. Josiah thought that he might like to have it made
into a cane.
Hundreds of other letters came from people he had never seen. One from
New York state made him smile.
"I am a little girl only eleven years old," the letter read, "but want
you should be President of the United States very much so I hope you
won't think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are.... I
have got four brothers and part of them will vote for you anyway and if
you will let your whiskers grow I will try to get the rest of them to
vote for you. You would look a great deal better for your face is so
thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands
to vote for you and then you would be President...."
The letter was signed "Grace Bedell." In less than two weeks she
received an answer. Abraham Lincoln, who loved children, took her
advice. By election day on November 6, 1860, he had started to grow a
beard.
He spent the evening of election day in the telegraph office.
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