Annotation
[1] Illinois State Register, February 21, 1840. An inferior printing appears in the Sangamo Journal of the same date. Although bearing the January date, as printed in the Register, the circular seems not to have been put in the mail before February 4. The editor of the Democratic Register was responsible for the italicization of certain passages.
[2] Held in Springfield, October 7-8, 1839.
[3] At Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, December 4, 1839.
[4] The Old Soldier, edited by the Whig State Central Committee, was printed by Simeon Francis and Company, publishers of the Sangamo Journal. The first number appeared February 1, and eighteen issues appeared before the November election. On February 17 Old Hickory, the Democratic campaign paper, made its initial appearance.
[5] On February 25, Judge Thomas C. Browne of the Illinois Supreme Court wrote to Henry Eddy that The Old Soldier had eight thousand subscribers, and that he expected twenty thousand (transcript, Eddy MSS., IHi).
[6] The object of secrecy was not very well achieved. The Democratic press gave wide and somewhat exaggerated publicity to the circular within a few weeks. The Whig committee's secrecy seems to have been intended to take the opposition by surprise. The Democrats had used a tight state organization to such good purpose that the Whigs were driven to it in self-defense. See the communication ``To the Readers of the Old Soldier,'' February 28, 1840 (infra).
[7] Of these Whig leaders not previously identified, Dr. Richard F. Barrett was a physician who had migrated to Sangamon County from Green County, Kentucky, in 1831-1832. Joshua F. Speed, also a Kentuckian, was a merchant of Springfield whose close friendship with Lincoln had begun upon Lincoln's removal to Spring-field from New Salem in 1837.