Long before he was commander-in-chief, Lincoln got first-hand military experience during the 1832 Black Hawk War. The conflict started when the Native American Chief Black Hawk (pictured above) started butting heads with the US government. White settlers were taking Black Hawk's turf, and when the chief got angry, the Illinois governor called up a militia, summoning 1,500 men for battle.
One of those guys was 23-year-old Abraham Lincoln, who was elected captain of his company, a moment he later described as "a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since." However, Lincoln had a difficult time at first keeping his men in line. When he started giving orders, his troops responded with insults like, "Go to the devil, sir!" On another occasion, his company got so drunk on stolen liquor that they couldn't march, so Lincoln was forced to carry a wooden sword for two days (instead of a real one) as punishment.
Lincoln disobeyed orders himself on another occasion, firing his weapon within 50 yards of camp. As a result, he was arrested and stripped of his saber for 24 hours. Despite these setbacks, Lincoln was considered a good soldier with a solid sense of right and wrong. When a Native American walked into camp looking for a job, Lincoln's men wanted to shoot the interloper, but Abe intervened, telling his men to stand down. When they called him a coward, Lincoln responded, "If any man thinks I am a coward, let him test it."
Naturally, nobody was willing to throw down with Lincoln, who spent his free time competing in wrestling matches. However, even though he reenlisted with the militia two more times as a private, Lincoln never saw any combat, although as he later explained, he did have "a good many bloody struggles with the musquetoes [sic] and, although I never fainted from loss of blood, I can truly say I was often very hungry."
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