Herndon, William Henry

Life Span
to
    Full name
    William Henry Herndon
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Slave State
    No. of Spouses
    2
    No. of Children
    8
    Family
    Archer G. Herndon (father), Rebecca Day Johnson (mother), Mary J. Maxey (first wife, 1840), Anna Miles (second wife, 1862)
    Education
    Other
    Other Education
    Illinois College
    Occupation
    Politician
    Attorney or Judge
    Farmer or Planter
    Writer or Artist
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Political Parties
    Whig
    Republican
    Other Affiliations
    Abolitionists (Anti-Slavery Society)
    Temperance (Prohibition)
    Government
    Other state government
    Local government

    William Henry Herndon (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    Herndon read law with Lincoln and his partner, Stephen T. Logan. Lincoln and Herndon became law partners almost immediately after Herndon was admitted to the Illinois bar in December 1844. Their partnership lasted until 1861 when Lincoln left for Washington to become president. During those seventeen years, Herndon complemented Lincoln in almost every way—a Democratic newspaper would later describe him as “Lincoln’s Man Friday.” Herndon was the office manager, attending to the details Lincoln disliked; he tended to stay in Springfield while Lincoln rode circuit; he favored philosophical discourse while Lincoln preferred an earthy anecdote. It is difficult to specify Herndon’s influences on Lincoln; theirs was a relationship that drew its closeness from daily contact, not from singular conversations. Herndon himself would later describe their partnership as one in which he did the reading while Lincoln did the thinking.

    Herndon was active in Illinois politics in his own right, and later on behalf of Lincoln. Initially, he was a Whig, concerned about the underprivileged, slaves, and women. He was a staunch advocate of temperance, in spite of his own later problems with excessive drinking. As mayor of Springfield in 1854 he supported the beginning of a public school system and local prohibition, being so strongly in favor of temperance that he was not reelected. He moved to the Republican party in 1856, which he supported with great public enthusiasm though he had private doubts about the choice of John C. Frémont as its presidential candidate.
    Walter F. Pratt, "Herndon, William Henry," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/11/11-00408.html.
    Chicago Style Entry Link
    Donald, David Herbert. "We Are Lincoln Men:" Abraham Lincoln and His Friends. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. view record
    Herndon, William H., and Jesse W. Weik. Herndon’s Lincoln. Edited by Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. view record
    Temple, Wayne C. "Herndon On Lincoln: An Unknown Interview With a List of Books in The Lincoln & Herndon Law Office." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 98, no. 1-2 (2005): 34-50. view record
    Wilson, Douglas L. "Abraham Lincoln and 'That Fatal First of January.'" Civil War History 38, no. 2 (1992): 101-130. view record
    Wilson, Douglas L. "William H. Herndon and Mary Todd Lincoln." Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 22, no. 2 (2001): 1-26. view record
    How to Cite This Page: "Herndon, William Henry," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5883.