Stephen Trigg Logan

(1800-1880)

Stephen Trigg Logan served as Abraham Lincoln's second law partner in Springfield, Illinois, from 1841 to 1844. Born in Kentucky in 1800, Logan studied law in Glasgow, Kentucky, but he eventually left for Springfield in 1832, where he began his practice.

Abraham Lincoln met Stephen Logan in 1832 when Lincoln was running for the legislature. Both Whigs, they were close political associates during the 1840s. Logan was elected to the Illinois legislature in 1842, 1844, and 1846. Lincoln and Logan became law partners in 1841. The partnership was successful, but in 1844, when Logan decided to bring his son, David, into the firm, the partnership was amicably dissolved.

Logan continued his political alliance with Lincoln. He was elected again to the state legislature in 1854. He served as a delegate to the Republican national convention in 1860, and he was a delegate to the Washington Peace Conference in 1861. In 1862, Lincoln appointed him to a commission to investigate claims against the state government in Cairo, Illinois.

By the time the Civil War began, Logan had become wealthy enough to retire from both politics and his legal practice. Though his political opinions of the war were never clearly stated, he was not known to be a supporter of the war. He wrote Lincoln only a few formal notes concerning his recommendations for judicial appointments during the war, but he remained otherwise removed from the war efforts.

Print by Bernhardt Wall of Stephen T. Logan and Abraham Lincoln’s law office in Springfield, Illinois

Courtesy of the Abraham Lincoln Museum of Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, TN