Lincoln Museum displays powder horn Lincoln once carried

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – A container for gunpowder that Abraham Lincoln carried as a soldier during the Black Hawk War of 1832 is now on display at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield.

In a news release, the library says Lincoln carried the powder horn during his months in the Illinois militia.

The artifact was loaned to the library by Carl Harmon and his family from Spencer County, Indiana. After Lincoln used the powder horn, it belonged to a man named Jack Armstrong. The two were friends who once engaged in a wrestling match before Lincoln became president.

When Lincoln was an attorney, he successfully defended Armstrong’s son, Duff, in a murder case. Armstrong’s descendants sold it in the 1920s and it was eventually acquired by the Harmon family.