Axes in Art

John, It could be a wedge with a length of rope run through a hole in it. The rope runs over his shoulder with the weight offset by something on the other end. Maybe the rope is attached to the similarly shaped deal at his right hip.

Just guesses- I don’t know. Good question though.
 
What he has there are splitting wedges not bucking wedges. Lincoln was a rail splitter. Bucking (hanging) wedges were/are used with crosscut saws. I think Rockwell got his trades mixed up. They are also sometimes called tie wedges.
 
Wedge.jpg

WedgeDetail.jpg


Lincoln’s Wedge
In the early 1830s Lincoln used this iron wedge to split wood in New Salem, Illinois. His initials are chiseled on one side...
In 1885 workers found this wedge during renovations to a house that once belonged to Mentor Graham in New Salem, Illinois. Graham was a friend of Abraham Lincoln’s, and Lincoln gave him the wedge as a token of friendship when he left New Salem to begin his career as a lawyer in Springfield.

The initials “A L” appear on one side of the wedge. John Spears, a neighbor, recalled the day Lincoln went to a blacksmith shop and asked to have his initials cut into the wedge. The blacksmith hesitated, claiming he was “no scholar.” Lincoln borrowed the tools and marked the wedge himself.

from the Smithsonian Institution
 
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