University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER V
THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD—1857-1864

ARRIVING at the University of Michigan in October, 1857, I threw myself into my new work most hear-tily. Though I felt deeply the importance of the ques-tions then before the country, it seemed to me that the only way in which I could contribute anything to their solution was in aiding to train up a new race of young men who should understand our own time and its problems in the light of history.

It was not difficult to point out many things in the past that had an important bearing upon the present, and my main work in this line was done in my lecture-room. I made no attempts to proselyte any of my hearers to either political party, my main aim being then, as it has been through my life, when dealing with students and the public at large, to set my audience or my readers at thinking, and to give them fruitful historical subjects to think upon. Among these subjects especially brought out in dealing with the middle ages, was the origin, growth, and decline of feudalism, and especially of the serf system, and of municipal liberties as connected with it. This, of course, had a general bearing upon the important problem we had to solve in the United States during the second half of that century.

In my lectures on modern history, and especially on the Reformation period, and the events which led to the French Revolution, there were various things throwing light upon our own problems, which served my purpose of arousing thought. My audiences were large and attentive, and I have never, in the whole course of my life,

enjoyed any work so much as this, which brought me into hearty and close relations with a large body of active-minded students from all parts of our country, and especially from the Northwest. More and more I realized the justice of President Wayland's remark, which had so impressed me at the Yale Alumni meeting just after my return from Europe: that the nation was approaching a "switching-off place''; that whether we were to turn toward evil or good in our politics would be decided by the great Northwest, and that it would be well for young Americans to cast in their lot with that part of the country.

In the intervals of my university work many invitations came to me from associations in various parts of Michigan and neighboring States to lecture before them, and these I was glad to accept. Such lectures were of a much more general character than those given in the university, but by them I sought to bring the people at large into trains of thought which would fit them to grapple with the great question which was rising more and more portentously before us.

Having accepted, in one of my vacations, an invitation to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa Commencement Address at Yale, I laid down as my thesis, and argued it from history, that in all republics, ancient or modern, the worst foe of freedom had been a man-owning aristocracy—an aristocracy based upon slavery. The address was circulated in printed form, was considerably discussed, and, I trust, helped to set some few people thinking.

For the same purpose I also threw some of my lectures into the form of magazine articles for the "Atlantic Monthly,'' and especially one entitled "The Statesmanship of Richelieu,'' my effort in this being to show that the one great error of that greatest of all French statesmen was in stopping short of rooting out the serf system in France when he had completely subjugated the serf owners and had them at his mercy.

As the year 1860 approached, the political struggle became more and more bitter. President Buchanan in redeeming

his promise to maintain the Union had gone to lengths which startled and disappointed many of his most devoted supporters. Civil war had broken out in Kansas and Nebraska, with murder and massacre: desperate attempts were made to fasten the hold of the pro-slavery party permanently upon the State, and as desperately were these efforts repelled. A certain John Brown, who requited assassination of free-state men by the assassination of slave-state men,—a very ominous appearance,—began to be heard of; men like Professor Silliman, who, during my stay at Yale had spoken at Union meetings in favor of the new compromise measures, even including the fugitive slave law, now spoke publicly in favor of sending rifles to the free-state men in Kansas; and, most striking symptom of all, Stephen A. Douglas himself, who had led the Democratic party in breaking the Missouri Compromise, now recoiled from the ultra pro-slavery propaganda of President Buchanan. Then, too, came a new incitement to bitterness between North and South. John Brown, the man of Scotch-Covenanter type, who had imbibed his theories of political methods from the Old-Testament annals of Jewish dealings with the heathen, and who had in Kansas solemnly slaughtered in cold blood, as a sort of sacrifice before the Lord, sundry Missouri marauders who had assassinated free-state men, suddenly appeared in Virginia, and there, at Harper's Ferry, with a handful of fanatics subject to his powerful will, raised the standard of revolution against the slave-power. Of course he was easily beaten down, his forces scattered, those dearest to him shot, and he himself hanged. But he was a character of antique mold, and this desperate effort followed by his death, while it exasperated the South, stirred the North to its depths.

Like all such efforts, it was really mistaken and unfortunate. It helped to obscure Henry Clay's proposal to extinguish slavery peaceably, and made the solution of the problem by bloodshed more and more certain. And in the execution of John Brown was lost a man who, had he

lived until the Civil War, might have rendered enormous services as a partizan leader. Of course, his action aroused much thought among my students, and their ideas came out in their public discussions. It was part of my duty, once or twice a week, to preside over these discussions, and to decide between the views presented. In these decisions on the political questions now arising I became deeply interested, and while I was careful not to give them a partizan character, they were, of course, opposed to the dominance of slavery.

In the spring of 1860, the Republican National Convention was held at Chicago, and one fine morning I went to the railway station to greet the New York delegation on its way thither. Among the delegates whom I especially recall were William M. Evarts, under whose Secretaryship of State I afterward served as minister at Berlin, and my old college friend, Stewart L. Woodford, with whom I was later in close relations during his term as lieutenant-governor of New York and minister to Spain. The candidate of these New York delegates was of course Mr. Seward, and my most devout hopes were with him, but a few days later came news that the nomination had been awarded to Mr. Lincoln. Him we had come to know and admire during his debates with Douglas while the senatorial contest was going on in the State of Illinois; still the defeat of Mr. Seward was a great disappointment, and hardly less so in Michigan than in New York. In the political campaign which followed I took no direct part, though especially aroused by the speeches of a new man who had just appeared above the horizon,—Carl Schurz. His arguments seemed to me by far the best of that whole campaign—the broadest, the deepest, and the most convincing.

My dear and honored father, during the months of July, August, and the first days of September, was slowly fading away on his death-bed. Yet he was none the less interested in the question at issue, and every day I sat by his bedside and read to him the literature bearing upon

the contest; but of all the speeches he best liked those of this new orator—he preferred them, indeed, to those of his idol Seward.

I have related in another place how, years afterward, Bismarck asked me, in Berlin, to what Carl Schurz's great success in America was due, and my answer to this question.

Mr. Lincoln having been elected, I went on with my duties as before, but the struggle was rapidly deepening. Soon came premonitions of real conflict, and, early in the following spring, civil war was upon us. My teaching went on, as of old, but it became more direct. In order to show what the maintenance of a republic was worth, and what patriots had been willing to do for their country in a struggle not unlike ours, I advised my students to read Motley's "History of the Dutch Republic,'' and I still think it was good advice. Other works, of a similar character, showing how free peoples have conducted long and desperate wars for the maintenance of their national existence and of liberty, I also recommended, and with good effect.

Reverses came. During part of my vacation, in the summer of 1861, I was at Syracuse, and had, as my guest, Mr. George Sumner, younger brother of the eminent senator from Massachusetts, a man who had seen much of the world, had written magazine articles and reviews which had done him credit, and whose popular lectures were widely esteemed. One Sunday afternoon in June my uncle, Mr. Hamilton White, dropped in at my house to make a friendly call. He had just returned from Washington, where he had seen his old friend Seward, Mr. Lin-coln's Secretary of State, and felt able to give us a forecast of the future. This uncle of mine was a thoughtful man of affairs; successful in business, excellent in judgment, not at all prone to sanguine or flighty views, and on our asking him how matters looked in Washington he said, "Depend upon it, it is all right: Seward says that they have decided to end the trouble at once, even if it is

necessary to raise an army of fifty thousand men;—that they will send troops immediately to Richmond and finish the whole thing at once, so that the country can go on quietly about its business.''

There was, of course, something reassuring in so favorable a statement made by a sensible man fresh from the most accredited sources, and yet I could not resist grave doubts. Such historical knowledge as I possessed taught me that a struggle like that just beginning between two great principles, both of which had been gathering force for nearly a century, and each of which had drawn to its support millions of devoted men, was not to be ended so easily; but I held my peace.

Next day I took Mr. Sumner on an excursion up the beautiful Onondaga Valley. As we drove through the streets of Syracuse, noticing knots of men gathered here and there in discussion, and especially at the doors of the news offices, we secured an afternoon newspaper and drove on, engaged in earnest conversation. It was a charming day, and as we came to the shade of some large trees about two miles from the city we rested and I took out the paper. It struck me like death. There, displayed in all its horrors, was the first account of the Battle of Bull Run,— which had been fought the previous afternoon,—exactly at the time when my uncle was assuring us that the United States Army was to march at once to Richmond and end the war. The catastrophe seemed fatal. The plans of General McDowell had come utterly to nought; our army had been scattered to the four winds; large numbers of persons, including sundry members of Congress who had airily gone out with the army to "see the fun,'' among them one from our own neighborhood, Mr. Alfred Ely, of Rochester, had been captured and sent to Richmond, and the rebels were said to be in full march on the National Capital.

Sumner was jubilant. "This,'' he said, "will make the American people understand what they have to do; this will stop talk such as your uncle gave us yesterday after

noon.'' But to me it was a fearful moment. Sumner's remarks grated horribly upon my ears; true as his view was, I could not yet accept it.

And now preparations for war, and, indeed, for repelling invasion, began in earnest. My friends all about me were volunteering, and I also volunteered, but was rejected with scorn; the examining physician saying to me, "You will be a burden upon the government in the first hospital you reach; you have not the constitution to be of use in carrying a musket; your work must be of a different sort.''

My work, then, through the summer was with those who sought to raise troops and to provide equipments for them. There was great need of this, and, in my opinion, the American people have never appeared to better advantage than at that time, when they began to realize their duty, and to set themselves at doing it. In every city, village, and hamlet, men and women took hold of the work, feeling that the war was their own personal business. No other country since the world began has ever seen a more noble outburst of patriotism or more efficient aid by individuals to their government. The National and State authorities of course did everything in their power; but men and women did not wait for them. With the exception of those whose bitter partizanship led them to oppose the war in all its phases, men, women, and children engaged heartily and efficiently in efforts to aid the Union in its struggle.

Various things showed the depths of this feeling. I remember meeting one day, at that period, a man who had risen by hard work from simple beginnings to the head of an immense business, and had made himself a multi-millionaire. He was a hard, determined, shrewd man of affairs, the last man in the world to show anything like sentimentalism, and as he said something advising an investment in the newly created National debt, I answered, "You are not, then, one of those who believe that our new debt will be repudiated?'' He answered: "Repudiation

or no repudiation, I am putting everything I can rake and scrape together into National bonds, to help this government maintain itself; for, by G—d, if I am not to have any country, I don't want any money.'' It is to be hoped that this oath, bursting forth from a patriotic heart, was, like Uncle Toby's, blotted out by the recording angel. I have quoted it more than once to show how the average American—though apparently a crude materialist— is, at heart, a thorough idealist.

Returning to the University of Michigan at the close of the vacation, I found that many of my students had enlisted, and that many more were preparing to do so. With some it was hard indeed. I remember two especially, who had for years labored and saved to raise the money which would enable them to take their university course; they had hesitated, for a time, to enlist; but very early one morning I was called out of bed by a message from them, and, meeting them, found them ready to leave for the army. They could resist their patriotic convictions no longer, and they had come to say good-bye to me. They went into the war; they fought bravely through the thickest of it; and though one was badly wounded, both lived to return, and are to-day honored citizens. With many others it was different; many, very many of them, alas, were among the "unreturning brave!'' and loveliest and noblest of all, my dear friend and student, Frederick Arne, of Princeton, Illinois, killed in the battle of Shiloh, at the very beginning of the war, when all was blackness and discouragement. Another of my dearest students at that time was Albert Nye. Scholarly, eloquent, noble-hearted, with every gift to ensure success in civil life, he went forth with the others, rose to be captain of a company, and I think major of a regiment. He sent me most kindly messages, and at one time a bowie-knife captured from a rebel soldier. But, alas! he was not to return.

I may remark, in passing, that while these young men from the universities, and a vast host of others from different walks of life, were going forth to lay down their

lives for their country, the English press, almost without exception, from the "Times'' down, was insisting that we were fighting our battles with "mercenaries.''

One way in which those of us who remained at the university helped the good cause was in promoting the military drill of those who had determined to become soldiers. It was very difficult to secure the proper military instruction, but in Detroit I found a West Point graduate, engaged him to come out a certain number of times every week to drill the students, and he cheered us much by saying that he had never in his life seen soldiers so much in earnest, and so rapid in making themselves masters of the drill and tactics.

One of my advisers at this period, and one of the noblest men I have ever met, was Lieutenant Kirby Smith, a graduate of West Point, and a lieutenant in the army. His father, after whom he was named, had been killed at the Battle of Molino del Rey, in the Mexican War. His uncle, also known as Kirby Smith, was a general in the Confederate service. His mother, one of the dearest friends of my family, was a woman of extraordinary abilities, and of the noblest qualities. Never have I known a young officer of more promise. With him I discussed from time to time the probabilities of the war. He was full of devotion, quieted my fears, and strengthened my hopes. He, too, fought splendidly for his country, and like his father, laid down his life for it.

The bitterest disappointment of that period, and I regret deeply to chronicle it, was the conduct of the government and ruling classes in England. In view of the fact that popular sentiment in Great Britain, especially as voiced in its literature, in its press, and from its pulpit, had been against slavery, I had never doubted that in this struggle, so evidently between slavery and freedom, Great Britain would be unanimously on our side. To my amazement signs soon began to point in another direction. More and more it became evident that British feeling was against us. To my students, who inquired how this could possibly

be, I said, "Wait till Lord John Russell speaks.'' Lord John Russell spoke, and my heart sank within me. He was the solemnly constituted impostor whose criminal carelessness let out the Alabama to prey upon our commerce, and who would have let out more cruisers had not Mr. Charles Francis Adams, the American minister, brought him to reason.

Lord John Russell was noted for his coolness, but in this respect Mr. Adams was more than his match. In after years I remember a joke based upon this characteristic. During a very hot summer in Kansas, when the State was suffering with drought, some newspaper proposed, and the press very generally acquiesced in the suggestion, that Mr. Charles Francis Adams should be asked to take a tour through the State, in order, by his presence, to reduce its temperature.

When, therefore, Lord John Russell showed no signs of interfering with the sending forth of English ships,— English built, English equipped, and largely English manned,—against our commerce, Mr. Adams, having summed up to his Lordship the conduct of the British Government in the matter, closed in his most icy way with the words: "My lord, I need hardly remind you that this is war.''

The result was, that tardily,—just in time to prevent war between the two nations,—orders were given which prevented the passing out of more cruisers.

Goldwin Smith, who in the days of his professorship at Oxford, saw much of Lord John Russell, once told me that his lordship always made upon him the impression of "an eminent corn-doctor.''

During the following summer, that of 1863, being much broken down by overwork, and threatened, as I supposed, with heart disease, which turned out to be the beginning of a troublesome dyspepsia, I was strongly recommended by my physician to take a rapid run to Europe, and though very reluctant to leave home, was at last persuaded to go to New York to take my passage. Arrived there, bad news

still coming from the seat of war, I could not bring myself at the steamer office to sign the necessary papers, finally refused, and having returned home, took part for the first time in a political campaign as a speaker, going through central New York, and supporting the Republican candidate against the Democratic. The election seemed of vast importance. The Democrats had nominated for the governorship, Mr. Horatio Seymour, a man of the highest personal character, and, so far as the usual duties of governor were concerned, admirable; but he had been bitterly opposed to the war, and it seemed sure that his election would encourage the South and make disunion certain; therefore it was that I threw myself into the campaign with all my might, speaking night and day; but alas! the election went against us.

At the close of the campaign, my dyspepsia returning with renewed violence, I was thinking what should be done, when I happened to meet my father's old friend, Mr. Thurlow Weed, a devoted adherent of Mr. Seward through his whole career, and, at that moment, one of the main supports of the Lincoln Administration. It was upon the deck of a North River steamer, and on my mentioning my dilemma he said: "You can just now do more for us abroad than at home. You can work in the same line with Archbishop Hughes, Bishop McIlvaine, and myself; everything that can be done, in the shape of contributions to newspapers, or speeches, even to the most restricted audiences abroad, will help us: the great thing is to gain time, increase the number of those who oppose European intervention in our affairs, and procure takers for our new National bonds.''

The result was that I made a short visit to Europe, stopping first in London. Political feeling there was bitterly against us. A handful of true men, John Bright and Goldwin Smith at the head of them, were doing heroic work in our behalf, but the forces against them seemed overwhelming. Drawing money one morning in one of the large banks of London, I happened to exhibit a few

of the new National greenback notes which had been recently issued by our Government. The moment the clerk saw them he called out loudly, "Don't offer us any of those things; we don't take them; they will never be good for anything.'' I was greatly vexed, of course, but there was no help for it. At another time I went into a famous book-shop near the Haymarket to purchase a rare book which I had long coveted. It was just after the Battle of Fredericksburg. The book-seller was chatting with a customer, and finally, with evident satisfaction, said to him: "I see the Yankees have been beaten again.'' "Yes,'' said the customer, "and the papers say that ten thousand of them have been killed.'' "Good,'' said the shop-keeper, "I wish it had been twice as many.'' Of course it was impossible for me to make any purchase in that place.

In order to ascertain public sentiment I visited certain "discussion forums,'' as they are called, frequented by contributors to the press and young lawyers from the Temple and Inns of Court. In those places there was, as a rule, a debate every night, and generally, in one form or another, upon the struggle then going on in the United States. There was, perhaps, in all this a trifle too much of the Three Tailors of Tooley Street; still, excellent speeches were frequently made, and there was a pleasure in doing my share in getting the company on the right side. On one occasion, after one of our worst reverses during the war, an orator, with an Irish brogue, thickened by hot whisky, said, "I hope that Republic of blackguards is gone forever.'' But, afterward, on learning that an American was present, apologized to me in a way effusive, laudatory, and even affectionate.

But my main work was given to preparing a pamphlet, in answer to the letters from America by Dr. Russell, correspondent of the London "Times.'' Though nominally on our side, he clearly wrote his letters to suit the demands of the great journal which he served, and which was most bitterly opposed to us. Nothing could exceed its virulence against everything American. Every occurrence was

placed in the worst light possible as regarded our interests, and even the telegraphic despatches were manipulated so as to do our cause all the injury possible. I therefore prepared, with especial care, an answer to these letters of Dr. Russell, and published it in London. Its fate was what might have been expected. Some papers discussed it fairly, but, on the whole, it was pooh-poohed, explained away, and finally buried under new masses of slan-der. I did, indeed, find a few friends of my country in Great Britain. In Dublin I dined with Cairnes, the political economist, who had earnestly written in behalf of the Union against the Confederates; and in London, with Professor Carpenter, the eminent physiologist, who, being devoted to anti-slavery ideas, was mildly favorable to the Union side. But I remember him less on account of anything he said relating to the struggle in America, than for a statement bearing upon the legitimacy of the sovereign then ruling in France, who was at heart one of our most dangerous enemies. Dr. Carpenter told me that some time previously he had been allowed by Nassau Senior, whose published conversations with various men of importance throughout Europe had attracted much attention, to look into some of the records which Mr. Senior had not thought it best to publish, and that among them he had read the following:

"— showed me to-day an autograph letter written by Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, not far from the time of the birth of his putative son, now Napoleon III. One passage read as follows: `J'ai le malheur d'avoir pour femme une Messalene. Elle a des amants partout, et partout elle laise des enfants.' ''

I could not but think of this a few weeks later when I saw the emperor, who derived his title to the throne of France from his nominal father, poor King Louis, but whose personal appearance, like that of his brother, the Duc de Morny, was evidently not derived from any Bonaparte. All the Jérome Napoleons I have ever seen, including old King Jérome of Westphalia, and Prince Napoleon

Jérome, otherwise known as "Plon-Plon,'' whom I saw during my student life at Paris, and the eldest son of the latter, the present Bonaparte pretender to the Napoleonic crown of France, whom I saw during my stay as minister at St. Petersburg, very strikingly resembled the first Napoleon, though all were of much larger size. But the Louis Napoleons, that is, the emperor and his brother the Duc de Morny, had no single Napoleonic point in their features or bearing.

I think that the most startling inspiration during my life was one morning when, on walking through the Garden of the Tuileries, I saw, within twenty feet of me, at a window, in the old palace, which afterward disappeared under the Commune, the emperor and his minister of finance, Achille Fould, seated together, evidently in earnest discussion. There was not at that time any human being whom I so hated and abhorred as Napoleon III. He had broken his oath and trodden the French republic under his feet, he was aiding to keep down the aspirations of Italy, and he was doing his best to bring on an intervention of Europe, in behalf of the Confederate States, to dissolve our Union. He was then the arbiter of Europe. The world had not then discovered him to be what Bismarck had already found him—"a great unrecognized in-capacity,'' and, as I looked up and distinctly saw him so near me, there flashed through my mind an understanding of some of the great crimes of political history, such as I have never had before or since.[1]

In France there was very little to be done for our cause. The great mass of Frenchmen were either indifferent or opposed to us. The only exception of importance was Laboulaye, professor at the Collège de France, and his lecture-room was a center of good influences in favor of the American cause; in the midst of that frivolous Napoleonic France he seemed by far "the noblest Roman of them all.''

The main effort in our behalf was made by Mr. John Bigelow, at that time consul-general, but afterward minister of the United States,—to supply with arguments the very small number of Frenchmen who were inclined to favor the Union cause, and this he did thoroughly well.

Somewhat later there came a piece of good fortune. Having been sent by a physician to the baths at Homburg, I found as our consul-general, at the neighboring city of Frankfort-on-the-Main, William Walton Murphy of Michigan, a life-long supporter of Mr. Seward, a most devoted and active American patriot;—a rough diamond; one of the most uncouth mortals that ever lived; but big-hearted, shrewd, a general favorite, and prized even by those who smiled at his oddities. He had labored hard to induce the Frankfort bankers to take our government bonds, and to recommend them to their customers, and had at last been successful. In order to gain and maintain this success he had established in Frankfort a paper called "L'Europe,'' for which he wrote and urged others to write. To this journal I became a contributor, and among my associates I especially remember the Rev. Dr. John McClintock, formerly president of Dickinson College, and Dr. E. H. Chapin, of New York, so eminent in those days as a preacher. Under the influence of Mr. Murphy, Frankfort-on-the-Main became, and has since remained, a center of American ideas. Its leading journal was the only influential daily paper in Germany which stood by us during our Spanish War.

I recall a story told me by Mr. Murphy at that period. He had taken an American lady on a business errand to the bank of Baron Rothschild, and, after their business was over, presented her to the great banker. It happened that the Confederate loan had been floated in Europe by Baron Erlanger, also a Frankfort financial magnate, and by birth a Hebrew. In the conversation that ensued between this lady and Baron Rothschild, the latter said: "Madam, my sympathies are entirely with your country; but is it not disheartening to think that there are men in Europe who

are lending their money and trying to induce others to lend it for the strengthening of human slavery? Madam, none but a converted Jew would do that.''

On the Fourth of July of that summer, Consul-General Murphy—always devising new means of upholding the flag of his country—summoned Americans from every part of Europe to celebrate the anniversary of our National Independence at Heidelberg, and at the dinner given at the Hotel Schreider seventy-four guests assembled, including two or three professors from the university, as against six guests from the Confederate States, who had held a celebration in the morning at the castle. Mr. Murphy presided and made a speech which warmed the hearts of us all. It was a thorough-going, old-fashioned, Western Fourth of July oration. I had jeered at Fourth of July orations all my life, but there was something in this one which showed me that these discourses, so often ridiculed, are not without their uses. Certain it is that as the consul-general repeated the phrases which had more than once rung through the Western clearings, in honor of the defenders of our country, the divine inspiration of the Constitution, our invincibility in war and our superiority in peace, all of us were encouraged and cheered most lustily. Pleasing was it to note various British tourists standing at the windows listening to the scream of the American eagle and evidently wondering what it all meant.

Others of us spoke, and especially Dr. McClintock, one of the foremost thinkers, scholars, and patriots that the Methodist Episcopal church has ever produced. His speech was in a very serious vein, and well it might be. In the course of it he said: "According to the last accounts General Lee and his forces are near the town where I live, and are marching directly toward it. It is absolutely certain that, if they reach it, they will burn my house and all that it contains, but I have no fear; I believe that the Almighty is with us in this struggle, and though we may suffer much before its close, the Union is to endure and slavery is to go down before the forces of freedom.'' These

words, coming from the heart of a strong man, made a deep impression upon us all.

About two weeks later I left Frankfort for America, and at my parting from Consul-General Murphy at the hotel, he said: "Let me go in the carriage with you; this is steamer-day and we shall probably meet the vice-consul coming with the American mail.'' He got in, and we drove along the Zeil together. It was at the busiest time of the day, and we had just arrived at the point in that main street of Frankfort where business was most active, when the vice-consul met us and handed Mr. Murphy a newspaper. The latter tore it open, read a few lines, and then instantly jumped out into the middle of the street, waved his hat and began to shout. The public in general evidently thought him mad; a crowd assembled; but as soon as he could get his breath he pointed out the headlines of the newspaper. They indicated the victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and the ending of the war. It was, indeed, a great moment for us all.

Arriving in America, I found that some friends had republished from the English edition my letter to Dr. Russell, that it had been widely circulated, and that, at any rate, it had done some good at home.

Shortly afterward, being on a visit to my old friend, James T. Fields of Boston, I received a telegram from Syracuse as follows: "You are nominated to the State senate: come home and see who your friends are.'' I have received, in the course of my life, many astonishing messages, but this was the most unexpected of all. I had not merely not been a candidate for any such nomination, but had forgotten that any nomination was to be made; I had paid no attention to the matter whatever; all my thoughts had been given to other subjects; but on returning to Syracuse I found that a bitter contest having arisen between two of the regular candidates, each representing a faction, the delegates had suddenly turned away from both and nominated me. My election followed and so began the most active phase of my political life.